How To Create Free Mobile Apps For Events, Creative Content & Facebook Fan Pages

The array of options for taking your web presence on the road in mobile form continues to grow. And now that everyone is a content producer, many of the options for the general public are quite useful for bands. For example, Yapp is offering a simple event invite appmaker while Time To Enjoy provides another outlet for event announcements. Google Currents allows you to assemble your web media into a mobile app while Cabana gives you the ability to turn your Facebook Fan Page into an app.

While it may be true that any musician using social media and related web services probably already has a mobile web presence, digging deeper into the possiblities is simply a good idea as mobile media use continues its powerful growth.

Introducing Yapp Events

Yapp offers a free appmaking service for event invitations that's now in public beta mode. The options are fairly constrained but potentially useful for promoting a special show. Here's how it works:

"Visit Yapp.us and select a template or theme for your App (wedding, birthday, etc). Then fill out basic event information, such as date, time and location. Send friends invites and they'll be sent a link to download your event on the free native app, Yappbox. Every Yapp invite they receive will be pulled into Yappbox, so they won't have to keep downloading multiple event invites. Invitees can add messages and pictures to the app you create too."

Yapp is starting with events but intends to branch out with other mobile products for non-technical users.

Your Events May Already Be On Time to Enjoy

Time To Enjoy is not actually an appmaker but it's worth including as a free iOS app that features events. Basically they aggregate a huge numbers of events organizing them by time and syncing them with your calendar. So instead of searching for what's happening on a particular day, users can specify the time and find events they can attend and then share them with friends via social media and email.

Though they don't currently accept direct event announcements, here's what cofounder Brendan Boyd explained in an email:

"We are currently serving aggregated data from Eventful.com which covers over 1 million monthly events in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe… We will also be rolling out a variety of publisher tools to accommodate everyone from the big event promoters to the 'open mic' at your local coffee shop. We like Indie – I actually like to say we are building the Etsy of Events."

Introducing Google Currents

The above video gives you a look at an idealized user experience of Google Currents, a free app for iOS or Android that presents content from web publications and blogs in mobile optimized form. It actually debuted in December and recently rolled out internationally.

You can get your content into the mix for free drawing on such sources as "RSS and media feeds, YouTube channel, social stream" and adding "slideshows, videos, and maps."  Maurice Cherry describes the creation process.

Turn Your Facebook Fan Page Into a Mobile App

Cabana has an interesting new service called the Fan Page Mobilizer that allows you to take content from your Facebook Fan Page and turn it into a mobile web app for iOS with an Android version coming soon. Note, that's not a native app that sells through an app store but a free app available via the web that's designed for specific platforms.

The process is said to be simple. You specify the Fan Page you want to convert, make some content and customization choices and then you're given an url like this one for Acey Harper. Apps update from your Fan Page.  The service costs $5 but you can use it for free for a "Like" of their own Fan Page.

More Mobile Options:

• FANtastic4bands: Free Drag-and-Drop DIY Mobile Apps For Musicians
• ShareSquare Offers Quick & Easy HTML5 Mobile Sites For Musicians, Bloggers

Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith blogs about business at Flux Research: Business & Revenue Models and about dance at All World Dance: News. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.