Problem with the Apps-Mosphere

Let the comparison between the mobile app vs mobile website continue. In our Part 1 of “The Problem with the Apps-Mosphere,” we documented the problem with apps – specifically, the fact that the market in which they stand is over saturated. We mentioned that the app market expanded 49% between 2011 and 2012, whereas the smartphone ownership only increased by 10%. Moreover, as the infographic from AppsFire indicates, just over 10% of all apps see any kind of success, a dismal statistic to say the least.

Granted, the competition is fierce, and as economic competition suggests, competitors will enter the market with a similar offering if they see an existing one going strong, until equilibrium is reached. That said, there are many different apps on the market with little to no product differentiation, and perhaps this is a valid explanation for the lack of success that most apps see – they are imitations of a greater one.

Regardless, apps pose an undeniable problem for growing businesses. Companies whose business models do not require apps as a keystone for success should therefore think twice about developing them. It’s costly, and unless you have a sizable budget, it’s going to be extremely difficult to stand out in the masses without adequate marketing.

Think about the touch points necessary to discover and download an app from a customer’s standpoint. First, the customer needs to be aware of the app’s existence before anything can happen. Say, for example, he happens to see an ad for it while browsing on his mobile device. Then, he would have to touch the ad to learn more, closing out the browser and redirecting to the app store. Upon reaching the app store page, he would read reviews and browse through screenshots and descriptions about it. It is not until all of these hurdles are jumped that a person will download an app. Added to this the cost of marketing, regulatory constraints, etc., you have yourself a lopsided ratio of costs to ROI. The numbers tell a better story:

The Average Cost and Reach of Apps vs. Mobile Sites (Mashable)

Adding support for other devices increases costs by 3x on average as well, and even then, reach is still not as good as a universally compatible mobile website. The number of prospects reached for every dollar is dramatically higher with a mobile site, and thus more cost-efficient.

Granted, developing a mobile website does not give you the flexibility that an app does – that is, your UI might not be as impressive and responsive. But with the advent of HTML 5, companies like Onswipe are constantly refining the mobile browser platform to work very similarly to a regular app but with the cost and reach of a mobile website.

In essence, a tablet-optimized platform like Onswipe’s achieves the best of both worlds – avoiding the cost of app development while simultaneously achieving an app like experience with maximized prospect reach. 

The mobile browser is quickly becoming more powerful and compatible with rich media, and this transition is clearly paving the road for more effective mobile website development. So unless a business has the intention of creating an interactive game or something similar, mobile websites are truly the way to go.

So with that, we conclude the comparison between the mobile app vs mobile website. What do you think? Is the mobile browser is a better way to go? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to like or follow us while you’re at it! Stay tuned for company updates, musings, industry news, and much more.

Let’s not beat around the bush here, people: Jordan Reid is adorable; and her blog, Ramshackle Glam, is made of the same cloth. Bringing readers into her own glam-filled life, Jordan fills her site with recipes, style tips, and DIY projects. Onswipe sat down with Jordan to talk about the perfect summer outfit, fashion as a lightning rod, and the tricky case of a bralet-wearing wedding guest.

Onswipe: Your site is filled with savvy fashion and style tips, but much of the fun comes through your personality-filled writing style. How do you strike a balance between these two aspects of the site?
Jordan Reid: The truth is that I’ve always written in the only way I know how; I try to say what I mean, mean what I say, all that. I honestly believe that the more that you write, the more your genuine voice comes out, simply because you don’t have time to fuss over every single word choice or sentence construction.

O: This summer’s weather has been two parts pleasant and eight parts toaster oven. But on those few perfect summer days, what perfect outfit would you wear?
JR: I am an embarrassingly constant creature of habit when it comes to summer attire: you’d have to pry my denim cutoffs and white or grey t-shirts from my cold, dead fingers. And my accessories usually include flip-flops and more flip-flops. But if we’re talking “perfect summer day,” well, that deserves something a little extra special, so I’d add cat-eye tortoiseshell sunglasses, chunky gold jewelry, red lipstick, and…flip-flops. I told you I was a creature of habit.

O: A recent post of yours dealt with whether a bralet is appropriate wedding wear, but you found yourself negotiating the tricky territory between your readers’ feelings about “proper” wedding attire and your own fashion beliefs. What did you learn from this exchange, and what does it say about fashion in general?
JR: You know, I’m often surprised by which posts hit a nerve with readers, but I went into this one expecting a little controversy. In the years since I began blogging, one thing that’s really stood out to me is the extent to which fashion choices can act as lightning rods and highlight extremely deep-seated ideas about morality, propriety, and sexuality. I suppose what this post showed more than anything is that fashion is in a very real way an expression of the self.

O: You’ve been chronicling your family’s move to the suburbs in a video series called “Jordan In The House.” How has sharing this process with your readers been? Has it made the move more exciting?
JR: Oh, it’s been such a blast. I love that one day our son will be able to look back and see how (and why) his parents made the decision to transition from city life to the suburbs, and it’s been really fun to interact with readers about everything new-house- and move-related (some of my best décor ideas have come straight from them!).

O: How are you hoping to improve the site in the future?
JR: The most important thing to me is to give readers more of what they love, so I’m always looking for ways to provide a more streamlined, user-friendly experience. I’m also constantly working on making my photos and videos better. I started with zero experience in these fields, so it’s definitely a work in progress.

No runway. No flashing lights. No “Blue Steel.” On college campuses, fashion lives on every sidewalk, and CollegeFashionista has created a deep and diverse site to cover it all. The site is positively loaded with lavish photos, tips, and examples of fashionistas rocking their styles. (Even stylish dudes get recognized in a sweetly backhanded feature called “Let’s Hear It For the Boys.”) Onswipe sat down with Founder and Creative Director Amy Levin to talk about the limitation of trends, expanding to high school fashion, and finding your own style.

Onswipe: College Fashonista is filled with profiles of stylish students on campuses across the country. Consider the as-yet-undiscovered fashionista/o: what advice would you give him/her to develop their own style?
Amy Levin: I think it’s all about being innovative and accepting yourself and what you’re wearing. It might not be wearing the most fashion forward trend, but it’s wearing something that’s really reflective of you and your personal style. I love trends and I think trends are great, but if you aren’t comfortable, and you’re forcing yourself to wear something because it’s “in style,” then it’s never going to work.

O: College is the time for experimentation in the broadest sense, and students aren’t just trying to find their career, but also their independent identity. How does fashion factor into that college journey?
AL: In college, you don’t have the restrictions of going to a job. You’re going to class, you’re hanging out with friends, so you’re really free to be whoever you are, and a lot of that comes up through fashion. I think that college as a whole is such an experimental time in every different aspect, and that’s why I started CollegeFashionista. At my school I would see this experimentation, college students pushing boundaries, making their own clothes, or whatever made them unique. And once you graduate, you’re in kind of a restricted environment where you don’t have the freedom to wear whatever you want all the time.

O: What overarching trend/s do you think are shaping or informing college fashion today?
AL: Now more so than ever, everyone wants that unique look. It was the opposite during my freshman year of college, when everyone tried to dress alike: if someone had a Burberry jacket, everyone had to have it. Then, toward my junior and senior year—and now more so that I’m three years out of school—I saw that it’s all about being this unique individual, and a lot of that comes from a the concept of mixing and matching high and low fashion. So it’s cool to thrift shop and wear something from H&M, and then put on a Chanel bag. It’s very easy to be an individual when you are mixing so many different categories of clothing and designers.

O: Your site is staffed with a veritable army of “Style Gurus” stationed on campuses all over the country. What does it take to become a Style Guru?
AL: I look at our Style Gurus as the trend-setters of the campus. They’re the students whose friends look to them to see what they’re wearing, what their style is, and what’s hot and happening. So we have a vetted group of individuals who are involved in the fashion clubs on campus, and we really feel they’re influencers who are able to write about trends on their campuses and give expert opinions.

O: What does the future hold for CollegeFashionista? Have you considered expanding the site outside college? Professional Fashionista, perhaps? High School Fashionista?
AL: We’re definitely expanding to high school, that’s in our future plans. Going past college, I think there’s so many great street style sites featuring 25-50-year-olds, so I’m going to let other people dominate that space. We’re also really excited about relaunching the site in January, and we’re expanding to China and Japan in the Fall, and we’re really excited to add those new markets to our site. It’s going to bring an extra element of diversity to what we already have.

Whether you’re just discovering your personal style or shattering fashion conventions with every outfit, CollegeFashionista is the place to be. Why not check out their site, Twitter, and like them on Facebook?

Photo Credit: Amy Levin

So much for youth wasted on the young. Kim Pham, Business Development Intern at Onswipe, just turned twenty, and if there’s any limit to her passion for startups, she hasn’t hit it yet.

A rising junior majoring in marketing and information systems at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Kim took to the the process of working with publishers like she was born to do it. And in some ways, she was.

“I was born and raised in Boston, so I’ve been blessed to grow up in the two innovation hubs of the country,” she said. “When I’m not in Boston, I’m in New York. And when I’m not in New York, I’m in Boston.”

Growing up with a software engineer for a father exposed Kim to the dynamics of the tech world at an early age, but tech took a backseat during her early high school years while she pursued an interest in journalism. Yet her young age and lack of clips led Kim to resort to a “spray and pray” job search strategy, and she sent her resume to anyone and everyone at the end of junior year in high school.

Someone noticed. A local Boston startup called CitySquares was impressed by her ambition, and suddenly the struggling writer found herself thrown headlong into the startup world.

“From there I fell in love with tech,” Kim said. “It was always something that I was passionate about but I didn’t realize it could potentially turn into a career.”

The first step can be the hardest, but Kim says she reveled in the challenge and variety of working in a startup where she was only the eighth employee.

“I was basically trying to get my hands in everything,” she said. “I think that’s why I loved it so much.”

That’s not to say that Kim dumped writing like a body in the Hudson; she says that the same energy that drew her to writing now feeds her passion for startups.

“Within startups I can still have room to be creative and think outside the box,” Kim said. “I can still innovate on my own, which is what I also liked about writing: expressing myself.”

And express herself she has. She is the first female elected to president of Tech@NYU, the largest student technology organization in New York City. Every semester, the organization hosts Startup Week, a week-long series of events aimed at fostering a technology culture at NYU.

“It will give me an opportunity to learn more about the scene, meet amazingly smart entrepreneurs and investors, and students hacking awesome stuff,” Kim said. “Because for me, it is super humbling and it’s what makes me wake up everyday, to learn from other smart people.”

The open road, the wind, and the roaring, mechanical fury beneath you; there’s really nothing like riding a motorcycle. But reading about motorcycling can be thrilling too, and that’s where Cycle World comes in. With an eye for both the mechanical and experiential bliss of riding, Cycle World hopes to spread motorcycle enthusiasm to every type of biker. Onswipe sat down with Director of Digital Strategy Brian Schrader to talk about dirt bike adventures and the digital realm.

Onswipe: Motorcycles hold a special kind of fascination and attracts an audience like nothing else. What’s it like to work with that kind of energy and passion?
Brian Schrader: It is really a pleasure. Motorcycling is a deep part of their lives. They live it everyday. And they CRAVE content. They consume as much as we can give them. And the more enjoyable the consumption process, the better for the Cycle World brand.

O: How do you create content for an extremely dedicated niche audience while still keeping things inviting for more casual riders?
BS: Since we all ride and all have our own styles we try to share what we think is cool, and we use the site as a way to share our enthusiasm. Pictures and videos are just as important for our readers as articles. We are working to showcase motorcycles with high-end videos and big, bold photography. And it’s not just reviews, we also do pieces about what it’s like to ride, or go on an adventure, and what it’s like to be a motorcyclist.

O: You’ve worked in various areas of digital. What’s your favorite part of designing digital strategies, and how do your past experiences help you now at Cycle World?
BS: My background is in advertising products and the creation of engaging and high performance programs. It’s a tremendous help when working on the brand site to be able to think both from a user engagement standpoint to showcase editorials and build ads that users like. We have found that motorcyclists enjoy the brands and new offerings and engage with the ad units that deliver cool content or showcase new products.

O: What are the most challenging aspects of working in the digital space right now?
BS: Keeping up with change and creating unique offerings. As part of a large company we have structure and tools that we use, guidelines that we follow. It allows us more leverage to build and improve our site but makes it harder to be nimble.

O: Did working at Cycle World make you an enthusiast also? What’s the best motorcycle adventure that you’ve been on?
BS: I got my first motorcycle after college, as a form of transportation. Cycle World sparked my enthusiasm for the sport as a whole. When I started working there they welcomed me with open arms, they would say “Come out and have a ride with us,” and that was the beginning of the end. The annual Cycle World Trek was my first dirt bike experience, and something I will never forget. A great group of industry people riding on fire roads and dirt trails enjoying 3 days of riding with routes for any skill level. My 2nd year I took a couple of advanced trails and had my first experience on single track. The smile on my face didn’t go away for weeks. The rides that we do really make you understand why we all work hard to continue the brand and share the love of motorcycling.

O: You seem like a classic thrill-seeker. What other extreme activities have you participated in?
BS: Skiing was a huge part of my world from when I was 12 until 21, and even today I ski more than I ride. I did a lot of extreme skiing, and I had the confidence to try motorcycling and be out there. It’s one of the reasons I really like dirt biking, too, because it has that mountain feel when you’re going in between trees and trail riding.

Whether you’re a newbie to motorcycles or ready to found your chapter of Hells Angels, Cycle World has what you need to get on the road. Check out their site, Twitter, and like them on Facebook.

Photo Credit: Cycle World

Latin culture should make your heart beat like a drum, whether you’re watching Shakira’s machine-gun hips or tasting the burn of great Mexican food. That’s where Remezcla comes in. Founded in 2006, the site is a latin culture hub spread across five cities, covering everything from the mainstream (did we mention Shakira’s hips?) to new trends (techno-cumbia, anyone?). Onswipe sat down with Operations Manager Silvia Méndez to find out how Remezcla is spreading latin culture the world over.

Onswipe: Everybody wants to be an internet cultural expert. What makes Remezcla special when it comes to covering Latin culture?
Silvia Méndez: Remezcla’s staff is all latin or American Hispanic. We love our heritage and, even though Latin America is so culturally divided, it gives us the advantage to understand what we have in common independently from our country of origin. This natural understanding of what makes us Latinos is our biggest strength when it comes to covering Latino culture.

O: Remezcla covers NYC, Chicago, LA, San Francisco and Miami. What challenges arise covering so many large and complicated cities? How do you avoid spreading yourself too thin?
SM: The biggest challenge resides in the demographic distribution of Latino communities living in each city: Miami is mainly Cuban, LA and San Francisco is Mexican, etc. Each city has different tastes, behaviors, and interests depending on the weather and mix of cultures that makes them what they are. In order to address this issue, we have a pool of freelancers from each city collaborating with the creation of content appealing to the community they belong to. This is a huge help since it helps us pinpoint and nail the needs of our readers.

O: How do you satisfy readers who are already plugged into and their city’s Latin scene while also helping out Latino noobs?
SM: There is a very interesting trend: if they are American Hispanic, they usually start searching for their roots after they graduate from college. This means our Latino-noobs are usually college graduates who are looking for an understanding of their culture, what it means to be a Latino. They can start looking for the big names: Shakira, J Lo, Mark Anthony, and gradually drill down into our website to find new trends like the Alt-Norteño and techno-cumbia that are more underground. Since Remezcla includes the entire rainbow of options (pop culture, indie, and emerging), our readers can learn tons about Latino culture, including music, food, arts, and events, which are extremely important since events provide the opportunity to interact with other Latinos.

O: Working at Remezcla must hook you deep into the latin culture of New York City. What’s the coolest thing you’ve discovered/attended recently?
SM: I went to see Celso Piña at Lincoln Center. I have known him since I was a little girl and my mother used to play him on the radio. Seeing him playing live and dancing his rebel cumbia was a great summer moment and an unforgettable memory for me and my friends.

O: How do you hope to see Remezcla expand in the future?
 SM: Remezcla has the potential to become a worldwide webzine. Latinos and Latino culture lovers live everywhere in this wonderful world of ours, and the internet makes it possible for everyone to access the information regardless of their geographical location. I really hope Remezcla takes over the world, promoting our culture and sharing our passion and joyfulness to every person in the globe.

Want to get into Latino culture, but don’t know where to start? Then stop by Remezcla’s site, like it on Facebook, or follow it on Twitter.

Geeks of the world, unite! Pull on your inflatable Jaba the Hutt costume, adjust your gladiator helmet made of gummy bears, and get ready for the best of the Internet nerdosphere (or is it the geekverse?), courtesy of Walyou. Onswipe spoke with Walyou editor Federico Lo Giudice about mods, keeping your eyes open, and writing at the speed of cool.

Onswipe: It’s not everyone who can pick out the best stories on the web. What brought you to Walyou?
Federico Lo Giudice: My own geekiness made me me a natural fit. Around the time I joined the staff, the Walyou team was toying with the idea of creating a Spanish version of the site. I was appointed as a translator and SEO expert up until we switched our strategy to make Walyou a bigger, all encompassing site, instead of having many smaller sites dealing with different topics. From that point on, we just worked on the volume and providing as much quality content as possible.

O: What makes Walyou unique?
FG: The thing about Walyou is that it’s all about things we genuinely love. Even though we care about and work on the business side of things, we truly do like to sit and watch Game of Thrones, play video games, or read Spider-man and Avengers. I like to think this passion shows in what we do, that our site does not feel cold or sterile, and that we care just as much as our readers do about the stuff we feature.

O: Walyou has stories that appeal to readers with a variety of nerdy-passions, from Transformers to Loki cupcakes. What strategies do you have for finding worthy content?
FG: It’s all about keeping your eyes open. You can try to contact artists that have been consistently good in the past, or you might as well keep an eye open whenever you’re browsing the web and social media. The Internet is all about collaboration, and understanding this is the key to success.

O: The Mod section of the site is filled with ingenious gadgets and design. How do you define a mod, and what are some of your favorites?
FG: Mods are probably my favorite part of the website, along with gaming-related content. Mods stand for modification, and what we do the most are case mods of computers, controllers, consoles, and so on, which have an artistic value. We also write about bikes, cars, and other every day stuff; but personally, I just enjoy it more when things considered “geeky” receive an artsy treatment and start being aesthetically pleasing instead of just useful or cool. So far, my favorites were the steampunk Xbox 360 controller and the Aztec computer mod.

O: In addition to the content found on the web are you planning to bring more original content into the site?
FG: We’re thinking about this all the time. We’ve done a couple articles here and there with creations, apps, games, or tattoos from our readers, and we always enjoy collaborating with them. Also, we like to provide our own research and/or reviews of stuff we like, such as our piece on the steampunk genre, Star Wars media, and the mythological basis for the Final Fantasy series. What we want to do with our site is to become the site everyone looks at in order to find new geeky, funny and/or interesting stories, pictures, and creations. We care a lot about giving proper credit, but once that’s covered, the content being cool is what matters the most, no matter where it comes from.

O: How do you hope to improve the site in the future?
FG: We’re always working on the technical side of the site. Image galleries are on their way, which will work great for cosplay posts, for example. At the same time, not all improvements on the site are merely cosmetic; our team of writers are some of the fastest in the biz, and because of that we often are the first on the web with really cool content.

If you haven’t checked our Walyou yet, you should! Stop by the site. Then, like it on Facebook, or follow the Walyou team on Twitter to truly get your geek on.

What is a “Whoa!” moment?  Must it involve explosions? How much milk needs to come out of your nose? Fear not, world: Jeff Campagna, Creative Director and Cofounder of That’s Like, WHOA!, has created a resource of some of the coolest stuff on the web, a veritable treasure trove of whoas. Campagna is also a filmmaker, director, producer, and writer. Onswipe sat down with this tech-age renaissance man to see what makes him whoa.

Onswipe: What is a “whoa!” and how can you tell if a story is whoa-worthy? 
Jeff Campagna: The concept for the site came from literally saying “That’s…like…whoa!” out loud after seeing cool products or art online. And now that the site is in full swing, we have tried to distill that phrase into a sort of gut feeling. We get loads of emails every day from people and can tell instantly if something is “whoa!” The formula has a lot do with novelty, intelligence, originality, humor, and shareability.

O: You go out looking for the coolest stuff on the net. What’s the last thing TLW picked up that totally blew your mind?
JC: The Regional Zombie Apocalypse Survival Maps still have me saying “WHOA!” It’s just a such brilliant cocktail of zombieism in the digital age.

O: TLW’s design shirks a text-heavy layout for an appealing spread of photos and short posts. What motivated you to present content this way?
JC: We wanted the site to be easy to update and maintain. More photos and less text is not only intuitive but painless. In today’s SEO-driven world, a site’s rankings have a lot to do with their content proliferation, and so the formula became very clear: more posts, less writing (but with just enough text to trigger our contextual-based ad spots). We also wanted That’s Like, WHOA! to feel less like a traditional blog and more like a curated space, almost like a personalized Tumblr or Pinterest. We wanted to share in that user-experience trend while being able to monetize the property with ad space and exclusivity.

O: You’re a writer, filmmaker, producer, and more. How have your other creative endeavours influenced TLW?
JC: With an almost bipolar intensity, my work on the web and my art are mutually exclusive. I am sure that there is some subliminal impact that one has on the other, but I choose to ignore it.

O: You’ve already got your content hooked into social media. In what other ways are you looking to interact with the site’s readers?
JC: Social media, specifically Twitter, has been huge for That’s Like, WHOA! Things like the shop, the book publishing concept, and the television idea are some ways we are planning to expand the WHOA-reader relationship. We are just trying to keep abreast with the overall evolution of the ever-changing, ever-expanding human experience in a digital age. And, it must be said, services like Onswipe truly do make our lives as content curators that much easier.

O: How do you envision the site growing in the future?
JC: We have larger plans for the brand than we do with just the website itself. Our Twitter following grows at a break-neck pace, but aggregate sites such as That’s Like, WHOA! do have a ceiling that we must anticipate. It’s important to realize that we are not creating original content. But where we see weakness in our concept, we see value in our brand. That’s Like, WHOA! as an idea is catchy and youthful. We have been in discussions with a lifestyle television company in San Diego about bringing the brand to television screens. We have also been developing a series of subject-specific WHOA! coffee table books. And just recently we launched The WHOA! Shop Beta.

Check out That’s Like, WHOA! And, be sure to visit the site’s Twitter page for the latest updates. 

Vinay Jain wants to help people come together. He’s head of business development at Flavorpill, a “cultural guide” that aims to bring people to the best shows, concerts, and events their cities have to offer. Jain was also the co-founder of imup4, an event-planning platform.

We chatted with Jain about being immersed in culture 24/7, harnessing readership , and the lessons he learned at imup4 that influence him today.

Onswipe: You’ve had a pretty varied career — you’ve been involved with non-profits and your own startup. What brought you to Flavorpill? 

Vinay Jain: I love that Flavorpill has a mission. We’re dedicated to helping people lead richer, more connected, more cultural lives — and we throw great parties.

O: Flavorpill bills itself as “your cultural guide.” What separates Flavorpill as a “guide” from other well-stocked culture sites?

VJ: The quality of our curation is what sets us apart. When you read the individual event reviews, you can hear the voices of the editors. And whether you agree or disagree with their choices, you respect that they know what they’re talking about. It gets to where you trust the recommendations because you trust the people behind them.

O: The site is live in nine cities. How do you cater to diverse readership across such different locales?

VJ: We have editors living in each of our cities, and they’re all local experts. They have a great sense of what resonates with each of our audiences.

O: Where do you see Flavorpill heading in the future?

VJ: Flavorpill’s editors aren’t the only people in the know. The future of Flavorpill lies in harnessing and amplifying the expertise of our readership and the larger world, and it’s going to start happening very soon.

O: Being involved with Flavorpill gives you great insight into New York culture. What’s the most unique experience you’ve had in the city?

VJ: I feel like you could spend a lifetime in this city and still have things left to explore. I love working with people who are passionate about surfacing those things and sharing them with others.

O: You were a founder of imup4, but you recently decided to shut it down. What lessons did you learn from that process? 

VJ: I learned never to underestimate the difficulty of changing people’s habits. At imup4 we wanted to change how people made plans with their friends. We thought making it easier and more fun would be enough, but in fact it takes much more.

It became clear to us that replacing email or texts as the go-to group planning tool was going to require a product with a massive viral component or a big marketing spend to get in front of users repeatedly. We just weren’t able to make that happen.

The great thing is, everything I learned from imup4, I apply daily at Flavorpill. In the next few months, Flavorpill is going to change the way that people learn about and connect through events. For me personally, it’ll be an exciting continuation of the work I started at imup4.

Now that you’ve met Vinay Jain, start planning your weekend with help from Flavorpill. You can reach the Flavorpill team on Twitter or Facebook.

Photo Credit: Brooklyn Bridge New York City by ugod, on Flickr

Flavorpill should be feeling pretty fly right now. The site, which powers the tablet and mobile versions of its blog Flavorwire using Onswipe, was spotlighted on the June 1 broadcast of the Today show on a segment aimed at helping parents orient themselves to the interest of their teenage children.

Naturally playing his part as the stodgy, uncool parent, host Matt Lauer asked Lucie Fink, a junior at John Hopkins University, about what websites were distracting teenagers from making eye contact at the dinner table.

Fink pointed to Flavorpill as a website that every cool parent should know about, especially if they want to win the respect of their cool kids. She described the site as “a network of culturally connected people who are interested in learning about great events, giveaways, concerts, book signings — everything in their area.”

Then Fink opened up a can of serious web love for the culture site, explaining that parents will have an easy time finding cultural events in a variety of cities thanks to a design that is “not at all convoluted.”

But Fink still wasn’t done. Opening up the Flavorpill’s culture blog, Flavorwire, she gushed:

“This is the most organized website I’ve ever seen for a tablet.”

We’re ecstatic that such a great site is getting the recognition it so richly deserves, and we must admit, Fink’s implicit description of the Onswipe platform as “the most organized website I’ve ever seen for a tablet” is pretty gratifying.

Check out the video of the segment; it’s been basically playing on constant repeat all day here at the Onswipe office.