New Guide to the Mobile Trilemma: Mobile Website vs. Native App vs. Hybrid App
Today, we’re happy to share that we’ve launched a new guide to help marketers, product strategists and business leaders tackle one of the most difficult decisions they face when it comes to mobile: mobile website vs. native app vs. hybrid app. Developed with our friends at Razorfish, The 6 Core Factors to Navigating the Mobile Trilemma is now available here:
When defining a new experience for mobile devices — whether you are a startup with a business model centered around mobile or an established brand trying to add new ways of engaging with its customers — the decision of app vs. mobile website is the first decision to be made. It’s a decision that many have tried to distill into a logic-driven process — and many have shared via published blog posts, white papers and infographics.
One of our favorite recent essays on the topic comes from Benedict Evans of Andreessen Horowitz, who poses a simple question:
Do you have the kind of relationship, and proposition, that people will want to engage with enough to put your icon on their phone? If the answer to this is ‘yes,’ then you should have an app — if only because the app store is the way to do that that people understand. … If you don’t have that relationship, then all the clever things you can imagine you could do with Apple or Google’s new APIs are irrelevant and your strategy should focus on the web…
Mr. Evans makes a very direct and accurate observation. And there’s no shortage of other material on this topic. But decisions such as these are rarely black and white. Business leaders must recognize that the challenge — and the corresponding opportunity — lies in navigating the gray area.
In a short and broad-reaching document like this one, accounting for all of the nuances of your business is nearly impossible. Only you can do that, and as with any digital effort, you must start with an understanding of your business objective, the intended audience and your budget/timeline. Once you and your organization’s stakeholders are aligned on those guideposts, you can start looking at different factors that will drive you to a Mobile Trilemma decision.
We hope you’ll find our guide about the six core factors to be helpful in this decision.