One of the final DCWEEK events was a contest inspired by iStrategy Labs’ Apps for Democracy titled Apps4Ben’s. Fans of Ben’s Chili Bowl were invited to come up with a creative way for Ben’s to enter into the mobile app age in exchange for bragging rights, free chili and a shot at having your picture on the wall at Ben’s Chili Bowl next to President Obama and Bill Cosby. Tech creatives submitted hundreds of ideas for the best ways to engage fans of the hallowed haunt using mobile units, with the winner selected during a presentation via iPhone Touch. Paul Murphy, an Irish transplant who recently quit his job to launch 3advance sat down with DCWeek fresh from his win and still wearing his Ben’s Chili Bowl t shirt. His favorite menu item: The Half Smoke.
10. What inspired your app?
The contest offered you a coveted spot on the wall at Ben’s Chili Bowl, so the prize became the app itself. Creating “You’re Up!” was a way for me to tie in restaurant slang with the idea of having your turn at getting up on the wall just like Ben’s other famous customers.
9. How does it work?
Right when you tap into “You’re Up”, a map provides the location to Ben’s and then opens up to menus, history and the virtual photo booth. You have to be on site to submit a picture, so the GPS enabled app locates you. Once you take your picture you can upload it right into the app and send it to the restaurant where it will be added to the digital gallery that uploads a new image every minute to an iPad mounted inside.
8. How soon can we use it?
There’s a few final details to be decided for the “You’re Up!” part of the App, but I’m hoping we can get it up ASAP. My hope is that while folks are waiting in line, they can be uploading their pictures and reading more about “The Bowl”, but who knows, having the menu there too might help people speed up their orders.
7. Why Is Ben’s Chili Bowl So Important?
Here is a business that has grown with the city, its survived and thrived, just like U St., its multicultural and I see it as the cornerstone of the community.
6. What brought you to the US?
I moved here from Ireland with my then-girlfriend who is an Eritrean American, I suppose I was the souvenir she brought back with her. We just got married a few months ago.
5. How long did it take you to develop “You’re Up!”
About 80 hours, but this was my first complete app I’ve developed, and if I did it again, probably half that.
4. What was competition like?
I was pretty intimidated, some of these guys have like 50 apps at the Apple store, another was a friend so I knew I had to try and do something clever, at the very least.
3. What makes app creation so different than any other kind of development?
Apps offer people a different way of looking at and interacting with their favorite companies or services. They can celebrate the culture and character of a “brand” like Ben’s Chili Bowl without being overly commercial. That is spirit of the place anyways, so the app had to speak to the integrity of the restaurant and not just it’s services. Apps shold be fun, not just repeat what you have on your site. I think we are still trying to figure out what the ROI and challenges are for apps, it took Google quite a few years to develop a working strategy for web ads, so it might take some time before we figure out the mobile equation.
2. Any future projects you want to tell us about?
Making sure “You’re Up!” is successfully integrated is priority number one. Although I’d like to develop a tool kit app for entrepreneurs sometime in the near future. The DCWEEK Mobile Media panel at 1014Q inspired me on this front- I felt really in the zone. Apparently, in the next few years mobile internet usage will overtake traditional internet…this, I found incredible.
1. Will President Obama download the app?
If he does, I’ll grant him special permission to upload pictures from the White House. Same goes for Bill Cosby, but I don’t have his home GPS location, so he’d have to invite my wife and I round for dinner first.
