Chris Dixon

  • April 20, 2012
Offline first, mobile enabled

One of the major trends in tech startups what Fred Wilson calls “Mobile first, web second.” Instagram is a great example of mobile first. They barely had a website – it was all about the mobile app.

The excitement over mobile-first apps is justified. Smartphones have unleashed a wave of creativity, resulting in entirely new categories of applications. But to me an even more exciting trend is what people have been calling (for lack of a better phrase) ”offline first, mobile enabled” apps.

For example, Foursquare is primarily about improving your offline experiences (meeting friends and finding new places to go). And it couldn’t exist without smartphones (ok, Dodgeball existed on feature phones but had a fraction of the utility). Similarly, Uber couldn’t exist without smartphones. The Uber apps (one for drivers and one for customers), while essential, are all about enabling for the car service. Square is about making payments more convenient and giving small businesses better analytics. The mobile app is just an enabler.

It seems natural that the first wave of mobile apps would be about improving core smartphone apps (e.g. photo apps) or porting apps from other devices (e.g. games). And there is probably a lot of interesting innovation remaining there. But the really massive opportunity is dreaming up new ways that the little computers loaded with sensors that we carry around with us everywhere can improve our real-world experiences.

  • Anonymous

    Just wanna say -> Y.e.s!

  • http://twitter.com/mattmiesnieks Matt Miesnieks

    …and they will start out looking like toys

    • JamesHRH

      @cdixon:disqus actually, I would morph this idea into ‘they will not look like businesses’.
      Some of them will look like hobbies…..to the truly uninvolved, YouTube would not look like a business for a long time, nor would any social service……etc.

  • Anonymous

    What about the “old school” model, Software / Desktop first, web second? 

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      Downloadable desktop software seems to be a shrinking category.

      • Anonymous

        But then, what about company like Dropbox? 

        • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

          There are exceptions to every trend. Plus dropbox is a lot about mobile these days.

          • Anonymous

            I tried using the iOS dropbox app but I don’t see the use case? Or do you mean the integration of dropbox in the other app such as Instacast for podcast or video with Cinexplayer?

    • http://www.andyinsandiego.com/ Andy

      Thats long gone :) .

  • http://www.andyinsandiego.com/ Andy

    Totally agree. I’m not very interested in an app or game that makes me live more of my life looking down at my phone, but apps that make my “real world” experience more convenient are definitely welcome.

  • http://twitter.com/LDrogen Leigh Drogen

    100% yes

  • http://openid.anonymity.com/yv5j4n Him

    By the way, how come you are not using Foursquare?

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      I use foursquare all the time.

      • http://openid.anonymity.com/yv5j4n Him

         Sorry, assumed you didn’t because your feed has no check-ins.

        • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

          I think you can only see them if we are foursquare friends.

  • Anonymous

    Totally agree. I think of it more like mobile is part of a new foundational infrastructure.  Completely new experiences will be built and old offline ones will be changed. I’ve become a total Hypernet fanboy. http://rogerandmike.com/

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      Yeah, a friend just pointed out this blog post is similar to the hypernet idea. Love that blog too.

    • JamesHRH

      rob – infrastructure always releases innovation. I agree & chris’ hyper net reference is bang on as well.

  • http://surajjain.tumblr.com/ Suraj Jain

    I think this directly ties with your post yesterday. There’s only so much you can really do on your phone, it’s all about using the phone to get you to improve your life in some way. 

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      Yeah, it’s not a coincidence these posts came together. I’ve been trying to think about the next wave of the internet and what can be most impactful. 

      • JamesHRH

        Developing a personal time investment thesis?

        I have done the same thing.

        Fred W was chewing his way through one last summer, for sure.

        • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

          Partly investment, and partly just personal interest in technology and the future.

          • JamesHRH

            The second part is one of life’s most addictive problem solving activities, IMO.

  • http://robbschiller.com Robb Schiller

    Seems hard to define what’s “Offline” and “Online” with mobile though – Couldn’t sharing a photo of an “Offline” moment through your mobile phone be considered “Offline first, Mobile enabled”?

    I think the “Always On” intermingling of Online and Offline is what catapults Mobile into a special category. Perhaps we just need a better phrase for what your describing “Mobile nonline”? ; )

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      Fair point, but I think that’s why the phrasing “Offline first” is important: it’s about priorities. Certainly photo sharing and many mobile apps interact with the offline world. But the priority is on the online interaction. With apps like Uber and Square, the apps are relatively trivial compared to the offline behavior they enable.

  • Srinagesh Eranki

    I guess you can attribute it directly to the increase in the amount of time people send on their smartphones / 3rd screen vs. the desktop

  • http://blog.calbucci.com/ Marcelo Calbucci

    Chris, for me “offline first, mobile enabled” is a subset of the “hybrid technology”, i.e. technology that bridges the virtual world and real world. Yelp, Redfin and Foursquare are all great examples of “hybrid”. 

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      I agree. But the reason it’s an interesting subset is that it was only possible with the widespread adoption of cell phones. Redfin is a great company, but was (technologically) possible before smartphones. What is interesting now is to see what is unlocked in the “hybrid” world by smartphones (IMO).

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  • JamesHRH

    The Crossing the Chasm approach would ignore the actual product features & require you to think what new solutions can be built on the always on, anywhere internet?

    Its like panning for gold: things you could do shaking through the screen…things of real value getting caught.

  • Anonymous

    It seems to me that in many cases, the online leader will extend to become the offline leader. 
    A good example is maps: maps on smart phone are probably the most useful “offline” service, yet the top providers are the online leaders (google).Recently a friend came up with a start-up idea: have smartphone users take pictures of clothes in real-world boutiques and crowd-source feeds of what’s cool. All was going well until we realized that pinterest had already started covering the offline world…

    I’m not saying that there’s no room for “pure” offline-first innovation, but the hybrid ones are likely to be dominated by the online leaders, don’t you think?

  • http://engag.io/ William Mougayar

    Just because there’s a new method doesn’t mean we have to throw out the older one.

    Mobile apps and capabilities are tremendous and getting richer and richer, but the web experience is not being replaced by mobile. I think mobile is becoming almost like the front-end/data-entry part, and the web is the back-end/reporting part.

    There are things you can do on the web that don’t lend themselves to mobile. It’s a complementary ying and yang.

  • Jason Keramidas

    It’s not just that smartphones have increased capabilities, it is the idea that those increased capabilities are moving people away from the desktop for their computing needs. In the process of developing mobile apps for physicians, it has become really clear that your average doctor is rarely at a desk, and so needs mobile tools to make information readily available and make their jobs easier when they aren’t in an office. I think they are ahead of the curve and we’ll all be moving towards that end of the spectrum in the near future

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  • http://www.lindventures.com/blog Brad Lindenberg

    I’m building a platform that bridges the online and offline worlds of commerce enabling eCommerce outside of the web browser. We should talk… brad[at]lindventures.com. I believe enabling commerce in the offline world (via online technologies) is one of the largest opportunity that exists in tech, and nobody has nailed it. The startup that nails this is going to kill it. 

  • http://demo.favorly.com/ Brandon Burns

    are you contradicting your last post?

    this feels like a focus on trends as they apply to verticals and devices, instead of the meaning of the mission and then execute it in whatever way makes sense. just like your last post laid out so well. 

    why focus on mobile to enhance offline interactions? cases in point: meetup, skillshare, craigslist… 
    offline interaction isn’t a vertical, it’s just normal life. any device can make it better, depending on what it is. my phone can help me find friends when out, my PC can help me plan classes to attend when i have downtime and screen size to browse, my car can help me pick out my grocery list as i drive to the store.

    meaning over trend. 

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      I don’t think I’m contradicting my last post. Lots of startups are trying to improve offline interactions via (primarily) the desktop web and that’s great (meetup, skillshare etc). But ubiquitous smartphones are major a new development and, if you look at the history of technology, inflection points like that tend to lead to a wave of innovation. I think the focus on offline can lead to more “meaningful” startups instead of more stuff to get you to sit in front of the computer clicking on virtual cows etc.

      • http://demo.favorly.com/ Brandon Burns

        agreed. i’m personally knee-deep in building an online experience focused on offline interaction. and i’ve never liked virtual cows. i hear you loud and clear.

        i’m a ux designer, so i think a lot about crafting experiences… which, if you do it right, is really more about inserting yourself into the experience the user is already familiar with, with respect to what you want them to do.

        the phone has become the default camera, gps device, and game consol for many people (and if you add the iPad, you can throw books in there). of note: all of those things were already “mobile devices” before they got integrated into a phone. when you need people to do something that they’re not used to doing while on the go, such as anything that takes a lot of typing, focused searching, or reading (unless you’ve got a tablet sized screen), mobile can be a hinderance. but for natural on-the-go activities, it’s awesome.

        as a fan of getting offline, was just trying to make the point to anyone who might be listening that, depending on the how and the why you want people to get offline, mobile may or may not be the best 1st choice. but certainly agree that it should be given a strong 1st look due to the reasons you laid out. especially if you can adapt the mobile experience to get rid of some roadblocks, like Siri does for typing.

        here’s to cow tipping outside, instead of in farmville.

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  • Anonymous

    Great post, Chris. Your comment that  “mobile app is just an enabler” is absolutely right. The apps remind me of the CD-ROMs, they are just the channels to convey information or deliver services, nothing more or less. The beauty is apps tired with mobile so that they know who you are, where you are, and maybe what you are doing. So any offline activities that can make use of the sensors, location, and accelerometer could be made more efficient/relevant.

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  • https://twitter.com/danEpstein140 Dan Epstein

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