Disqus - Latest Comments for andrew_null

Re: Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article

andrew_null — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:18:47 -0000

Cool concept, and lots of room to growh. My guess right now is that it's buyer-side constrained and there aren't enough companies buying crowdflower services to keep up with the massive number of time-rich people online who can do menial tasks in exchange for discounted prices on virtual crotchless fursuits.

Re: Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article

andrew_null — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:07:52 -0000

Devon, there is no advertising allowed on my blog!!! :-)

Re: Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article

andrew_null — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:36:52 -0000

Fair enough, and I agree that TC loves to sensationalize stuff :-)

Re: Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article

andrew_null — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:27:46 -0000

There's definitely a bunch of crap on Google, but they have done a great job over the years of prioritizing user experience over monetization. In particular, they display less ads on searches, they have a mysterious "quality score," and they even check your capitalization when you're creating ads.

Re: Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article

andrew_null — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:25:46 -0000

have you used offers before? If not, try them, because you'll learn something: They are awful.

I am both defending the offers industry in that I think there is some value there, but at the same time, offers are terrible. I think the link you sent me is full of denials, and doesn't take responsibility for any part of the obvious user experience problems.

Re: How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook and Zynga)

andrew_null — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:47:11 -0000

I don't think any of the recent actions Facebook has been taking will pose an existential threat to the offer providers in the short-term... it's the medium-term where continued degradation of the UX will cause FB to take big, unilateral steps...

Re: How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook and Zynga)

andrew_null — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:08:21 -0000

That's right, current offers don't make sense at all. Right now the industry is just opportunistic, and not thinking about the long term.

Re: How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook and Zynga)

andrew_null — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:02:44 -0000

Matt, I think that if you guys don't get squeeky clean soon, Facebook will regulate you guys out of existence because of the public uproar it's causing... You guys need to get a LOT better on the user experience sooner rather than later.

They'll do to leadgen what they are doing with bad actor apps and advertisers.

I bet you guys have 6 months to figure it out, max.

Re: Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article

andrew_null — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:08:47 -0000

Yes, and similarly I've been sitting in some user research sessions with normal people and they love social gaming. The point of my article is, I think it's all here to stay. Maybe some user cleanup will be required to make all the players more accountable, but social gaming is a fundamentally sound trend and we'll see multiple IPO/M&As in the space.

Re: How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook and Zynga)

andrew_null — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:21:29 -0000

Thanks for the comment James. Just read your section of Adam's book "Viral Loop" btw, fun stuff.

I think you are probably logged in via Facebook for Disqus and there's something weird there. Might want to try the Twitter OAuth instead.

Re: How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook and Zynga)

andrew_null — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:06:03 -0000

Yep, I totally agree with you on the user experience issues. My point is just that I think it's possible for the offers industry to actually provide end user value, though clearly they are far from that, and I want to give the rationale for how something like that might happen.

Thanks for the comment :-)

Re: Building lifestyle companies versus VC-backable startups: Is it walk before you run?

andrew_null — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:41:47 -0000

Yes, and I think there are ways to start a company that MIGHT turn into a VC-backable company and have that optionality all the way. That's definitely nice. But I think that makes things extra hard, because not only do you need all the weird VC constraints, but you also need the constraint of getting profitable earlier rather than later. It's just hard (but not impossible).

Re: Building lifestyle companies versus VC-backable startups: Is it walk before you run?

andrew_null — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:40:27 -0000

I wrote some more notes in my reply to James Hong in the above comments, but my point is that there is a rather defined "pipeline" of what it means to start a venture backed company in Silicon Valley. First off, you kinda have to be here in the bay area. Then you have to get connected to the right angels, develop the right story (and tech and company), and then learn how to deal with VCs. Then you need to be introduced to enough VCs, have the right pitch, and get the right coaching (and raw results) to get it done. It's really hard, and kind of an obscure set of skills.

There's lots of steps, and it's not clear to me that any amount of "practice" in adjacent models really substitutes for just doing it.

And I'm not trying to make a judgement for why one way is better than the other - they are just different models, but the VC-backable model happens to be obscure enough for the entrepreneurs that would like to be doing it, they should just go for it and not set their sights on something lower in the near-term, for "practice."

For people who just want to start great businesses, that's awesome. But for the ones who want to have weird constraints on their business like promising crazy returns in a high growth, competitive industry to their investors, they will want to start practicing that asap :-)

Re: Building lifestyle companies versus VC-backable startups: Is it walk before you run?

andrew_null — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:36:00 -0000

Yep - I agree with all of your points and don't think they contradict any of mine. The bulk of my post is targeted at people who would rather be shooting the moon, but set their sites lower for training wheel purposes :-)

Another nuance that didn't come through in the article is the idea of VC-backed versus VC-backable. I think whether or not you take venture money, putting yourself in high-growth, competitive markets is a recipe that's different than doing something targeted at profitability as early as possible. And you learn different lessons, and yes, the skills may not be transferable either way.

The worst case scenario, as you mention, is a person who takes VC money and then regrets it. There is a lot to regret in that situation :-)

Re: Designing For Monetization: How To Apply THE Key Metric In Social Gaming

andrew_null — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:55:19 -0000

really viral apps can have high DAUs because they are acquiring lots of users, on their way up the S-curve. So viral apps with crappy retention can have high DAU/MAU ratios even though they are churning through a lot of users, without an indication of retention.

Re: Install Windows XP on a Mini-Note (USB stick method)

andrew_null — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:11:30 -0000

This same problem happened for me. Here was the fix, for anyone who is pulling out their hair!

Hi,

I solved the "biosinfo" as well at the missing file at the copy on the virtual disk.

2 solutions :

Do-it-by-yourself and modify usb_prep8.cmd.

Line 519 replace :
xcopy %xpsource%!xpdir!\!btfile! %tmpdrive%\%btdir% /i /k /y /h
with:
xcopy %xpsource%\%xpdir%\!btfile! %tmpdrive%\%btdir% /i /k /y /h

Line 521, replace :
xcopy %xpsource%!xpdir!\!btfile! %tmpdrive%\%btdir% /i /k /y /h | tee.bat -a usb_prep.log
with:
xcopy %xpsource%\%xpdir%\!btfile! %tmpdrive%\%btdir% /i /k /y /h | tee.bat -a usb_prep.log

Line 525, replace :
copy /y %xpsource%!xpdir!\%%H %tmpdrive%\%btdir%\%%I
with:
copy /y %xpsource%\%xpdir%\%%H %tmpdrive%\%btdir%\%%I

Line 527, rmplace :
copy /y %xpsource%!xpdir!\%%H %tmpdrive%\%btdir%\%%I | tee.bat -a usb_prep.log
with:
copy /y %xpsource%\%xpdir%\%%H %tmpdrive%\%btdir%\%%I | tee.bat -a usb_prep.log

Re: 5 crucial stages in designing your viral loop

andrew_null — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:41:31 -0000

I think you need hundreds to enter the funnel or more, but it depends on the level of differences between a test candidate and its alternatives (I'll leave the math to someone else, but you can read about this discussion in "landing page optimization" books/posts). So usually that means dozens of users per day so that experiments close in a few days.

One advantage of early optimizations is that the differences are often quite high, and thus you can use smaller datasets to show differences. When the differences are smaller, and/or the response rates are lower, then you need more data run over more days.

Re: 5 crucial stages in designing your viral loop

andrew_null — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:13:46 -0000

I think doing a pivot - when, how - is one of the hardest choices to make in here. This discussion probably deserves a full blog post, but I find there's often a point in optimizing products where you're stuck and can't find anything beyond small improvements - then it's often time to try a new market position or value proposition rather than shifting pages and buttons around.

Re: Age (and ARPPU) ain’t nothing but a number: Data on how age impacts social gaming monetization

andrew_null — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:03:41 -0000

I think Gambit's user base is skewed, but is probably representative of offer platforms in general imho. But good point ;-)

Re: Whenever ad networks talk about their “targeting” remember the Netflix prize

andrew_null — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:22:04 -0000

There are about 300 ad networks, and people know it's a massive $500B
industry (offline+online). So there's a lot of very smart PhDs and geeks
chasing it, probably thousands of talented people total - I'd argue the ad
network industry is far more efficient than Netflix, no matter how smart
they are :-)

Re: Whenever ad networks talk about their “targeting” remember the Netflix prize

andrew_null — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:21:01 -0000

Re: Whenever ad networks talk about their “targeting” remember the Netflix prize

andrew_null — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:20:06 -0000

Re: Age (and ARPPU) ain’t nothing but a number: Data on how age impacts social gaming monetization

andrew_null — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:25:02 -0000

One potential implication is that social gaming is mostly made of 13-30yos anyway, and while the ARPU numbers are high for the 30+ set, it won't counteract the full MASS of young users ;-)

Re: Age (and ARPPU) ain’t nothing but a number: Data on how age impacts social gaming monetization

andrew_null — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:44:28 -0000

average revenue per PAYING user per month

Re: Why low-fidelity prototyping kicks butt for customer-driven design

andrew_null — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:23:27 -0000

In reality, the design will probably be both low-resolution, low-fidelity, and very inaccurate ;-)