Living the iDream: Opportunities and Challenges in the Children's App Market (Kidscreen 2014)
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Following up on her iKids 2014 presentation, Dr. Carla Fisher shares an overview of the three major challenges for children’s app developers and ways to address them. An overview of the presentation can also be read at kidscreen.com/category/blogs/kids-got-game.
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Living the iDream: Opportunities and Challenges in the Children's App Market (Kidscreen 2014)
- 1. In Pursuit of the iDream Opportunities and challenges in the children's app market Dr. Carla Fisher No Crusts Interactive
- 2. A Gamer’s Guide to Parenting
- 4. 1. Take shelter and wait it out 8. Ambush
- 8. The Challenges • Differentiation • Discovery • Money Money Money
- 9. How will you differentiate your product?
- 10. The Problem: Everyone Does the Obvious
- 12. Opportunities?
- 13. Do one thing really, really, really, really, really well. Indispensably well.
- 15. Oh No Fractions!
- 16. Dinorama
- 18. Jack and the Beanstalk by Nosy Crow
- 20. Big Bird’s Words
- 22. Folidify
- 23. Storybots
- 24. Solve a problem
- 25. FirstVideo Have you ever played a YouTube video for your kid only to end up with a list of "recommended" videos which aren't really appropriate? This happens all the time with me and my daughter, so we created FirstVideo.
- 26. Monster Meter
- 27. Add a new spin to a familiar and common mechanic
- 29. Chicken Cha Cha Cha
- 30. Make a great game mechanic kid friendly
- 41. Be stupidly difficult to play* * But not so ridiculously difficult that you drive users away
- 42. Super Hexagon Top 100 in 88 countries
- 43. Flappy Bird (iOS) #1 in 116 countries
- 44. Hardest Game Ever 2 #1 in 35 countries Top 100 in 111
- 47. Hipster’s ABC
- 49. 3 Simple* Steps to Differentiation 1. Research the market exhaustively – Play the top 200 games in your target categories – Use an RSS feed to review new content – Keyword searches (on all platforms) and ask around 2. Identify the trends, gaps, and opportunities (educational, theme, mechanics, etc) 3. Produce amazing product * Sarcasm
- 50. How will people find your product?
- 53. Results from Learning at Home Study (Cooney Center) How do parents find educational media? Come across it while browsing 50% Recommendations from teacher 40% Suggestions from friends or family 35% Child comes across it 20% Child hears about it from friend 20%
- 55. Parents’ Media Sources • • • • • • Parent watches or plays the content first 56% Recommendations from friends 34% Reputation of the company or network 33% Child finds it his/herself 25% Website reviews 13% Newspaper or magazine reviews 5% Source: Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology
- 56. Word of mouth matters.
- 57. Make content that can be easily shared on mobile devices
- 58. iPhone vs iPad Content Sharing Source: http://blog.sharethis.com/
- 59. Make things people want to share
- 60. Humans share items that cause emotion, especially positive feelings. Interest Amusement Surprise emotionwisegroup.org
- 63. Timely + Funny
- 66. 3 Simple* Steps to Discovery 1. Work your connections at the app markets and press 2. Make sure you have sharable, mobile friendly materials 3. Focus on messaging that triggers emotions, particularly amusement, interest, or surprise * More sarcasm
- 69. Success Metrics • Revenue • Downloads • Daily/monthly average users • Time on task • Email sign ups • • • • • User Ratings Press stories Facebook Likes License requests Tweets
- 70. Success metrics need timelines and plenty of room to grow
- 71. Once the game launches, the real work begins
- 78. Give yourself plenty of runway
- 80. Set goals and hold yourself to them Sell 10% more apps each week.
- 81. Aspire to growth hacker
- 82. Become a Growth Hacker • • • • Pick 1 or 2 metrics Live or die by those metrics Set a goal for each week Experiment to raise the metrics. Abandon those that don’t work. Iterate on those that do. Growth hackers increase a metric through methodical and measurable tests.
- 83. A/B Tests Pick this one! Pick this one! Which one is more successful?
- 84. A/B Tests Please rate us! Please rate us! Rate now Rate 5 Stars No thanks No thanks Which one is more successful?
- 85. A/B Testing 1.Create two options, nearly identical, but with one key difference. 2.Release both to users. 3.Measure which one is more successful. 4.Iterate. Winner!
- 86. Smashing Magazine: Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing
- 87. QuickSprout: Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking
- 88. 3 Simple* Steps to Defining and Achieving Success 1. Clearly define a small number of metrics 2. Set appropriate goals and timelines 3. Growth hack your way to success with measurable experiments * Still sarcasm
- 89. The Challenges • • • • Differentiation Discovery Money Money Money Success Metrics
- 90. Thank you • Carla@NoCrusts.com • No Crusts News – free, weekly newsletter of interesting articles, videos, and games – Sign up: http://tinyurl.com/NoCrustsNews
Editor's Notes
- As many of you know, I’m a frequent contributor to the body of information available on developing games for kids, especially in the mobile space. As the market has shifted over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly worried that I was saying “c’mon in! the water is fine” and not appropriately addressing the challenges of the marketplace.
- A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog for Kidscreen Kids Got Game that was titled Surviving the Mobile App Apocalypse. While it was tongue in cheek, the underlying message was really important. This is a really tough market. Yes, it’s full of opportunities, but it’s also full of challenges.
- We are in one of the most crowded marketplaces ever.
- I found this image a few months ago, from Tom Hulme at IDEO. It’s a graph that an investor drew for him of the product lifecycle. [Explain picture] I worry that we have too many uninformed optimists running around, building products blindly, without understanding the opportunities or the challenges.
- So my goal for this session is to make sure everyone leaves as an informed optimist. Informed Apptimist? Some of you are likely already there, others may be deep into the pessimism, and I’m sure there are a few uninformed optimists who will be wiggling in their chairs before long. But hang in there with me.
- Differentiation – The other thing that will start to happen as you watch the iTunes feed is that you’ll see how many ideas are focused on a relatively small set of educational goals – letters, numbers, colors – and interaction mechanics – matching, coloring, etc. It’s really tempting to gravitate toward the common areas.
- Elmo, Dora, Endless Alphbet, Starfall, Dr. Seuss, Bob Books, Duck Duck Moose, Alphabet appsBut these are the most crowded spaces possible. And not just crowded in terms of sheer numbers of products. By competing in these areas, you’re also competing against Disney, Nick, PBS KIDS, and all the other major brands that already have significant brand recognition.
- LetterSchool
- Dinorama
- DragonBox
- Use technology to differentiate?
- Foldify, Little Zebra
- Tiny Terrors
- Chicken cha cha cha
- Mystery Lighthouse – point and click adventure
- Where’s waldo
- Little Things
- Hardest Game Ever
- Dumb Ways to Die
- Parents have review resources like Common Sense Media, Parents’ Choice, and Apps Playground,but even they have limited bandwidth.
- Because the market is so crowded, how people find out about products is critical. Yet the resources for parents to find out about products is limited.
- http://moz.com/blog/top-three-inbound-marketing-strategies-for-mobile-appsRecommendations from people I know 92%Consumer opinions posted online 70%
- Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology StudyParent watches or plays the content first 56%Recommendations from friends 34%Reputation of the company or network 33%Child finds it his/herself 25%Website reviews 13%Newspaper or magazine reviews 5%
- Over 30 days ShareThis monitored 4.9 billion “social signals”. Sharing was 2x more likely on mobile devices. Blue is iPhoneRed is iPad20% family & parenting iPhone17% iPadThe only thing shared more on iPad was Food & Drink
- A recent blog post of mine that had a significant number of pageviews and shares. Fosters interest and surprise. It’s Sexy Headlines 101, but hey, it works
- Bragging gets shared, too. Interest and surprise.
- I’m not saying go to slide share unless you know your audience is there. But it’s a great microcosm for examing what gets shared.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/theclevelandkid24/4380307487/sizes/o/in/photostream/
- Apologize for the changing scale.
- September 11, No featureSeptember 13: iTunes New & Noteworthy homepage in 82 countriesAnother bump when the game went free
- To that point, set goals and hold yourself too them. Rationalize salesSell 10% more apps each week. Yes, overtime it’s a lot of people, but if you start at 100, it’s only 10 more next week. If your biggest problem is that your 10% goals have become gaining 400 new users a day, then we should talk. And how do you hold yourself to them? Write them down, etc. People who wrote down their goals, shared this information with a friend, and sent weekly updates to that friend were on average 33% more successful in accomplishing their statedgoals than those who merely formulated goalsDr. Gail Matthews, Dominican University of California
- Growth Hacking is a Silicon Valley term, largely credited to Andrew Chen.
- Looking at case studies will also help you understand what you might try testing, like language for reaching out to press, how to sign up people for Facebook, etc. Test your value proposition. App icons.