Insights&Inspiration

Tag Cloud from my event notes, created using Wordle.net

I had the honor of attending the first ever AppNation conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco this past Monday and Tuesday, September 13th and 14th, and wow!  This is the first industry conference that I went into not having a great deal of specialized knowledge on the topic and boy did I learn a lot!

My only disappointment was the large percentage of attendees that were developers and investors versus agency folk, but I suppose in hindsight, when an industry is still so fledgling it makes sense for an event like this to also serve as a matchmaking opportunity for investors and developers to find one another to help spark further innovation.  Just would have been nice for there to be a little more of an agency perspective represented.  But overall a great conference, and I expect that it will be one that grows significantly more each year.

After reviewing my 30 pages of notes in an attempt to extract the most poignant information, here is the quick summary I came up with.

Where are the Real Opportunities in the App World? (more…)

Every now and then I scroll through my IPhone apps, deleting the crappy ones and rediscovering old goodies.  Oftentimes I do this while driving to pass time on the 2+ hours I spend commuting daily.  (And no I’ve never been in a car accident from distracted driving.  I’m a mom guys – we can do like  a million things at once).

Today I noticed the Dragon dictation app and started fiddling with it, wondering if I will ever actually use it for anything useful.  And then it dawned on me – what a perfect tool to help me compose my blog posts while driving!
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I have a theory.

“Uh oh!”  Thats what my husband says whenever I tell him I have a theory.  Hes not one to care for theories – which is why I post blogs instead. ;)

But seriously – I have noticed a distinct correlation between the rise in Facebook  app usage and the continuing unemployment rate.  Specifically Farmville.

I am stunned by the amount of time and energy that many of my Facebook friends spend pouring into their faux farms, looking for harnesses and horseshoes or whatever it is they need to complete their stable.  Aquariums also seem to be a rising trend, but Farmville currently takes the cake.
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