Hey, Rapid web development is all when and good but when it takes 4 months to rise anywhere in google it certainly takes off the shine. You hear of zero to hero.. crashed the server.. minted before toilet break.. I was wondering if any heros would share their marketing strategies.. or prehaps an amazon link to "Post-Agile Web development". Does anyone plug an app purely based on its AJAX ability? Sure presentation and delivery is important, prehaps more so than concept on the web, but does your AJAX get you press coverage? .... I think it does. The developer in me says "keep it quiet and functional.. it''ll be confusing otherwise". While I''m sure the PR guy in my head would say otherwise.... if he was there... at all. beers -henry
It sounds like you''re talking about a consumer site and you''re not talking about spending money on marketing. If that''s the case you need to do it through word-of-mouth. Think of it like your app is a virus - two things determine how fast a virus spreads - the first is how good it is at spreading from person to person and the second is the nature of the community it''s spreading in. If you''re modeling a real virus you would look at two numbers - if you''re exposed do you get infected (keep coming back to the site) and how many people does each person expose the virus to. You need to understand if people who use your site actually come back and will they tell other people about it - and why (or why not). The last part is key. If you get 10 people to use it and they all yawn and don''t tell anyone, your done unless you can figure out why and fix it. One thing to look at - though not necessarily the first - is how well your app spreads itself - are their links to email content to other people for example. Assuming you solve that problem, you have to understand the network topology of the community you''re trying to reach. Where do they hang out on the web, what mailing lists, blogs, forums, news sites (slashdot/digg/etc) do they use. You need to focus your efforts on the key sites and key people. I know a guy who did a book review on slashdot, with a link to his home page, and he got thousands of hits from it. Last thing, even if you''re trying to reach everybody - ala myspace - you should probably start by picking a subset of that community to focus on initially. Metcalfs law says the value of a network increases exponentially with the number of users, but not all users are equally interesting to all others. A site with a hundred teenage girl members is much more attractive to teenage girls than one with 100 people of all types. hope that helps On 4/6/06, Henry Turner <henryturnerlists@googlemail.com> wrote:> > Hey, > > Rapid web development is all when and good but when it takes 4 months > to rise anywhere in google it certainly takes off the shine. > > You hear of zero to hero.. crashed the server.. minted before toilet > break.. I was wondering if any heros would share their marketing > strategies.. or prehaps an amazon link to "Post-Agile Web > development". > > Does anyone plug an app purely based on its AJAX ability? Sure > presentation and delivery is important, prehaps more so than concept > on the web, but does your AJAX get you press coverage? .... I think it > does. The developer in me says "keep it quiet and functional.. it''ll > be confusing otherwise". While I''m sure the PR guy in my head would > say otherwise.... if he was there... at all. > > beers > -henry > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060406/0a92e8d3/attachment.html
Hey Larry, Thanks for the reply, especially the breakdown on how to analyze your viral appeal. APIs must be very infectious, even the simple ones. The number of technorati/delicious/digg links around is almost over the top. Much apprecitated. -h On 4/6/06, Larry White <ljw1001@gmail.com> wrote:> It sounds like you''re talking about a consumer site and you''re not talking > about spending money on marketing. If that''s the case you need to do it > through word-of-mouth. > > Think of it like your app is a virus - two things determine how fast a virus > spreads - the first is how good it is at spreading from person to person and > the second is the nature of the community it''s spreading in. If you''re > modeling a real virus you would look at two numbers - if you''re exposed do > you get infected (keep coming back to the site) and how many people does > each person expose the virus to. You need to understand if people who use > your site actually come back and will they tell other people about it - and > why (or why not). > > The last part is key. If you get 10 people to use it and they all yawn and > don''t tell anyone, your done unless you can figure out why and fix it. One > thing to look at - though not necessarily the first - is how well your app > spreads itself - are their links to email content to other people for > example. > > Assuming you solve that problem, you have to understand the network topology > of the community you''re trying to reach. Where do they hang out on the web, > what mailing lists, blogs, forums, news sites (slashdot/digg/etc) do they > use. You need to focus your efforts on the key sites and key people. I > know a guy who did a book review on slashdot, with a link to his home page, > and he got thousands of hits from it. > > Last thing, even if you''re trying to reach everybody - ala myspace - you > should probably start by picking a subset of that community to focus on > initially. Metcalfs law says the value of a network increases exponentially > with the number of users, but not all users are equally interesting to all > others. A site with a hundred teenage girl members is much more attractive > to teenage girls than one with 100 people of all types. > > hope that helps > > > On 4/6/06, Henry Turner <henryturnerlists@googlemail.com> wrote: > > > Hey, > > Rapid web development is all when and good but when it takes 4 months > to rise anywhere in google it certainly takes off the shine. > > You hear of zero to hero.. crashed the server.. minted before toilet > break.. I was wondering if any heros would share their marketing > strategies.. or prehaps an amazon link to "Post-Agile Web > development". > > Does anyone plug an app purely based on its AJAX ability? Sure > presentation and delivery is important, prehaps more so than concept > on the web, but does your AJAX get you press coverage? .... I think it > does. The developer in me says "keep it quiet and functional.. it''ll > be confusing otherwise". While I''m sure the PR guy in my head would > say otherwise.... if he was there... at all. > > beers > -henry > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > >