Re: Twitter app user poaching
2009/1/27 Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com: Hi all, I actually point my users to the competing apps in my about page both of which are more well known than mine ( http://twitfave.com/home/about ). But I'm not currently trying to make money out of my app, so that probably guides my ethics a bit. Mark
Re: Twitter app user poaching
2009/1/27 Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com: I have been contemplating sending this email for a long time, and finally have decided to just do it, so here goes: I understand that we are all trying to gain large user-bases for our twitter apps, and I know there are several tactics to go about doing it; but I am wondering what is everbody's opinion on the tactic I refer to as twitter app user poaching in which app devs tweet out to people right after a user mentions some other app in their tweets: @somebody hey, if you like insert competitor app here you should try my app! http://link.to.my.app.com/ Obviously people are monitoring their app's brand and their competitors' brand, which is obviously a savvy business strategy in general... but somehow to me, in the twitter ecosystem, this feels kinda sleazy. I have consciously tried to avoid doing this because a) the aforementioned sleaziness, and b) i don't think my followers would appreciate a stream of constant hey check out my app tweets. Maybe I am alone here, what does everyone else think? This would not be so bad if some of the apps that have started poaching mine were brand new and not very well known yet. But at least a couple have received a lot of coverage on the big social media blogs (mashable, techcrunch, etc...). None of my apps have had such coverage (and yes, I am willing to admit I am jealous of that fact, but it is what it is), and despite that, I have had a lot of fun growing my user-base organically through twitter itself and my users' word-of-mouth recommendations. I don't really appreciate others coming in and sniping my users away. So, maybe I'm just being weak and need to grow a pair and deal with it (by either a) sucking it up, or b) engaging in poaching myself, or c) both). Maybe all is fair in love and tweets... Would love to hear about others' experiences in this area. Personally I see this as healthy competition. If you're worried about people using alternatives to your app you should probably find out why and improve your app rather than complaining about dirty tactics from the competition. My TwitApps Replies service has quite a few competitors and I keep seeing people tweeting that they're running several at the same time to see which best meets their needs. Whenever I see that I always contact them to try and get feedback, good or bad, so I can make Replies better. -Stuart -- http://stut.net/
Re: Twitter app user poaching
On 27/1/09 19:07, Chad Etzel wrote: Hi all, I have been contemplating sending this email for a long time, and finally have decided to just do it, so here goes: I understand that we are all trying to gain large user-bases for our twitter apps, and I know there are several tactics to go about doing it; but I am wondering what is everbody's opinion on the tactic I refer to as twitter app user poaching in which app devs tweet out to people right after a user mentions some other app in their tweets: @somebody hey, if you likeinsert competitor app here you should trymy app! http://link.to.my.app.com/ Obviously people are monitoring their app's brand and their competitors' brand, which is obviously a savvy business strategy in general... but somehow to me, in the twitter ecosystem, this feels kinda sleazy. I have consciously tried to avoid doing this because a) the aforementioned sleaziness, and b) i don't think my followers would appreciate a stream of constant hey check out my app tweets. Maybe I am alone here, what does everyone else think? This would not be so bad if some of the apps that have started poaching mine were brand new and not very well known yet. But at least a couple have received a lot of coverage on the big social media blogs (mashable, techcrunch, etc...). None of my apps have had such coverage (and yes, I am willing to admit I am jealous of that fact, but it is what it is), and despite that, I have had a lot of fun growing my user-base organically through twitter itself and my users' word-of-mouth recommendations. I don't really appreciate others coming in and sniping my users away. So, maybe I'm just being weak and need to grow a pair and deal with it (by either a) sucking it up, or b) engaging in poaching myself, or c) both). Maybe all is fair in love and tweets... Would love to hear about others' experiences in this area. They probably *should* try other apps, so they find one that suits them best. Hopefully yours! You can't please all the users, all of the time. Worry less about people comparing, and more about building an app that will compare well. Maybe they'll try the others, go back to yours, and then write about why they preferred it. BTW I've been having trouble with Twhirl today, and posted about it, got useful feedback from twhirl users and developers, as well as people using other apps. We all have different constraints and preferences, and exploring the different design possibilities is a healthy and natural thing... cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/
Re: Twitter app user poaching
I was not aware of this tactic, but I agree with Stuart. The users should and will decide which apps are sleazy and which are not. If the followers of a poacher don't care for the tactic, they will vote with a click of the un-follow button and take their traffic elsewhere. On Jan 27, 1:25 pm, Stuart stut...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/1/27 Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com: I have been contemplating sending this email for a long time, and finally have decided to just do it, so here goes: I understand that we are all trying to gain large user-bases for our twitter apps, and I know there are several tactics to go about doing it; but I am wondering what is everbody's opinion on the tactic I refer to as twitter app user poaching in which app devs tweet out to people right after a user mentions some other app in their tweets: @somebody hey, if you like insert competitor app here you should try my app!http://link.to.my.app.com/; Obviously people are monitoring their app's brand and their competitors' brand, which is obviously a savvy business strategy in general... but somehow to me, in the twitter ecosystem, this feels kinda sleazy. I have consciously tried to avoid doing this because a) the aforementioned sleaziness, and b) i don't think my followers would appreciate a stream of constant hey check out my app tweets. Maybe I am alone here, what does everyone else think? This would not be so bad if some of the apps that have started poaching mine were brand new and not very well known yet. But at least a couple have received a lot of coverage on the big social media blogs (mashable, techcrunch, etc...). None of my apps have had such coverage (and yes, I am willing to admit I am jealous of that fact, but it is what it is), and despite that, I have had a lot of fun growing my user-base organically through twitter itself and my users' word-of-mouth recommendations. I don't really appreciate others coming in and sniping my users away. So, maybe I'm just being weak and need to grow a pair and deal with it (by either a) sucking it up, or b) engaging in poaching myself, or c) both). Maybe all is fair in love and tweets... Would love to hear about others' experiences in this area. Personally I see this as healthy competition. If you're worried about people using alternatives to your app you should probably find out why and improve your app rather than complaining about dirty tactics from the competition. My TwitApps Replies service has quite a few competitors and I keep seeing people tweeting that they're running several at the same time to see which best meets their needs. Whenever I see that I always contact them to try and get feedback, good or bad, so I can make Replies better. -Stuart --http://stut.net/
Re: Twitter app user poaching
On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com wrote: [snip] Would love to hear about others' experiences in this area. Chad, One thing I've done is to create two distinct accounts for the SnapTweet application@snaptweet and @snaptweetdev. Eventually, I perceived that supporting so many users with their issues on the main account was just noise to almost everyone. So now, whenever I see someone who needs help, I @-reply them from the dev account and invite them to email me if it's too long for Twitter. No noise for my primary followers and I can keep to posting minimal and quality tweets on the main account at choice opportunities. It's worth noting that these are separate from my personal account (@damon). As to the poaching question, it *is* a competition for user mindshare and users cannot decide if they like your app or some feature of your app, if they don't know about it. So while repetitive check out my app tweets could definitely get annoying, I think that being generally helpful to users who are trying to find solutions to let them kick ass, can only help you grow your user base. Best, -damon -- http://twitter.com/damon
Re: Twitter app user poaching
Thanks all for you feedback. I do agree that it is a free market and people will indeed vote with their clicks. I don't just sit back and hope that people stick around on my apps. I am always proactively (and sometimes reactively) adding features to my apps to improve them. And competition is always a good thing, for all parties involved. Just wanted to gauge people's opinion about competitive promotional strategies. Game on, -Chad On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Damon Clinkscales sca...@pobox.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com wrote: [snip] Would love to hear about others' experiences in this area. Chad, One thing I've done is to create two distinct accounts for the SnapTweet application@snaptweet and @snaptweetdev. Eventually, I perceived that supporting so many users with their issues on the main account was just noise to almost everyone. So now, whenever I see someone who needs help, I @-reply them from the dev account and invite them to email me if it's too long for Twitter. No noise for my primary followers and I can keep to posting minimal and quality tweets on the main account at choice opportunities. It's worth noting that these are separate from my personal account (@damon). As to the poaching question, it *is* a competition for user mindshare and users cannot decide if they like your app or some feature of your app, if they don't know about it. So while repetitive check out my app tweets could definitely get annoying, I think that being generally helpful to users who are trying to find solutions to let them kick ass, can only help you grow your user base. Best, -damon -- http://twitter.com/damon
