data

Showing 2 posts tagged data

Long term commitments on mobile

If I hear about a great new app, I immediately download it to check it out. This leads to two outcomes: discovery of a great app that I will continue to use for a long period of time that slowly creeps closer to my home screen or an orphaned app that was opened one time and then filed out of the way until I need more space and delete it. 

According to Fortune Tech, I’m not alone. 

“The rate at which web users consume and discard new apps is accelerating. Proof of that is clear: Chatroulette was popular for around nine months before users lost interest in its often-lewd content. Turntable.fm, which exploded in the summer of 2011, peaked that fall before people tired of its novelty interface. It was popular for long enough to raise $7 million in venture funding before finally shutting down late last year. Draw Something, a game which took off in early 2012, climbed the App Store rankings for just six weeks before Zynga (ZNGA) acquired its parent company, OMGPop, for $200 million. Almost immediately after the deal, the app began losing users. Recent viral hits which the jury is still out on include Snapchat, Vine, and Frontback, a photo-sharing app which gained traction over the summer but has been quiet since. The moral is: The majority of viral apps and companies have ended up as losers." 

- How long can you keep a Secret? - Fortune Tech

On my desktop it’s very different. I can save applications or files in what seems like infinite space, so there is less need to discard things often. 

Phone capacity has a different constraint than the web never had. Not only from the development standpoint of the libraries you can ship into app stores for approval, but for the storage footprint on the phone. I’ve take advantage of Dropbox’s mobile sync features for photos but I still feel like space is precious on my phone more so than on my laptop.

I’ve never been a fan of iCloud, perhaps because of my existing membership to Dropbox or early sour experience with ‘sync’ through iTunes, but that’s the supposed promise. Endless space, but the price can get hefty to hang onto useless data if you’re paying per GB per month. 

If iCloud were free and unlimited, what would change? What would you have on your phone if space weren’t a constraint?

When I visited Budapest and Berlin I had two data heavy apps that kept data cached locally. It worked great while on the move but was dumped when I got back to make room for new apps with unknown utility. 

With the web, we were always restricted on speed of information but not limited in which webpages we could visit based on their data needs to run properly. Data was free as long as you had a connection.

With mobile, data hoarding is taxed. If you want to visit 100 different apps, that all need to be downloaded locally for performance, you either need to pay up or narrow down your choices. Only the best apps last, but what makes an app worth keeping? 

There will always be space in my phone for utilities: Mail, Kik messenger, DuckDuckGo, Duolingo, Meetup, Sonos. The places I go to transact on a regular basis.

With entertainment apps, I think I’ve been more fickle. Most entertainment apps expect you to put time, content and energy into them but give nothing back. You don’t gain anything from using them. All of the drawings in DrawQuest go there to disappear. Snapchat too. Twitter updates are quickly swept away in the feed. It’s sizzle then burn. Some of these apps were built to avoid the data storage tax, to keep their footprints small on purpose. It’s a feature, not a bug, but how long can they really stick around if they don’t create any lasting value over time?

I could feed DrawQuest, SnapChat and 2048 for 6 months straight and have nothing to look back on. Nothing to show for the time spent.  Just an app that looks exactly the same as the first day I downloaded it. So switching costs to a new entertainment app are easier. 

If more apps were built to progress you over time, maybe their life as a top app wouldn’t fade so quickly. Even CandyCrush had lasting impact because you lose all forward progress if you delete the app. It may be challenging for a UGC app to build that progress over time when it would require more data on the users phone. Those committed would have to give up storage from something else to get there. 

How different would the app ecosystem look if phones had 1TB drives and apps could ship up to 1GB of data? Would apps still go viral and fade? Would we hoard more? Or would we just wait longer for our apps to download? 

[Props: Article originally found via Timoni who speaks to the impact young users have on driving popularity but not sticking around. Then commented on by Rickwebb who takes a look at the parallels of Hollywood’s Studio model to Facebook’s app constellations.]

Staying private in a public place

I always think about the socks I wear on the days I go to the airport. Exposed toes aren’t a great impression for the strangers who are sizing you up.

image

Nice black socks on, I arrived at SFO at 5:32am. Ten minutes later, it didn’t matter. My shoes and coat kept on, my laptop still safely in my purse. My flight was still on time and I had no fear of missing it.  It 5:39am and I was already at my gate. No, I didn’t sneak in a secret entrance or get an invitation on a private jet. I simply traded my personal data for a better deal with TSA.

Save your privacy by giving more away

From NSA to Google Ads, data privacy has been a hot topic this year. At USV, we often discuss the push to share more data, not less, as a remedy to privacy. The thought is, that by providing more information we can actually devalue the data so there is less to gain from a third party obtaining it.

For example, in some european countries salaries and income are public information. Everyone has access to everyone else’s data. That means that services in the US like GlassDoor or Salary surveys that charge money to gain access to that information, would go out of business. There is no financial incentive to discover the data or find ways to gather it because it’s already in public domain. More income data brings the cost of selling income data down to zero.

Albert has written extensively about more data transparency and the risks of a crypto’s arms race. Fundamentally, I can rationalize the value in a more transparent culture, but the thought of the long cultural transition is uncomfortable.

In the US, the cultural norm is to keep medical records private. Insurance and employers (illegally), have created financial incentives for any individual with less than pristine medical history to keep that information private. Although these individuals may readily share this information with family or doctors, so the information isn’t intentionally private, exposing it too broadly could present financial downside in the short term. However, in the long run, if everyone shared their medical data it could help predict or prevent diseases in the first place and actually save insurance more. Making the transition from private to fully transparent would generate short-term costs throughout the length of the transition, however long it takes.

So how do we make any strides in data transparency when we know there will be costs in the transition? A good case study may start at the airport, TSA Pre-Check.

Travel transparency goes beyond the x-ray

I first learned about TSA pre-check after a few trips with my boyfriend. He kept being directed to a super fast line at security. He would try to bring me along with him in the line but I was sent back to the regular security line. I attributed the special line to his status on Delta so wasn’t sure why I wasn’t getting special treatment too.

My growing impatience with TSA lines, shoe removal and laptop take-outs, drove me to investigate further. TSA Pre-check granted the access and could be obtained through a few different channels.

Some carriers do auto-enroll members with a certain level of status into the TSA pre-check program.

Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and US Airways are contacting eligible frequent travelers with an invitation to opt-in. Once the passenger opts-in, the airline identifies the individual as a TSA Pre✓™ participant when submitting passenger reservation information to TSA’s Secure Flight system.

If you’re not a frequent or loyal traveler, you still have options. The options you have are : “U.S. citizens currently enrolled in CBP’s Global Entry, SENTRI or NEXUS Trusted Traveler programs are automatically eligible to participate in TSA Pre✓™. Canadian citizens who are members of NEXUS are also qualified to participate in TSA Pre✓™.”

I enrolled in the Global Entry program, which cross-enrolls you in TSA pre-check. The benefit of Global Entry is you can skip the line when re-entering the United States by simply swiping your passport.

All programs require sharing past travel history, passport number, address, birthdate and photo. I readily provide that information to airlines and foreign visa applications so I see it as a reasonable ask. The output is what’s called a Known Traveler number. Given the amount of time and investment put into physical security screening, it was a bit surprising that a Known Traveler program wasn’t implemented sooner. If individuals want to opt in to sharing data in return for less physical inspection, they have more options besides refusing to fly. 

On both legs of my JFK - SFO trip, I skipped long lines by utilizing the TSA-Pre-check status. I was through security in under 10 minutes without the need to take off my shoes, coat or take my laptop out. Finally, TSA feels like a civil process. 

Trade in to trade up?

The GOES application will cost you $99 for an 8 year membership and require a trip to a local enrollment center for an interview. If you plan on flying at least a few times in the next few years, it may be well worth it to you. On 4 round-trip flights I’ve already saved a few hours in line and fewer rounds in the full body scanners. I think it’s well worth the price and the data cost.

What do you think? Have you enrolled? Please share in the comments below.