1 Billion apps downloaded last week : What's it mean for attorneys and law firms?

Fellow Seattleite and Senior Editor at the Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsDigital, Tricia Duryee, reports that the number of apps downloaded exceeded 1 Billion for the last week of 2011.

In a new report, Flurry Analytics estimates that in the final seven days of 2011, 1.2 billion apps were downloaded worldwide across both Android and iOS, representing a 60 percent jump over a typical week…….Flurry had said last week that a record-breaking 6.8 million iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas Day, along with an equally record-breaking 242 million application downloads. For the entire week, it now is estimating that 20 million iOS and Android devices were activated.

Additionally, Flurry discovered that Americans represented the biggest app addicts, downloading 509 million of the worldwide total…….In 2011, it added, Apple’s App Store was on pace to exceed 10 billion downloads, which was twice the number it recorded over the three previous years combined. Likewise, the Android Market is also setting records. Over the past seven months, it achieved more than seven billion downloads, taking its life-to-date total past 10 billion.

What’s it mean for you as an attorney or your law firm?

• You must appreciate that these apps are going on smart phones and tablets (primarily iPads in the case of tablets).
• Your websites and blogs must be mobile enabled for your users to have a pleasant browsing experience. Note that mobile ready or mobile-enabled does not mean developing an app. It means using current technology with simple HTML code.
• You need not run out and build an app for your law firm. Leverage all the other apps out there that will run laps around your app when it comes to disseminating your content and giving you the ability to engage your target audience.
• You need to start using a tablet, such as an iPad, and apps. Not only would it make your life easier, but you’d stay current with your clients and business associates, as opposed to falling further behind.
• As a law firm, consider buying iPads for all of your lawyers, and preferably all of your professionals. Seattle and Portland based Lane Powell bought iPads for all of their over 200 lawyers. You wouldn’t consider not equipping your lawyers with telephones, tablets may be just as important.
• Your clients and prospective clients time using social networking and social media is exploding. Most of the time is on apps on mobile devices. How can you network and engage these folks if you are not using the apps and mobile devices they are?
• Business development today requires smart use of the Internet. Not using apps and mobile devices strategically means you are losing ground and clients to competitors.

Don’t view iPads and apps as gimmicks. View them as a way to improve your life and a way to engage clients and business associates. You don’t really have a choice.