One of the mighty tasks in effective marketing is understanding and targeting your specific demographic. In gaming, the face of the American gamer is often stereotyped, erroneously, as a young male, which overlooks a massive portion of the game community that non-gamers may be unaware of. Yet recent conversations within the gaming community may have misled marketers, entrepreneurs and strategists into misunderstanding the reality of who gamers are today. One of the biggest, saddest, and dare I say moronic, reasons in 2014 was the Gamergate controversy. The hate-fueled Gamergate movement stirred such intense vitriol against women within the community that several women gamers and developers were effectively forced out of gaming community for their own safety. I’ve heard of Gamergate...but really, what was/is it? Properly articulating what Gamergate was/is can be a long-winded explanation supported by flimsy rumors. Yet after peeling back the many layers, an explanation of Gamergate necessarily must observe the movement’s beginning as an attack on a woman developer, Zoe Quinn, when she was trying to publish her game Depression Quest. Reviews on the game had little to do with the content of her work, but rather were an invasive look - and attack - on her rumored sexual life. At the core of the attacks were accusations of her sleeping with different men while she was allegedly in a committed relationship. Yet as old fashioned misogyny gained momentum attacking her gender, coital behavior, looks, etc., an entire community banded together with the sole mission to “make her life irreparably horrible.” Vicious ad hominem insults swelled as the pack sent so many death threats she was forced to go into hiding for her own safety. While online aggression continued on Quinn, the more level headed participants in the movement began advocating that the attention Quinn would receive from mainstream media would be sympathetic and paint her as a victim. Therefore, other participants in Gamergate advocated for taking the momentum gained from Gamergate and focusing on other issues which include: An argument for journalistic integrity in game reviewing. This was because, ostensibly, a review written for Quinn’s game was favorable due to the writer’s romantic affiliation with Quinn - a point later proven untrue. A demand for purification in the gaming community, in that gamers should not be bothered with social movement discussions such as sexism or racism - they just want to “play the games.” A defense for the young male demographic, that gaming is their industry and theirs alone. Clearly, the conversation and purpose of Gamergate is muddled at best. However most people walk away from the Gamergate controversy understanding one thing - gamers don’t like women and don’t want them in the community. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Who Gamers Really Are - and the Opportunity Waiting for Developers Savvy developers and entrepreneurs would be wise to understand that regardless of the adolescent cries of the loud and hateful gamergater, women and minorities are bringing their talents - and wallets - to help the industry grow in new and diverse ways. Gender The reality on gender in gaming is that women make up nearly 50% of the gaming world. According to a 2012 report by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), women trail behind men gamers by a marginal 6%. In a study conducted just before the Gamergate explosion in August, Flurry found that women spend more time and more money on mobile games. Women are reportedly also more loyal to these games than men, as well as spend 35% more time in gaming apps than men. Further studies reveal that adult women play video games more than boys. Age Not only are women almost half of the gaming community, adults are just as active in gaming as those under 18. One of the reasons is those who grew up in the arcade era may have grown older, but they failed to abandon their former video game playing ways. The same ESA report put the age of the average gamer at 30, with 32% under the age of eighteen, 31% between the ages of eighteen and 35, and 37% over the age of 36. What developers are afforded in today’s gamer-scape is that while there is still a prevalence of young males, other demographics are just as dominant in the community - and playing a wide variety of games more than ever. The big opportunity in game and mobile app development is that most games are still packed with primarily male protagonists with a heavy dominance of white characters. Given the diversity of the actual gamer - why are we still building most of our games to target young males? Perhaps now is the time to think outside of the box, and build new kinds of games. What do you think? Respond in the comments below.

It’s true - there is a clear trend we are abandoning our desktops and hopping on phones and tablets to access the Internet. 2014 figures range from 23 - 55% of users Interneting via mobile, with the heaviest mobile useage, 55%, occurring in the United States. So we don’t need to spend any time convincing you: You need a web option for your business. A percentage of users will access via mobile device. Phew, that’s out of the way. The conversation, rather, is around how you want your users to interact with your site - mobile web or native app. Mobile web is typically the cheaper upfront option, which allows space for small businesses to find reason to avoid the expense of building a native app. Yet the app is increasingly taking over the mobile market, largely due to superior UX, are generally more powerful and are very much a hip trend. 2014 research in a much cited Flurry study shows that apps, “commanded 86% of the average US mobile consumer’s time, or 2 hrs and 19 minutes per day.” Most of that time, 60%, is spent on gaming and social media sites, clearly demonstrating the entertainment component of the native app. That's right, we haven’t completely forgotten about wonderful wastes of time like playing Angry or Floppy Birds. Fun components aside, at what point does your growing business need a native app - or do you even need one? If we know that internet users are increasingly accessing via mobile, and most of that time is spent via native app, the last thing you want to do is get left behind without providing the option users are clearly demanding. Here are some considerations to help you make the decision to go app or opt not: Your Specific Business Needs As with anything, the decision is based first on careful consideration of your particular business and customers. What do you sell and what are your clients like? Social? Utilities? Marketplaces? Then let’s be crazy honest, an app is for you. But if you, say, work with clients primarily on a face-to-face basis as a small restaurant, coffee shop, or even as a lawyer, you can likely get away with a well thought out responsive design. Additionally if you rely on search engine traffic, that’s a good indicator you can perhaps stick with mobile web. Commerce Mobile commerce (mcommerce) is anticipated to continue trending upward as we march on through the 21st century. A recent study predicts that 25% of commerce will take place on mobile by 2017, which again is a helpful reminder that your users are on mobile. If you have a commerce option, there certainly are ways via mobile web to effectively facilitate transactions. But if you are selling, you want users to consistently keep buying - and the native app has been found to be linked to brand loyalty. Customer and Brand Loyalty Get real with yourself - do you have loyal customers and/or solid brand recognition? Native app is best for when you have a loyal customer base. For example, I have a smartphone like most breathing Americans, but it can take me a while to make the commitment to download a mobile app. Often when I visit sites I’ll be asked to “Download our App!” which I often bypass the first time I see this suggestion. You may behave differently in your Interweb mobile browsing, but to me, often times I just want the information I’m looking for and to be done with it. But as time goes on and I use a service more than once, I’ll make that 2 minute commitment to download an app. I eventually come to the realization the app will be much easier for me to access if I’m going to continue visiting. While I still deal with download commitment phobia, it is clear that engagement on the native app is increasing as, “the average time spent with mobile apps in the U.S. grew 35% in 2012 to 127 minutes per day, while average time on the web declined 2.4% to only 70 minutes per day.” Responsiveness How important is it to provide your users with a fast response? Yes, anyone would say, “Very important!” Yet in all honesty, not every site needs a speedy user experience - but you might. One of our favorite things about Native apps is how one tap will instantly move the user on to where they want to go. Much faster than irritatingly pausing for that please-wait-while-we’re-connecting-to-the-internet spinner to finally stop. The other consideration is if you do want the superior responsiveness of a Native app, you will likely be trading for a lower accessibility than you can achieve with mobile web. End Goals At the end of the day, what are you after? Whether it’s to sell more, increase engagement, or communicate in a more targeted way, arguments can be made for either native app or mobile web. The superior UX of a Native app will likely encourage greater activity as they encourage a deeper engagement with the user. But if you are trying to get as many people to your site as possible without a significant number of features available, you can likely get away with a mobile site. Remember, responsive is not just about fitting everything on the screen. Native app is not just about joining the trends. Your company has a specific set of needs and so do you. As we continue to track mobile usage, it seems clear that users will continue to download apps - and if you have an idea for an app, yours should be one of them. by Joni Erdmann            

You’ve made the decision to create an internal app for your company. You’ve done your homework, examined opportunities to bring value to your employees, and worked with either internal resources or an outsourced development team to bring that value to life. Developing an app for your business is exciting, but achieving a working product isn’t the end of the road. Now you need to launch it, and get employees to use it. Deployment should be planned just as thoughtfully as development. Even if your team has built a beautiful, user-friendly, advanced enterprise app, it can crash and burn during the deployment process. If employees can’t easily download it or sync it across their various platforms, your app will sit on the digital shelf gathering cosmic dust. Here’s what you need to think about before you deploy your new enterprise app. Internal Testing Employee feedback is vital. The point of creating an internal enterprise app is to make your employees jobs easier — and the best way to ensure your app serves its purpose is to ask employees what they think of it directly. You should have already done extensive research on your employees’ needs before beginning app development, but it’s important to test your app as you approach deployment. Things change during the development process — features are added or removed and UI design is adjusted accordingly — and these changes may inadvertently make the app less intuitive for users. Seek employee feedback on whether the latest version of your app does in fact serve their needs. The best way to do this is to deploy an early version of the app, and distribute it to a sample of employees for testing. To do this, you may use ad-hoc distribution through Android or iOS, which allows a company to deploy an app to select users via email invite or a website. If you don’t want to go through Google or Apple, consider using third-party distribution via an outside platform (like Fabric.io) to deploy your app to select employees. Security and Support Android and iOS have different security protocols from traditional IT infrastructures. Your company’s IT team should understand these differences and how to handle them. While both companies offer their own security solutions, you can also turn to third-party options like Samsung Knox and Bluebox for Android. Once the app is deployed, employees will inevitably have questions on how to use it properly and how to resolve issues that come up. Ensure that your IT department can handle support for your app on all relevant devices (mobile, desktop and more). This should be something you talk to your IT team about before you begin development. If your IT staff doesn’t have the resources, you’ll have to consider the costs associated with bringing on third-party mobile-specific support. Availability The method of deployment isn’t always a straightforward choice, especially when you consider the different devices your employees use. When it’s time to release the app to your entire company, what’s the best way to make it accessible on all devices and platforms? An enterprise app is for internal use only — should you make it available on a public app store? Your available deployment options include: Public Stores Making your app available on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store ensures all employees will be able to find and download your app. This easy accessibility is also great for employees who end up changing phones. Google charges $25 for a developer license, and Apple charges a $99 annual fee for an Apple Developer Program license. All apps will have to go through both companies’ app approval processes, before being published to their respective app stores. Enterprise Programs Joining an enterprise program with Apple or Google means your app will be distributed internally to employees (where your company acts as the licensee). While Android doesn’t charge anything to use app licensing features, Apple does charge a $299 annual fee for its Apple Developer Enterprise Program license. Private B2B Store For iOS apps, Apple’s Volume Purchase Program (VPP) allows companies to set up their own private app store. Using internal app binaries, you can restrict access to employee-owned devices only. Companies can also share their apps with other VPP-participating companies. Keep in mind, however, that apps still need to be submitted for approval on this platform. Start Planning for Deployment at the Start Don’t wait until your app is designed and built to start planning for deployment. In your very first conversations with your development team about creating your enterprise app, be sure to discuss deployment strategies, potential challenges and solutions. The result will be an app your employees will enjoy using. This isn’t an easy task: while 83% of enterprise app users in a recent study said apps help with productivity, only half said their enterprise app was intuitive. This points to a huge opportunity for yours to stand out from the rest, with proper planning for the design, development and deployment. If you are considering developing an enterprise app for your company, or already have an enterprise app and have questions about how best to deploy it to your employees, reach out to us for a free consultation.