#peachcool

This post originally appeared on Medium on March 10th, 2016.

So SXSW starts tomorrow, and like every year before it, bands and creatives with gather, and tech startups will be vying to see what the hottest new app of 2016 is! Last year it was Meerkat, who recently pivoted after facing tough competition from Twitter’s Periscope. And I remember all the way back in 2007 it was Twitter itself.

This year I believe the hottest app is going to be Peach. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a mobile only social network for Android and iOS. It reminds me of what Twitter might be if it was just invented, with splashes of Instagram, Vine and Tumblr.

The unique aspect is it’s “magic words” — a list of interactive functions that appear when you type a specific word. For example, typing the word “here” pops up with a list of your nearby locations so you can quickly post where you are. “gif” allows you to quickly search for a relevant gif, “mood” will pop up with a list of moods and their matching emojis, “throwback” will pick a completely random picture from your photo library, and there’s many more. You can even type “play” to play a quick built in game and post your score! (on iOS it’s Peachball, where you throw a ball into a target, on Android it’s Peachup, a difficult Flappy Bird clone).

It’s these magic words that make the app addictive and fun. It creates a far more playful vibe than Twitter, and users are signing up in droves. (plug : Follow me on Peach, I’m CaseyRain on there)

In what’s definitely a good sign, brands are noticing too. Rolling Stone have an account, and so do MTV. Somewhat inexplicably, so do MerriamWebster the dictionary, and to their credit they are a shining example of how much fun you can have with the app. Kudos to whoever Merriam hired to run their social networks!

The key to any app’s success is it’s “stickiness”, or how engaging the app is. I’m happy to say that both myself and my girlfriend have been using the app multiple times a day for the last month and are well and truly addicted. For all the press that Snapchat is getting, we are definitely using Peach a lot more at this point and that’s a great win for Peach.

Install it now, and see for yourself! And feel free to add me (CaseyRain) as your first friend on there.

Oh, and to all the folks at SXSW who might be reading this, I’m totally not jealous of you or anything……. Lies. I am. Have a blast, and let me know about the best bands you see there!

Peach out, people (see what I did there?)