Layou resident develops ‘game changing’ mobile app

A locally developed mobile phone application will quite possibly change the way that businesses market their products and services in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Konservi, which was conceptualized by Layou resident Cenus Hinds, was launched on Wednesday for use by subscribers {{more}} in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Hinds’ application, which was first developed for a competition that was hosted by LIME, is designed to connect businesses with their customers by facilitating the advertising of various promotions, deals and events to their customers. It also allows for a two-way communication, where customers can give feedback on a particular promotion.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Hinds stated that the experience of creating the application was “completely amazing.”

“Initially, a friend of mine she called me and said ‘hey I just saw something on television that LIME is having this best app competition.’ With this, I went ahead and I did an application,” the youngster explained.

“I came to LIME and I said ‘tell me more about this competition’. But when I came to LIME, it was so early that they really didn’t have anything completely finalized as yet.”

Determined to see his plans through, Hinds revealed that he requested a meeting with country manager Leslie Jack.

He noted that Jack was so fascinated with the idea, that he was given the opportunity to develop it fully.

Hinds was not only the winner of the LIME competition, the telecommunications company funded the entire process of development.

“After months of development and months of getting feedback, interacting with businesses, interacting with individuals that we have reached a point now where we will be able to launch this application tonight so the entire Vincentian public will be able to use it,” he declared.

Ayodele Pompey, the chief executive officer of Digital Spark Global, which is the company that actually wrote the software for the application, opined that for the first time in Vincentian history, “a business who has some particular content of interest can literally tap thousands of Vincentians on their shoulders and say here is what we’re doing, this is going to be on today or tomorrow or next week.

“They will be assured that their customers are notified at the same moment, at the same time and if customers want to know more information, they can call back or send an email or they can share it on social media,” Pompey said.

The CEO highlighted that the interesting thing about the application is that businesses will not only be able to market their product and brand, but also interact with their customers immediately about the particular subject.

The Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) will be one of the first businesses to use this portal to market upcoming Carnival activities.

Marketing coordinator for the CDC Anthony Dennie applauded the creators of Konservi for an exceptional product and stated that the CDC is happy to have another medium to market the Carnival product.

“The Carnival Development Corporation over the years, we have been using more or less a standard methods of marketing Vincy Mas: radio, television, we’ve done a bit online, through our website and as of late we’ve been using social media,” Dennie explained.

“We are very much happy to have the ability now with Konservi and LIME with this app. Vincy Mas is the largest cultural event on the Vincentian cultural calendar. There are so many things happening… and we are definitely pleased to be on board to use this app quite naturally to say to you the Vincentian public and to persons in the diaspora what is happening for Vincy Mas 2014.”

Marketing manager at LIME Nikala Williams expressed pride in the locally developed application and revealed that LIME will be ensuring that Konservi is automatically loaded to all handsets that will be sold in LIME stores.

“It takes a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of effort to create an app and make it workable and we decided you know what, in order for this to happen, we

have to step up and give him (Hinds) that support and we are glad we did. It is finished now,” she said.

“Could you imagine, big businesses, small businesses…it doesn’t matter. You are now able to reach everyone and anyone because you know everyone has a Smartphone; if they don’t have one yet, they’re going to have one very soon. Not everyone reads the newspaper; not everyone listens to the radio when your ad may come on; not everyone may go online and actually search for something there by a computer; but everyone walks around with these things. We sleep with them, we go to the bathroom with them, the kitchen, we’re cooking it’s there, our Smartphone. With this app, we’re going to be able to reach thousands upon thousands of persons.”

The Konservi app is available for free download at www.konserviapp.com

Businesses can subscribe using the link at the top of the page, while users can sign into the app using their Facebook account. Within the app, businesses will be able to monitor how many persons are following their company and like their promotions, deals or events.

Promotions, deals and events will be advertised for the minimum time of one week, at a cost of $114. For additional advertising, the cost is $10 per day.

Although Konservi is currently available only on the Android operating system, it is the hope that a version for iOS platforms will be released in the coming months.