The constant winner in this space? Mobile apps. Gartner estimates mobile app store revenues will hit $15billion in 2011. A market that didn’t even exist 5 years ago. And now, just as agencies have established their mobile app divisions to help eager marketers take advantage of this emerging medium… whap! The DIY app market is here.

At Holland-Mark, we have leveraged a couple of the DIY mobile platforms (Mobile Roadie and AppMakr) to help our clients go to market with a custom app faster than was even possible a year ago and at a fraction of the cost. These DIY platforms have strengths and weaknesses depending on your objectives but most provide reasonable flexibility for customization with a little imagination.

Our latest mobile app was developed with Boston magazine, using the Mobile Roadie platform, exclusively for last nights Best of Boston 2011 Party attendees. Allowing Boston magazine to take their party beyond the physical event, this app supported interactive discussions, photos and comments, scheduled push notifications, and a native QR code reader to connect users with event sponsors. After the event it serves as a journal for everything users experienced and all the things they missed.

The event was invitation only, but the app is Free. Download for iPhone, Android or Blackberry.

Related articles

• What’s a loyal mobile app user and how much do they cost? (gigaom.com)
• How to Build an iPhone App Without Hiring a Developer (drayspencer.wordpress.com)

A buddy of mine Steve Schlaffman turned me on to Instagram a couple months ago. For a while I didn’t use it much, not really needing something else to do between tweets and posts.

Then I saw a Biography on my man Jeff Bridges. Jeff was given a Widelux camera by a friend a long time ago, and since then has been using it to chronicle the little moments and experiences that define the movie-making experience for people who actually make movies. At the end of a movie he’d often give a book of these images to his co-stars, and these books have become so coveted in Hollywood a publisher approached him about turning them into a coffee table book.

On this Biography Jeff was explaining why he took the time to do all this, and he said something like it plugs him in to what’s happening, that it was a way to squeeze some art into the artless moments that characterize 80% of the time you spend making a movie.

That idea really struck me. I could use more art-making opportunity in the artless moments of my life, maybe you could too.

Not having a Widelux camera, I did the next best thing, and starting using Instagram. The results so far are here.

If you’re Instagram, and you’re reading this, please don’t destroy your company with the money you just raised. Don’t think of yourself as another app, or as twitter for pictures, or as a cheap way to get access to filters that make hack photographers like me look good. Think of yourself as a tool to help us notice and share more of what we find beautiful in the world. And you’ll put that money to good use.

And if you’re not Instagram… what’s the role your product plays in the lives of the people who love it? How can focusing on that make it all the more imperative to them?

Related articles

• Browse the Instagram Universe with Instagallery for iPad (cultofmac.com)
• 3 Months To The First Million Users, Just 6 Weeks To The Second Million For Instagram (techcrunch.com)
• High-Velocity Business Growth: Instagram (customerthink.com)
• How Brands Are Using Mobile Photo Sharing (mashable.com)
• Gramfeed. Instagram meets Twitter (thenextweb.com)
• VCs flocking to mobile photos: Instagram raises $7M (venturebeat.com)

Thanks to Geekadelphia and Foobooz and all the bloggers out there who took the time to try out this new app! For those on Android or BlackBerry platforms, stay tuned – this app may be coming to you soon.

If you’re interested, here’s the link to the iTunes store so you can download and find out more!

Working with our friends at Boston magazine, we developed an iPhone application that allows consumers to search and access content from the magazine’s highly regarded annual Best of Boston® issues. Best of Boston® is the go-to resource for the expert-selected winners in over 70 categories, from suits to sushi.

Through the app, you can access Best of Boston® winners from the last five years, searching by location, keyword, and category. You can even share what you find and save your favorites.

It simply and effectively gets you what you want: the best from the people that know what’s best. Whether you’re a tourist or a local, it’s ideal for navigating Boston.

We developed the app as part of our newly formed Venture Branding practice, spearheaded by partner Mike Troiano. The Venture Branding model has two facets: we have great ideas and take them to market or others have great ideas and we help take them to market.

Our work with Boston magazine on the Best of Boston® iPhone app is an example of the former; our work with Chris Lohring on the creation of Notch Session Ales, an example of the latter. Whichever way it works, we get to play with smart people and create viable brands and businesses. What could be better?

If you want to check out the Best of Boston® iPhone app (just in time for the weekend), click here. And let us know what you think.

Eric Zitzewitz and Jon Zinman are both associate professors of economics and fans of snow sports. In their report, Wintertime for Deceptive Advertising, they found that ski areas report more snowfall on the weekends, and that there is no such “weekend effect” in government weather data.

Zinman says they gathered snowfall totals from ski area Web sites and then compared those numbers with government weather data. According to Zinman, resorts reported 23 percent more snow on weekends. And the resorts that had the most to gain by fluffing up their numbers did more of it.

According to Zinman, resorts with more people living within driving distance inflated their numbers more, as did resorts that don’t offer money-back guarantees.

Shocking, I know.

Perhaps more interesting, it appears social media is providing a new incentive to tell the truth:

But in the age of Facebook and Twitter, he also says these traditional snow reports are becoming less important. Today, many skiers are getting information from their friends who live near resorts. So Berry has advice for his colleagues.

“If you try and create a reality that you perceive to be the truth, it better be consistent with the reality on the ground,” Berry says. “The consumer will remind you of that instantly if that’s not the case.”

Zinman saw evidence of this in his research. During the study period, an iPhone application was released that allows skiers and snowboarders to report conditions themselves.

“Once that came online, exaggeration by resorts fell very sharply,” Zinman says. “And [it] fell all the more sharply at resorts that have good iPhone reception.”

The lesson for marketers? Remember what your Mom told you. Always tell the truth.

Between handy iPhone apps and my whole work and personal world being organized on Google; paper calendars, address books, to-do lists, and even sticky notes seem to be items from the past. I even use my iPhone for my grocery list and am also using it to write and post this blog right now.

I love technology and find it amazing how fast it changes, and how much has changed in the past 10 years.

Can’t wait for what’s in store for 2010!

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from holland-mark posterous