Farmville Is Bigger Than World of WarCraft? Really?

Kevin Rose (founder of Digg and WeFollow) gave a talk recently at FOWA. Link to actual discussion is http://vimeo.com/6905398.

· Why it caught my eye Viral traffic growth. An elusive beast. · Would I recommend you watch it?: Absolutely. His points, while summarized well by many are clarified by his examples. · Most Notable Point: Ego. Define your core use case and then design to fulfill user ego if possible. Does your app create sense of self worth? Value? For the user. · When should you fast forward? Q&A wasn’t notable. · What the audience didn’t hear: His point on marketing by approaching jr. bloggers with your startup story intriguing. Also, loved his example that Farmville (on Facebook) which I have played (thanks to my boys) and has more active users than World of WarCraft.

As always, for those amused here are my raw notes …

*** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING ***

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:42 AM

……………..§ Kevin – Intro

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:43 AM – EGO

……………..§ Doesn’t drive design … but should influence design you need for the business goal

……………..§ What emotional rewards

……………..§ What visible rewards (badges, etc)

……………..§ Good Examples

……………………..□ 10/6/2009, 9:45 AM Twitter

…………………………….® Followers – Celebrity as free endorser (New idea)

…………………………………….◊ Works due to simple friend model

…………………………………….◊ Becomes a social currency … more is better (bigger platform)

…………………………………….◊ False follower concept is reality

……………………..□ 10/6/2009, 9:48 AM Digg Leaderboard

…………………………….® Who has submitted the most stories … Top Digg poweruser goal

…………………………….® Permlink page … size of icon for submitter is larger and friending icon

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:50 AM – SIMPLICITY

……………..§ Overbuild features

……………..§ Just release something (do it really well) and see what users do with it .

……………..§ Constantly ask what to remove

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:51 AM – BUILD and RELEASE

……………..§ Don’t debate features

……………..§ Put it out there

……………..§ Build, release, analyze, repeat

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:52 AM – HACK THE PRESS

……………..§ Invite only systems

……………………..□ Press likes limited story (bloggers)

……………..§ Logged in user to see categories

……………..§ Talk to jr. bloggers (talk to the staff @ TechCrunch for example)

……………..§ Attend parties of events you can’t afford (i.e. Web 2.0 costs $3-4k) … so hit after parties . Have demo in hand

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:56 AM – START PODCAST

……………..§ It’s not about numbers here … core of your community looks for this

……………..§ Launch party, quarterly parties

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:58 AM – ADVISORS

……………..§ What technical issues are probable (scale, server, etc)

……………..§ Can be biz/dev or tech

……………..§ Stock compensation . Small % . Vests over course of years

………○ 10/6/2009, 9:59 AM – USERBASE TO SPREAD WORD

……………..§ Farmville – Facebook app … larger user base than WoW

……………………..□ Notes to you that your friends are helping you when you are away . Pull stagnate friends back in due to feeling of owing them (they help to get free points)

……………………..□ Rare blacksheep given away

……………..§ WeFollow – Enable people to tweet out a pre-built msg … with their keywords

……………………..□ 10/6/2009, 10:02 AM – Graph of user growth … spike with add of welcome splash with call to action to add to directory giving them data of adding themselves

………○ 10/6/2009, 10:02 AM – DOES YOUR PRODUCT ADD VALUE TO 3RD PARTY SITE

……………..§ Wall Street gives link to Digg on every page as it adds value to WSJ

………○ 10/6/2009, 10:03 AM – ANALYZE TRAFFIC

……………..§ Google Analytics

……………………..□ Top exit pages, paths

………○ 10/6/2009, 10:03 AM – LOOK AT BIG PICTURE

……………..§ Users contribute – Quality Content

……………..§ Traffic from content

……………..§ Traffic nets to buttons (digg reference)

………○ 10/6/2009, 10:04 AM – Q&A

……………..§ B2B Advice on viral design – Not much to say there

……………..§ 10/6/2009, 10:06 AM – Moonfruit promotion on twitter good/bad – They offered to give a macbook to someone that promotes their service. Shut down by twitter due to volume. Digg (us) focus on show people what they are going to send not a generic plug.

……………..§ Visibly punish (opposite of reward)? – No do not. Users don’t know always they are gaming. Many times people digg 500 stories but to them it’s a game. User onboarding can help less users going off the deep end. Focus them on positive tasks.

……………..§ 10/6/2009, 10:08 AM – Companies don’t pay for marketing / advertisting … does Digg pay for some? Digg has not paid for marketing. Focus on meetups and get togethers.

……………..§ 10/6/2009, 10:10 AM – Demographics of Digg? 95% male started. Expanded content w/ version 3. Will do more promotion at the vertical level (i.e. Rock climbing). 3000 follow knitting.