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Show HN: Crowd² - A viral marketing campaign creator I wrote in 72 hours

106 pointsby fitztrevover 13 years ago

30 comments

zobzuover 13 years ago
here's the issue: to checkout crowd2 you need to share it on your social network. unless you have a dummy social network that you use for SPAM, you're going to share it to your friends.<p>but hey, I don't know if I wanna share it yet. i wanna test it first. And, crowd2 is share first, test second. And that's just wrong.<p>It's easy to make the parallel to another form of spam, as you'd have to have a spam account to view it, as stated in my first paragraph.
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buzzedwordover 13 years ago
Hey, I work on several of the networks you're promoting this service on. The implementation of crowd2 is definitely spammy, although I'm sure you've had the best intention at heart.<p>For points of reference, this violates Facebook's terms of service, Twitter's, and several of Google's, though not directly mentioned for Google+ I'd still err on the side of caution.<p>One of the things you can do to be more compliant is to offer an "opt out" option, or an alternative method (like a unique URL) that doesn't directly involve the social networks sharing plugins but still provide an effective gate. Just be aware that this will cause issues with at least three of these services. Can't speak for LinkedIn, but I'd assume it's probably the same deal.
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grkover 13 years ago
I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of this. I want to see the content first, then maybe share with my network. Putting a "sharewall" like this will put a lot of people off.
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nicpottierover 13 years ago
Nice concept. If it doesn't work out maybe you should start a demo video service of some kind. Totally impressed that you could put that video together so quick, looks really nice.
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fitztrevover 13 years ago
For those of you interested, here are all of the tools and resources I used to produce the demo video.<p>Various stock illustrations, Keynote, GarageBand with a blanket over my head to reduce the echo, Screenr.com (free screencasting and they give you the raw mp4 at the end), iMovie (to import the mp4 and add the audio track), and VidYard (for video hosting and analytics)<p>I suggest checking out the Mixergy interview with Miguel Hernandez of Grumo Media. He has some great tips of how to make a good demo video. His website also has some great inspiration.
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TruffleLabsover 13 years ago
Only a bit of a nudge here: viral marketing, in many many many cases is an accident. It is hard to plan, even harder to predict. We all wish for it but ...<p>It's great to have tools to help but tools by themselves will not make anything go viral. Most of the viral things people remember are viral because the content was great (or so stupid it was great;), not because of the tool that was used to share it. Yes, YouTube, as a tool, makes things easy to go "viral". But it was the video that made it worth sharing, not because it was on YouTube.<p>Also, as a marketing activity, going viral may not really be in your best interest. Viral marketing is a tactic/strategy that needs to fit your marketing plan. Just because you think you can go viral doesn't mean you should.<p>Lastly, the model expressed in the demo video implies sharing requires I share it before I get it... Why would I share something with my friends before seeing if what Bob has to offer is any good? 
illdaveover 13 years ago
Nice concept - it looks pretty similar to Paywithatweet.com which (I've heard) does actually get people tweeting about the product.<p>The drawback with these sorts of concepts is that it means the product is shared <i>before</i> people actually use it, which makes the endorsement seem a bit forced. Having said that, people do use it to get access so maybe that doesn't put many people off.<p>The design looks great by the way, I didn't notice it was Bootstrap until jaryd mentioned it.
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anujkkover 13 years ago
Isn't it something like <a href="http://www.paywithatweet.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.paywithatweet.com</a> but also includes FB, Google+ and linkedin?<p>For those who are concerned about seeing the content first before sharing it, it can be a nice idea to use it with a free online version. E.g., few days back I downloaded pdf version of "Noobs guide to online marketing" (<a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketing-with-giant-infographic-11928)and" rel="nofollow">http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketin...</a> it asked me to pay with a tweet about the ebook.
paisibleover 13 years ago
Nicely executed, the video is well done. Will be interesting to see if real-life examples of viral content come out of this kid of model. IMHO, users need to choose to share content themselves in order to go viral : it's not the link-posting (which is the basis of all twitter spam) that produces the virality, but the passion and wording of the people describing the content AFTER they've seen it that gets their friends to check it out. Unrelated question : how does an article with 0 comments get to the top of HN ? :) Would love insight into the HN algorithm on this one.
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danielhover 13 years ago
That's a great looking product for such a short time. I really like the looks of the video, but for me it was a bit light on information. You are explaining how the viral effect works, but I also want to know how the campaign creator works. Will I get a code snippet I have to integrate into my page? Do I have to host anything myself? It looks like the only way to find out is to create a campaign.<p>Out of curiosity, did you create this in 72 hours straight, i.e. a long weekend, or stretched out over several evenings?
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iamdaveover 13 years ago
Great concept, nice delivery too! I hope this works out, if you have any case studies perhaps from your test clients, I'd love to read them and maybe show this to my marketing director.<p>Though I have one pause: "Viral". Has use of the word viral essentially trumped "social"? I don't mean to knock the work you've done here, because you've put work into it and I'd like to use it myself. I just want to know why the term viral has been slapped on your product, it's not viral because you say it is (<a href="http://johngushue.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/its-not-viral-just-because-you-say-it-is-.html" rel="nofollow">http://johngushue.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/its-not-viral-jus...</a>). Keep this motto in mind: "Under promise, over deliver". If someone signs up for this expecting instant viral success, and fails, that hurts your brand, no?<p>Good luck, I've bookmarked this :)
riffraffover 13 years ago
simple and cleanly executed, though I believe the G+ integration may be slightly buggy[0].<p>Also, the FAQ page has the sentence "Can I have use my Facebook fan page...". I am no native speaker but the have-use seems an error.<p>[0] on chrome 14, OSX10.6 I did +1, and saw a form blinking away, and the "+1" soes not seem reported in my G+ account
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encodererover 13 years ago
Nice use of Bootstrap. I'm using it right now on a project, with LESS and Batman.js. Loving it.
iantimothyover 13 years ago
I love the idea. Just some thoughts. 1. What if the URL I want people to like is not Open Graph ready. Then what's shared looks ugly on the news feed. I know this is supposed to be my job to take care of, but when creating a campaign, there was no reminder about Open Graph and the possibility the story on the news feed will look ugly. 2. Folks could just email the link to their friends after they obtained it by liking the link. And, what's stopping them from quickly removing the like from their profile?
EponymousCowardover 13 years ago
Nice accomplishment but I have to say that the idea of the product is off-putting. Still I guess it's up to people if they want to advertise this way.<p>I'm not convinced that this approach will always yield a higher viral coefficient than not forcing sharing in order to gain access. The interesting thing is you could actually run A/B tests on this.
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powertowerover 13 years ago
I like the name... Can you go into the details of how you came to it and the other alternatives?
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bogeyballover 13 years ago
Love the execution, but I'm also concerned about the share-first aspect. Maybe you could give content creators a way to let the audience preview the content before they share. Obviously this wouldn't apply to all content, but it might be a good feature.
jperezcuover 13 years ago
The headline+video look great. I'm curious, though: why is the "Download for Free" button bigger and brighter than the "Create a Campaign" button (which is clearly more important)? And why does it say "Live Demo" if it's just a downloadable PDF?
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jarydover 13 years ago
twitter bootstrap framework?
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marcamillionover 13 years ago
This is pretty awesome, it's actually something I had an idea for a while back. My spin was a tad different.<p>If you are interested, I can email you my thoughts and you can decide to integrate them if you want.
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niklas_aover 13 years ago
I don't think this is a viral tool. A viral marketing campaign is made of users sharing something because they think it is cool, not because they have to share the product to use it.
Tomerover 13 years ago
may i ask where do you get the resources like buttons/templates, which language framework tools do you use? what made you able to create such an app in such a short time? thanks
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truskoover 13 years ago
I've seen similar product and heard that it was very successful - <a href="http://gorecommend.net/" rel="nofollow">http://gorecommend.net/</a>. Good luck.
frankdenbowover 13 years ago
Sounds similar to LaunchRock. How are you different?
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swalkergibsonover 13 years ago
Looks great! One thing, Firefox 3.6 on Ubuntu 9.10 the "Download for Free" button has an outline, I presume that was not intended :)
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abavaover 13 years ago
rather than sharing, we've used customized check-ins: <a href="http://qrpon.linkstore.ru" rel="nofollow">http://qrpon.linkstore.ru</a> But yes, I also think "content" should be "visible" before sharing. That is why we go to "check-ins". It is simply more honestly - "I am here", nothing more
dolphensteinover 13 years ago
This looks great! I'm currently building my own side project and think I'll incorporate this into it.
option1138over 13 years ago
Interesting service and a nice UI. I just gave it a shot. Interested to see how well it works!
lotnokover 13 years ago
Cool. May I know what framework / API you use for credit card payment ?
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skepticalover 13 years ago
You might have done this with good intentions in mind, but I don't think this is a good idea. A pyramid scheme is NOT something positive. Only less than half the people that get informed about some product will actually have access to it if this method is used to pass the word. That's not a good strategy, and will push reasonable people off. You know, those who understand pyramid schemes. If I get informed about something that tells me that I have to share it with three more people (or accomplish any kind of assignment for that matter) in order to actually access it, I will immediately press ctrl+w and forever forget about it.