App Strategies: Alpha Apps, App Unbundling and Agile App Discovery
The functionality and complexity of native apps are constantly increasing. To address this, there are two trends emerging:
- The creation of almighty Alpha Apps
- The divide-and-conquer approach of unbundling complex apps into separate apps, each specializing on a specific feature/business aspect
In the conclusion of this article, I will discuss how Agile App Discovery (or Agile App Business Discovery) can be applied to existing apps.
Alpha Apps
First thing coming to mind, when thinking about Alpha Apps is WeChat.
This All-in-One-Plattform bundles an incredible amount of features and services within ONE app:
- messaging
- video- and audio-calls
- Group messaging and calls
- WeChat-moments, like Facebook News Feed
- WeChat Pay, to connect you bank card with the service and pay via Barcode scan
- Vouchers and club cards
- Translation services
- In-App Mini Apps
Alpha apps work like a gatekeeper or portal to the internet, keeping the users inside a golden cage, because… if everything you need is at your hand, well integrated with excellent usability and supported by any real-life shop or service that you can image (even street food shops or shoe cleaners accept WeChat Pay), why should you leave this space?
The success of Alpha Apps is largely determined by the combination of user data (ID, bank account for payment, address, …) and the successful integration of all services that users might want to access via their mobile phone.
Context is king, so if you provide service providers an access to users, and users — due to their willingness to give personal information — an individualized, efficient access to services, it sounds like a win-win situation.
Especially when you are the gatekeeper and benefitting from any transaction being done via your platform, because at the end of the day the users are YOUR customers… and WeChat has now over one billion active (sic!) users worldwide!
Something reminds me on Apple here, not sure what it is…
Alpha Apps do not need to take the global gatekeeper position on any service, but I would categorize apps, that are provided by multi-service companies and provide all those company-specific services in one app, as Alpha Apps too.
App Unbundling
With App Unbundling companies cut single functionalities out of growing apps and publish them as separate apps — in best case with considering fluent transition between the original app and the new app.
One example was Facebook that extracted the messing functionality in the Messenger app. Beside the reduction of complexity, another reason for the extraction of this app is the re-focus of the new app on the usability of ONE feature.
You don’t have to work with tabs, or sub-screens or an increasing number of icons in one app to grant user access to the different app functionalities. By focussing on ONE dedicated main app functionality, you can have a much more dedicated user interface, and therefore streamlined user experience.
Even though the intention of unbundling app features might be well-reasoned, the reception of users that are forced to change their habits, might lead to some app store rating hiccups… like happened with Facebook and the extraction of Facebook Messenger.
Another example of App Unbundling was the decision of Google to split the Cloud Services Apps in four different apps:
- Cloud Drive, serving as the file-based overview service, plus the dedicated apps:
- Google Spreadsheet
- Google Presentation
- Google Docs
AFIK this change didn’t result in negative user feedback, but really resulted in a better overall usability of the single services. Additionally the dependencies between the app teams is reduced, what for sure leads to more efficiency developing-wise.
Native Apps, Alpha Apps and App Unbundling
Besides the better haptics of native apps, and the highest availability for users (mobile phones are in reach 24/7 and in average users check or interact with their phone 88–100 times per day, even increased by message pushes), the implementation of a new app or the unbundling of app features leads in most cases to a re-focus on user requirements and a more streamlined user experience.
Image you have a long-running website where you are now planning to provide a native app, or a long-running app that grew from year to year, becoming more airplane-cockpit-like with tons of switches and lights, and you want to extract a specific functionality.
Just to minimize the effort required, to handle the complexity, taking the agile way, an MVP-like approach is recommended and a focus on real user use-cases and user journeys with methods like thinking backwards was always a good call.
Basing everything on the data collected of the existing app or web app, and re-start and think, how to play the existing services better for the users — or even come up with new ones — is like a second chance of re-focussing and do it right (or at least better) than the first time and will definitely serve the users in the new app.
Working with software products, you tend to always add more and more features. Did anybody ever thought of — depending on feature usage — plan a regular active de-featuring and re-focussing of apps?
Highly-specialized apps allow users to satisfy their need fast and efficiently by focussing on the core-functionality of a service, ideally optimized on the personal, individualized use-case, context of the user and deep integration with native app functionalities.
Agile App Discovery
App Unbundling also grants you the option of an evolutionary Agile App Discovery. Starting with one app that was growing until the decision has been taken to unbundle a specific app functionality, is similar to cell division. And Mitosis is not finished with the initial cell division: the cells keep on dividing.
Bringing this back to the app context, the unbundled app may grow itself and deliver other specialized child apps, that themselves could reproduce and evolve recursively. This could lead to new business opportunities, that initially nobody has even been dreaming of…
Agile Publication Discovery
With AS National Media & Tech we are working in the news media business providing premium, native BILD and WELT apps for our most engaged and loyal users.
Especially with WELT Edition, a digital, magazine-like take on a our WELT Newspaper, we are very successful and won an lot of prices:
- Apple App of the Year 2011
- Apple Nomination App of the Year 2015
- Apple App of the Month September 2015
- World and European Digital Media Awards: Best in Tablet Publishing 2016
- Lovie Awards: Silver Winner and Peoples Choice Winner 2016
The WELT Edition does not only provide digital access to the WELT newspaper, but also includes sub-publications like PS.WELT (cars), ICON (Fashion) and BLUE (Art).
You don’t have to find new users for those new sub-publications, but you can provide them to a large, existing, established user group that could give the new sub-publication a head start, and check if there are people interested.
This opens app (up) complete new opportunities concerning Agile Publication Discovery.
Based on the consumption and success of the sub-publications in the root WELT Edition app, you may duplicate the reader application now dedicated to this new publication only.
And again, it does not stop there. Image you unbundled the art-focused sub-publication to a stand-alone app. This app now will address a complete new user group with different interests than the original readers of WELT Edition, that is focusing on politics and economics.
Providing the readers of this new digital art magazine app with similar-topic sub-publications as well, could help to find new interested readers, lead to additional unbundling options and business opportunities.
In worst case, if something didn’t take off like expected, you should also consider to burry a specialized application and find other working content alternatives.
Outro
Hope you found some inspiration — and in best case practical suggestions — concerning which strategy option to follow for growing applications.
If you know additional strategies — or even successfully applied some of the suggestions in this article with your apps — please let me know.
