Im at an event hosted by independent app store GetJar, at which the companys founder Ilja Laurs is presenting the findings of research into the apps market carried out by Chetan Sharma Consulting. The full findings will be released tomorrow, but highlights include a forecast four-fold rise in app download revenues over the next three years, from $4.1 billion in 2009 to $17.5 billion in 2012.
One of the points under discussion is the ongoing debate about whether the future of mobile content and services lies with apps or with the browser, and here, Laurs views are interesting. In addition to hosting real apps for download, GetJar also offers things that look like an app, but which are in fact nothing more than an icon which sits on the users phone and acts as a shortcut to the brands mobile site. Facebook is a good example. If you download the Facebook app to your phone from GetJar, then if your phone is an iPhone, youll get the app. If its a Sony Ericsson, youll get the URL shortcut icon.
I asked Laurs if brands were prepared to pay as much to have these shortcut icons listed on the GetJar site as they do to have an actual app listed. He told me that they are, because GetJar has figures to show that a mobile user with a URL shortcut icon on their phone will access that site eight times more frequently than someone who has simply been given the URL to type in manually.
When asked if the whole app thing could be a passing fad, Llars said that as long as services continued to exist and apps were deemed to be a good service container for them, then apps would continue to exist. Which brings us back to this question of whether the browser could usurp the apps market. Llars response to this is that he doesnt particularly care
I would not care whether it was an app on the phone or just an icon (acting) as a shortcut, he said.
Llars point is that from a user experience perspective, it doesnt make any difference whether the icon you click takes you to an app or to a mobile site. And clearly, if he is making as much money promoting shortcuts as he is romoting actual apps, then his answer makes sense. All the same, its not the one I expected to hear when I asked the question.
David Murphy
Editor 
