NEW YORK ? A Barnes & Noble executive cautioned other brands to keep quality of content and their mission statement in mind when heading to the mobile platform.

At an Apps for Brands panel, executives from all sides of the mobile arena gave tips on constructing an application. When creating an application it is necessary to engage the user by taking advantage of the device?s functionalities, but the panel cautioned going overboard with unnecessary features.

?I urge everyone who is considering creating an app to stay on brand,? said Doug Gottlieb, vice president of digital products at Barnes & Noble, New York. ?Look at the iPhone and match the app's functionality with things users would want to do.?

Mr. Gottlieb said that the developers of the Barnes & Noble applications wanted to include features leveraging the accelerometer in the applications, but there was no real purpose it would have served.

Barnes & Noble is one of the largest book retailers with 727 stores across the United States.

The bookseller has two applications in the Apple App Store, B&N Bookstore and B&N eReader.

?You do need an app to have a compelling user experience,? Mr. Gottlieb said.

Applications let brands speak with customers on an ongoing basis, something the mobile Web cannot offer to the same extent.

The B&N Bookstore application uses several of the iPhone?s popular capabilities such as its camera and GPS services (see story).

When users open the camera function in the iPhone application, they can snap a picture of a product and the Bookstore application searches based on the image.

Results with the product?s information are presented to the user, who can click to order or click to reserve the product and pick it up at the closest retail store, which can be found using the GPS locator on the iPhone.

Enhancing the brand
Location-based services enhance applications, said Matt Galligan, cofounder/CEO of SimpleGeo, formerly CrashCorp, Boulder, CO.

?Location is not a competitive advantage, it?s a commodity,? Mr. Galligan said. ?Location is another data point that you can use to make things more interesting.?

Mr. Galligan said that with some infrastructures, getting location-based data is hard, but that his company simplifies the process.

In terms of new location-based technology, brands can look to augmented reality as the future.

J. B. Holston, president/CEO of NewsGator, Denver, said that his company makes it easy for brands to launch and build an application.

NewsGator is a software company known for its RSS feeds.

Mr. Holston said brands like Variety are leveraging his company?s software capabilities to extend their reach into the mobile space.

?As the number of apps on various platforms mushrooms, the ease with which we can create these apps is a problem and we feel like we bridge that gap,? Mr. Holston said.

If a print publisher, like Variety comes to the mobile space, then Mr. Holston said that it needs to provide consumers with rich media, not just print, because users want new engagement opportunities via their handsets.

By extending to rich media on one platform while maintaining the other platform, it creates two ways for the brand to make money.

Rei Inamoto, chief creative officer at AKQA, San Francisco, said the best advertising for brands is not advertising.

AKQA is a global digital agency offering a spectrum of different services from software to content.

?I personally don?t like advertising,? Mr. Inamoto said.

When a product communicates with consumers, it is not advertising, he said.

AKQA helped Smirnoff reach a large audience with its mobile campaign (see story).

In the future, Mr. Inamoto said that he sees brands leveraging the mobile platform with applications as part of a larger marketing campaign, but the applications will continue to have longer shelf life after the campaign wraps up.

When asked if picking a specific smartphone platform versus using the mobile Web creates barriers, Mr. Inamoto said instead of thinking about the barriers of a platform, it is important to think of the possibilities that each platform may provide.

In the end, Barnes & Noble?s Mr. Gottlieb said that brands need to engage users to stand out in the crowded application world.

?You are competing for space and mindshare, so you must engage a user on every level, not just as a marketing opportunity," Mr. Gottlieb said. "There needs to be a reason for them to engage.

?Taking advantage of the mobile platform seemed like slam dunk," he said.