You’re in an app store, you see an app that looks pretty neat, so you download and install it. You soon realize that its practically useless to you because while it may have thousands of users, the other half that the app is built for is non-existent.
Let’s take a look at OpenTable, a mature mobile app which allows you to make restaurant reservations via your mobile phone. I load it up, it chooses my location by default (or you can enter one) and then I wait for it to list restaurants near me.
I await my results and I get… one restaurant! There is only one restaurant in this city that utilizes this mobile app, so unless I’m in Baltimore, Wash DC or some other major metropolitan area (and I’m sure there are plenty of great places not using this), I have no use for this great app!
With that said, I was pretty excited when I found this app called TabbedOut that lets you open and pay tabs through your phone. Sweet! But then reality sunk in when I clicked on the Locations link on their website and realized that its not even available in my area. Fair enough, start somewhere and grow the app and user-base, I get that. The problem is, however, that even if it was available here, I am not confident that many restaurateurs would use it in their business. That is a real shame, because its an app that I think we’d all enjoy using!
Mobile technology and software are growing at a remarkable pace! It’s not a fad, and it’s definitely not going away. I just hope that we don’t have to wait too long for everyone else to get on-board to welcome it, embrace it and utilize it.
That’s my gentle rant for the day.
