Business App-titude

Cell phone applications—or “apps,” as they are called—are computer programs that serve to turn otherwise dumb phones into smart, handheld computers. Recycling is well-represented in the app marketplace.

Recycling apps range from scrap metal value calculators to full-blown business software. Still others, such as Recyclepal by Greener Corners of Rutherford, N.J. , offer incentives to individuals or groups who participate in recycling programs. General business apps also are available for fees ranging from 99 cents to $25.
 

Mobile Primer
By the end of this year, 51 percent of all cell phone users in the United States are projected to own smartphones. That’s quite a large slice of potential retail recyclers in the country, considering 87 percent of all U.S. adults own a mobile phone.

What is a smartphone, exactly? “A smartphone is any phone that can download and install an ‘app,’ a mobile phone application,” says Jason Barnett, executive director of The Uptake.com, a Minnesota-based online publication.

“In the first quarter of 2011, there were more smartphones being shipped worldwide than feature phones,” says Regina McCombs, a faculty member of Poynter Institute, St. Petersburg, Fla. Cell phones that are not smartphones are called feature phones. They can do a variety of things, such as send and receive email, access the Web and take pictures but they can’t install an app.

An app is a program designed to run on a smartphone. Apps do all kinds of things—virtually anything you can do on the Web.

More than half of app usage occurs while people are waiting for something or someone. “Market research also points to heavy app usage while commuting,” says Lynn Smith, founder of Shiny New Apps, a Minneapolis-based mobile strategy and development shop. That means your customer may be in his vehicle when using a recycling app. He may have a recycling task on his to-do list and will see the smartphone app as a way to get a key job out of the way.
 

Enterprise App
It was only a matter of time before programmers would create an enterprise-level mobile app for the scrap industry. That is what developers at PopScrap.com did with their app of the same name.

President Stacy Duty of Borrego Springs, Calif., describes his app as a “full scrap yard solution.” One interesting feature is its bi-lingual capability, powered by a version of Android’s open-source Spanish-to-English translator.

Designed for the Android, the app also runs on Windows machines. Using code developed by BlueStacks Systems of Campbell, Calif., PopScrap can port to PCs and can support other devices, such as image capture from tablets or phones.

“It is not an emulator,” Duty says of PopScrap. “It runs at full speed on PCs with no syncing.” BlueStacks is reportedly working on a port to Apple computers.

Available from the Internet or on the Android market, PopScrap’s BOSS (back-office support software) functions as a hub for the scrap yard enterprise. It offers reporting, customer search and ATM connectivity. Users can scan a driver’s license, and optical character recognition transfers the information into the program to create a customer file, Duty says.

Other features include signature and fingerprint capture and scale connectivity via Bluetooth. “It will run unlimited tickets at the same time,” Duty says.

Any output can be printed on Bluetooth-, network- or USB-connected printers, according to the company. It also offers the ability to provide DR6 shipping reports, which are required by the California Department of Conservation for transactions involving California redemption value (CRV) containers.

The PopScrap system costs $49 per month, while BOSS costs $5,000 for three stations and $10,000 for 10 stations. The price includes various support devices, such as a digital driver’s license scanner.
 

The Mobile Audience
One of the big reasons why it may be worthwhile to think about creating or using a mobile app is how the Internet is accessed today. “According to Google, 45 percent of its Internet searches are made from mobile phones,” Smith says. That means customers can connect with you from wherever they are.

Smartphone and tablet ownership is spread relatively evenly across U.S. income levels, Smith observes. “From 2008 to 2010, the highest growth in smartphone and tablet users was in the $75,000-plus-per-year households.” She says 2011 saw a growth spurt among households earning $15,000 to $35,000 per year.

The mobile Internet market also cuts across all ethnicities. Forty-eight percent of African-American adults have mobile Internet access, while 45 percent of Hispanics and 31 percent of whites can access the Internet via mobile device.

Research from Google’s Thinkmobile service shows that smartphone and tablet users are multi-taskers. Eighty percent use these devices while watching TV, and 40 percent do so daily, raising some interesting marketing possibilities for recyclers using both forms of media.

Sixty percent checked email, 59 percent checked information related to the programs they were viewing and 46 percent surfed for information unrelated to programming.

According to Google, 72 percent use their smartphones while reading newspapers or magazines; 33 percent did so while watching television; 27 percent did so while playing video games; 44 percent did so while listening to music; and 28 percent, while viewing the Internet on another device.
 

Wi-Fi Wars
In the first quarter of 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, releasing the device to a hungry public a couple of months later.

By 2009, 17 percent of cell phone users had smartphones. In the first quarter of 2011, smartphone users represented 36 percent of the overall market.

Verizon Wireless and Motorola joined the fray with their Droid phone in 2009. Purchased by Google in August 2011, its Android operating system took the lead in the smartphone market last fall with a 29 percent share, edging Apple’s iOS operating system by 2 percent.

According to a Dec. 5, 2011, ComScore MobileLens survey, Google’s Android has slightly more than 46 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers. Apple’s iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod) have slightly more than 28 percent of the market, while RIM’s (Research In Motion’s) Blackberry has 17.2 percent of U.S. market share.
 

Tablets
In October 2011, Reston, Va.-based ComScore reported nearly 7 percent of Web traffic originated from a Wi-Fi connection. Smartphones account for nearly two-thirds of that number, while tablets account for “much of the remainder.”

Tablets are somewhere between a smartphone and a laptop. Leading brands are the iPad and Kindle Fire. According to ComScore, iPads account for 97 percent of the tablet traffic in the U.S.

Eight percent of U.S. adults owned a tablet as of May 2011, according to research by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. As of January 2012, that number had grown to 19 percent.

ComScore MobileLens research reveals that tablets are used during nonwork hours and on weekends. Seventy-seven percent of tablet owners use them daily and average 90 minutes per session. That is a lot of opportunity to put recycling or commodity information in your customer’s hands.

Smith says smartphone users and tablet users represent two different kinds of content consumers. “Smartphone users want local information and fast information. Tablet users are far more likely to read in depth.”

The authors are freelance writers and can be contacted at curt@curtharler.com.