Future of Web Apps Review - Day One

This year I attended day one of the Future of Web Apps conference here in London. Overall it was a well organised, useful event with moments of excellence although I still have a niggling issue with the price (see below for more). Firstly though, here’s a quick run down of a few of the talks (in rough note form). Standing head and shoulders above the rest of the people I saw present were the guys from Contrast - this is what the quality of most if not all of the talks should have been like.

Grasshopper - NOW is the Time

• Stand out from the crowd, don’t join it.
• Pitches and PR material needs to have an angle. For example, ‘New web app succeeds where others fail.’

Freshbooks - Marketing Your Web App

• Benefits are what people buy.
• What is the single greatest benefit of your app?
• Actually speak to your users.
• Your story is very important (people remember stories).
• Be intelligent with marketing and apply scarce resources carefully. Focus on one market, vertical, etc.
• Share ‘interesting’ - write about what you’re doing.

Content Strategy (not a main talk)

• Have 2 different blogs if necessary - content vs product.
• Post news/blog at least once a week.
• Use the digest model in newsletters.
• Sign newsletters by name (shows human element).
• Always provide value!
• Voice is important.
• Be human.

280 North - Web Apps State of the Union

• Customers always tell you their perceived solution to a problem, not the actual problem.
• Return to web apps seen as hugely important.
• Tools for developing web apps have improved massively in the last 2 years.
• Both native and web apps are being developed as opposed to one app for all devices.
• Tools for mobile app development still lacking.
• Open Source doesn’t fit with standards (not necessarily a bad thing).

MailChimp - Proven Email Marketing Tactics

• In 2009, 247 billion emails a day were sent.
• Respect your user.
• ‘Retargetting’ cited as an example of a negative way to target people.
• Send less emails and only when you have something important to say.
• Consider context when sending email marketing.
• Re-frame your thinking: ‘publishing’ not ‘blasting’.
• You don’t have a lot of user attention with emails - make it count.
• Plain text still relevant for some companies.
• Successful email marketing takes time.
• If you can’t beat someone on resources, beat them on being thoughtful.

Brightcove - The Dream and Reality of HTML5 Video

• Video content companies focussing on cross platform video.
• Much fragmentation in the market.
• HTML5 has strengths for mobile web.
• HTML5 needs to be put in the context of delivering to the market.
• There are technical constraints to using HTML5 video.
• HTML5 ads are being trialled.
• HTML5 very important but still inconsistent.

Contrast - All That Glitters is Not Gold (**Best talk of the day by far**)

• Decisions can often be broken into ’sexy’ or ‘meaningful’.
• Beware launching sexy apps or strategies.
• Best to market trumps first to market.
• Beware me-too products or trendy startups.
• What’s meaningful? If you could solve the problem 5 years ago (i.e. if the problem existed then) it’s likely to be a meaningful idea. Focus on things that don’t change.
• Choose people on talent and discipline.
• Investment is often a bad, bad, bad option.
• Design trends are not meaningful (e.g. Google, Craigslist).
• Do meaningful marketing!!
• Don’t chase overnight success (it doesn’t exist).

MailChimp - Learning to Love Humans: Emotional Interface Design

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs relevant.
• Apps we build need to be pleasurable, useable, reliable and functional.
• Personality is important.
• Products are people too.
• Put emotion into apps so people connect and forgive.
• Work treats into user experience (showed hilarious example of the MailChimp monkey’s arm being pulled off if email design is too wide).
• Trust is essential.
• Bake love into your apps.

I’d recently written a post asking Is FOWA worth the money so this was fresh in my mind when at the event. Some of the negative issues I (and others I spoke to) experienced include:

1. Some suspect speakers.
2. The track 2 room was way too small, while room 1 was huge. In many of the track 2 talks people were sitting or standing at the side/back of the room. Nobody should have to sit on the floor for a £350 per day event.
3. In some ways they went for style over substance.
4. A small bugbear, but the food wasn’t as good as described by the organisers (except the bread and butter pudding, that was delicious).

For me personally Future of Web Apps isn’t worth the money you pay. Although I’d hazard a guess people see this differently depending on your set-up - if you’re coming from a company or startup that has paid for you then how much it costs probably isn’t an issue. I own my company so think a lot about where costs are going and on this occasion felt it should have been lower. I’d really like to see teams and startups of 5 or less given discounts to attend (something I emailed Ryan Carson about). Other than that, if they can make next years event absolutely flawless, with most talks excellent, then maybe it’ll be worth the money.

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