Orlando is becoming much more than just a Mickey town.. Within the last five years, the greater Orlando area has started to bloom within the tech community, opening a new path for innovation in many sectors and becoming a reference for startups to try their luck in this collaborative and successful environment. With this in mind, the new movie ticket app, Atom, has included Central Florida as one of the first U.S. markets to have access to it. But why has the Santa Monica-based social outing app chosen Orlando?
While the City Beautiful is surely emerging as one of the top tech markets to do business, for Atom, Orlando’s popularity as a vacation hub was key for their creators to choose the area to debut it to their target market: movie lovers. So, how does this impact the Orlando community? Besides reinforcing the growth and non-stop activity for Orlando as a tech community, this app has some freebies for us!
If you download this app now from the Apple Store or Google Play, you can get a free ticket to the movies. Yes, free (see screenshot below). While Atom is certainly not the first app created to purchase tickets to the movies, it does give you the option to also purchase your drinks and snacks, all while coordinating with your friends so that everybody can meet up at the same movie.
Atom allows you to add friends from your phone’s contact list to arrange your next movie date. By including that social feature, Atom overcomes one of the biggest hassles that apps like Fandango normally faces when it comes to paying, giving birth to what we predict can be the future of social mobile apps. By listening to what consumers want, this app has been able to add two key features on top of what other similar apps already offer: you can make plans and share them through the app with your friends, and, the most important one, you can pay separately.
With mobile users spending 90% of their time in apps, Atom debuts at the perfect time, just as consumers are embracing mobile to help them complete everyday purchases, such as ordering food, getting a ride, and now, going to the movies. The success of projects like Uber, or new apps like the one Chick-fil-A recently released to ease the process of ordering your fast food, have proven the fact that we live in the App era and that consumers are looking on their mobile phones to search online.
According to Joe Lazlo, Senior Director of the Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence at IAB, 66% of mobile users have ordered takeout or delivery at least once using their cell phone. With mobile apps playing an increasing role in everyday purchases, what implications do these types of apps have from a business perspective? Whether you have an app or not, mobile web is a must. Atom’s unique value proposition is all about making the process of going to the movies easier for consumers by allowing them to get what they want and need in one simple step. Simple. This is why, besides being responsive and adaptive to the mobile and tablet screens, your website needs to provide your users with a unique and easy navigation experience where they can find what they came looking for in one place with ease. Let us know if you need help in improving your mobile user’s experience.
In the meantime, if you would like to be part of the #MadeinOrlando movement, here are some upcoming tech events in the Orlando area that you can attend during August:
- Trends in Tech: Virtual reality, 6-9PM, Aug. 15, Full Sail University, 141 University Park Drive, Winter Park: A conversation about the business of virtual reality from an Orlando perspective. Cost: $12.
- Downtown Orlando tech celebration, 5-8PM, Aug. 16, Church Street Exchange, 101 S. Garland Ave, Orlando: Celebrating the vibrant Downtown Orlando technology scene with local business and community leaders. Cost: $40.
- Orlando Tech Association meetup, 7PM, Aug. 18, Church Street Exchange, Orlando: A monthly meetup for technologists, entrepreneurs, and companies to share their products. Cost: free.
Way to go Orlando!
Lydia
