At our Media App Summit today, our App-Centered Outreach for Non-Profit and Institutions panel discussion confronted one of the toughest problems facing publishers: how can indie writers, small presses or nonprofits afford to build mobile content?
1. UNICEF project manager Rhazi Kone advised readers to link with academic institutions and young creators. They worked with students at MIT with mobile content, and he explained: “lots of students were really excited to work with us.”
2. Is an app really what you need? If your funds are limited, maybe you should just make sure your website is mobile friendly.
3. Arcade Sunshine Media creative director Patrick White advised publishers to keep mobile content building inside the company. He explained: “everybody in our company can do several things. We are a one-stop shop. When you’ve got a shop that takes care of it all, there is a lot of efficiency there.”
4. Museum of Modern Art creative director, digital media Allegra Burnette urged publishers to explore app template services and to use something that has already been built.
5. Burnette highlighted the open source tool TAP tools for museums. Here’s more about the program: “TAP is a collection of free and open-source tools which support the creation and delivery of mobile tours. The tools also serve as examples of producing and consuming tour content using the TourML specification. Currently TAP consists of authoring tools built on top of the content management system Drupal, a native iOS mobile application, and a web-based mobile application built upon the jQuery Mobile library.”