As mobile marketing grows to become more accessible to businesses both large and small, startup firm PointAbout is getting a lot of attention for addressing one component of the mobile application building that still prevents many entrepreneurs and small business owners from creating their own – the expense of producing one.
While the App Store, for example, is expanding by leaps and bounds on an almost daily basis, designing iPhone applications remains both time consuming and costly, with expenses relating to app development costing tens of thousands of dollars for a single app. PointAbout, however, is behind a new offering called AppMakr that aims to simplify and streamline the application building process, not to mention make it more cost effective.
Hoping to accomplish for mobile apps what the likes of WordPress accomplished for aspiring bloggers, AppMakr is generating a lot of attention in the wake of promises to deliver a quality app in less than an hour for only $199. Users of the online service “enter a site Web site address or keywords and get back a sample iPhone app built with that content in less than 30 seconds,” according to PointAbout.
Naturally, some are wondering if services and do-it-yourself packages like AppMakr will ultimately do more harm than good by junking up the already ballooning App Store with new apps that may be of substantially reduced quality. But as the demand grows for personalized apps and entrepreneurs endeavor to establish traction in mobile territory, it isn’t difficult to imagine how building apps will become both easier and more affordable. Of course, whether or not the effectiveness of mobile marketing and the quality of mobile applications will suffer as a result is yet to be seen.