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New Apps: Thinking Outside the Litter Box

Wall Street Journal Article

FEBRUARY 12, 2011

New Apps: Thinking Outside the Litter Box

By JOE QUEENAN

There are now hundreds of thousands of apps available for mobile phones, though most estimates put the figure as high as 11 billion, if you count off-brand apps that have not yet found an app store willing to sell them. More than seven million people globally are now involved in the design, manufacture and marketing of apps, and 1.7 million journalists today make a living writing about apps.

According to a report from the Congressional Budget Office, by 2030 one-third of the U.S. population will be employed in the app industry, and the ordinary person will spend 3.5 hours a day interacting with phone apps. This is just slightly less than the 3.7 hours that will be spent removing snow.

Whatever the true number, there now exist far more apps than even the most passionate app user could get through in an entire lifetime. Of course most apps are frivolous, and only a few generate any serious revenue for their designers. This is in part because of resistance from late-adapting Luddites like me.

For the longest time I resisted loading all but the most essential apps onto my phone, but this year my kids gave me a basket of three dozen of the most popular apps for Christmas. Yes, some are silly. And some are stupid. But to my surprise there are at least a dozen I can no longer imagine living without. I now regularly give apps as birthday presents, as thank-you gifts, or as handouts to friends who could benefit from the kind of dramatic lifestyle change that only a good phone app can provide.

My favorite app so far is LitterboxintheSky, which allows cats to participate in the virtual funerals of other cats who may be thousands of miles away. Cats, it is well known, are very fond of phone apps and will spend hours and hours watching cat funerals, sometimes tapping the display screen to get a close-up of the dead cat or of any mean-spirited birds that may have dropped by to taunt the deceased feline. Similar apps—Bowser Bereaver, Shih-Tzu Sendoff, Rodent Rite, Irish Gerbil Wake—do not seem to have the same appeal to household pets, though 3-D Parakeet Autopsy has come out of nowhere to command a significant portion of the app market. Apparently, it helps put hyperactive cats to sleep.

GOP GPS is a phone app for suburban or rural Republicans visiting blighted urban areas. Unlike ordinary GPS units, which usually lay out the most direct route between two points, this confrontational app warns right-leaning drivers to steer clear of any neighborhood where their presence might not be welcome. "Do not make the next left off the 405!" it will warn the app user. "I'm serious, you union-bashing ditz! Do not make the next left off the 405! And while we're on the subject, stay out of Baltimore!"

The same app maker also markets Libertarian Love Mosh, a dating app that links lonely men who seek to reduce the size of the federal government with similarly inclined women who are reasonably hot. The app has not taken off so far because there is no way to prevent unscrupulous app users from lying about being libertarians. Lying about being hot is much harder.

Winnebago Retread is an app that has found a warm welcome among retirees. The app is for people motoring around the U.S. in RVs who happen to be aficionados of first-tier has-been bands. It alerts them whenever they're within 50 miles of a Supertramp or Foreigner or Cyndi Lauper concert and connects them to a ticketing site that offers reduced rates for AARP cardholders. The app will soon be available in smooth-jazz, klezmer and Lollapalooza versions.

Lie About My Hair Again is an app for balding men. Tap the screen and a beautiful woman will tell you in a reasonably convincing voice that your wispy, rust-colored comb-over actually looks really good now that you've dyed it Auburn Sunburst Conflagration. It's very popular with sportscasters and dentists.

Escaping Gas is an app that supplies real-time video feeds of earnest op-ed writers, winsome pundits and thoughtful PBS personalities lamenting our declining civility and lost sense of national purpose. It's also useful in putting cats to sleep.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page C11

Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

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