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> people who installed our news reader But how many people installed your reader? I think it's easy to explain why they engage more with your site in your app:

> people who installed our news reader But how many people installed your reader? I think it's easy to explain why they engage more with your site in your app: they have nowhere else to go, and the website icon is there, on the screen. This doesnt scale

iainmerrick 8y ago
In what way does it need to scale?
- buboard 8y ago
  in every way. imagine having to switch between apps to read every article in HN
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    That would be okay if there were a Hacker News app that could display all the stories. I mean, I agree with you that simple web pages are best for simple news and articles. But I don’t think you can immediately generalize that to “apps don’t scale”.
    - asdff 8y ago
      There is a HN app that displays all the stories (safari popup for links)
    - buboard 8y ago
      an app for every website would not scale icon-wise. and it would destroy the hypertext
KaiserPro 8y ago
A significant number of the subscribers. There were at the time something like 800k of them. Its important to say that it was a choice, there was no full page banner or bouncer that forced people to install the webapp, it was entirely optional. If, however you are saying that people only click on it because there is an icon on their phone, then you are making possibly the biggest argument for keeping apps (although its perfectly possible to have webapps on the homescreen with icons)
- olau 8y ago
  Did your old company adjust for selection bias? It seems to me the category of people who have gone to the length to install an app is perhaps going to spend more time with the content compared to the full set of people interacting with the content.
  - KaiserPro 8y ago
    Yes. Engagement is measured across the entire subscriber cohort. consumer "councils" are made up of a selection of subscribers, so we can adequately get data from all sections. We had a webapp, the users were very engaged. We replaced the webapp with a native app, we got way more people who very engaged, we also got loads more people who were mildly engaged. The overall effect was more engagement from a wider base of subscribers. Lowering the bar to entry, proper offline caching of content, faster loading, just a better more seamless experience.

iainmerrick 8y ago

In what way does it need to scale?

buboard 8y ago
in every way. imagine having to switch between apps to read every article in HN
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  That would be okay if there were a Hacker News app that could display all the stories. I mean, I agree with you that simple web pages are best for simple news and articles. But I don’t think you can immediately generalize that to “apps don’t scale”.
  - asdff 8y ago
    There is a HN app that displays all the stories (safari popup for links)
  - buboard 8y ago
    an app for every website would not scale icon-wise. and it would destroy the hypertext

KaiserPro 8y ago

A significant number of the subscribers. There were at the time something like 800k of them. Its important to say that it was a choice, there was no full page banner or bouncer that forced people to install the webapp, it was entirely optional. If, however you are saying that people only click on it because there is an icon on their phone, then you are making possibly the biggest argument for keeping apps (although its perfectly possible to have webapps on the homescreen with icons)

olau 8y ago
Did your old company adjust for selection bias? It seems to me the category of people who have gone to the length to install an app is perhaps going to spend more time with the content compared to the full set of people interacting with the content.
- KaiserPro 8y ago
  Yes. Engagement is measured across the entire subscriber cohort. consumer "councils" are made up of a selection of subscribers, so we can adequately get data from all sections. We had a webapp, the users were very engaged. We replaced the webapp with a native app, we got way more people who very engaged, we also got loads more people who were mildly engaged. The overall effect was more engagement from a wider base of subscribers. Lowering the bar to entry, proper offline caching of content, faster loading, just a better more seamless experience.