Move over millennials, the next generation is here. Generation Z are youth born between the mid-1990s and the early-2000s. Unlike millennials who will remember dial-up internet or earlier, Generation Z’ers may have a challenge recalling the time when they were not connected to the outside world via computer or smartphone. This means they look at technology and apps differently — and more often. A recent study found that 12% of youth between the ages of 13 and 17 check their phone every few seconds. It’s up to companies to build apps that will keep this generation engaged. Here are a few apps currently making it work. Social Media and Messaging A predictable first app to mention, Snapchat is insanely popular among Generation Z. The photo and video messaging app has more than 100 million active daily users, with 45% of those users between 18 and 24-years-old. This demographic uses Snapchat to document every cool, funny, and interesting moment in their lives, leading to a generation that can have vicarious experiences unlike any group in the past. Snapchat taps into two defining elements of Generation Z: a love of selfies and a fear of missing out (often known as FOMO). Through its ever-changing filters in which users can adorn themselves with flower crowns and dog faces — as well as the simple and short-term shareability of pictures and videos through private messages or public stories — Snapchat meets this demographic’s core app desires. Generation Z loves secret identities. That’s perhaps why an app called Whisper is so popular. Whisper users can send messages anonymously and receive replies which are posted publicly or sent to them by a user with a pseudonym. (However, it’s important for developers to consider that secret identity apps like this have the potential to open up a door to cyber-bullying and may need to be monitored heavily.) The messages — also known as whispers — are questions or confessions users may never share in the real world and are displayed to the app’s 30 million monthly users, with replies coming from around the world. While emojis continue to dominate smartphone messaging, an app called PopKey allows users to easily send GIFs in addition. The app installs a GIF keyboard to your phone, so users can easily select a trending GIF. There’s never been an easier way for Generation Z to send a virtual “face palm.” [gravityform id="9" title="true" description="true" ajax="true"] Photography and Video As mentioned, selfies are a big part of life for Generation Z, and photo sharing app Instagram can be the perfect outlet for those shots. The Instagram app of today has started to resemble Snapchat, with Instagram Stories allowing users to share momentary glances into one another’s lives. The fact that 76% of teenagers use Instagram shows there’s merit in allowing Generation Z the ability to add filters to their photos and easily engage with their friends, community, and celebrities. Live video streaming app Periscope has also gained traction among Generation Z’ers. If you thought Snapchat was an overshare, think again. Periscope is akin to The Truman Show, where users become famous by live streaming every moment of their life. Twitter acquired Periscope before its launch in 2015 in an effort to capture the attention of younger users, and it worked. One of the reasons Periscope is so popular is that it’s a more authentic look at someone’s day. Unlike Snapchat and Instagram where users can add filters and take hundreds of photos before finding the right one, there’s a level of vulnerability and exposure that comes from a live streaming app like Periscope. Music When it comes to music, the apps that are popular with Generation Z are the ones popular with millennials: namely Spotify and Pandora, with respectively, 39% and 21% approval ratings from this demographic. One of the reasons these apps may be popular is because of a user’s ability to curate content, i.e. create their own playlist or station. App developers considering the audio and music industry should consider designing their app as a streaming platform rather than one based on downloads. What Makes Apps Popular? Generation Z grew up on the internet, and they understand that there are no (or at least very little) secrets. This doesn’t mean that youth don’t want privacy and security, though. Apps targeting Generation Z’ers should incorporate some element of a confessional or ability to share — but should consider masking that information or the user’s location with some sort of disguise. An element of immediacy will also help with popularity, as Generation Z wants to find out what’s going on in real-time.

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.

by: Robert Wang Better thank your lucky stars. On October 5th, Adobe announced a workaround to the iPhone's complete incompatibility to Flash. The company showcased a handful of apps, developed in Flash and directly converted to a fully functional iPhone compatible form, in front of a live audience at the annual Adobe Max event in San Francisco. In enabling the channels of conversion, Adobe has opened the floodgates for ever greater volumes of 3rd party applications. Now it’s anyone’s game—provided you can make it past Apple’s heavy-handed censors. By using Flash Pro CS5 (slated for public beta later this year), aspiring developers might finally get their very own piece of the much-sought-after Apple pie. The iPhone/Flash incompatibility has long served as a source of annoyance for many a user: causing anything from minor style disruption to the total catastrophic failure of entire websites. Over the past decade, Flash has grown from amusing novelty to one of the primary mediums of content delivery on the internet. Flash is used to power everything from animated ads, to video players (the likes of which have granted YouTube and Hulu their runaway success), to full on media platforms from which complex applications can be run—all on a lightweight, easy-to-install standalone program. So why hasn’t Apple included Flash functionality on the iPhone? Due to the nature of the Flash player, it would, to be blunt, cut into Apple’s profits. Apple is currently maintaining something of a totalitarian regime over the software and hardware rights to its creations. Users can only gain additional content by purchasing it through the Apple regulated iTunes store…and Apple aims to keep it that way. So will you ever be able to stream that new trailer off MovieFone? Don’t bank on it. The Flash player actually violates the Apple Terms of Service, in fact any sort of plug-in to the Safari Browser would represent a breech in contract. But it’s a start, and with greater pressure to ease up on content restrictions arising from competition like the Google Android, it’s only a matter of time before Apple is forced to reconsider its policies. However, with html 5 in full swing, the need for dynamic content plug-ins like Flash and SilverLight is significantly reduced—potentially to the point of obsolescence. Html 5’s design means that the potential and power behind web apps freshly created on its platform will be unparalleled: faster, more immersive, and ever closer to being indistinguishable from their offline brethren. To date, Apple, Google, Mozilla, and even Microsoft are doing their best to promote it. With the lines already drawn, it’s going to be a tough, uphill battle for Adobe. Is it time to ditch your Flash books in the closest dumpster and move on? Has Flash become so prevalent that it’s now an irreplaceable Internet staple? Look for Barefoot Solutions to weigh in on the debate soon. In the meantime, let the games begin.