My friend @nixkuroi Mike Simon is crowdfunding a new tool for isolating and highlighting your real supporters in social media - and also, for automating easy EA tasks. We do need a little cash to make it happen, though. What would motivate you to donate? Mike Simon and I are eager to learn. And we listen (and does the upcoming connex.us) http://su.pr/1kOpdq
Connex.Us bolsters and assists you with your social media "Inner Circle" This dynamic new network will make intelligent suggestions about sharing with those you interact with the most. See the blog post, the (bottom) linked crowdfunding page, and let us know your thoughts?
Saturday, March 31, 2012
from my coming article on bootstrappi...
from my coming article on bootstrapping apps: "we each see light at the end of tunnels we wouldn't have approached on our own"
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Google+ Could Still Blow Facebook Awa...
Google+ Could Still Blow Facebook Away (Here are the UX Cures) http://su.pr/26Efrw
“Facebook announced new photo features that take away yet another cool thing about Google+. This has got to be frustrating for the Google teams, even as they keep a stiff upper lip in public, right +Vic Gundotra?”
I will add my own user experience and blogger-engagement ideas to Scoble’s:
Why do we keep posting on Google+ and not on our blogs? Robert likes the competition between Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. I would like to send a titled, formatted, visually-dynamic and credited (optionally) post to Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous, and/or WordPress.
What did Facebook do this time - learning from G+, but still falling short?
“Facebook, yesterday, turned on a new “interests” feature on my account that totally rocks. Would we have gotten that if Google+ hadn’t shown up on the scene? Probably not. But, now that Facebook has shipped these features, what is special about Google+? The search engine and video hangouts and YouTube integration. The search engine isn’t that far ahead of Facebook, though, and is missing huge features. For instance, why can’t I see every item you’ve plussed? That’s really lame Google and Vic should be ashamed that the search team can’t even do that yet.” (Robert Scoble)
What I Would Suggest for Google Plus Improvement
Enrich features for About page.
Where are “My family relations?”
Relationship status, and with whom?
Political views
Favorite movies/Books/Music/Sports/Teams/current passions
Even comparatively tiny network, Circle.Me, allows us to do a bang-up customization of our about page. We do care about style. An offering of fonts, background photos, logos, and for the quickie types, “themes” would be a smart addition.
We have (some of) that on Facebook and Google could be giving us that – and in no time.
Not having a writable API is a major hole. Being anti OpenGraph-style is a glaring slight on the community of developers.
Give us an iPad app that blows away Twitter and Facebook and makes it a joy to use all of Google’s things on.
Turn down the suck / turn up the good
Fix the goofs that you left in, every since you let Google+ loose. Every URL in G+ has only a cantankerous, lengthly, numerical end – and no built in shortener. That makes it hard to tweet and your URLs look like crap. Listen to us; we’ve been telling you we don’t like this stuff – from the day you invited us to the beta launch.
Give us custom domain names
Let us see all the stories we have liked.
Allow us to follow more than 5,000 people. Twitter is whipping you because of this (and Facebook will not do this go this route any time soon; Zuck thinks no one is important enough to have affiliations with many people or any reason to follow-back many people).
Let us have a REAL blogging tool here. Google has Blogger. Why isn’t it integrated here yet?
Work with the other blogging platforms, and let us send formatted posts from G+ to WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Posterous, and/or Tumblr.
Allow us to add videos and photos in our comments. Facebook has them and it’s important.
Let us clean up our social graphs. Show us people who no longer post. Also, show us, as Connex.us is about to, who we have the most engagement with and preferably (again, kudos to connex.us) across more than one social network. Make it easier to see people’s content, trends, and stats, and delete, people from our social graphs.
You could still win out over Facebook, Vic, you certainly have the cash to put behind initiatives. You’d win the admiration of millions – besides Robert Scoble and I.
What irks you about G+ / is great about Facebook?
How could Google+ or Facebook (or both) behave the way you’d like it to?
What are three core features that would make you leave G+ open for hours on end?
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
“Facebook announced new photo features that take away yet another cool thing about Google+. This has got to be frustrating for the Google teams, even as they keep a stiff upper lip in public, right +Vic Gundotra?”
I will add my own user experience and blogger-engagement ideas to Scoble’s:
Why do we keep posting on Google+ and not on our blogs? Robert likes the competition between Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. I would like to send a titled, formatted, visually-dynamic and credited (optionally) post to Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous, and/or WordPress.
What did Facebook do this time - learning from G+, but still falling short?
“Facebook, yesterday, turned on a new “interests” feature on my account that totally rocks. Would we have gotten that if Google+ hadn’t shown up on the scene? Probably not. But, now that Facebook has shipped these features, what is special about Google+? The search engine and video hangouts and YouTube integration. The search engine isn’t that far ahead of Facebook, though, and is missing huge features. For instance, why can’t I see every item you’ve plussed? That’s really lame Google and Vic should be ashamed that the search team can’t even do that yet.” (Robert Scoble)
What I Would Suggest for Google Plus Improvement
Enrich features for About page.
Where are “My family relations?”
Relationship status, and with whom?
Political views
Favorite movies/Books/Music/Sports/Teams/current passions
Even comparatively tiny network, Circle.Me, allows us to do a bang-up customization of our about page. We do care about style. An offering of fonts, background photos, logos, and for the quickie types, “themes” would be a smart addition.
We have (some of) that on Facebook and Google could be giving us that – and in no time.
Not having a writable API is a major hole. Being anti OpenGraph-style is a glaring slight on the community of developers.
Give us an iPad app that blows away Twitter and Facebook and makes it a joy to use all of Google’s things on.
Turn down the suck / turn up the good
Fix the goofs that you left in, every since you let Google+ loose. Every URL in G+ has only a cantankerous, lengthly, numerical end – and no built in shortener. That makes it hard to tweet and your URLs look like crap. Listen to us; we’ve been telling you we don’t like this stuff – from the day you invited us to the beta launch.
Give us custom domain names
Let us see all the stories we have liked.
Allow us to follow more than 5,000 people. Twitter is whipping you because of this (and Facebook will not do this go this route any time soon; Zuck thinks no one is important enough to have affiliations with many people or any reason to follow-back many people).
Let us have a REAL blogging tool here. Google has Blogger. Why isn’t it integrated here yet?
Work with the other blogging platforms, and let us send formatted posts from G+ to WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Posterous, and/or Tumblr.
Allow us to add videos and photos in our comments. Facebook has them and it’s important.
Let us clean up our social graphs. Show us people who no longer post. Also, show us, as Connex.us is about to, who we have the most engagement with and preferably (again, kudos to connex.us) across more than one social network. Make it easier to see people’s content, trends, and stats, and delete, people from our social graphs.
You could still win out over Facebook, Vic, you certainly have the cash to put behind initiatives. You’d win the admiration of millions – besides Robert Scoble and I.
What irks you about G+ / is great about Facebook?
How could Google+ or Facebook (or both) behave the way you’d like it to?
What are three core features that would make you leave G+ open for hours on end?
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Disqus VS LiveFyre: Blog Comment Syst...
Disqus VS LiveFyre: Blog Comment System Shootout http://su.pr/7btx5I
I still prefer what I was first introduced to: Disqus
I like the look, the choices for sharing to Twitter or Facebook (or both, without a multi-step process, just boxes to check or leave unchecked) and
Disqus offers comments login choices that include:
name/email
Disqus
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Yahoo
OpenID
Multi-network tagging of people and no-code hotlinking of sites and emails is a time-saver (though several other comment systems offer at least the same feature for sites).
My one complaint with Disqus is how in Firefox I often have to open a separate browser to login and then, until I logout, can do anything I like on my own blog and others’ without logging in again. In Google Chrome, Disqus works flawlessly for me.
What I would do to improve Disqus
Disqus is clearly missing obvious features in their control panel (which would save Disqus fans the need to learn .css coding):
font and font size
links-in-comments controls for link-erasing, link-deadening (link appears, in full URL form, but is not clickable), and for hot-linking of URLs, a choice of dofollow or nofollow
along with sharing of blog comments to Facebook and Twitter, it should be clear by now that many would eagerly share their comments to Google Plus; this should have been added as an option by now.
Here’s what I would do to improve Empire Avenue: my article suggesting a scaling of player rewards – based on where we are in the game.
Having debated (but never intensely, mind you) the comment systems favored by blogging friends,
I found Vitaly Tennant‘s Blog Commenting Platforms: The Bad and The Good and learned how similar they have become, in fact.
On Disqus, Vitaly wrote:
“The Good -
Lots of login options. You can use just about any of your login credentials (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc). Of course, you can still post comments anonymously if you choose to.
Looks nice and clean, the customizeable CSS is a big plus.
Community box gives everyone a summary view of the activity and people participating on the site.
Fully compatible with mobile websites for commenting while on the go.
It’s popular. Lots of websites use it; therefore, many people know what they’re dealing with when they see Disqus logo in the comment section of a blog.
Reactions. In addition to showing comments, Disqus also shows a list of who mentioned the blog post on Twitter (which they call a “reaction”).
The Bad -
Not as customizable as IntenseDebate. Can’t add any content of your own to the layout.
By default, it inherits the blog’s main theme style sheet. Editing CSS for Disqus takes much longer than customizing.
All URLs in comments are auto-linked. Disqus creates a hyperlink to all text that ends with a typical suffix ie. “.com”. This is kind of a big issue for some users when their blog deals with scam websites. It is nofollow, but it would be nice to see the hyperlinks disable feature.
The Help section is lacking. There just isn’t that much information in their knowledge base, especially for CSS help.”
I replied, filling in a bit more, based upon my 2 years of experience with Disqus
LiveFyre is getting better. For over a year, using the Firefox browser, I could not login on a blog using LiveFyre (had to open other browser, login to my LiveFyre acct, refresh your blog – cumbersome). LiveFyre customer service has atrocious. A clear explanation from me, (OS, browser and version, etc., and still they demanded screenshots). Now it works always in Google Chrome and usually in Firefox. Not a bad choice – now, thus. Even with Firefox, LiveFyre lets me login more easily than Disqus, in fact, but only from weeks ago.
Disqus is my choice, and after I changed the comment font size, I’m happy with it. Vitaly was quite right, I should add: Disqus does not make it easy to edit style points. They are inherited from the blog body by default, as you note – and it does take adding two lines to a Disqus stylesheet to change tthe comment font size.
A couple things I would like to add, which people might wish to want to consider, when shopping for a comment system: like LiveFyre, there is a community, you can follow, comment on connected Disqus users’ blogs, etc. from your own Disqus section of your WordPress Dashboard or through the Disqus site. Also, like LiveFyre, we can tag people, but not with their Facebook handle. On the other hand, with Disqus, we can tag people with Twitter, Google, or Disqus username (so that’s one more than LiveFyre). Pretty much, I can easily find one or more of these fast enough for most people – and faster if they signed in to comment on my blog with Disqus using Twitter, Google or Disqus (rather than by email).
Finally, links are live by default, can be deadened if we like – and even if we allow commenters’ links to be live, we can choose to make them dofollow or nofollow. I’d assume this is true with LiveFyre, not sure.
Lastly, since there is so much talk on the value of commenting on Commentluv and other sites that reward commenters by prompting them to leave a link back to a specific blog post of theirs, perhaps Commentluv frequent-commenters can:
Provide some evidence of the SEO benefits of doing so?
Are you checking the code for those CommentLuv blogs – to see if they have their comments and the backlink they allow you – set to dofollow or nofollow?
As for these links to our blogs that some comments systems allows (Disqus does not), while ALEXA will count those as “links in,” are you certain there is a substantial SEO benefit? Show us the evidence, and we may all learn something. Or, at least have something to IntenseDebate.
For what its worth, I have it from my SEO authority (and Triberr Chief Scientist), Dan Cristo, and SEO thought leader with ten years of professional experience in SEO, that backlinks from blog comments have absolutely no SEO value whatsoever. ”In my experience and with my SEO tests, links from comments, including commentluv, were ineffective in improving rankings. Google has also stated that links from comments are devalued, and several patents indicate that Google sees certain portions of the page as less important than other portions. Comments being a less important part.
I have see websites rank for very competitive terms where a large portion of their backlinks were from comments, but there were many more factors at play. First off, they used blackhat techniques to spam comments. Second, they were generating 20,000 links a month. Third, their site was removed by Google. So it is possible that with 20,000 comment links a month, it may boost rankings until you’re caught, but in any sort of normal commenting tests, they were ineffective and held no value.”
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
I still prefer what I was first introduced to: Disqus
I like the look, the choices for sharing to Twitter or Facebook (or both, without a multi-step process, just boxes to check or leave unchecked) and
Disqus offers comments login choices that include:
name/email
Disqus
Yahoo
OpenID
Multi-network tagging of people and no-code hotlinking of sites and emails is a time-saver (though several other comment systems offer at least the same feature for sites).
My one complaint with Disqus is how in Firefox I often have to open a separate browser to login and then, until I logout, can do anything I like on my own blog and others’ without logging in again. In Google Chrome, Disqus works flawlessly for me.
What I would do to improve Disqus
Disqus is clearly missing obvious features in their control panel (which would save Disqus fans the need to learn .css coding):
font and font size
links-in-comments controls for link-erasing, link-deadening (link appears, in full URL form, but is not clickable), and for hot-linking of URLs, a choice of dofollow or nofollow
along with sharing of blog comments to Facebook and Twitter, it should be clear by now that many would eagerly share their comments to Google Plus; this should have been added as an option by now.
Here’s what I would do to improve Empire Avenue: my article suggesting a scaling of player rewards – based on where we are in the game.
Having debated (but never intensely, mind you) the comment systems favored by blogging friends,
I found Vitaly Tennant‘s Blog Commenting Platforms: The Bad and The Good and learned how similar they have become, in fact.
On Disqus, Vitaly wrote:
“The Good -
Lots of login options. You can use just about any of your login credentials (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc). Of course, you can still post comments anonymously if you choose to.
Looks nice and clean, the customizeable CSS is a big plus.
Community box gives everyone a summary view of the activity and people participating on the site.
Fully compatible with mobile websites for commenting while on the go.
It’s popular. Lots of websites use it; therefore, many people know what they’re dealing with when they see Disqus logo in the comment section of a blog.
Reactions. In addition to showing comments, Disqus also shows a list of who mentioned the blog post on Twitter (which they call a “reaction”).
The Bad -
Not as customizable as IntenseDebate. Can’t add any content of your own to the layout.
By default, it inherits the blog’s main theme style sheet. Editing CSS for Disqus takes much longer than customizing.
All URLs in comments are auto-linked. Disqus creates a hyperlink to all text that ends with a typical suffix ie. “.com”. This is kind of a big issue for some users when their blog deals with scam websites. It is nofollow, but it would be nice to see the hyperlinks disable feature.
The Help section is lacking. There just isn’t that much information in their knowledge base, especially for CSS help.”
I replied, filling in a bit more, based upon my 2 years of experience with Disqus
LiveFyre is getting better. For over a year, using the Firefox browser, I could not login on a blog using LiveFyre (had to open other browser, login to my LiveFyre acct, refresh your blog – cumbersome). LiveFyre customer service has atrocious. A clear explanation from me, (OS, browser and version, etc., and still they demanded screenshots). Now it works always in Google Chrome and usually in Firefox. Not a bad choice – now, thus. Even with Firefox, LiveFyre lets me login more easily than Disqus, in fact, but only from weeks ago.
Disqus is my choice, and after I changed the comment font size, I’m happy with it. Vitaly was quite right, I should add: Disqus does not make it easy to edit style points. They are inherited from the blog body by default, as you note – and it does take adding two lines to a Disqus stylesheet to change tthe comment font size.
A couple things I would like to add, which people might wish to want to consider, when shopping for a comment system: like LiveFyre, there is a community, you can follow, comment on connected Disqus users’ blogs, etc. from your own Disqus section of your WordPress Dashboard or through the Disqus site. Also, like LiveFyre, we can tag people, but not with their Facebook handle. On the other hand, with Disqus, we can tag people with Twitter, Google, or Disqus username (so that’s one more than LiveFyre). Pretty much, I can easily find one or more of these fast enough for most people – and faster if they signed in to comment on my blog with Disqus using Twitter, Google or Disqus (rather than by email).
Finally, links are live by default, can be deadened if we like – and even if we allow commenters’ links to be live, we can choose to make them dofollow or nofollow. I’d assume this is true with LiveFyre, not sure.
Lastly, since there is so much talk on the value of commenting on Commentluv and other sites that reward commenters by prompting them to leave a link back to a specific blog post of theirs, perhaps Commentluv frequent-commenters can:
Provide some evidence of the SEO benefits of doing so?
Are you checking the code for those CommentLuv blogs – to see if they have their comments and the backlink they allow you – set to dofollow or nofollow?
As for these links to our blogs that some comments systems allows (Disqus does not), while ALEXA will count those as “links in,” are you certain there is a substantial SEO benefit? Show us the evidence, and we may all learn something. Or, at least have something to IntenseDebate.
For what its worth, I have it from my SEO authority (and Triberr Chief Scientist), Dan Cristo, and SEO thought leader with ten years of professional experience in SEO, that backlinks from blog comments have absolutely no SEO value whatsoever. ”In my experience and with my SEO tests, links from comments, including commentluv, were ineffective in improving rankings. Google has also stated that links from comments are devalued, and several patents indicate that Google sees certain portions of the page as less important than other portions. Comments being a less important part.
I have see websites rank for very competitive terms where a large portion of their backlinks were from comments, but there were many more factors at play. First off, they used blackhat techniques to spam comments. Second, they were generating 20,000 links a month. Third, their site was removed by Google. So it is possible that with 20,000 comment links a month, it may boost rankings until you’re caught, but in any sort of normal commenting tests, they were ineffective and held no value.”
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Scaled Rewards That Would Grow Empire...
Scaled Rewards That Would Grow Empire Avenue http://su.pr/5vgDDb
by OsakaSaul on March 14, 2012
Empire Avenue Motivates us to Build The Community
Shouldn’t the rewards for doing so be scaled?
When you are new in Empire Avenue, you soon find that you need to either purchase Eaves to invest (with real money) or, as most do, earn them. Earnings from our installed blog .rss and other feeds are tiny, and social media network accounts connected tend to earn us in the hundreds of eaves/day – though we need tens of thousands per day to invest and keep our accounts “in the black” and healthy.
Dups Clearly Would Like us to Invite People
We are given an invite code and also a blog badge code to help us recruit new members. For a network that is as uber-gamified as Empire Avenue, I find it odd that those responsible for building out the network do not see the need to scale the reward for recruiting fresh blood onto the ‘Ave. Those who use our invite code to join Empire Avenue and also those who enter through our blog badges (wonder why I don’t use one on my blog…?) receive 2,000 eaves for doing so, and so do we. 2K Eaves a head may seem fair when you first join, but after you have done a few 5K and 10K “Missions” that require only seconds of our time, you begin to use your Empire Avenue time strategically, and that 2K Eaves reward soon looks miniscule.
SMRocketFuel
What I Would Do
Scale that reward. Scale it both for the issuer and the recipient.
Decide on either a mathematical formula or a series of either share price or dividend payout levels at which those rewards change. Do this, and those who really put in the time and are regularly active within Empire Avenue (and whose social media accounts garner the most interaction) would present the newcomer with a larger reward for signing up through them. What’s more, someone who is earning in the hundreds of thousands of eaves daily from dividend earnings is still motivated to recruit “fresh faces.” Rather than a 2K reward, his reward might be in the tens of thousands of eaves. This change along would surely “rocket fuel” Empire Avenue into the mainstream.
Should they do this, they should expect a huge increase in the number of people joining Empire Avenue. If this happens, I would change the user interface and include a default-open column showing “new faces” – and updates on their activity, as well as those investing in them. As it stands, it is rather cumbersome to evaluate a newcomer in EA, and if we invest in them, going back to evaluate other new arrivals is… just too many steps and heavy pages to reload. Give us the stats and realtime updates on new arrivals, and then let us filter by those we mark, and I believe everyone will be yet happier. Those new in Empire Avenue will see many people buying them, shouting supportive messages and suggestions – and also, the more experienced and wealthier players will be visiting more often (and staying longer); they already know what to look for in a new arrival, and will refine their investment policies, and engage the fresh blood even more than they do now.
Missions
Having just published my Mission: Irrational article one week ago, which continues to collect great input, positive and negative (all welcome), on how its a daily thing to see people running Missions that are quite inconsiderate of their acceptors, I also believe that Mission rewards should be scalable.
Scaled Rewards for Missions
My ideas:
provide the existing simple Mission launch menu, with a toggle button for advanced mission options
allow us set more constraints, including either a reward based on multiplying the number of shares Mission-acceptors own of us, or their share price/divs/etc.
provide a faster click-through for Missions, including, when people need us to join a community, a simple check box, rather than the current multi-step process
similarly to the above, when people require a minimum share ownership, why not provide a check box, such as “also buy 20 shares when I click the Mission button.” If this was an option, the stock to buy could be determined by the Mission issuer – either his own or someone else’s.
What do you think in regards to energizing the influx of new Mission Avenue users?
Do you think that it would be pointless to scale the rewards system?
Should it all be about real financial and gift, voucher, etc. rewards in a future iteration of Empire Avenue? Or would it be enough to simply consider where we are, actually, in terms of Eaves income, share price, etc., perhaps the number of times we’ve been listed, etc., and to factor these things into what we get for various actions?
What other actions should be rewarded at scaled rates and why, would you say?
I believe that they could greatly bolster the flow of new blood to their site – with a less cumbersome user experience. What are your pet peaves with the site behaviours?
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
http://ping.fm/rPd5p
by OsakaSaul on March 14, 2012
Empire Avenue Motivates us to Build The Community
Shouldn’t the rewards for doing so be scaled?
When you are new in Empire Avenue, you soon find that you need to either purchase Eaves to invest (with real money) or, as most do, earn them. Earnings from our installed blog .rss and other feeds are tiny, and social media network accounts connected tend to earn us in the hundreds of eaves/day – though we need tens of thousands per day to invest and keep our accounts “in the black” and healthy.
Dups Clearly Would Like us to Invite People
We are given an invite code and also a blog badge code to help us recruit new members. For a network that is as uber-gamified as Empire Avenue, I find it odd that those responsible for building out the network do not see the need to scale the reward for recruiting fresh blood onto the ‘Ave. Those who use our invite code to join Empire Avenue and also those who enter through our blog badges (wonder why I don’t use one on my blog…?) receive 2,000 eaves for doing so, and so do we. 2K Eaves a head may seem fair when you first join, but after you have done a few 5K and 10K “Missions” that require only seconds of our time, you begin to use your Empire Avenue time strategically, and that 2K Eaves reward soon looks miniscule.
SMRocketFuel
What I Would Do
Scale that reward. Scale it both for the issuer and the recipient.
Decide on either a mathematical formula or a series of either share price or dividend payout levels at which those rewards change. Do this, and those who really put in the time and are regularly active within Empire Avenue (and whose social media accounts garner the most interaction) would present the newcomer with a larger reward for signing up through them. What’s more, someone who is earning in the hundreds of thousands of eaves daily from dividend earnings is still motivated to recruit “fresh faces.” Rather than a 2K reward, his reward might be in the tens of thousands of eaves. This change along would surely “rocket fuel” Empire Avenue into the mainstream.
Should they do this, they should expect a huge increase in the number of people joining Empire Avenue. If this happens, I would change the user interface and include a default-open column showing “new faces” – and updates on their activity, as well as those investing in them. As it stands, it is rather cumbersome to evaluate a newcomer in EA, and if we invest in them, going back to evaluate other new arrivals is… just too many steps and heavy pages to reload. Give us the stats and realtime updates on new arrivals, and then let us filter by those we mark, and I believe everyone will be yet happier. Those new in Empire Avenue will see many people buying them, shouting supportive messages and suggestions – and also, the more experienced and wealthier players will be visiting more often (and staying longer); they already know what to look for in a new arrival, and will refine their investment policies, and engage the fresh blood even more than they do now.
Missions
Having just published my Mission: Irrational article one week ago, which continues to collect great input, positive and negative (all welcome), on how its a daily thing to see people running Missions that are quite inconsiderate of their acceptors, I also believe that Mission rewards should be scalable.
Scaled Rewards for Missions
My ideas:
provide the existing simple Mission launch menu, with a toggle button for advanced mission options
allow us set more constraints, including either a reward based on multiplying the number of shares Mission-acceptors own of us, or their share price/divs/etc.
provide a faster click-through for Missions, including, when people need us to join a community, a simple check box, rather than the current multi-step process
similarly to the above, when people require a minimum share ownership, why not provide a check box, such as “also buy 20 shares when I click the Mission button.” If this was an option, the stock to buy could be determined by the Mission issuer – either his own or someone else’s.
What do you think in regards to energizing the influx of new Mission Avenue users?
Do you think that it would be pointless to scale the rewards system?
Should it all be about real financial and gift, voucher, etc. rewards in a future iteration of Empire Avenue? Or would it be enough to simply consider where we are, actually, in terms of Eaves income, share price, etc., perhaps the number of times we’ve been listed, etc., and to factor these things into what we get for various actions?
What other actions should be rewarded at scaled rates and why, would you say?
I believe that they could greatly bolster the flow of new blood to their site – with a less cumbersome user experience. What are your pet peaves with the site behaviours?
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
http://ping.fm/rPd5p
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Mission: Irrational (Empire Avenue Mi...
Mission: Irrational (Empire Avenue Mistakes to Avoid) http://su.pr/33AaY2 http://ow.ly/9uQBi
Empire Avenue “Missions” are a great thing.
They are nothing short of terrific and flexible in their configuration, and provide a very rapid collection of reactions for those who are crowd-sourcing. I love watching what happens with “Missions” in EA, and intend to run my own for sourcing suggestions on verbiage, user experience issues, and testing this and that with my web application projects.
I offered one Mission, which was a great success, and nearly every day I accept Missions for a number of reasons:
I need to earn eaves to invest. I have been using the ‘Ave for less than a month, and while I believe I invest wisely, my dividends are still low enough that I could use another 20,000 eaves/day to invest and continue to grow in EA.
They provide a plethora of examples of social media gaming in action. I love to see what people do well, and also poorly, in offering small virtual rewards for the actions they seek.
As I learn what people want from the public, I learn about the Empire Avenue community: what causes and business interests they seek to draw attention to, and also, what small actions (clicks, comments, votes, views, and shares, usually) they would most desire.
Every hour I spend on the Empire Avenue site increases my understanding of gamification and the power of a dynamic, uber-gamified user experience.
In my Facebook groups and EA communities, it is an everyday occurrence that someone bemoans the Empire Avenue player who takes their Mission eaves and runs, without following through on what they have agreed, by clicking the Mission button, to do. Respectfully, I can see that there are cheaters. On the other hand, there are many who offer Missions with little consideration of their Mission acceptors.
1. The Wild Goose Chase
You state clearly what you want us to do, but when we click on the Mission link, we get to a page with no clear button or link that in any way, shape, or form resembles what you referred to in your Mission requirements. Naturally, we do not know that we wont be able to complete the mission – until we click that link. Sure, we could click the “Mission URL,” to check out what you are asking for before accepting the Mission but, frankly, the onus is upon you, the Mission provider, to set it up right. You have the most to lose, and also the most to gain, with what you do or do not garner from your Mission campaign.
A. Some do not even state what they want done:
Mission Incomprehensible: What does he want?
B. Some do not provide a link to something that allows a click-through to receive the reward:
Mission Incompletable: I can accept the Mission, but can't get the reward, due to how it has been set up (to only play in Youtube, not via the Mission link.
For the case above, I see from comments on the Mission that my experience is not unique, nor does it have something to do with my settings:
Mission Oblivion: Do you check the comments you get on your Missions? They might just save you from repeating your mistakes. Read them, and you might save yourself and others disappointment.
2. Lack of Consideration
A. You offer 500e and ask that we watch and “like” a “really short video.” The thing is 27 minutes long – and you have taken pains to block us from fast-forwarding, so we must sit through the entire thing. For 500 eaves. I will remember you – so as to avoid accepting your missions in the future. You ask for too much. Please do not be surprised when people leave the thing running, open other browsers and get work done – and return at the end to “like” and be gone. We learned nothing that you intended to share, got us to do nothing you hoped we would do, and you deserve this.
B. I qualify for your Mission, since I belong to your Empire Avenue Community. When I click on the Mission link, which clearly asks for an answer to a question – I land on a Facebook page that will not allow me to comment until I am admitted to your group in Facebook. Please state that I must be in both the EA Community and also the Facebook Group to participate.
Mission Impossible: I am in the Mission-required community in EA, but not in the group in FB - no mention of the Facebook group in the Mission description, however.
I commented on the Mission page:
You didn’t list which group I have to be a member of, and since I could accept the mission with no special requirements, one would assume that I already was. Turns out that I can’t answer the question – until I am accepted into the Facebook group. Kindly consider this. Thanks for your understanding.
3. Mission Confliction
You clearly state what you are offering for the reward: good. You ask for something straightforward and easy, for the very smallest of rewards (500e): good. In the example below, you see what we get for clicking on the Mission link, which asks for a Twitter retweet. What we get is:
A. One hell of a nuisance: all of the last ten of your tweets are in French. I don’t tweet in my second language, Japanese, because it would put off the bulk of my followers; I sure am not going to retweet French. (How many EA members will, would you think?)
B. A profile that shows you do not follow most who follow you (following 9 – for 453 followers) and a timeline that shows you are all talk, zero interaction, and you do not support anything but your own cause; your timeline shows not a single retweet, it is all talk from you.
C. When asking for a Twitter retweet – or any type of share to our own following – offer something evergreen: something that most of us can support, rather than something that likely does not fit with our personal brands, agendas, or causes.
Mission Inconsideration: you ask for a retweet, say that any will do - but give us nothing "evergreen."
Finally, I want to introduce Gaye Crispin, who does some very smart things with EA Missions, rewards her Missionistas (an Empire Avenue Community led by Gaye) well – and quite wisely relative, eave amount-wise, to what she’s asking for. Here is a prefect example of one of her latest: 1500 eaves for three quick answers to some “evergreen” (anyone could answer) questions:
Mission Responsible: Gaye states the reward in the Mission title, and exactly what she wants us to do.
You may evaluate the Mission by the number of people who not only accepted it, but did not grab the eaves and run. See the number of comments on each of those questions (so far):
In the Mission title, Gaye states the reward and call to action. She provides a link that works, rewards with consideration of how much time and action she is requesting, and thus greatly reduces the percentage of Empire Avenue Mission "cheaters," who take the eaves without doing what they have agreed to do.
What problems with EA Missions have you encountered?
What simple fixes do you wish people would employ?
What was the nature of the smartest Mission you ever found?
Empire Avenue “Missions” are a great thing.
They are nothing short of terrific and flexible in their configuration, and provide a very rapid collection of reactions for those who are crowd-sourcing. I love watching what happens with “Missions” in EA, and intend to run my own for sourcing suggestions on verbiage, user experience issues, and testing this and that with my web application projects.
I offered one Mission, which was a great success, and nearly every day I accept Missions for a number of reasons:
I need to earn eaves to invest. I have been using the ‘Ave for less than a month, and while I believe I invest wisely, my dividends are still low enough that I could use another 20,000 eaves/day to invest and continue to grow in EA.
They provide a plethora of examples of social media gaming in action. I love to see what people do well, and also poorly, in offering small virtual rewards for the actions they seek.
As I learn what people want from the public, I learn about the Empire Avenue community: what causes and business interests they seek to draw attention to, and also, what small actions (clicks, comments, votes, views, and shares, usually) they would most desire.
Every hour I spend on the Empire Avenue site increases my understanding of gamification and the power of a dynamic, uber-gamified user experience.
In my Facebook groups and EA communities, it is an everyday occurrence that someone bemoans the Empire Avenue player who takes their Mission eaves and runs, without following through on what they have agreed, by clicking the Mission button, to do. Respectfully, I can see that there are cheaters. On the other hand, there are many who offer Missions with little consideration of their Mission acceptors.
1. The Wild Goose Chase
You state clearly what you want us to do, but when we click on the Mission link, we get to a page with no clear button or link that in any way, shape, or form resembles what you referred to in your Mission requirements. Naturally, we do not know that we wont be able to complete the mission – until we click that link. Sure, we could click the “Mission URL,” to check out what you are asking for before accepting the Mission but, frankly, the onus is upon you, the Mission provider, to set it up right. You have the most to lose, and also the most to gain, with what you do or do not garner from your Mission campaign.
A. Some do not even state what they want done:
Mission Incomprehensible: What does he want?
B. Some do not provide a link to something that allows a click-through to receive the reward:
Mission Incompletable: I can accept the Mission, but can't get the reward, due to how it has been set up (to only play in Youtube, not via the Mission link.
For the case above, I see from comments on the Mission that my experience is not unique, nor does it have something to do with my settings:
Mission Oblivion: Do you check the comments you get on your Missions? They might just save you from repeating your mistakes. Read them, and you might save yourself and others disappointment.
2. Lack of Consideration
A. You offer 500e and ask that we watch and “like” a “really short video.” The thing is 27 minutes long – and you have taken pains to block us from fast-forwarding, so we must sit through the entire thing. For 500 eaves. I will remember you – so as to avoid accepting your missions in the future. You ask for too much. Please do not be surprised when people leave the thing running, open other browsers and get work done – and return at the end to “like” and be gone. We learned nothing that you intended to share, got us to do nothing you hoped we would do, and you deserve this.
B. I qualify for your Mission, since I belong to your Empire Avenue Community. When I click on the Mission link, which clearly asks for an answer to a question – I land on a Facebook page that will not allow me to comment until I am admitted to your group in Facebook. Please state that I must be in both the EA Community and also the Facebook Group to participate.
Mission Impossible: I am in the Mission-required community in EA, but not in the group in FB - no mention of the Facebook group in the Mission description, however.
I commented on the Mission page:
You didn’t list which group I have to be a member of, and since I could accept the mission with no special requirements, one would assume that I already was. Turns out that I can’t answer the question – until I am accepted into the Facebook group. Kindly consider this. Thanks for your understanding.
3. Mission Confliction
You clearly state what you are offering for the reward: good. You ask for something straightforward and easy, for the very smallest of rewards (500e): good. In the example below, you see what we get for clicking on the Mission link, which asks for a Twitter retweet. What we get is:
A. One hell of a nuisance: all of the last ten of your tweets are in French. I don’t tweet in my second language, Japanese, because it would put off the bulk of my followers; I sure am not going to retweet French. (How many EA members will, would you think?)
B. A profile that shows you do not follow most who follow you (following 9 – for 453 followers) and a timeline that shows you are all talk, zero interaction, and you do not support anything but your own cause; your timeline shows not a single retweet, it is all talk from you.
C. When asking for a Twitter retweet – or any type of share to our own following – offer something evergreen: something that most of us can support, rather than something that likely does not fit with our personal brands, agendas, or causes.
Mission Inconsideration: you ask for a retweet, say that any will do - but give us nothing "evergreen."
Finally, I want to introduce Gaye Crispin, who does some very smart things with EA Missions, rewards her Missionistas (an Empire Avenue Community led by Gaye) well – and quite wisely relative, eave amount-wise, to what she’s asking for. Here is a prefect example of one of her latest: 1500 eaves for three quick answers to some “evergreen” (anyone could answer) questions:
Mission Responsible: Gaye states the reward in the Mission title, and exactly what she wants us to do.
You may evaluate the Mission by the number of people who not only accepted it, but did not grab the eaves and run. See the number of comments on each of those questions (so far):
In the Mission title, Gaye states the reward and call to action. She provides a link that works, rewards with consideration of how much time and action she is requesting, and thus greatly reduces the percentage of Empire Avenue Mission "cheaters," who take the eaves without doing what they have agreed to do.
What problems with EA Missions have you encountered?
What simple fixes do you wish people would employ?
What was the nature of the smartest Mission you ever found?
Friday, March 2, 2012
#HeartJapan Contest: A Million Hearts...
HeartJapan Contest: A Million Hearts For Japan http://ow.ly/9pj4c http://su.pr/1Kb0OG
We’re Off And Running
As promised in my last post,I’m back to tell you about the contest! But, first let me give a big thanks to everyone who has been so supportive so far. We’re off to an amazing start! What looked like an impossible dream only a few weeks ago, is now a global, multi-platform event taking shape and gathering momentum with every new message to Japan, every new retweet, and every amazing person finding a way to help move this forward! Last week I did a guest post on Michael Q. Todd’s blog titled “How Social Media is Helping Japan”. This has now been tweeted and retweeted to millions, then Wednesday’s post on this very blog, out to millions more!
Messages From Around the World
From Belgium: keep up the Japanese positive spirit!
From Spain: all my support and admiration to the people of Japan !
From South Africa: Well done. Your courage and determination is an inspiration.
Hundreds of messages from 32 countries and counting!
Ganbatte 365 tweets on the big screen in Tokyo
We’re running the tweets on over 300 screens in Tokyo that have a total reach of about 30 million people per week, and on March 2nd, we are taking a road trip up to the three hardest hit prefectures: Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate. There we will be setting up screens for people to see the messages coming in from around the world.
Ganbatte 365 & BC-JERF in Vancouver
Cities around the world are joining in to get the word out. In Vancouver, we partnered with
Pattison Outdoor and BC Japan Earthquake Relief Fund to call for messages and also promote the charity concert being held by BC-JERF on March 11. And it looks like we are going to have an announcement about, dare I say it, Times Square… very, very soon!
Instagram Contest
Grand Prize: a trip to Japan and an appearance in the documentary film.
And now we have a new fun way to participate, the Million Hearts To Japan Instagram photo message contest on Statigram To enter, tag your photo message with HeartJapan, and upload via Instagram. It’s that easy. Lot’s of great prizes. Check out the rest of the details on Statigram and see how to win a trip to Japan. Send a photo message or like some of the entries. We’re on our way to a million! More news soon…
We’re Off And Running
As promised in my last post,I’m back to tell you about the contest! But, first let me give a big thanks to everyone who has been so supportive so far. We’re off to an amazing start! What looked like an impossible dream only a few weeks ago, is now a global, multi-platform event taking shape and gathering momentum with every new message to Japan, every new retweet, and every amazing person finding a way to help move this forward! Last week I did a guest post on Michael Q. Todd’s blog titled “How Social Media is Helping Japan”. This has now been tweeted and retweeted to millions, then Wednesday’s post on this very blog, out to millions more!
Messages From Around the World
From Belgium: keep up the Japanese positive spirit!
From Spain: all my support and admiration to the people of Japan !
From South Africa: Well done. Your courage and determination is an inspiration.
Hundreds of messages from 32 countries and counting!
Ganbatte 365 tweets on the big screen in Tokyo
We’re running the tweets on over 300 screens in Tokyo that have a total reach of about 30 million people per week, and on March 2nd, we are taking a road trip up to the three hardest hit prefectures: Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate. There we will be setting up screens for people to see the messages coming in from around the world.
Ganbatte 365 & BC-JERF in Vancouver
Cities around the world are joining in to get the word out. In Vancouver, we partnered with
Pattison Outdoor and BC Japan Earthquake Relief Fund to call for messages and also promote the charity concert being held by BC-JERF on March 11. And it looks like we are going to have an announcement about, dare I say it, Times Square… very, very soon!
Instagram Contest
Grand Prize: a trip to Japan and an appearance in the documentary film.
And now we have a new fun way to participate, the Million Hearts To Japan Instagram photo message contest on Statigram To enter, tag your photo message with HeartJapan, and upload via Instagram. It’s that easy. Lot’s of great prizes. Check out the rest of the details on Statigram and see how to win a trip to Japan. Send a photo message or like some of the entries. We’re on our way to a million! More news soon…
http://osakabentures.com/2012/02/ganb...
http://ping.fm/f1gri
#JpQuake NPO: @Ganbatte365 Kizuna Project http://su.pr/2Q4ibJ
Ganbatte 365 and You
After the 3.11 disaster, I started an NPO called Ganbatte 365 to increase awareness of the recovery and renewal of Tohoku. The content is a combination of 15 second videos (especially suited for outdoor digital media) and longer videos for the web. It’s all Creative Commons licensed so anyone can freely use it on any media world-wide just by downloading it from the Ganbatte 365 web site. Since last summer we have made almost 300 videos in English and Japanese, which have been played on screens at hundreds of locations in Japan and around the world.
As we come up to the 1st anniversary of the disaster, the focus will once again be on Japan. We’re taking a break from our usual activities to run a special crowd event called the
“Ganbatte 365 Kizuna Project: A Million Hearts To Japan.”
Now is the time to send another round of messages. If the outpouring of support from around the world last year was like the response to a friend who has just been in an accident, then this will be more like reminding a friend in the midst of a long, hard challenge that you are still there for them and that you are thinking of them.
Your Message on outdoor signs in Tokyo with a reach of 30M per week
It’s a Global multi-platform event, and we’re putting out the call through our fantastic outdoor media partners, the Web, and various social media. Send us your message to Japan! We’re collecting the messages, translating them and putting them on outdoor signs in Tokyo at over 300 locations with a reach of almost 30 million people per week.
We’re also taking the messages right to where the people need them most, at some of the places hardest hit by the disaster. We are setting up special screens there to publish messages as they come in.
Million Hearts To Japan Contest – Win a trip to Japan! (Come back in two days – when it goes live!!!)
We couldn’t stop there so we kept on going and made a contest. We know that people sending messages of support don’t need to win anything. They do it because it feels good. But the bigger we make this, the better everyone will feel, so let’s make it really big and have some fun at the same time. Submit a photo using Instagram and use the HeartJapan hashtag and you can win some great prizes. Contest details via Statigram to be announced in two days. We are giving away products from Tohoku. Some are even from the stories we are covering in Ganbatte 365. All the finalist photos will appear in the Ganbatte 365 documentary film.
Grand Prize: a trip to Japan and an appearance in the documentary film.
Four easy ways to participate:
Send a Tweet (Copy, Edit & Sent the tweet. You’ll be retweeted)
Write a message on Facebook
Write a message on Google+
And then there’s the contest – enter the brand new contest here (With a prize of a trip to Japan!)
Ganbatte is a Japanese word that can mean “Do your best!” when you are working or “Go for it!” in sports. When someone is faced with a personal challenge, it can also mean “Stay strong!”. The name of this project, “Ganbatte 365″, refers to “staying strong” and “doing our best” for a whole year (the minimum length of the project), and also “doing our best” for each of the 365 days in a year.
#JpQuake NPO: @Ganbatte365 Kizuna Project http://su.pr/2Q4ibJ
Ganbatte 365 and You
After the 3.11 disaster, I started an NPO called Ganbatte 365 to increase awareness of the recovery and renewal of Tohoku. The content is a combination of 15 second videos (especially suited for outdoor digital media) and longer videos for the web. It’s all Creative Commons licensed so anyone can freely use it on any media world-wide just by downloading it from the Ganbatte 365 web site. Since last summer we have made almost 300 videos in English and Japanese, which have been played on screens at hundreds of locations in Japan and around the world.
As we come up to the 1st anniversary of the disaster, the focus will once again be on Japan. We’re taking a break from our usual activities to run a special crowd event called the
“Ganbatte 365 Kizuna Project: A Million Hearts To Japan.”
Now is the time to send another round of messages. If the outpouring of support from around the world last year was like the response to a friend who has just been in an accident, then this will be more like reminding a friend in the midst of a long, hard challenge that you are still there for them and that you are thinking of them.
Your Message on outdoor signs in Tokyo with a reach of 30M per week
It’s a Global multi-platform event, and we’re putting out the call through our fantastic outdoor media partners, the Web, and various social media. Send us your message to Japan! We’re collecting the messages, translating them and putting them on outdoor signs in Tokyo at over 300 locations with a reach of almost 30 million people per week.
We’re also taking the messages right to where the people need them most, at some of the places hardest hit by the disaster. We are setting up special screens there to publish messages as they come in.
Million Hearts To Japan Contest – Win a trip to Japan! (Come back in two days – when it goes live!!!)
We couldn’t stop there so we kept on going and made a contest. We know that people sending messages of support don’t need to win anything. They do it because it feels good. But the bigger we make this, the better everyone will feel, so let’s make it really big and have some fun at the same time. Submit a photo using Instagram and use the HeartJapan hashtag and you can win some great prizes. Contest details via Statigram to be announced in two days. We are giving away products from Tohoku. Some are even from the stories we are covering in Ganbatte 365. All the finalist photos will appear in the Ganbatte 365 documentary film.
Grand Prize: a trip to Japan and an appearance in the documentary film.
Four easy ways to participate:
Send a Tweet (Copy, Edit & Sent the tweet. You’ll be retweeted)
Write a message on Facebook
Write a message on Google+
And then there’s the contest – enter the brand new contest here (With a prize of a trip to Japan!)
Ganbatte is a Japanese word that can mean “Do your best!” when you are working or “Go for it!” in sports. When someone is faced with a personal challenge, it can also mean “Stay strong!”. The name of this project, “Ganbatte 365″, refers to “staying strong” and “doing our best” for a whole year (the minimum length of the project), and also “doing our best” for each of the 365 days in a year.
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