Show HN: A half-year viral project that did not go viral

by vilius • 15 years ago

1 4 15 years ago

Well, for starters:

1) On the front page, there are no explanations / visuals on what your app does. 2) If I wanted to try it out, I'd have to sign up with Facebook, where you're requesting virtually every permission available to request.

result => I don't care if this is the best thing since sliced bread, the perceived barrier to entry is too high.

vilius• 15 years ago

Thanks for a starter!

I agree on first point, I will expand "Your Facebook data will become a crazy book." into something more visual and clear. But I appreciate any ideas on the second. We've tried to limit the required permissions to as few as possible, the thing is the more we get, the more funky book we can provide. Initial presumption was that the stylish look of the website will give some confidence for the users to trust their "photos" and "friends" for a moment, but it doesn't. And it is somewhat weird to put any "Privacy Protected" badges to a website, that should be fun and stuff. In addition people do not share their books. That is strange as most of them say that their books are really funny and cool. So they should want to share them?

kirillzubovsky3• 15 years ago

If you could convince some of your current users to share all/part of their books on the front page of your site, that would be wonderful - not just an example of the product, but also an example of real users trusting you/facebook to gather their data.

As per data, see if you could do it step-by-step. Ask for photos first, let users create something. As they use the product, offer to create more dynamic content and then ask for additional permissions.

Hopefully that will get your users started and once they see some value will get them further engaged.

kirillzubovsky3• 15 years ago

p.s. The graphics are cool!

Show HN: A half-year viral project that did not go viral

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