To have our own iPhone App, or not to have, that is the question.

This morning we spoke to Sam from a fellow Sydney based startup Local Sydney who’s web business aggregates local pubs and bar’s promotions like happy hour times, trivia nights, live bands etc.  

They’ve had success in being the place for pubs and bars to post their events and promotional activities (1865 events at 258 venues) on a searchable website so people can find out when and what’s going on. They have a mobile version of their site however what they’ve found missing is a mobile app which points out the deals near users and guide them to where they are.

We think website content aggregators like Local Sydney are pretty cool; their focus on a specific market ensures they’re best placed to understand what the market needs and become the go-to place for both businesses and users of that segment.

At Axle8, we’re providing a “final mile” tool for not just directly for businesses and organisations to use but also for content aggregators. If you’ve got time sensitive and/or location specific information, whether it’s your own or aggregated, and you want an awesome way to deliver it out to people when they’re on their feet and actually near the locations, we should talk.

People have also asked us about white labelling our platform so they can have their own iPhone app. We can understand the reasoning behind this and there’s certainly some clear benefits why you’d want to do this.

Our view: reports from March 2010 estimate that there are over 150,000 apps on the Apple App Store with up to 148 apps installable on the iPhone. That’s a lot of apps. We’re thinking a bespoke app is going to be hard to find on the App Store and even then, it’ll be buried within the 10’s of apps installed on the iPhone.

What we think is really compelling is a open cross category location based platform which allows users to easily find out about things near them and even things they wouldn’t have normally considered. Say it’s Thursday night and you’re thinking about a place to grab dinner, you’d open up your restaurant app to find a place near you. But what if you realised that there were some last minute tickets to the jazz club nearby or a funky local noodle market around the corner just about to start?

Having a bespoke app for your specific service limits you to only reaching people who consciously think of you. Taking more than one click is one click too much these days so if people don’t think of you first, you may unfortunately find yourself outside the consideration set.

Axle8 tries to mute the “autopilotness” that we all default into and give back the spontaneity and adventure to rediscover our surroundings that often slips us by. It’s going to be cool.