Some of the notes of the 9.40 EST session with Jia Shen from Rock You! (Web 2.0 San Francisco). Apologies for any typos
Design simple concepts
Focus on virality and growth
Accept the fact that channels
Iterate Rapidly
A/B/ Test
Release Often. Rock you releases up to 20-30 new day
There are no user experts
Do user studies when you don’t have web metrics
Have a plan to maximize use of every channel
Development process:
Application types:
Channel (Superwall, Huge Me)
Content (Flixster)
Dating (likeness, compare people)
Games (Zombies, FluffFriends)
Self Expression (Bumper Sticker)
Audience:
Teens 14019 are 58%
Very young, femails
What’s the total size of market
What Percentage penetrations is goal
Whats possible virallity of market?
Average number of friends (average number of friends on Facebook about 150 on Myspace 300)
Myspace vs. Ning. Vs. Google.
Messaging:
Develop your concept around high vonerting calls to action
Simplicity
Universal
Social persuasion
Novelty (art)
Viral Channels. How to grow your widget:
News Feed
Notifications
Email
Provile
invites
Non-user pages
Profile action
Channel
Focus 1 to 1 channels
Map out several different flows to test
-install to invite to interacting
- Install to interacting to invite
Balance relevance to throughput
-channel vs. content applications.
Viral Loop
Tune it
- Superwall launched in 2 days tuned for 2 weeks, prview page, invite messaging, targeting
Prmoote it
You know the math works
All about throughput to multiply
Give it a boost
Ad networks
Engagement Phase
Saturated social circles (audiences)
Critical mass makes features more useful
tune for experience
Build new features and keep users happy
Critical Mass
You’ve achieved your gaol
Pecentatge of Social Circle supernodes
- 40% active
10% of that
4% of Market
Channels:
Focus on 1-to-Many to get People Engaged
- News Feed
-Profile
- NOtifications
-Non USer Pages
Focus on 1-to-1 to re-engage current users
- Email
- Notifications
Hypothetical Viral numbers
Install flow
x=5 (friends invited on average
y=22% (acceptance rate for invites
viral factor 5×0.22=1.1 VIRAL
Engagement flow\
- repeat users can generated additional virality
- Engagement flow
x=3 (
y= 10% (acceptance for invites
viral cactor 3×0.10 No,3
Engagement Flow, notification channel
x=6
y= 5%
Viral factor 6×0.5% Viral 0.3
What to track
Request sent 7 Request CTR
Nootifications send & Notification CTR
Feed events & Feed CTR
Adds/Removes
And everything else - platform tracking is not 100% reliable
How to track
Google Analytics
Paid or home grown
Using metrics to drive product devisions
A/B test entire user flows
A/B test calls to action
Base decision on metrics
Trending graphs
Graph and compare acticity metrics ofver time and anlyze trends
focus resorcues \on tuning the largest traffic dricvers
all viral channels eventually decay
So keep tunint to stay ahead of the curve
Session ended / Q and A
