IS427:AY1314T1 Europe (G1) - Organizations: Munich: Appadia

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About Appadia

Appadia is a Personal Mobile App Publishing Platform where users consolidate their social media and deliver it as an downloable application that provides personal information and updates about the user. It is targeted at anyone and everyone that uses email and/or social networks, and who would like an easy and intuitive way to obtain information about other people from their mobile.

Founding Team

The team consists of its founder, Manna Justin, and a team of 9.

Brief Timeline

Time	Events
Early 2011	Appadia was conceptualized.
Jul 2012	Appadia began promotions on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ to increase awareness and garner support for Appadia. Joined Twitter on 10 Jul 2012 Joined Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ on 23 Jul 2012
Aug - Nov 2012	Released promotional videos on 30 Aug, 1 Sep and 11 Nov 2012
11th Nov 2012	Launched Beta platform
3rd Dec 2012	Joined Angelist, a platform/community for startups and investors to communicate.

Current Status

Since 2012, they have had not much activity or users. Currently only 4 of the Appadia team actually use the application.

How does Appadia work?

Firstly, the user creates an account using the Appadia website. He/she can then personalize, configure, control the content of the application, and even link their account to other social media. He/she will then publish the content as an application.

Using Appadia, the user can publish personal information such as interests, photos, etc, and link and display a variety of social media accounts in their personal application (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Flickr, Picasa, Tumblr, Wordpress)

Followers can then download the Appadia application to their iOS, Android and even Windows phone. They can then search for the people they wish to follow and download his/her application to obtain information and updates.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths User-generated content Leverage on existing networks and platforms Leverages on user-generated content from existing networks and platforms Simple & intuitive configuration Accessibility Available for iOS, Android and Windows phones High accessibility that only requires a smartphone and internet access

Weaknesses Privacy issues Questionable security Application is open to the public, user does not have control over who is allowed to download their application User is not able to configure what is available to view to certain groups Limited configuration Basic show and hide, disable and enable settings Settings applies to all viewers User is not able to configure what is available for view to certain groups Weak online presence/identity An application that is focused on the integration of social media should have a strong outreach, but Appadia does not take advantage of social media to gain a following Founder and teams do not maintain active online presence Less than 50 tweets and 200 followers on Twitter; last activity was in 2012 Latest activities and discussions on Facebook took place in 2012 Number of posts and followers on Pinterest number in the single digits; a third of followers are their own team members Number of followers on Google+ number in the single digits; last activity was in 2012 Few Users Not enough reviews from iPhone users to give it a rating on the App store Only 6 reviews on Android All 6 reviews are rated 5 stars, which does not seem likely No reviews on Windows Phone One-way channel People are used to interaction in social media Viewers who download the user's personal application are not able to interact with the user and vice versa

Opportunities Increase online presence (Enhance) Additional interactive features Introduce features that increase interactivity between user (Expand) Venture into new markets Find adopters that have an incentive to use their application

Threats Social media platforms Increased functions Social media platforms are constantly adding functions and integrating more features into the platform itself Phone software Some phones have widgets that integrate social media

QaDIM

How has Appadia applied QaDIM?

Complementary Function through the integration of multiple social media.

How can they further apply QaDIM?

Add a Feature

• Social Media Management tool(s)
  • Position Appadia as a one-stop social media application for users.
  • Maybe be as ambitious as to aim to make people want to post to their social media channels all through appadia (don’t need multiple logins – just once when you sync it, and even do sign-ups through Appadia)
• Build on being an information source
  • Give/recommend corroborative links/information from credible sources (news channels, papers…etc from the internet)
• Activity/Information summary pages:
  • For personal/company use -> Be the one-stop portal for all things someone want to know about a specific person/personality/company/organization, be it current or from “beginning – present”.

Proposed Business Strategy

Enhance

• Opportunities from QaDIM
• The strategy is NOT motivated by competition – but more so to define a space where Appadia can thrive in and where users have incentive to use it.
  • Customer validation: for the fact that there are so many social media options out there, an application that just consolidates social media is not going to be enough
    • Issues of familiarity with the social media interface
    • Often people tend to be more active in 1-2 platforms only. (others for select scenario uses)

Expand

• Expansion into new geographical market
  • This requires regionalization or localization of the offerings to match the customer needs of the new markets
    • Language (capability to translate it all into another language and offer profiles in other languages)
    • Usage habits
  • Resources
    • Nature of product
      • Scalable
      • Core team need not move – have 1-2 individuals in the local market to serve as representatives and correspond with partners/firms/clients
• Partnerships
• Visibility

Why Expand to Singapore?

• Social Media Penetration: 50%
  • Active Social Media use: 74%
• Language: English relatively predominant
• Multiple uses of Social Media
  • Information
  • Networking campaigns
• Users of multiple Social Media platforms
  • 1-3: 19.6% or 691,900 people
  • 4-6: 41.3% or 1,457,931 people
  • 7-9: 26.1% or 921,356 people
  • 10+: 13.0%

Conclusion: A good test bed

Proposed Market Strategy

Customer Audit & Segment Trends

• Looking back at statistics, we can see that there is a good infrastructure in Singapore for Appadia.
• Local opportunities are abundant and have a good following (e.g. consolidated artists and personalities from mediacorp)
  • Xiaxue (170k followers on twitter, 15.6k visitors per week)
  • Mr Brown ( 3.5k likes on facebook – mentioned quite a bit in social media and articles widely circulated – mr brown show)
  • DJ Muttons (85k likes on facebook, host many events outside of radio)
• More experimental audience
  • Multiple social media users are young and are more experimental in nature (huge diversity – and thus openness – see presence in weibo, tudou – china, naver – korea)

Strategic Targets

Strategic target segments, capability, positioning, value proposition and branding:

• Media/Entertainment Industry
  • Mediacorp
• Artists & Local Personalities
• Management Slant

One-way correspondence is fine for these targets because viewers are first and foremost searching for ways to gain information (interaction not as crucial)

Rollout Plans

• Partnership -> Acquisition
• Critical Mass -> Introduce new features
• Back to the core of Appadia

Future Possibilities

• Universities
  • Research is tedious when we need to track things - e.g news agencies - can even link to their reporters
  • Students clubs and organizations
    • Subscribe to club-organized events and news
• Entertainment/Media Personalities & Celebrities
  • They have instagram, blogs, twitter, active engagers, good flow of user content and high in traffic
• Fashion & food "experts", bloggers
  • Sure-win interest area, huge following, by passes demographics, huge audience
• Travel / TV hosts
  • Global channels/mediums
  • Huge audience, also paves the way for cross-boarder/international penetration and cross-adoptability

Learning & Key Takeaways

- Integration might not always be a strong differentiating factor and or white space, it depends on whether there is demand for an integrated solution or if existing standalone applications have yet to fulfill the wants and needs of the target audience
- Coming from the angle of being a “management tool” may give rise to some opportunity and flexibility in targeting of a wider customer/audience pool. It also opens up the possibility of enabling interaction with different audiences based on their different needs
- The vision of Appadia is valid, but Appadia needs to explore focused opportunities/target markets to drive adoption.

References

- Please refer to the above sections.