As barriers to entry remain low and success is still just one good idea away, Fairfield”™s talented industry professionals are prime candidates for application development in a world that continues to grow.
In June Apple CEO Steve Jobs reported over 5 billion to-date app downloads, having paid out over $1 billion to app developers. At that time he also reported the company receiving 15,000 apps submissions each week, with 95 percent of all apps approved within seven days.
Theater app helps with lines
Kevin Smith, a long-time direct sale and marketing executive and now owner of MyTheaterApps.com in Stamford began to bring together content for his new iPhone app, Scene Partner, earlier this year. The app is designed to turn iPhones and iPads into a tool to help actors memorize their lines.
Actors are able to load scripts into the Apple devices via website, and the app uses a text-to-speech program to read the various parts of the scene on the device. Users can choose to play back entire sections or single parts of the script and record their own voices as well.
The Scene Partner app was released in early November and within the first week, it was listed on the App Store as “new and noteworthy” and became a Wall Street Journal “app to watch.” Scene Partner was also tweeted about by actor Tom Cruise, and seen interest from the Tony producing American Theater Wing and the NYC Public Theater.
“A lot of businesses do brand extension into the app,” said Smith. “If you look at the things that are getting the most push from Apple, a lot of them are corporate brand extensions, but there”™s still a place for individuals who make an application with great design, great building and to get to the top of the app homepage.”
App market skyrocketing
According to Westport-based technology research company Gartner, today there are more than 225,000 apps in the Apple App Store alone and an abundance of other devices with their own markets coming to consumers every day. Gartner has found the app market to be still growing ”“ this year it is at $7 billion; last year it was $4.2 billion.
Smith said usability and facilitating ease is the goal for a helpful application.
“Whether its community-based theater or Broadway this app can be helpful,” said Smith. “You have a huge audience. You want to find a specific need that applies to a lot of people. There”™s a great opportunity with this media to have an idea and get it out to the world, literally. Nobody was really in the app business five years ago. The majority of the people who had the ideas for these apps today got their ideas from working in other industries.”
A lifelong actor, Smith said his professional past in direct sale technology product marketing, lastly with PerkinElmer in Norwalk, was a central part in the coming together of Scene Partner.
“What brought me to this point is a merger of 35 years in acting and 25 years in tech product management and direct marketing,” said Smith. “This area is apt to have a lot of this kind of media development.”
Smith tested his product”™s beta version this past summer with productions at Curtain Call in Stamford.
App market a saturated one too
Lou Ursone, executive director of Curtain Call, said despite being a growth market applications are such a saturated world, and often met with critiques.
“In this case it needed to be able to fit into an actor”™s process without disturbing it,” he said. Ursone said he was able to see firsthand the importance of testing the product in a working circumstance, in this case a live production of Macbeth.
Smith said that because successful app creation has so much to do with being able to understand a subject or specialty in order to identify a true value, it is only natural that top professionals in the respective specialties would rise as concept generators.
Smartphones poised to lead market
In a recent Stamford-based Nielsen Co. survey found that by the end of 2011, there will be more Smartphones in the U.S. market than feature phones. The study found that 35 percent of U.S. adults have applications on their mobile phones.
“The one thing that really stood out to me in this process is that there”™s so much growth here, in users and in the abilities of these devices,” Smith said.
Smith said finding a development partnership that could create something that is usable, in a format that people are already literate, was extraordinarily important in creating a final product. Smith hunted for a month before finding app developer Seek Mobile Interactive in Salt Lake City.
“It”™s not a small chore to find the right developers, but it”™s not hard either,” said Smith. “It”™s one of the most important parts in pulling a team to collaborate around it. It begins with finding a developer who understands the goal and can bring it together with confidence.”
Smith said there are also developer finder services to use, which is how he found Seek Mobile.
Smith said the next step after pulling together the technical side of the development is to develop design and branding for the app.
“It needs to be something that is compelling,” said Smith. “That gets a lot of credit for Apple recognizing the app, Apple is about design and functionality.” Smith partnered with TFI Envision a design and branding company in Norwalk.
