RunawayTrader

Well, not exactly. But trust me. There will be such a carnal cyber-app sometime in the near future.

Don’t believe me? Well, you must have missed Thursday night’s CNBC showing of Planet of the Apps because if you had viewed it, you will come to believe, as I have, that there will eventually be an app for everything, including sexual liaisons.  And if you did miss it, here’s a link to some highlights and don’t worry—CNBC will rebroadcast this thing dozens of times in the coming weeks.

I admit I was slow to arrive on the apps bandwagon and boarded the iPhone rather obliquely because I wanted a more mobile platform from which to trade stocks. If you read last missive on this subject, you’ll know I settled on iStockManager, a terrific app that leads me to believe that in the future, I might not use a laptop, let alone a desktop, to make my trades.

Still, I’ve be adding trading (and other) apps as I go along. Soon I’ll need a filing system just to keep track of them all. I’ve got trading apps, news apps, travel apps, music apps, social networking apps, etc., etc., etc.

The Future of Apps

Where will it stop? Well, obviously, in the next year or so there will be a seismic shakeout in the app landscape and thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of apps will disappear into techno liquefaction. Call it an app “bubble” if you like, but lots of folks (especially app developers) are likely to lose gobs of money as app store shelves buckle under the weight of new, and often redundant, applications.

Even CNBC’s show offered the cautionary tale of one group of developers who spent a half million dollars on their app and related marketing—only to have the Apple “approval” process freeze their app in no-man’s-land with neither approval or disapproval.

In the meantime, you can expect all web URL’s will begin to remake their sites to make them smartphone accessible and friendly. They realize (or should) that the Internet is really going mobile, and the old site designs just don’t cut it. I mean, if my little blog is iPhone accessible (and it is) how long can it be before the world’s websites will be redesigned to follow suit? That’s a bonanza of work for web designers. Still, look for an app sometime soon to help you redesign your site for the smartphone.

Expect corporate sponsors to get more deeply involved in app development. Here I’m not only talking about car makers who’ll add screens and apps to auto dashboards, but companies that manufacture a broad spectrum of products from coffee makers to cash registers to Coke machines to feature apps that enable communications with smartphones.

Actually that app is already here. Bump uses location-based technology and WiFi to exchange contact information between two iPhones or compatibles. Theoretically you can “bump” a cash register terminal and pay for your groceries, your Big Mac and fries, or the front door of your house to unlock it.

My son, Marty, the digital innovation guy for Minneapolis-based Fallon Advertising, is now at the CES convention in Las Vegas drinking in all that’s new, smartphone app and otherwise. I can hardly wait to discover, firsthand, what he’s learned and his predictions of the mobile future. Incidentally, If CES stuff interests you, follow his play-by-play Tweets from the convention floor at this link.

In any event, get ready. There’s a jillion more apps coming to a app store near you—whether you like it or not.

Oh, and one last confession. I wrote this entire piece on my desktop—-but I could have written it on my iPhone because there’s an app for that. And here it is.