Discuss: Mobile Market
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Issues
While some question whether government should be building apps at all – that this is a function of the private sector – others are wondering where the government apps are. The agencies we spoke to encountered a number of scenarios and concerns about the mobile market.
- Some agencies' efforts have been chilled by concerns that they are competing with private industry, stopping them from creating mobile products using their own agency data.
- Many agencies are exploring contests, such as the ones hosted on Challenge.gov, to encourage the use of data on data.gov and to bridge the private/public development divide.
- One agency does market research on apps in their mission area to help decide mobile project direction. If the private sector has already met a mission need, the agency focuses resources on another area – like improving the mobile Web experience or increasing data availability.
- Many agencies expressed concern that they are building mobile products but do not have a good plan to promote them to target audiences.
- Also, some simple promotion efforts are blocked because of inexperience. Security concerns were the reason one agency did not provide a link to an agency app on its website.
Your Turn
Have you experienced any of these or other scenarios with the mobile market in your agency? What are market barriers to getting your agency services and information mobile? How are mobile market challenges affecting your agency’s mobile efforts?
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