Should museums all have their own apps? or is a networked model better?

We're encounter this in every conversation. Everyone wants their own iPhone app? What are the advantages of everyone getting an app for themselves, vs. delivering their content on a standardized platform? We'll discuss standalone apps below, and return to networked apps later:

Advantages of a Standalone App:

• Branding: The institution maintains a distinct identity and delivers a custom experience for end users
• For "destination" institutions (of a certain size), standalone apps make more sense as the institution can likely attract the traffic to justify the expense and effort required to build an maintain it

Disadvantages of a Standalone App:

• High Expense: Custom app development runs from between $5,000 and $25,000 per platform, depending on how intricate or complex the app is. This is before any subscription fees to the app developer to support the app, and to add features as the institution requires.
• Concentrated Marketing: The institution has to shoulder the entire marketing burden - network apps enable institutions to build on each other's traffic, thereby spreading the marketing burden out and giving each institution access to visitors who may not have otherwise visited or known about the others.
• Lack of Distribution: Because app development is so expensive for each platform, an institution can easily be looking at anywhere from $15,000 - $75.000 minimum to develop apps to cover the major platforms (Blackberry, iPhone, and Android). This doesn't even include access to Windows Mobile and Palm which might become large players in the App space. What this ultimately means is that, to be truly represented across the platform space, most institutions will have to shell out an expense equal to someone's annual salary. That, is a tough spill to swallow.

 Next up, networked apps.
Ayo