Mobilized: An Insider's Guide to the Business and Future of Connected Technology

by SC Moatti, Nir Eyal Narrated by Natalie Hoyt

Overview

That person slumped over her cell phone is disengaged, isolated, lost in her own little world, right? Wrong, says SC Moatti. She's highly engaged-she's having a text conversation with a friend in Europe, playing a game with another, and looking for a good place to go to dinner with a third. Mobile technology has become such an integral part of how we interact that for many people, losing a cell phone is like losing a limb. And the most successful mobile apps are precisely those that enhance and multiply the frequency and power of our real-world interactions.



Moatti-a technologist and industry insider-says these kinds of mobile apps adhere to three universal principles: They must have a simple design, enable the user to personalize them, and be continually improved by their makers through relentless attention to analytics. She uses examples from a host of great mobile app creators-Facebook, Yelp, Lyft, Tinder, Aerbnb, Trulia, WhatsApp, and more-to demonstrate how it's done. Even as technology evolves and smartphones are replaced by smaller mobile devices such as watches and contact lenses, these three principles will remain evergreen. The market is full of how-to books for creating apps, but no works examine what qualities make for great mobile products. Until now.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Moatti gets what makes people fall in love with mobile. And now you get in on her formula. Business is too important to be left to luck. Ignore this book at your peril.”
—Jonathan Badeen, cofounder and Senior Vice President of Product, Tinder

“For years, we talked about the rise of mobile, but the shift has definitively happened for people and it’s imperative that businesses understand how to be successful. Moatti shares valuable insights for anyone who doesn’t want to be left behind.”
—David Fischer, Vice President for Business and Marketing Partnerships, Facebook

“This book is rare. It looks at mobile with an insider’s knowledge and deep caring about human beings.”
—Chris Anderson, CEO, 3D Robotics, and New York Times bestselling author of The Long Tail

“Moatti brings together art, science, real-world case studies, and practical advice to help your teams make sense of and succeed with mobile.”
—Kira Wampler, Chief Marketing Officer, Lyft

“SC Moatti is a genius at making mobile products people love. In a disarmingly simple style that makes it accessible to a wide audience, mobilized provides the key to succeeding in mobile.”
—Andrew Chen, Head of Supply Growth, Uber

“This is an engaging and thought-provoking read. The book itself conforms to the first component of Moatti’s Mobile Formula: its simplicity and efficiency make it a thing of beauty.”
—James Lattin, Robert A. Magowan Professor of Marketing, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Mobile has taken the world by storm. Moatti has written a brilliant book that should be read by anyone who doesn’t want to be left behind. Get it as quickly as you can.”
—Patricia Roller, founder and former CEO, Frog Design

“A fun and practical read for everyone who cares about understanding mobile.”
—Sverre Munck, Chairman of the Board, Opera Software 

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191010151
Publisher:	Ascent Audio
Publication date:	05/02/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Foreword by Nir Eyal

I remember the first time I saw a URL. It was 1995, I was a teenager, and I was flipping through my hometown newspaper when I spotted a movie ad. At the bottom were the words “Check us out online at www . . .”

I had no idea what “www” meant, but being the nerd I was (and still am), I rushed to my computer. Eagerly, I waited 5 minutes for the spinning disks to boot up and weathered another 10 minutes of crashes and reboots.

Finally, I was able to type the URL into my Internet service provider’s search bar, and Prodigy promptly took me nowhere. Instead of a web page, I got an error message.

Not that it would have mattered much.

Let me remind you that 1995 web pages were truly terrible. A look back at websites of yesteryear reveals hard-tonavigate, text-laden walls of words that no one would want to interact with today.

No wonder relatively few offline businesses shifted their resources into building an online presence. It would take years, if not a decade, after the first web browser was born for businesses to realize the importance of that lowly “www.”

Today, having a website is a requirement—it’s the modern-day equivalent of hanging a shingle, announcing you are open for business.

The lesson here is that—at first—sweeping industry changes can easily be dismissed. They’re often seen as something companies can get to later on, when time allows and budgets free up. But, of course, later on often comes too late and, while laggards are still deciding what to do, their competitors are cashing in.

As of this writing in late 2015, we’re just seven years into the mobile revolution as marked by the opening of the Apple App Store in 2008—and yet what an incredibly rapid revolution it has been.

Consider this: whereas most companies just a decade ago lacked even a basic mobile presence, today entire multibillion-dollar enterprises operate only in the mobile space. In fact, many of the biggest players and service providers globally—such as Uber—only exist in mobile.

Like so many did when websites first arrived, small and medium-sized businesses today have ignored or neglected their mobile strategy. However, giving customers a way to do business with you through their mobile devices is fast becoming a necessity, as important as having a presence on the World Wide Web. Just as eagerly as I wanted to get online as a teenager to check out that particular movie’s website, your customers want to interact with you through their mobile devices. CNN reported last year that over half of Internet usage comes from mobile devices in the US—a percentage that is significantly higher in other parts of the world where mobile is the only way to access the web.1

In this book, my friend Sophie-Charlotte (SC) Moatti gets you ready for what’s to come.

I first met SC three years ago. She was working at Facebook and invited me to speak to her team. I was impressed. “I’m going mobile only,” she told me. “Trying to get my work done without a computer. I’m almost there . . .” When everyone else was still carrying around a laptop, SC was pioneering the effective use of mobile technology in ways the rest of us had yet to see.

SC recognizes the vital role mobile applications will play in our future. From her years of practice in mobile, she honed her craft and learned how to build mobile services and apps that get users engaged and keep them coming back.

In this book, she lays out the ground rules for what works and what doesn’t in mobile. She shares insights she xii mobilized gleaned working at Facebook, Nokia, and other companies to give us her unique perspective on how to, in her words, “build products that count.”

Enjoy getting mobilized!

Videos