SC Mobile App?

[Rob]

A bit of market research...

Would people be willing to pay for a (good) SC mobile app?

There's what looks like a very good app being developed at the minute which I'm trying to decide if it's worth getting. There'd be monthly costs in running it (paid yearly up front) so we'd need to work out if we had enough desire for it first.

Please vote/comment below.

 

[Grapo2001]

A one off payment of £5 or under, if it was good..

 

[Rob]

Added that as an option now

 

[L-man]

I'd have to see what the app looks like and what features it comes with but aside from that, mobile is fine atm and can't see what an app would provide that a browser wouldn't

 

[MilkyBarYid]

Notifications would be good, i.e. notified of new thread in the SCITK forum.

 

[scat1620]

Would happily pay some kind of recurring charge to remove ads from SC, be that in a full PC web browser or a dedicated SC mobile app. Google Ads really slow down the site for me, and when browsing on a mobile always end up causing me to click the wrong link as they push content further down the screen while the page loads, just as you think you're clicking on a link to Spurs Chat but actually end up hitting Top Stories by mistake etc.

If we can get rid of Google Ads in a dedicated SC app then I'd be willing to pay a charge for that.

 

[Rob]

It's unlikely we'll remove ads as we'd get no where near enough income to cover costs without them :-(

Push notifications would be likely in the app.

 

[tommyt]

I pay a small amount each month and will continue to do so either way, but at the minute, this site works brilliantly on my phone (htc m8).

I'm not sure there is the need for an app imo.

 

[tommyt]

It's unlikely we'll remove ads as we'd get no where near enough income to cover costs without them :-(

Push notifications would be likely in the app.

Changed my mind. Getting push notifications that certain people have posted in the transfer window would be good. Although it would increase my addiction to that particular of the site.

 

[SimpleSimonSays]

To make it worthwhile, it would need to have content that wasn't available on the website otherwise it would just be a duplication of what we already have. I know you're always looking at ways to generate income to cover costs so I don't know why you don't just charge an annual fee. I think a £1 a month is reasonable and the real fans of this site will stay with it if you did decide to charge. There are lots of Spurs sites out there but only one SC.

 

[King of Otters]

I wouldn't pay as I'm tight af, but I would definitely download. I do browse SC quite a lot on mobile and the usability isn't great. The ad bar that loads a second or two after everything else is the bane of my life.

 

[DaSpurs]

Changed my mind. Getting push notifications that certain people have posted in the transfer window would be good. Although it would increase my addiction to that particular of the site.

Being bluntly honest, I would indeed pay some for this. I don't have the free time I had even a year ago, and so receiving alerts during the transfer windows would be a really nice touch.

The question I have for @Rob is then: what would this mean for the servers on deadline days? As we all know, the servers have understandably strained during these periods, so what would this app mean for that? Would it add further strain, no difference, or even possibly alleviate strain? And secondly, would the app itself stay running on those days with all the demand? That may be a difficult question to answer as of now of course, but anything about the server would be helpful in making my decision as to whether to pay or not.

 

[DaSpurs]

I wouldn't pay as I'm tight af, but I would definitely download. I do browse SC quite a lot on mobile and the usability isn't great. The ad bar that loads a second or two after everything else is the bane of my life.

Absolutely true. That is a massively royal pain in the ass while trying to navigate on mobile, and especially when you're trying to make a post.

 

[Mr.D]

I wouldn't pay as I'm tight af, but I would definitely download. I do browse SC quite a lot on mobile and the usability isn't great. The ad bar that loads a second or two after everything else is the bane of my life.

This. With bells on.
Apart from that I find the mobile site OK.
Would certainly contribute to an app initially but long term I always revert to a browser.

 

[Rob]

Being bluntly honest, I would indeed pay some for this. I don't have the free time I had even a year ago, and so receiving alerts during the transfer windows would be a really nice touch.

The question I have for @Rob is then: what would this mean for the servers on deadline days? As we all know, the servers have understandably strained during these periods, so what would this app mean for that? Would it add further strain, no difference, or even possibly alleviate strain? And secondly, would the app itself stay running on those days with all the demand? That may be a difficult question to answer as of now of course, but anything about the server would be helpful in making my decision as to whether to pay or not.

We upgraded the server in October. It's (in theory) MASSIVELY faster than it used to be but the real test will be deadline day. At the minute everything suggests that it'll cope well.

The app should make minimal difference to how the server performs. Any push notifications would be by a third-party and if anything, the app may be less of a strain on the server.

 

[DaSpurs]

We upgraded the server in October. It's (in theory) MASSIVELY faster than it used to be but the real test will be deadline day. At the minute everything suggests that it'll cope well.

The app should make minimal difference to how the server performs. Any push notifications would be by a third-party and if anything, the app may be less of a strain on the server.

Awesome, thanks for the answers! And that's great news!

This may be a more prospective question, but do you suspect there might be a threshold (even annual) such that we wouldn't need ads on the app?

 

[Rob]

Awesome, thanks for the answers! And that's great news!

This may be a more prospective question, but do you suspect there might be a threshold (even annual) such that we wouldn't need ads on the app?

It really depends. Something like half our traffic is via mobile nowadays and we couldn't ever afford to lose half our advertising revenue unless we somehow guaranteed that we'd cover the server costs via subscriptions.

 

[MilkyBarYid]

It really depends. Something like half our traffic is via mobile nowadays and we couldn't ever afford to lose half our advertising revenue unless we somehow guaranteed that we'd cover the server costs via subscriptions.

Perhaps a fiver a month subscription to remove ads would be great for those who want to pay to see the site without ads, I certainly would and would form part of my donations to this great site.

 

[tototoner]

£5 annual fee sounds reasonable to me

 

[Amo]

Wouldn't an app reduce server strain and costs by only downloading (and caching) posts without having to keep downloading layout and stuff? And the fact that an app can cache content means refreshes don't keep redownloading the same things over and over?