Howdy everyone in COMM 330! Tomorrow (or today depending if I get this in on time), January 26, 2012, I will be one of the first 3 presenters of the “New Media Market” case study round table. In order to answer the question “How does media convergence influence new media markets?” I will be looking to, what I consider in my opinion to be, the pinnacle of 21st century media convergence; the iPhone and all its glorious apps. My Case study titled “From Banking to Board Games: the Business and Culture of the Almighty App”
While the full effect of our iPhones and Androids is not yet known, I can say that these mostly user-created applications are integral parts in the billion-dollar a year smart phone/application development industry. For those of us living under a rock or born after 1985 (which I would suspect is most of us), I will cover a brief history of mobile phones and how the perfect conditions would come around to create the App. After I will dive into the array of Application stores which not surprisingly sprung up after Apple’s App Store was launched in the summer of 2008. Wait, so there were no Apps until after I graduated from High School? Damn, I feel old. (Loving this blog post format)
I will then touch on the business requirements and results one can get out of making apps. There is actually some surprising stuff there if you know computer coding. (I’m looking at you computer science guy in the back whose name I fail to remember) The influence of Apple’s App store which started this era is so great that they control over 70% of stock and downloads of Apps. This is getting better with the popularization of Google’s Android phones but still has a long way to go. The interesting thing is that an App store does not produce its own product but rather is a wholesaler of one copy of an App. Yes, most developers get a very decent cut but for companies like Apple (making billions) and Google (making millions) on their commissions this seems to be too good to be legal.
Finally, I will dive a little into App culture. Like it or not, we all live here. Being included in pop culture is one of the best advertisements for Apple’s App Store. One of the best slogans by Apple has taken a life of its own and evolved to almost a way of life. The slogan “there is an app for that” first used in an advert in early 2009 translates to “there is an easier way to do ____”. Apple has since trademarked the slogan. Hope to see all of you out there tomor…this morning so that all of us can know at least a little more about the still relatively new App industry.
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Question of the Week: How does media convergence influence new media markets? The lessons I can take away is that it is entirely possible for a new form of media convergence technology can create a new media market. The fact that there was no such thing as an “App” before 2007 makes me realize just how easy it is to create something new. While some say that power is centralized in established big businesses and corporations, the fact that this new technology came along to create a new truly “free-market” (although Apple somewhat ruined that by streamlining and industrializing the process) proves that upstart capitalism is still surviving in this day and age.
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