Hello! Creator of Kids App Hunt here. I love the discussion found on Product Hunt and I want to create that for the kids app space. There are so many kids app review sites and none of them seem to get at the core of what makes an app great for a kid or not. I'd like for this to be a space where users and creators can discuss apps that are genuinely beneficial for kids to be using.
I would love advice from the Product Hunt community on how to get a site like this going. As you can see, it's off to a slow start. What are the best steps for starting up this community?
Thanks for checking it out!
@n0s0ap Nice idea :)
Do you suspect your audience will be parents or kids themselves? I think you should have a specific target and then implement a strategy around that.
Both are very different approaches.
Also I'd re-visit the daily format that you currently use, I'm no expert in this field but I'd look at if there are enough apps released each day for kids to allow this site to continually show fresh content daily. Otherwise there are other ways to display it, like an app store of sorts.
I'd visit imagery if you are specifically looking at the kids market as visuals are more engaging - especially with kids.
Another thing you may consider could be mixing apps with physical toys/tablets/etc and articles.
Now articles is an interesting thing... I was considering a TechCrunch for Kids type site a year or so ago but never got around to it. You could look at current tech articles that are popular each week and look at re-framing them to appeal to the younger market. Eventually you may find some young people to want to be those editors.
Just a few initial brain vomits from me :)
@bentossell Thanks for your thoughts Ben!
My intended audience is parents, teachers, and the developers themselves. The people who are purchasing and using these apps with their kids. I want to foster discussion about the actual benefits/educational uses of an app vs. surface reviews like so many sites provide.
I can see now as I'm trying to explain it that this message is hard to convey. I'm not trying to highlight the "best kids apps." I want to work backwards from "is this beneficial to the development of a child" to "why is this beneficial" and finally to "this app is beneficial to the development of a child because X".
Your idea of a kid-facing article site is interesting too. I've kicked around the idea of a news site for kids. Definitely some potential there I think.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
@benlew Hi! Did you manage to implement a solution for this? If yes, please let me know. I would like to invite you to take a look at Yuggler, an App that enables parents to discover kids activities at www.yuggler.com; Maybe we implement a new activity type media with sub categories to showcase the best apps for kids?
The may not necessarily be a kid's app but one for those who have kids. I think an app the let's parents or guardians know exactly what their kids are doing at any point in time on just a glance or swipe on the screen is a good idea.
There's an App like that called #Dovibe, still in the beta testing phase but its having some good feedback from the early users.
@benlew. great point! As a developer of apps for kids, I can say that one of the main focus points should be respecting kids' intelligence and not being "childish." Write content from a kid's point of view and encourage their independent exploration (we did that with our Wikids apps, by creating interrelated entries in different categories)
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Makerpad
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Yuggler
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doVibe