Handmark's Reddick on the future of applications, app stores and the smartphone battlefield

Headed by Sprint Nextel alumni and industry veteran Paul Reddick, Handmark offers an independent app store, manages app stores for major manufacturers like Samsung, and develops and distributes applications for a range of content providers, including major news outlets like Thomson Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Following the dramatic changes in the mobile applications market during the past year, FierceMobileContent Managing Editor Mike Dano pinged Reddick on the evolution of the mobile content market and Handmark's role within it.

FierceMobileContent: Can you briefly explain Handmark's business model, and where the company's focus is?

Reddick: The focus for us right now is bringing publishers to mobile, and specializing not only in the development, but being a provider to not only help them in distribution, monetization and the ongoing innovation of mobile applications. And what we've been consistent in from day one is a focus on smartphones and developing compelling applications. I think the only thing that has really changed significantly is a major growth, acceleration and adoption of smartphones, and people using applications on smartphones. And the distribution models have evolved a lot over time, and especially in the last two years.

FierceMobileContent: How does your company make money?

Reddick: It varies. The distribution model for applications varies by country, by platform, by carrier. The platforms that you build on--whether it's iPhone or Android or others--the business models can vary as well. ... In some cases they really want to pay to have an application built, but more than anything else they need a partner to help not only build a compelling application but get it distributed, and also monetize it.

So in many cases what we do is share in the upside of an application, and work more on a success basis and make it very low cost for a brand to get an application up across all of the major platforms simultaneously. And then we'll share in the upside as advertising and sales of other apps from within that app take place.

FierceMobileContent: With the newfound interest in app stores, is there more money for developers now than in the past? Where are the opportunities?

Reddick: I think the market has morphed significantly from a developer perspective, where the old challenge was to not only get your application built but to get it into a store. And there were a number of routes to do that, but Handmark was a great route and it still continues to be a great route for getting applications into either carrier or OEM app stores, or even the Handmark store.

But that is less of a challenge going forward. The bigger challenge is being discovered. And when you get into the iPhone App Store, for example, and you're competing with 100,000 other applications, or on Android with more than 20,000 other applications, it's kind of easy to get into the store, and it's a challenge to get discovered. ... Our solution to that is that we have an ecosystem to drive discovery of applications, including from within free applications. And if you're offering a free application, you need to be able to drive monetization through advertising or through the sale of other apps that people will actually pay real money for.

FierceMobileContent: Can you provide an example?

Reddick: We can drive discovery from within other applications that people are using on a regular basis. So someone is reading their local newspaper--and look for more local newspapers to come from us as well--and if you're reading your local newspaper from your phone, it's getting your Sudoku game discovered, or your couponing app, or other applications discovered. It's not just getting pumped into a big-box store where people come proactively to search for applications, but getting people spontaneously where they're at...Continued

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