hey this is the daily overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps. Now today I want
to talk about how you have to protect your brand
Alright so it is a beautiful spring morning here in Oxfordshire, I don't know
if you guys can hear the birds chirping and everything but the sun came out, the
rain stopped it it's just nice. It's actually a shame I'm on my way into work
now, it's a shame to go sit in the office for the rest of the day, but you know
cool thing is I get to work on apps and overpass stuff, so yeah I'm
actually looking forward to it. So anyway a strange thing happened yesterday - I was
going for, last night just I was about to go out for a run, and yeah I'm
constantly checking the comments on the YouTube videos. Yeah, I wish I could say I
didn't, I wish I could say I was cooler about it, like, you know, I checked once a
day or whatever, but I'll check throughout the day, and I saw that
I had a comment on one of the videos from one of the founders of the app or
one of the cofounders of the ionic framework, you know somebody who I really
admire and look up to. I thought wow, this guy found one
of my videos! So I looked to see which video it was and it was the one I did
about a month ago where I was talking about why we're not gonna use
the ionic framework for any new projects. And basically he was saying
that, you know, while he understands that I'm a fan - because I was very positive
about it right, I am a big fan of the ionic framework, it was just the
underlying Cordova part of it then I had my doubts about, and I still kind of have
my doubts about it. But he was saying that I was spreading FUD, which is fear
uncertainty and doubt, I had to look that up, about the framework and I was doing
it unnecessarily and everything like that. So I went out for my run and
as I'm running I'm thinking about this thinking: "Was I really you know,
I didn't say that ionic didn't work and I didn't say that Ionic was bad, I just
said I had a fear that one day, if Apple decides to, they could remove those kind
of apps from it, and it wasn't just that, I was doing some searching around a lot
of people calling for Cordova and webview apps would be removed completely,
which would be completely ridiculous and it wasn't anything about the technology
or anything like that or how it works. I'm a big huge fan, my problem is
with Apple and the uncertainty of Apple and how I don't see them as being the
most stable when it comes to app reviews and everything like that.
So anyway, I responded to that review and I pinned it to the top. I said
hey thank you very much I'll put this at the top so that if anybody comes to see
this video, they'll see what you have to say and and your take on it.
Everything like that, and you know thanks, I thought it was
really cool that he responded. Then I thought, I was going to bed and I started thinking
wait, why did he respond? How did you even find that video? And then I did a search
on ionic framework, and guess what video comes up at the top, right after all
those years of tutorials, all their videos, all the stuff out there, the one
that comes at the top is the one I did about a month ago. Now I think that
that will change, I think it's probably a temporary algorithm thing with YouTube.
I'm sure by the time you, so this video goes out in a few days, I'm sure by
the time you see it, it probably won't be at the top anymore but when I saw it, oh my
god, you know, if you do a search on an ionic framework - just that, mine shows up
at the top, which is probably not the fairest thing. And I started thinking,
this guy he had to protect, he had to not only allay any fears that I might be
rising up, perhaps recklessly but I mean
they're my fears it's my opinion right as I've always said I am NOT an expert
on anything, but if I make a decision if I go one way or another then I'll you
know I'll tell you guys about it cuz it's on my mind. But not only
did he have to protect that, but he had to protect the brand, right, it was
something which was not what I was doing. I was not out there to to deface the
brand or make people not use ionic or anything like that. I was just saying my
opinion - kind of the fears that I had going forward, and the fears that I
still have going forward, which is why we're still gonna go with some of
the other frameworks because we've been moving in that direction since the
beginning of the year. So, what bothered me was that my videos at the
top, and i thought about taking it down, I thought, you know, maybe this
is unfair I'll take the video down, and then I thought no, the algorithm will sort
itself out in a few days, you know, it's still my opinion, there's still
people watching it, there's still people who like to know what do I think about
these kind of things, so it's there. But one of the things I'm always
thinking about is also, within terms of the apps world, if I talked a lot about
the copycats for other apps, so there's other apps that are copying my main app,
Ear Agent, and all the time. The same colors, sometimes they use the same icon,
the same imagery, the same description, and I have to keep going into google
play, mostly with Google Play, it's not really with
iTunes, I have to go into Google Play and I have to report them and just report
them the Google saying "hey, they're using our copyright". I get in touch
with the developer first, and then if they don't get back to me then I
contact Google, which might seem a bit harsh but it's something
you have to do. For that, I have to protect the brand, right.
And one of my fears is that one of those copycats is gonna get better at ASO,
better at marketing and that they're gonna actually do better than my main
app, and then they're gonna take over, which is not what I was trying to do
that video but it's the same similar kind of thing. You have to protect your
brand at all costs, and this is why I think is important to be involved in the
social media and YouTube and everything like that. I know I've
talked about this before, but one of my clients, early on when I told them that I
get bad reviews on my apps from time to time, so my
first ever review on an app was "WTF this sucks". It crushed me, it was
the first one that came through and on the first day, but luckily had a lot more
five stars come in since then and at the moment it's mostly five stars. But
there's a lot of one stars and it's just something that I live with.
I live with people saying bad things about this kind of stuff and I could
live with it as long as it stays in a certain level, but if it ever starts to
outstrip it, it's just one of those things. But I talked to a client, I said
how people will say "yeah this is great", "this is fantastic", "this sucks", and he was
like, "people actually say this sucks? What can you do? Can you have it removed?" And I
said, "no, you just have to live with it, you just have to make
it better, that kind of feedback. So anyway, I appreciate what they're trying
to do. By no means was I trying to take away from the brand, and I
wasn't trying to say the sky is falling, because it's not, I'm just saying that as
someone who looks after my clients how I'm trying to
see the technology that's coming. I make certain assumptions, I have certain
opinions, and those were my opinions, and you may have different opinions. So
anyway, sorry to ramble on a little bit - this is what's on my mind totally this
morning, so anyway that's it for today, I'll talk to you tomorrow.
you