News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App by ravenstine on Saturday January 05, 2019 @02:57PM (#18833838)
I want to agree with you, but how many people are regularly surfing the web?

I actually think most people still are, but I keep getting this impression from HN and others in the tech industry that "everyone is on their phone and using apps", and I've yet to see any convincing research into the use of web browsers over the years. I don't know what I'm really supposed to think, but it seems that a lot of us in the industry are convinced that mobile browsing is "dead" or at least sits on the bleachers while apps do basically everything and use the browser as a webview for minor things.

I'd love to believe that most people aren't merely sitting on Instagram and Reddit all day, never touching their browser.

Re:Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App by skilled on Saturday January 05, 2019 @11:09PM (#18836511)
For the life of me I cannot imagine how painful it must be to spend your time only in apps like Reddit and Instagram. That sounds painfully boring and isolating.

I am the exact opposite as I spend all of my mobile time in the browser.

It's a complex study to perform it with any kind of accuracy. And if there's any concrete studies done this already then I would love to see citations.

Re:Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App by swah on Sunday January 06, 2019 @05:57AM (#18837707)
How do you start your browsing day? I always start from the twitter or reddit app. Most people don't even know the "web", they just stay on Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook the whole day. (I wish this wasn't the case since this makes so difficult to little people to compete on the space).
Re:Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App by plaidfuji on Sunday January 06, 2019 @11:39AM (#18839096)
Not the OP but I strongly favor browser over apps whenever possible. I’m a news junkie so my progression usually goes:

Washington Post (I live in DC), WSJ, NYT, Hacker News, Maybe Facebook, If really bored, will compare Drudge Report / HuffPo / Fox News just to see the extremes,

Back to HN, eventually feel browsing guilt and go do something productive

Re:Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App by galaxyLogic on Sunday January 06, 2019 @02:01AM (#18837015)
I you read Reddit most articles contain a link to some website. That is what Reddit (and HN) discussions are about. So you still need to browse the web even if you start in an app.
Re:Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App by apatters on Sunday January 06, 2019 @02:00PM (#18839909)
I don't think it matters necessarily. It depends on the category your product falls into, and you have to look at how similar products acquire their users.

What software have you purchased in the past year? For my pesonal sample size of one, most of my non-game purchases were business productivity SaaS. And the decision generally happened after repeated exposure via word of mouth and/or discussion forums.

I definitely didn't discover any business productivity software in an app store. And signup that requires any significant amount of information is harder on mobile. I bet SEM and getting customers through Google still works online if you can pull it off.