On 26th March, I attended this round table discussion on the evolution of the mobile channel in commerce and travel organized by IAMAI & AKAMAI. The discussion involved a select audience of only 30 invited delegates. The discussions revolved around the idea of ways to increase the usage of mobile phones for commerce and travel purposes.
Among the things which I learnt on the day, one involved the concept of removing a mobile app and what can be gleaned from it. Google apparently shares data on rate of uninstall of apps. This gives the app developers an idea as to the precise applicability of the same. Very often certain apps are only valid for a particular time period but gets redundant after the particular usage. An app used for cab booking maybe one such as most people do not need to book cabs daily but an app for the same occupies substantial space.
I also had a discussion with a representative from AKAMAI who informed me about the future scope of his firm and some of the projects that they are in discussions with. One of them being the IRCTC website which presently is served by only a single mother server, there is no localization of servers which AKAMAI will take care of. Being a cloud services provider, the firm will ensure that IRCTC’s users do not face the logjam which typically occurs especially while booking tatkal quota tickets during the busiest hours of the day.
There was a straw poll taken at the venue by the session moderator asking for a response on how many firms represented at the discussion have their own websites. Of course the majority of them answered positive. Then he asked a tricky question on how many of these websites had a dedicated mobile website or app. Here very few answered positive but I was one of them as Skyline now has a dedicated mobile platform though not yet an App as it is not required in our line of business as of now.
An important point which did emerge from the discussions was that individual users were highly unlikely to clog their mobile phones with multiple apps from the same industry. Thus someone who has installed the Make My Trip app is not likely to also add the Cleartrip or yatra.com app to the armoury. Similarly someone with Zomato on the phone will probably not have foodpanda or someone with Holiday IQ app will not have Trip Advisor or Lonely Planet apps. Thus over a period of time only certain apps will win over and perhaps even consolidate. This is in stark contrast to the laptop where multiple apps or internet sites may jostle with one another for space.
The discussions were followed by a round of cocktails and dinner. Over glasses of Johnnie Walker or Absolut, the delegates networked on further business opportunities which can get mutually developed.
Among the things which I learnt on the day, one involved the concept of removing a mobile app and what can be gleaned from it. Google apparently shares data on rate of uninstall of apps. This gives the app developers an idea as to the precise applicability of the same. Very often certain apps are only valid for a particular time period but gets redundant after the particular usage. An app used for cab booking maybe one such as most people do not need to book cabs daily but an app for the same occupies substantial space.
I also had a discussion with a representative from AKAMAI who informed me about the future scope of his firm and some of the projects that they are in discussions with. One of them being the IRCTC website which presently is served by only a single mother server, there is no localization of servers which AKAMAI will take care of. Being a cloud services provider, the firm will ensure that IRCTC’s users do not face the logjam which typically occurs especially while booking tatkal quota tickets during the busiest hours of the day.
There was a straw poll taken at the venue by the session moderator asking for a response on how many firms represented at the discussion have their own websites. Of course the majority of them answered positive. Then he asked a tricky question on how many of these websites had a dedicated mobile website or app. Here very few answered positive but I was one of them as Skyline now has a dedicated mobile platform though not yet an App as it is not required in our line of business as of now.
An important point which did emerge from the discussions was that individual users were highly unlikely to clog their mobile phones with multiple apps from the same industry. Thus someone who has installed the Make My Trip app is not likely to also add the Cleartrip or yatra.com app to the armoury. Similarly someone with Zomato on the phone will probably not have foodpanda or someone with Holiday IQ app will not have Trip Advisor or Lonely Planet apps. Thus over a period of time only certain apps will win over and perhaps even consolidate. This is in stark contrast to the laptop where multiple apps or internet sites may jostle with one another for space.
The discussions were followed by a round of cocktails and dinner. Over glasses of Johnnie Walker or Absolut, the delegates networked on further business opportunities which can get mutually developed.