Use of New Mobile Media by Nonprofits and Development of ...€¦ · The general definition of serious apps applies to all kinds of apps that are not designed for the sole purpose

Use of New Mobile Media by Nonprofitsand Development of Societal Mobile Apps

Olga Jensen (cand. M.A.)

Media Design University of Applied SciencesMaster program Media ManagementCourse: Research on Media Use and Recipients, Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander MoutchnikWinter Term 2011/12

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PUBLIKATIONEN DER MD.HREIHE: MEDIENMANAgEMENT


Content

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................4

2 General Overview .............................................................................................................................. 5

2.1 Definition .................................................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Approach ................................................................................................................................... 6

3 Successful Non-profit apps ............................................................................................................. 9

3.1 Early Charity Apps ..................................................................................................................... 9

3.2 Today’s Nonprofit Apps ............................................................................................................11

3.2.1 Wide Spectrum Strategy .................................................................................................. 12

3.2.2 Networking Strategy ......................................................................................................... 14

3.2.3 Serious games ................................................................................................................. 15

3.2.4 Using Platform for Internal Purposes ............................................................................. 17

3.3 Societal apps by companies .................................................................................................... 18

3.3.1 Charity Node .................................................................................................................... 18

3.3.2 Health Sector: Apps for Autism .......................................................................................19

4 Outlook ............................................................................................................................................ 21

List of References ..................................................................................................................................23


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List of Figures

Fig. 1 Apps Categories ............................................................................................................. 7

Fig. 2 Charity-App „Dalai Lama“ ............................................................................................. 9

Fig. 3 Official Ad for Charity-App „Haribo“ .......................................................................... 10

Fig. 4 greenpeace Apps in iTunes App Store ........................................................................12

Fig. 5 WWF Apps in iTunes App Store ................................................................................... 13

Fig. 6 UNICEF App „Repay for good“ ................................................................................... 15

Fig. 7 App Phone Story .......................................................................................................... 16

Fig. 8 Red Cross Apps in App Store .......................................................................................17

Fig. 9 App for Charities by Mobile Cause ..............................................................................18

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1 Introduction

The term app, recently named the word of the year 2011 by the American Dialect Society1, refers to

a specialized, mostly single purpose utility or infotainment application tailored to a specific mobile

device platform, usually targeting smart phones, but also increasingly for tablets. The current front

runners amongst the available mobile device platforms are Apple’s iOS, available exclusively for

its iPhone, iPad and iPod lines of devices, and google’s Android, available from a wide range of

hardware manufacturers. By far the most prevalent type of app across all mobile device platforms

are games, but apps exist offering a wide range of functionality, spanning from simple flash light

utilities to fully fledged geo navigation applications or always online location aware social media

integrators. For most people who don’t use their phones as multifunctional devices but merely

for the purpose of calling and receiving phone calls or checking their emails, this paper will hold a

couple of surprises.

The typical, and in the case of Apple iOS based devices, only allowed method of obtaining apps for

a mobile device is through a specialized online shop known as an app store. As a rule of thumb each

mobile device platform usually has built in support for at least one app store. The most well known

are Apple’s “App Store”, which is the exclusive venue for obtaining and buying apps for all iOS devi-

ces, and google’s “Android Market”, which is available for most Android based devices but is not

the sole avenue for obtaining apps. Browsing the relative amount and types of apps offered across

different categories in these app stores, it becomes apparent that throughout all the categories there

are apps that fall under the distinction as a societal app, in contrast with apps that fall into the seg-

ments entertainment, news or tools.

This paper concerns itself with the development of societal apps for mobile devices beginning with

their first appearance and gives an outlook on the future development of such apps based on the

current trends from apps by nonprofits. The paper shows successful examples of societal apps of

the early, current and finally most innovative stages, describes their different forms, their purpose

and the developers’ strategies.

1 MSNBC, 2011


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2 general Overview

2.1 Definition

The general definition of serious apps applies to all kinds of apps that are not designed for the sole

purpose of catering to a recipient’s entertainment interests. They can be a source of information, like

a newspaper app, or a utility, like navigation software. These kinds of apps can be described as “con-

venience” apps. But there is another segment of serious apps that’s purpose is to broach a serious

issue, draw attention to a social injustice and/or appeal for support of an activist endeavor. These

kinds of apps can be described as societal apps. They shouldn’t be confused with social networking

apps that refer to apps of social communities such as Facebook or Twitter.

This paper examines the societal segment of the serious apps. The segment includes apps of the

following institutions, their members, supporters or persons committed to their issues:

1) Nonprofit organizations, defined as following by the nonprofit expert Madeleine Sugden, who

founded the website Knowhow Nonprofit:

“Nonprofit includes registered charities, community groups, social enterprises, co-ops, mutual socie-

ties, faith groups, churches, political parties and campaigning organizations - basically any organiza-

tion or activity which does not exist to raise a profit.“1

In this paper the following organization types will be discussed:

Ö NgOs, that have the goal to change a certain societal plight. Examples of such are green-

peace, UNESCO and Amnesty International

Ö Charity organizations, that raise money for people in need. Those are often run by organi-

zed religions. Prominent examples are Caritas or the Red Cross.

2) There are also areas, such as the medical area, in which serious apps, that truly help sick or

disabled people, are developed by companies and not by one of the aforementioned types of

institutions in 1). Nonetheless they fall into the category “societal apps”.

Ö A very successful example is the development of apps for autistic children. This example

will be introduced in this paper.

1 Sugden, 2011

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2.2 Approach

In order to be able to make a rough estimate of the degree, to which the societal app market is

relevant, it is important to break down the previously established definition into smaller parts. This

first step will make it easier to recognize the societal apps among the many different kinds of apps

on the market. According to the website Knowhow Nonprofit, that gives advice on how to work with

or for a nonprofit, there exist the following nonprofit categories1:

- Business and professional

- Civil rights, citizenship and law and order

- Conservation and protection

- Culture, sport and recreation

- Education, training and research

- Health and medical

- Housing and community affairs

- International activities (development and relief)

- Philanthropic intermediation

- Religion

- Social services and relief

1 Nan, 2010


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For comparison, here are the categories from the app market’s dominating providers, Android1

(right) and Apple2 (left):

Fig. 1: Apps Categories

Some of the nonprofit site’s categories can be found directly among the app categories of the two

stores. Those are business, sports, education, health and medical. Others are hidden in subcatego-

ries, such as religion or culture. They are listed under the categories lifestyle or books. Political apps

are distributed among the categories books, reference and news. NgOs are mostly found under the

categories lifestyle and education.

So at first glance it seems like the portion of the nonprofit apps is of considerable size. However,

there are several factors that are not visible just by superficially examining the category listings. The

foremost discrepancy is that the apps are not equally distributed among the categories. For instance

the category games alone takes up roughly one sixth (15.3 percent)3 of all downloads in the Android

Market. Secondly, a category’s name can be interpreted very differently, so that it may include a wide

spectrum of very different kinds of apps. For instance the category business in the App Store inclu-

des items ranging from office software (“Adobe Reader”, “Office2 Plus”) to apps with instructions on

how to tie a tie (“Easy Neck Tie”, “Tie a Tie!”), while also including management guides for running

charity businesses (“Fundraising Basics”, “Nonprofit Tips”).

1 market.android.com/?hl=en

2 itunes.apple.com/us/genre/mac/id39?mt=12

3 Andro Lib, 2011

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These examples show that the analysis of the prevalence and success of societal apps cannot be

approached by simply looking at the amount of downloads in the concerned categories, especially

since the platform providers don’t like to give away download numbers of specific apps or app cate-

gories in their stores. So instead of making a quantitative analysis of the societal app market, a more

promising approach is to make a qualitative examination that takes a look at selective examples of

societal apps and researches their goals and the strategies behind their successes.


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3 Successful Non-profit apps

3.1 EarlyCharityApps

The Apple App Store for iOS devices launched summer 2008. During the first couple of months

iPhone owners could purchase small, limited in scope and from today’s perspective quite primitive

native applications that they could use to extend the standard functionality of their devices. In its

initial phase the App Store market was heavily dominated by entertainment apps, primarily games.

Over time the types of apps available on the App Store rapidly expanded, so that after only a single

year a well-rounded serious app segment had established itself as a major player in the App Store’s

market.

Around that time the Dalai Lama paid a visit to germany, during which iPhone owners could down-

load the app titled “Dalai Lama gebetsmühle”, that was created by the charity organization around

Mike Kuhlmann and Mission Mobile, a company specialized on developing mobile apps. The app,

a paid app costing 79ct, was conceived as a virtual prayer wheel and displayed randomized Dalai

Lama’s quotes, showing them in plain text form without today’s typical multimedia content of any

kind. Still, the app proved to be very successful and climbed to position of the third most down-

loaded app in its category in only four days1.

Fig. 2: Charity-App „Dalai Lama“ (iTunes App Store)

The charity organization took advantage of the media hype that the Dalai Lama’s visit had prompted.

All of germany was in a frenzy leading up to his arrival, including the highest-ranking politicians of

the major political parties, because they felt that it was a big honor and an exceptional event. The

1 Klein, 2009

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timing was perfect for a charity app with that particular theme and as expected it was received with

great enthusiasm. The revenue generated by the app was donated to orphanages in Uganda and

Tibet.

A further early example of a successful charity app is that from the charity organization “Ein Herz für

Kinder” (A Heart for Children) that became available in the app store end of 2009. The app was simi-

lar to the Dalai Lama gebetsmühle app discussed above. It was also a slim app consisting of a very

plain user interface, and very few extras. In cooperation with Haribo, the app developer 7Principles

designed the app as a virtual Haribo bag, which the recipient could audibly rip open using a swipe

gesture on the phone and by tilting the phone, virtually shake out gummy bears, alluding to the

behavior of shaking them out straight into the mount often seen other Haribo advertisements. By

providing that sole function of the app, the organization didn’t want to distract from the campaign’s

actual purpose: to collect one million Euros for 16 german projects that supported children in need.

The consumer could donate between three and five Euro after downloading the app. The app itself

was free.1

Fig. 3: Official Ad for Charity-App „Haribo“2

The app was downloaded around 168,000 times in the three months after it was launched. The cam-

paign managed to hit the organization’s goal to collect one million Euros, which was the greatest

sum to be collected in one campaign to date. One reason for the success was the cooperation with

the popular brand Haribo and the extended marketing surrounding the campaign. Another reason

was the viral character of the app: consumers were animated to forward a link to the app via e-mail

or text message by a single click on a button inside the app.

1 Lorberg & Strunk, 2010

2 http://www.7p-group.com/Haribo-App.jpg


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3.2 Today’sNonprofitApps

NgOs that decide to invest in developing a native app for a mobile device platform, instead of

optimizing their web presence for mobile devices and thus offering a so-called “web-app”, are typi-

cally striving to achieve two goals. Foremost the app needs to create an appropriate and scalable

avenue for collecting fundraising for the organization. One form is a paid app download, another,

more popular one, is to use an in-app purchasing infrastructure offered by the major app stores,

allowing recipients of the app the possibility of donating with from directly inside of the app. At the

same time it is crucial to inform those same recipients about specific societal problems and some

of their suggested remedies. For most NgOs it is more important to draw attention to the issues

they address than to collect funds directly through the app. That is why many apps in this category

are free. The assumption is that there are more downloads created if the app is free, and thus the

attention received is greater. Furthermore most recognizable NgOs have more than just one app on

the mobile device market.

This section discusses some current examples of NgO apps, deduces the NgO’s strategies and

groups the various offerings according to the different goals that the NgO’s want to achieve with

their mobile apps. This enables the generation of a good estimate of the NgO app types that exist

on the mobile app market.

Based on the types of apps that nonprofits offer to recipients, four general strategies can be

observed:

1) the Wide Spectrum Strategy to offer guides, games and news from the website and reach a

widespread and heterogeneous audience

2) the Networking Strategy to create a spirit of a group project

3) the Serious Games strategy, and finally

4) the strategy to use the platform for own Internal Purposes.

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3.2.1 Wide Spectrum Strategy

greenpeace, one of the biggest environmental organizations worldwide offers six apps in Apple’s

App Store:

Fig. 4: Greenpeace Apps in iTunes App Store

Each app targets a different issue: global warming, fish extinction, CO2-pollution and genetically

manipulated food. Each app approaches its target issue in a different way: some of the apps take the

form of a guide and advisor, others are constructed as a game, as an information database, or as a

newsletter with action alerts for “online activists”.

Though in the beginning of this paper the definition of serious apps and societal apps drew a strict

distinguishing line between apps for entertainment and serious apps, in reality this line is very blurry

and an app addressing a serious issue can also be designed using an entertaining approach in form

of a game for instance.

The games are the only apps that create a direct source of funding for the organization through

the specific app. The goals that the other apps pursue are informing and explaining current envi-

ronmental problems, often going so far as to portray hypothetical future scenarios, with the end

goal of prompting interested parties to subscribe to the monthly newsletter while also offering an

action alert for even more engaged environmentalists. In this way the organization hopes to gain

supporters that will likely donate in the future, or in the best-case scenario even join the ranks of the

organization and become active members. A way to donate straight from the app is not part of the

organization’s strategy.

The variety of apps that greenpeace offers, suggests that their strategy is to tackle a lot of is-sues,

present them in different ways to attract as many recipients as possible and then integrate them in

the activities of the organization as strongly as possible. The spectrum of apps aims at a wide range

of target groups and thus spreads the organization’s messages to many recipients. Instead of asking

every app-downloader to donate, independent of whether they are informed and engaged or merely

curious, the organization intends to use the app as a platform to inform interested individuals and

spread their message, with the end effect of creating new supporters and activists that then in turn

have to actively look for a way to contribute. This is a common strategy witnessed with other big

international nonprofits, like WWF.


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Fig. 5: WWF Apps in iTunes App Store

The biggest environmental nonprofit, the World Wide Fund for Nature, has in addition to guides

and games also news apps on the market. These news apps are however, region specific, spreading

information about local actions of the WWF, and are currently only targeting recipients in France and

Canada. Their entertainment apps are furthermore several times more expensive than the green-

peace apps, so their strategy appears to be a bit more shifted in favor of the paid apps.

These two probably best-known environmentalist nonprofits offer a wide range but rather standard,

fairly uncreative apps to recipients. As the further examples will show, there is a lot more potential

for nonprofits to present themselves in creative and interesting ways on the app market. To push

that development also in the environmental sector, The World Bank has started a competition in

search of Apps for Climate, that “discover extraordinary ways to use open climate data“1.

As of December 2nd 2011 competition participants can submit their apps related to climate change.

The apps that are most “creative in exploring approaches for addressing climate change problems“2

and work with datasets from the World Bank, will receive cash prizes and be presented on the World

Bank Open Data website.

The World Bank itself is made up of development institutions owned by 187 member countries.

Its mission statement is to fight poverty in developing countries around the world by providing

financial and technical resources. In this role the World Banks views climate change as a potential

humani tarian problem within their scope, as climate change is expected to cause severe damage in

developing countries including the destruction of agriculture, livestock, and water supplies, which

would lead to extensive breakouts of hunger, disease and poverty in developing nations.3

1 The World Bank News, 2011

2 The World Bank Challenges, 2011

3 The World Bank Challenges, 2011

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3.2.2 Networking Strategy

A fairly new trend by Nonprofits is to create apps that incite people to work together for a good

cause. Such “networking” apps have a strong viral character and the strategy of encouraging reci-

pients to develop team spirit has proven itself to be successful in a similar fashion to that of other

viral web content like viral commercial clips on YouTube or social network games on Facebook. The

organizations behind the apps want to reach a recipient and the recipient’s extended social circle.

The idea is that the recipient can’t reach his goal (e.g. win in the game) without the participation of

other recipients.

The international evangelical relief and development organization World Vision is developer of the

game Amanzivision, in which players are fictional water well builders in Africa and have to build

together the wells and carry water to the well. When a well in the game is completed, an actual

well in Africa is built, financed by a sponsor. The game has been avail-able in the App Store since

December last year and so far three wells have been completed, the fourth one is underway and

almost complete.1

UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, invented a creative way to

prompt smartphone users to donate. The idea behind their german app titled “Repay for good”

is to have recipients ask their friends to donate the amount of money that they are owed instead of

having it paid back directly. As an alternative to repaying the debt directly the friend can repay by

donating it straight to UNICEF and “do good” while becoming debt-free “for good” to the friend.

For coming up with this creative way to encourage donations the advertising agency Plan.Net from

Munich received an award from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival 20112.

1 Prescher, 2011

2 http://www.plan-net-group.com/arbeiten/portfolio.html


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Fig. 6: UNICEF App „Repay for Good“

3.2.3 Serious games

Packaging a serious subject matter into a piece of entertainment is used by almost all big NgOs

as part of their mobile strategy. One small NgO specialized in developing games that broach the

important issue of how capitalistic countries and big corporations exploit the environment and

population of developing countries. With the launch of their game titled “Phone Story” in the iTunes

App Store, and the consequential ban that followed, the small activist organization Molleindustria

gained a lot of media attention and became famous out-side of the gaming community.

Throughout the game “Phone Story – The Dark Side of Smartphone Manufacturing” the player

passes all the assumed stages of a production cycle of the iPhone. The stages include exploiting

child labor in Asia, extracting the metallic mineral coltan by using slave labor in Africa, dumping

electronics waste in the Far East and finally profiting from the overpriced sale to wasteful consumers

in the West.1 The game, that in particular aimed to provoke Apple with a blistering criticism of its

business practices, was available in Apple’s App Store for only a few days until it was taken down by

Apple’s management, and later could be only purchased in the Android Market. The revenues were

donated to various nonprofits.

1 mbö, 2011

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Fig. 7: App Phone Story1

The developer of the game is part a new movement in the gaming community with the contradic-

tory name “serious games”. In this case the app segments games and serious apps are combined.

Because these kinds of games, though very obvious in pointing out social injustices, are not less

entertaining and complex as ordinary games, their target group includes not only the activists and

socially aware recipients but also the gamers, that are responsible for over 15 percent2 of the app

downloads in the Android Market. In addition the strategy appears to aim at gathering media at-

tention, since the attacked corporations are often openly named in the game. Further examples of

serious games by Molleindustria3, that received much attention, are the games

• “McDonald’s”, similarly to Apple showing their production cycle

• “Leaky World”, broaching the issue of the controversial fight of the US-government

against WikiLeaks, and

• “Faith Fighter”, calling on religious intolerance and hate by newfound fundamentalist

groups in the West.

1 Molleindustria Phone Story, 2011

2 Andro Lib, 2011

3 Molleindustria games, 2011


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3.2.4 Using Platform for Internal Purposes

The Red Cross on the one hand has typical information apps: the US-shelter-app that informs recipi-

ents about current and potential future catastrophes, and more importantly about shelter locations

in those regions, and a news-app that informs about current activities of the Red Cross organiza-

tions around the globe. On the other hand it also has a very unique app: The Field Reporter. The idea

behind the Field Reporter is to aggregate useful data and provide information to the active members

and staff that help their work. This is a pilot project, the first one of its kind, released on Novem-

ber 15th 2011. This specific app, that requires membership credentials for logging in and using it,

documents and reports the support for water supply systems in Cambodia, where a local Red Cross

organization is active.

Fig. 8: Red Cross Apps in App Store

The Red Cross uses the platform for free for their own staff instead of recipients. The idea is revo-

lutionary because it allows a charity organization to use their internal perfectly integrated reporting

software on a platform that is accessible from anywhere in the world and avail-able to any staff mem-

ber that has the appropriate login credentials without requiring additional costs. The staff member

merely has to have access to a supported mobile device.

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3.3 Societalappsbycompanies

3.3.1 Charity Node

Due to success stories like those discussed in the previous sections, many charity organizations

resort to releasing content and apps on the app market today. Recently new forms of societal apps

have developed. There are mobile applications that aggregate many different charities within a

single app. The app MobileCause App2give is described as “a complete, concise way to connect,

learn, share and give to a host of different charities“1 by its developer in the Apple App Store. The

app is available in the Apple App Store free of charge. It gives daily updates on current campaigns of

the participating charities and links to their mobile application or web site with further information,

including the ability to donate.

Fig. 9: App for Charities by Mobile Cause

1 MobileCause, 2010


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The similar app Donation Connect1 allows recipients to donate to charities in an even quicker way.

The app’s subtitle „One tap can change the world“ is self-explanatory: the app includes many of the

major players in the charity sector like the Red Cross or UNICEF, and gives the possibility to donate

a recipient specified amount to their desired organization with “one tap” directly from within the

Donation Connect app.

3.3.2 Health Sector: Apps for Autism

Since the appearance of Apple’s iPad, a new, rapidly growing market of “apps for autism” developed.

The success of apps targeting sufferers of a mental disability in the autism spectrum, mostly chil-

dren, has prompted several scientific studies. These showed the high effectiveness of such apps with

respect to two separate aspects: improvement of underdeveloped social and communication skills

of the patients as well as making the everyday life of patients and their families more convenient.

The recent study by the research group lead by Howard C. Shane, that overviewed the quality and

quantity of current augmentative and alternative communication systems (ACC Systems) for autism

sufferers, describes the market as follows:

”[…] what is now available to consumers is a device that is small, low cost, easy to obtain and trans-

port, readily available, and socially acceptable. Many of the apps designed for these devices may

serve as full AAC systems, […] while others may also provide support for organization and enhance

the efficiency of simple functions such as choice-making. Apps are often easily obtainable, affordable,

customizable, and recipient-friendly.”2

The TV episode from the news series 60 Minutes airing on October 23rd 2011 on the US-Network

CBS showed the ability and potential of such autism apps. In interviews parents and teachers of

autistic children explain which iPad apps proved to be especially helpful to their children. Not every

autistic child can profit from the opportunity offered by the available autism apps, but the majority

does.

The report shows several cases of severe autism, where apps on an iPad have significantly improved

the patients’ quality of life. One example introduces a teenage boy who doesn’t speak and whose

only way to communicate was to spell out words and simple sentences on a paper keyboard before

the iPad came onto the market. Now a special language app allows the boy to touch symbols on the

iPad that speak preselected everyday sentences, such as “I want to drink an orange juice”. This has

greatly aided his interaction with his social environment, enabling him to give very quick and simple

responses to ordinary situations, and improved his capabilities so much that it has prompted him

to interact more often and be more self-confident, going so far as ordering food in a restaurant

from strangers for instance. This particular app can be individualized by uploading pictures that are

1 Rosetta Marketing, 2011

2 Howard C. Shane, 2011, page 2

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familiar to the patient or by recording special sentences that are necessary in the patient’s everyday

life. The app also allows the patient to build sentences on the fly using text-to-speech technology.

Other autism apps are learning oriented and develop or improve skills such as communication

skills, the ability to concentrate on a certain subject or problem solving.

The most expensive of these autism related apps cost up to several hundred US-Dollars. However

there are numerous funds by nonprofits that financially support parents who can’t afford that op-

portunity for their autistic child and finance up to 100 percent of the costs of a tablet such as an iPad

and that of the relevant apps necessary for aiding the child.1

1 Rosa, Becker, & Sadler, 2011, iPad Resources - Fundraising and Donations


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4 Outlook

The development of societal apps over the past few years reveals several trends that are very likely to

be followed by nonprofit organizations and similar entities.

games and their network entertainment apps in the Social Web Networks like Facebook have been

very popular among the network members. Some Charity Organizations also have made successful

experiences placing their agenda into a network game (e.g. fundraising for Japan Earthquake Tsunami

Children Emergency Fund by the nonprofit organization Save the Children1). The trend continues on

the mobile app market. World Vision and UNICEF have developed apps making use of the network-

ing strategy and are very happy with the results. They claim they want to develop more apps of that

kind2 and it is only a matter of time until more nonprofits will follow that trend.

The new movement in the gaming community with the contradictory name “serious games” is now

spilling over to the mobile app market. These games can be as entertaining and complicated as

ordinary games that account for roughly one sixth3 of the apps on the mobile apps market, thus their

target group is bigger than their usual activist, socially aware recipients as it also includes the “pure”

gamers. Because their game apps often attack specific big corporations (Molleindustria developed

games about Apple, McDonald’s and even the Vatican with the game Pedopriest), they receive large

media attention and fuel discussions about the objectionable practices of some corporations and

institutions.

Last but not least to mention is the trend of information apps, already employed by big non-profit

organizations in different forms like news apps (WWF), newsletters or news tickers as text messages

(greenpeace). So far they are only filled with content from the organization’s website and provide

the user only information about the current or upcoming organization’s events and activities. The

important step towards giving the recipient real additional benefits with a fully featured information

app would be to provide the user news about the topics that the organization deals with from mul-

tiple sources, not just from the organization itself. For instance the app could be a news aggregator

similar to google News, where recently published articles pertaining to the environment from vari-

ous online newspapers and journals are fed to the app. A step further would be a news app in the

direction of the widely popular mobile apps Flipboard (awarded by Apple as iPad App of the year

20104) and News.me. Those generate a news feed of articles that the user’s social network friends

also read and liked or posted on their pages. Such an app, optimized for specific areas of interest,

would additionally follow the trend of using the recipients network.

1 Empson, 2011

2 Prescher, 2011

3 Andro Lib, 2011

4 Yarow, 2010

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Further ideas and experiments like that of the Red Cross that uses the iTunes App Store’s platform

for closed apps and internal purposes, are not certain to catch on, especially if Apple and the other

providers start charging money for such innovative use of their platform. However there is certainly

a huge potential for nonprofits, activists, serious game makers and the health sector, to increase

their app market share and maybe even create a separate category in the App Stores called “Societal

Apps”.


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List of References

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Andro Lib: http://www.androlib.com/appstatstype.aspx

Empson, R. (2011-03-14). Zynga Gamers Raise $1 Million For Tsunami Relief. Retrieved on 2011-12-03

from Tech Crunch: http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/14/

zynga-gamers-raise-1-million-for-tsunami-relief/

grandin, T. (2011-10-23). Apps for Autism. Retrieved from 60 Minutes, CBS News (Motion Picture):

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385686n

Howard C., Shane, E. H. (2011-06-21). Applying Technology to Visually Support Language and

Communication in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Develop-

mental Disorders

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folg.html

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http://www.7p-group.com/unternehmen/presse/archiv-2010/31-maerz-2010

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line Netzwelt: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/0,1518,786161,00.html

MobileCause. (2010-08-16). MobileCause App2Give (Lifestyle App). Retrieved from iTunes App Store:

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Documents

Use of New Mobile Media by Nonprofits and Development of ...€¦ · The general definition of serious apps applies to all kinds of apps that are not designed for the sole purpose