MobDis Makes Mobile App Creation As Easy As A Slide Deck

Having been in the mobile app creation business for the last year or so with 2359 Media, founders Wenhan Zhou and Hongting Wong realised that the long development timelines and costs associated with app development had been putting off parties interested in mobile, even if they saw the value of having a mobile app.

To help parties shift to mobile easily and without having to sacrifice the high level of engagement of internet rich media (as opposed to the traditional lack of engagement on WAP sites), 2359 Media created mobile ad creation platform, MobDis, for brands that have been put off using mobile for campaign advertising.

What is Mobdis?

Wenhan: MobDis is a mobile web app creation platform created especially for designers and marketers to create mobile web apps as easily as putting together presentation slide decks. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, MobDis caters for both individuals with no programming knowledge as well as experienced web developers to publish a mobile web app within minutes.

Why should people care about MobDis?

Wenhan: MobDis-created mobile web apps look flashy and engages mobile audiences 5 times longer – two factors that are critical to marketers and designers.

Add on to the fact that designers and marketers can put the whole web app together themselves, this give advertisers and brands a significantly higher ROI in their foray into mobile.

Demo:

Not just for the iPhone

Wenhan: Hongting and I love our iPhones but there are also users of other phones. MobDis is based on HTML5, and hence MobDis web apps works for iOS, Android and BlackBerry 6 (and even some Nokia phones). You could even publish the web app as a native app for the various apps stores.

Having Singapore media giant, Mediacorp as one of the first few customers

Wenhan: One of our first customers is MediaCorp. They used MobDis to create a mobile site for one of their prime time drama series. At the site, users could browse and interact with exclusive content intended to generate awareness of the show.

Special emphasis was placed on animations and visuals to ensure that the audience was engaged in the whole process. In addition, Mediacorp placed QR codes across their marketing posters that re-directed to their mobile site, Mediacorp tracked the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns in print, TV and outdoor.

Our post campaign reports that the average engagement time was 5x that of an average mobile website.

The MediaCorp case study:

The working process

Wenhan: MobDis is a web app that users can self-serve from end-to-end. Our clients mainly know about MobDis through word of mouth or our online marketing campaigns, and quickly learn how to use the software via our how-to videos. After the site is ready, it is published and hosted in the MobDis cloud, which can then be accessed via a URL given to the publisher.

In addition, VIP support is given also provided as an option to advertisers and publishers who want us to step in and guide them along the process.

The search for channel partners

Wenhan: With regards to customer development, we are currently looking for channel partners with deep expertise servicing the publishing, media and advertising industries. We believe that with MobDis, we can help these partners instantly gain capabilities to develop web apps on mobile and creating value in-turn for their customers.

Fundraising now

When SGE interviewed Wenhao a year ago, 2359 Media was entirely self-funded. How about one year on?

Wenhan: We have previously been funded by SPRING YES! Fund via NUS Enterprise as our incubator which has been really useful in getting us going. Over the past few months, we have been profitable and we are currently going through a fundraising round right now.

Wenhan can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Hong Ting can be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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