Recently we had an opportunity to speak with Ben Rotholtz, the CMO at Syntonic about Freeway

Please share with us the backstory of what motivated you to create this app.

Today's basic data plan is built around 'megabytes' and 'gigabytes' of data, however, the concept of data is fundamentally abstract and confusing for the consumer. What do you actually get with a gigabyte of data? We live in an app-centric economy where consumers recognize value based on the mobile apps and content they consume, rather than the 'bits and bytes' sold by carriers. We introduced the Freeway app to help consumers discover and explore the content they want with business models that are also friendly to the interests of brands, app developers, publishers, and mobile operators.

What features do you hope to roll out to your app in the future?

We have a massive worldwide installed base of the Freeway app comprised of branded and white-label experiences powered by Freeway technology. We prioritize our feature calendar by balancing the needs of the installed base, expansion into new markets, and business model innovations. In 2018, we're going to bring Freeway to new geographies that have their own unique mobile landscape and consumer trends. We will also enable new experiences that allow international consumers easier access to mobile content.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of the creation of this app?

It is incredibly fulfilling to see the years of hard work and investment in our back-end platform come to life in a consumer-facing product. The Freeway consumer experience is enhanced by a solid framework that has been heavily tested for scalability, reliability, and availability. The platform that supports Freeway has also enabled Syntonic to rapidly evolve Freeway to address changing consumer demands and industry trends. The same platform has also allowed us to quickly extend the Freeway experience to new geographies and reach new audiences.

What is the coolest or most innovative feature of your app?

The Freeway platform was designed to be highly flexible and adaptable. It's OS-independent, can supports any mobile app, service or content, and it's easily personalized by the consumer. From a business perspective, this means that Syntonic can readily introduce new content access models to market, such as sponsored data and the recent introduction of Freeway Overpass - which allows users to directly pay for one day, one week, or one month of unlimited access to specific apps and groups of apps. For the consumer, this means they are getting unlimited access to a growing set of new and popular apps with a product experience that is constantly evolving to align with their needs and expectations.

Do you have any recommendations or advice for others wanting to create a mobile app?

It has proven valuable to identify the core aspect and guiding principle of what your app will do better than any other app, and then to establish the success metrics you'll use to evaluate the app. It's essential to put the systems in place to measure your success metrics: you have a tendency to do what you measure and the metrics are always enlightening.

How did you decide which platforms to release your app on and do you plan on releasing your app to other platforms?

We've always regarded iOS and Android as baseline platforms for Freeway and we've worked carefully to optimize the experience on each of the platforms. Android has proven to be the more popular platform in many emerging markets such as Southeast Asia. While one platform may be a higher priority in any particular market, our goal is to simultaneously release on both.

How is your app different than the rest of the market? Which unique need does it fill?

Freeway allows consumers to move beyond their data plan. While the recent growth in unlimited data plans has given many consumers unrestricted access to mobile apps and content, there are many users that remain on post-paid fixed plans or pre-paid plans that restrict access. When users run out of data they have limited choices: find a Wi-Fi hotspot, curb usage, buy additional data, or do without. Those are not great options. Freeway provides consumers an alternative path, whereby a sponsor can pay for the consumer's access to deepen engagement, or the consumer can purchase unlimited data to access the app they want. The ability to personalize the mobile experience to access the specific apps and content a consumer wants is original and lets consumers use their smartphones to watch, listen, share, and play more without having to worry about the mysteries of data usage.

What surprised you most in your journey to create this app?

The core concept of providing consumer access to mobile apps and content is simple, however it's extraordinarily impressive to support the broad diversity of new and legacy operating systems, devices, network topologies, and applications with Freeway's inherently flexible business models.

Which other mobile apps or technology have inspired you?

Syntonic's Freeway technologies can support any type of app from social to streaming, and as a result we have broad perspective observing and studying how those apps create content experiences. That has proven to be enlightening, inspirational, and extremely instructive. There is a seemingly endless catalog of dynamically changing apps on Google Play and the App Store that have afforded Syntonic a wonderful outlook as we develop cost-efficient ways for consumers to access those apps.

You can view Freeway here