Android App

Android apps available for download now number in the tens of thousands. Many more exist for BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. These software applications range from Google® search and TIME Mobile to games, TV viewers and geolocators that tell you where your friends are at any given moment.

Go Daddy joins the party with downloadable software for customers on the go. Users may now search for, register, renew and manage their domains; buy hosting and email; send and receive Go Daddy webmail; and watch our outrageous TV commercials on their smartphones and Web-enabled devices.

These apps make it easy for busy Go Daddy customers to take care of business whenever and wherever they find themselves with a few idle moments and an Internet-enabled device.

It's a timely addition to the Go Daddy universe. "An apps culture is clearly emerging among some cell phone users," says Kristen Purcell, Associate Director for Research at the Pew Internet Project, "particularly men and young adults."

A 2010 Pew report, The Rise of Apps Culture, defines apps as "end-user software applications that are designed for a cell phone operating system and which extend the phone’s capabilities by enabling users to perform particular tasks."

According to the report, 29% of adult cell phone users in the U.S. have downloaded a piece of software to their phones. Downloaders tend to be "younger, more educated, and disproportionately male." And they download often. Among cell phone users under age 30, the study found, 20% had downloaded an app in the last week.

Mobile mail is a popular pastime, with 34% of adult cell phone users in the U.S. using their phone to send or receive email. In fact, the only things U.S. cell owners do more than read email is take photos, text and access the Internet, notes the Pew study.

And this is only the beginning, experts say. Mary Meeker, the head of Morgan Stanley's global technology research team, predicts that mobile Internet use will surpass desktop access within the next five years.

Meeker and her team say mobile Web adoption is increasing at a much faster pace than desktop Internet use did – users are latching on to Apple devices 11 times faster than they did AOL back in the 1990s. (2010 State of the Internet report.)

Where there's hardware, there's bound to be software. There are currently over 250,000 iPhone apps available today; Google Android has 90,000 downloadable apps. BlackBerry brings up the rear, with thousands of software applications.

"This is a pretty remarkable tech-adoption story," muses Roger Entner, co-author of the Pew report and Senior VP at Nielsen, "if you consider that there was no apps culture until two years ago. Every metric we capture shows a widening embrace of all kinds of apps by a widening population. It's too early to say what this will eventually amount to, but not too early to say that this is an important new part of the technology world of many Americans."