A report by mobile analytics company Adjust has triggered worries that the app apocalypse is nigh. Mashable, Boy Genius Report, and other sources have run with the news that Apple is being overtaken by zombie apps – as much as 80% of the App Store counted among the living dead.
Adjust defined a zombie app as one that doesn’t show up on any of the 39,171 rankings lists for two out of three days during a month. I would love to join the debate and argue over whether downloads or minutes used or revenue or other metrics should determine zombie status, but I’m more concerned with the gruesome numbers.
What’s certain is that a huge portion of the 578,000 apps projected by Adjust to launch within a year’s time will all but cease to exist in a hurry. That’s a whole lot of apps doomed to become lifeless fixtures, people.
Let’s call them zombies. It’s more fun, and it applies. They will continue to infiltrate the ranks, kinda roaming around taking up space but not doing much of anything, casting a pall over the app landscape. If you’re an app maker, here are some tips – taken from conventional zombie protocol – on how you can survive the app apocalypse and avoid becoming a zombie developer.
Run
Zombies are slow. Zombies lurch and ooze forward without plan. Minus the jellied flesh, they’re not flexible – zombies don’t change or adapt. Keep moving briskly if you don’t want to become a rotting goon.
Assess the enemy carefully
Zombies are clearly most dangerous in numbers. If you try battling them all at once, you will be overwhelmed, trampled, chomped, and begin to emanate a putrid cloud. Focus on yourself. Deal with nearby zombies on an individual basis as they approach. No need to draw the attention of the entire zombie nation unless you’re absolutely sure that you’re properly armed.
Choose your space wisely
As John Hornor Jacobs cautioned in the Huffington Post: “…don’t go to a large retail outlet in hopes of living out your Dawn of the Dead consumer fantasy. That’s where stupid people go, and stupid people usually become zombies. They’re halfway there, after all.”
In other words, don’t do the same damn thing as everyone else. Have you really built something with unique value? Something that will truly distinguish itself from the others? Don’t fool yourself into believing you’ve “reinvented” or “re-imagined” something when you’ve only given familiar parts a different name. Just don’t go there.
Control your exposure
The zombies already have you surrounded you from the moment your app goes live. How will you be found? How will anyone spot you in a sea of so many friggin zombies? Answering this question is the only hope for being saved. Figure out how you’ll be discovered, how you’ll inspire the living to consider your app essential and worth the trouble of springing you from zombie hell.
