Well, the short version: An app is a must, you guys are losing a lot of market share to other ones like feabie that provide it.
I'm not talking about myself, I still use a laptop most of the time, cellphones are pathetic for my use, too weak, too limited and often cellphone apps have a fraction of the functionality, there is so much stuff you just can't do or is insanely complicated, just copy paste becomes a chore. That being said, I'm not your average joe user, I work in IT and use very powerful systems. Your average user is now using more smartphones than laptops or anything else. And for these people if you don't have an app on Androind (Google play) or iTunes (iOS), you do not exist.
That is especially true for the younger generation. I have a feeling that ff is more for the older crowd, while feabie has tons of younger users. Some older folks might say "why do you need an app? web based works too, where is the problem?"
Well, the web is used for EVERYTHING, it was never built to handle what we are using it for now, many web standars are lousy and inadequate and it takes a ton of work to just make it perform normal functions, like when you write a post and close the webbrowser or go back or forward or your browser crashes, bye bye post, that is not supposed to happen.
Now if you think that there is no need for an app, consider this example: When the web rolled around, some businesses or services said "why do you need a webpage? Just use this phone number and call us, that is good enough!" and many of us said "nope, you need a webpage, get it done!". You might be able to relate to that, as for young people, smartphone apps ARE IT, it is not an option, and it makes things a lot easier to use.
I do know of course about the complexity about making an app happen, especially for a site that was never designed for it and it might cost a little bit of money, but you guys will keep losing members to sites like feabie and that also means paying members. Just my 5 cents, some free market analysis ;-)
8 years
