Rahul Pathak : My Personal Blog

If there was any doubt remaining in your mind about who’s calling the shots, here’s an excerpt from a post at VentureBeat that I found via Valleywag.

Facebook completely removed the Audio music-sharing application from its platform last night, saying it violated music copyrights.

Audio was developed by a third party using Facebook’s platform for developers, and Facebook says Audio violates its newly updated developer terms of service.

Audio allowed users to upload audio files in the mp3 format, share them with each other and listen to them within Facebook. By the end of last week, it had nearly 750,000 users.

Now granted, this seems like a legitimate step because of well-founded music copyright concerns. However, the fact remains that Facebook pulled the plug on an app with three quarters of a million users just like that.

This isn’t a judgement about Facebook. They’ve created something amazing and there’s no question in my mind that for the right applications, Facebook is a tremendous opportunity for distribution. However, I’d feel a lot better if I had a user base in my own right as well. Being dependent on someone else who’s not dependent on you is not good business.

Related Posts: Impressions from Seattle Facebook Developer Garage

I just got back from the Facebook Developer Garage in Seattle. These are local events started by a local sponsor for people interested in Facebook apps. There were a handful of people from Facebook including the Senior Platform Manager who spoke.

Overall, a really interesting event. Some of my impressions:

• Facebook is an incredible phenomenon - 33 million users, adding 100,000+ every day.
• The platform is real - 2000 apps in 2 months. 75% of active users have at least one app installed
• The talk is “open platform” but Facebook is in charge. They throttle things like invites and the number of notifications apps can put in the mini-feed (1 per user per day.) Like any other application built on a free api - you have no rights. You get what you pay for.
• Lots of Ruby developers in attendance. Probably the single largest group which is sort of crazy in Microsoft country.
• Virtual currency and Ad Networks are interesting right now. However, money is changing hands across Facebook apps. They’re encouraging more app developers to seek to get outside ad dollars into Facebook.
• Top app is seeing $20 CPM; $5-10 is more reasonable.
• Engagement is the key metric. Pageviews/user, repeat visits, time on site. People are more focused on raw numbers right now.

I think the talk about engagement is critical. Anyone will try your app once. The key is how often they come back and actually use your product. This is something we’re very focused on at Judy’s Book. Unless people are choosing to opt in to the experience you’re creating after their initial trial, you’re nowhere.

I mentioned in an earlier post about how Kayak provided alternatives for people who clicked off their site and then came back without finding what they were looking for. This is great in my opinion but shouldn’t be limited to off-site actions. Within your site, users should never hit a dead end.

This means, for example, if they conduct a search that returns no results, you should be telling them that, but then also providing other results or content that might be of interest. If you don’t have any other content of interest, you could even provide links off site that would run their searches on other sites. By the way, another great option in the specific instance of an unresolved search is providing the option to sign up for an alert when you do have matching content.

They key thing is to enable the user to continue to make progress towards his or her goal. If you can’t deliver on the user’s immediate need but can provide suggestions that will help them do so, you are still able to create a positive impression in the user’s mind.

There’s an interesting article in the WSJ today (As Costs Rise, Whirlpool Makes a Dent in Dings By Ilan Brat) about the cost of damaged inventory vs. the cost of packaging.

Basically, appliance manufacturers have been finding ways to trim the cost cardboard and foam used in packaging their products. Sort of makes sense - thin margins, competitive business, every penny counts. The only problem is that a machine is handled so many times before a customer sees it that the risk of damage is high. One ding leads to a return which wipes out any savings.

For decades, manufacturers have worked to reduce the cost of the cardboard, plastic and foam that protect products. But companies like Whirlpool in recent years have realized that how products are packed and how they are handled during shipping need to be looked at together, says Ralph Rupert, director of a packaging center at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

“Why try to reduce my packaging spend half a percent, when if I just keep one product from being damaged, I’ve paid for weeks worth of packaging goods?” Prof. Rupert says. Americans bought $22.4 billion of major appliances last year, according to the NPD Group, a market-research firm in Port Washington, N.Y.

What I found particularly cool was how this problem was being tackled. In what might be perceived a low tech industry, Whirlpool is using a supercomputer and modeling techniques to simulate loads and test solutions.

After setting up a computer model of the process, the engineers discovered the clamp trucks sometimes were squeezing the washers too tightly, says Mr. Yates. They also found that the lower corners of the machines were bearing a disproportionate amount of the force.

The company got new, taller clamps with firmer metal to help distribute the force better. They changed the packaging, adding a sturdy cardboard beam across the machines’ tops to ease pressure on the lower corners.

“It’s not intuitive that you would put something on top to protect the bottom, but it works,” says Mr. Gielda. In the three months after the packaging design changes were implemented in the fall, damage rates on the washers and dryers declined more than 80%, saving millions of dollars, he says. “It was a big wake-up call for the supply chain,” he says.

It’s easy to get so caught up in optimizing a particular aspect of your offering that you lose sight of the big picture. You have to step back every now and then and make sure your priorities are still the right ones.

If there’s a feature on your site that’s not constantly improving, you need to bury it. This is really hard to do because current users of the feature don’t want you to take it away and internally, you’ve probably got a lot invested in it. Common things that come up:

• “What about people who are using it today?”
• “Let’s just leave it up there.”
• “We have more important things to worry about.”

The bottom line is that if something isn’t improving, then it’s becoming obsolete. The best thing you can do is tell users you’re sorry, it didn’t work out with that feature, you’ll be de-commissioning it in 4 weeks and then take it down. People will be unhappy but it’s far better to take your medicine early than live with a gradual decline into stagnation.

I’m not a fan of bumper stickers and generally mock them as I see them. On a walk to coffee last year however, I saw this one which had me in tears. If you have any favorites, add them in the comments.

The first release of a feature is often just a foundation for the iteration that is going to be required for the feature to be successful. Just sticking up something like a link to sign up for an alert isn’t sufficient. You’ve got to merchandise it, track how it’s being used, improve the parts that aren’t working until it hums.

Adopting the mindset that you are going to need to invest in features to make sure they disappear and just work helps avoid the disappointment that can result if you just expect it to catch fire the instant you release it.

Another benefit of continuous improvement is that people who do adopt the feature early find themselves enjoying its evolution. Ideally you would use their feedback to make it better, so they also feel like you’re being responsive and that your product is alive.

Things do explode out of the gate from time to time, but it’s the exception, not the rule. Focusing on making a feature better after its initial release requires having the discipline to work on the next new, shiny piece of functionality.

What is going to make people seek out your website, not just click on a link in search result pages? That’s the key question that you need to focus on. Dave asked me this earlier this week and it’s exactly the right perspective.

In the long run, I think that the best way for a website to maximize its SEO performance is for it to maximize its value to users. This isn’t a reason to ignore SEO best practices; you can’t afford to do that. The bottom line, however, is that if you are a site users care about, search engines will figure out how to send people your way.

Making sure your pages are set up well and that navigation and page titles reflect the content is important, but you need to view SEO traffic as gravy. Now don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing wrong with liking a lot of gravy, but there’s got to be something underneath it. (And yes, I realize that’s a horrendous metaphor.)

With all that being said, Google is an important driver of traffic (duh) and you should make sure that you design a positive experience for users who find you through search. Succeeding at this creates a great virtuous cycle. You get more users, search engines view you as a higher quality site, you show up in more search results, you get even more users…you get the idea.

This sounds awesome. What’s the catch? It’s the whole “design a positive experience” part. No matter how you approach your business, you can’t get away from delivering value to users. Google has to be able to understand your site and index it, but it’s your users’ opinion of your site you need to worry about.

I was trying to get some information on using a Cingular Blackberry in India and I decided to post a question in LinkedIn’s Q&A section (login required). Within 24 hours, I got some great responses, information about flight training and a strong sense of appreciation for what LinkedIn is doing at the moment. My best answer is posted below.

If EDGE/GPRS, connectivity should not be an issue as long as you have international permissions provisioned on your account. It will definitely be charged at roaming rates (x cost per MB). Local rates may be less expensive (requiring a different sim). However, the BlackBerry only downloads 8-10kb of data intially (usually the text portion of the email). The large attachment resides on the server until you “retrieve” it. So if you stay away from the attachment download, it is a very inexpensive method to get email.

You will also want to check your carrier’s website for international coverage and roaming agreements in the particular area you are traveling to.

LinkedIn’s workflow is pretty good. They enable closing a question, replying to responders and selecting a response as the best response. This allows you to have a dialog and ask follow up questions and also to provide kudos to thoughtful answers. Email notification is used to inform you of the evolution of your Q&A session. They also found a way to monetize these pages with sponsorship banners across the top of the page. Overall, nicely done.

We had a similar feature on Judy’s Book called Expert Shopper that we launched but chose not to invest in. Sticking up a Q&A feature isn’t sufficient - you need to work to ensure that questions get answered quickly. If a user floats for longer than a day without any responses, they lose faith in the feature. On the flip side, if you can guarantee a response, you have an opportunity to create significant positive impact.

Q&A is a powerful addition to a site but it requires an active community or alternatively, a small but dedicated staff who are responsible for answering questions as they arise.

If you’re not a regular reader of The Best of Craigslist, you’re missing out. Here’s a couple of my favorites:

Dear Crazy as Bat Shit Lady

I am not a fridge pimp. I don’t have any more fridges at that price. No, I don’t know where you can get another fridge at that price. Yes, I know it’s in great condition for the price, and I’m sure you’d like your other crazy-as-bat-shit-mini-fridge-buying-friends to have one just like it, but this is all I have. Here’s a thought, there’s this online classified ads website. Yeah, you may have heard of it, it’s called CRAIGSLIST. I dunno, maybe, just maybe, in this great land of ours, there’s another mini-fridge being advertised there.

Hey Crackhead

I am an engineer. Do you ever see me shaking down bums in the Loin for a calculator and sliderule? No, you don’t. Because engineering is the main thing I do, I went and bought myself a calculator. The main thing you do is crack. How do you get by without a crackpipe? The other crackheads must clown on you non-stop. I mean, the fucking saw you used to saw off my sparkplugs is probably worth five or ten bucks. Why not sell or trade it for a crackpipe? You really haven’t put much thought into this, have you?