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There's An App For That!

Local brothers' jacAPPS business rolls out more than 500 mobile apps.

Rabbi Jason Miller I Columnist

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Paul Jacobs will be there to find the
way to do it.
The brothers launched jacAPPS
(pronounced Jake-Apps, a riff on
their last name) three years ago when
they noticed a need for mobile appli-
cations in the radio industry.
"Back in the fall of 2008, with the
economy facing unprecedented chal-
lenges, few would have expected a
company like ours to emerge as the
leading app developer for radio:' said
company president Fred Jacobs, 60, of
Bloomfield Hills.
The brothers' entree into the
mobile apps market wasn't by acci-
dent. Fred, the oldest of three broth-
ers (Bill isn't involved in the apps
company), formed Jacobs Media
in 1983, and went on to create the
Classic Rock format while sitting at
his kitchen table. Today, the company
is the nation's largest radio consulting
firm specializing in rock formats.
Each year, Jacobs Media uses
TechSurveys to track the leading-edge
technology trends in their industry
and, in 2008, those surveys pointed
the way to the smart phone revolu-
tion and the explosion of mobile
apps. JacAPPS hasn't stopped creating
apps since, and today it is one of the
top developers in Michigan.
Having consulted rock and indie
radio stations since the 1980s, the
Jacobs brothers always try to figure
out what radio listeners are doing
and how they're using technology.
Their job is to help
radio stations bet-
The Jacobs
ter understand the
brothers with
listeners. They knew their young
that radio had lost
staffers.
much of its por-
tability as people
were choosing to listen to an iPod or MP3
player in place of a Sony Walkman or por-
table boom box.
In recent years, when they realized
people were beginning to stream their
favorite radio stations on mobile devices,
they recognized that radio once again
would be portable — and they leapt into
action. Rather than allow their clients to
have their music streamed along with
other radio stations' music, they decided
it was better to have single station apps.
Apple's AppStore had only been open for

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December 8 • 2011

90 days when they got to work on their
first mobile app.
"Individual station brands deserved
their own mobile apps," Fred Jacobs wrote
on the jacAPPS blog."Surprisingly, some
of radio's biggest broadcasters took a
different direction, building their own
`umbrella apps' that featured hundreds
of their stations. You cannot underes-
timate the success of iHeartRadio or
CBS's Radio.com. But our contention was
that consumers are less focused on corpo-
rate brands than they are on hometown

stations in their markets — or in cities
where they once lived or visited. And for
individual stations, the app experience has
been powerful."

Transforming Business
After its incorporation, jacAPPS designed
and released 20 apps in six months and
began hiring young talent to grow the
business. They continuously asked them-
selves what a mobile application can do
that the radio station's website cannot do.
They already had the listening ears of

radio station executives across the
country ready to implement what-
ever they recommended. When the
Jacobses told them that a strategic
need existed for customized mobile
apps, the radio stations got in line
and put in their orders.
The first app jacAPPS created
was for WRIF, a Detroit-based Rock
radio station.
"They did a great job and allowed
us to be one of the first radio compa-
nies to provide iPhone apps to our lis-
teners, and they helped us transform
our business from strictly broadcast
to a multiplatform media company':
said Tom Bender, senior vice presi-
dent and general manager of Greater
Media Interactive, owner of local sta-
tions WRIF, WCSX and WMGC.
"We are now in the develop-
ment of version 3.0 of our station
apps for both iPhone and Android
phones:' Bender added. "We have
brainstormed for additional new
functions that would be of high user
interest, and jacAPPS was invalu-
able in that process. Its easy to get
enthused by a shiny new piece of
technology, but to have the research
and user input to know how often
and exactly how it's going to be used
make the difference. That, more
than flashy graphics or slick colors,
is the real creative input for me."
The watershed moment for
jacAPPS was when Christian Radio
signed on.
"We were recognized early on
by iconic brands like K-Love and
Airl, which opened up the Christian
Broadcasting world to us:' explained
company vice president and gen-
eral manager Paul Jacobs, 57, of
Farmington Hills. "Car Talk, C-SPAN
radio and other great non-commercial
radio franchises have added to our
portfolio:'

Jewish Rock Radio
JacAPPS is especially proud of some of
the Jewish-themed apps their company
has created, such as Jewish Rock Radio,
launched by Jewish recording artist Rick
Recht.
"We launched Jewish Rock Radio with
the goal of creating the first truly high-
caliber, 24/7 international Jewish rock

THERE'S AN APP on page 24