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Comment by ggreer | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure if the submitter created BlinkLink, but I hope the author had fun making it. It's a neat idea, and it exploits human psychology in clever ways. I like how the reward for tweeting increases as the number of views remaining goes down. Also, people are driven to share the link with their friends immediately since they know views remaining are scarce.

That said, it's pretty easy to mirror content. In case the link is dead, http://i.imgur.com/KGo7oRH.jpg is what was on the page originally.

Oh, and I found a UI annoyance. On the front page (http://www.blinklink.me/), the blue "Make a BlinkLink" button at the top that says is just a link to blinklink.me. The bottom button (which is a less-noticeable white) actually posts the form. You should probably hide the top button on the front page.

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I find it very interesting how the fact that making the rules of the game "obvious" changes the way people approach. If you think about it, almost all content on the internet follows this rule: share-or-die.

But here, after slapping the die part on the face, people are forcing themselves to post the link on twitter. Very cool!

I would hardly describe requiring people to spam as cool. More like fucking annoying. Also you have no idea what the content will be until you have propagated the spam, it could just be penis pills.

It would be like

"Before we allow you in our restaurant or show you a menu, you must give us a positive review on yelp."

It's a neat idea, and it exploits human psychology in clever ways. I like how the reward for tweeting increases as the number of views remaining goes down.

Interesting, my reaction was the total opposite of yours - I immediately started to hate the idea - for the same reasons as you stated.

It reminds me in very negative ways of these crappy sharehostera where you are nagged and limited just to extort your money.

Sorry OP...

> It's a neat idea, and it exploits human psychology in clever ways

WTF? Maybe we won't be free of scummy exploits until the second last person in the world dies and leaves the last person with nobody to exploit, but just because we can't get rid of something doesn't mean we have to praise it, of all things. What's wrong with you?

I think this a neat idea as well; IMHO it has a lot of potential as a marketing tool. Who doesn't want to help his/her favorite product/service/band/event/cause keep the page alive by giving it attention (sharing the link).

That you can mirror the content is maybe not even that important from a psychological point of view.

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