alohahacker

"I know HN has a significant aversion to cryptocurrency (which absolutely befuddles me for the foundational societal concepts it modernizes)"

I can't for the life of me figure out why HN keeps hating on bitcoin for the past 10 years since ive been following this site has but has been pretty much spot on about every other tech related subject. It initially discouraged me back in the early days but once you GET it, you realize its one of the biggest technological breakthroughs in the history of mankind.

I think with bitcoin you simply can't read about it but actually get your hands dirty and fully use it to really understand the potential it is going to have.

I had a similar situation where I contacted google and asked permission about having a certain app made. Got the green light from several google teams. Pushed and marketed the app and app brought in 7+ figures of revenue throughout the years. Got shut down after about 2 years randomly with no feedback etc. Even my personal consultants from google that they assign to you had no clue and I was left to fend for myself and just eat the lost/work I put into the app.

It's all about target marketing. I remember some tweets I would make hundreds of dollars and on most of my tweets I was getting $5-$10 epc. The beauty of Twitter is the power of the warm leads in its search. If they can effectively monetize that, there could be light at the end of the tunnel!

Having lived in Japan more than 10 years ago, that's the first thing I commented coming back. Why fruits and vegetables were way more delicious there than here. I loved fruits in japan where here its more of a chore when I ate them because I already assumed the bland taste before even biting info it.

This makes total sense.

i remember watching sneakers and feeling inspired at a young age!

I recently had my account disabled over a policy issue. The thing regarding that policy was I had written permission and verbal permission in person to go ahead with my web properties directly from multiple google representatives. I was encouraged and every step of the way and even given ideas that I implemented directly from adsense reps themselves.

It seems unfair especially in my case when they give you the go ahead and you end up investing alot of time and effort only to have one person not like your site and completely disregard all the work you have put in. When the reason for disabling your account is exactly the same reason they encouraged you to create your site in the first place it makes it all that much more frustrating.

My sites were not small either, they had heavy daily usage and brought over 800k in overall advertising revenue in the last 2 and a half years.

I remember submitting coupons on retailmenot and getting them erased. I actually remember contacting them to post coupons that could eventually help their end users and them informing me that they wouldn't post it because it's not an affiliate code and they wouldn't get paid.

As a user, I wasn't getting paid either just wanted to help out since the coupon I found was superior than anything they posted for that store at the time.

Is their mission to help users find deals or pad their affiliate revenue? If it was the latter, their reason they gave me would make sense.

If you read the comments and tweets there were a lot of nasty personal attacks on Eich and reported physical threats against him for donating to prop 8 five years ago. A amendment that actually passed by the way.

I'm fine with respectful open discussion but the entire situation left me with an uneasy taste in my mouth. If another CEO supported gay marriage and it created a stir like Eich's case did, I would feel the same way. Imagine if Sergey Brin donated to a gay marriage group 5 years ago and it caused such a stir that sites like fox or disney asked you to switch from chrome. Imagine the thousands of tweets criticizing him and the right media making a spectacle out of it calling out his character. That would be ridiculous.

It's about mutual respect and discussing ones differences in a cordial human way. In this case, it was anything but that and the double standard was obviously apparent.

great point!!

We're tolerant as long as we share the same views. The irony in tolerance in this case is unreal.

As an affiliate marketer, am I the only one that thought OP should of posted a amazon affiliate link and then did a case study on conversions/efficiency of having a link on the front page of HN? lol

They should hook up with a buddy of mine eric! He's currently going to all 194 countries and having some amazing experiences. Seems like the perfect partnership!

http://gowitheric.com/

I'm suprised Retailmenot doesn't get called out for this link baiting more often. I've studied their practices for years now and they do alot of shady stuff.

I remember posting coupon codes to their site and having them being taken down constantly because they weren't getting commission on them. They were original company specials so no affiliate was getting paid (including me) but I posted them merely for the people who were searching could save money. They gave users 50% off hosting and the links on the retailmenot page were simply regular links to the products page disguised as specials.

When I emailed them asking why they keep deleting my posted coupon they said that any specials need to be run through them and they need a way to track aka put their affiliate id on them.

Left a bad taste in my mouth.

If Nate or anyone could program a statistically accurate sports predictor model there would be huge potential in this as far as sports betting goes.

The guys that make millions in large part use their own software.

I used a simple piece of hardware last year for college football season that was suprisingly accurate. I weighted my own opinion most heavily but would use the software to confirm my picks. If both ways checked out, I would place a bet.

Never had a losing week last year and would usually pocket a couple thousand in profit a week. Of course there was alot of lucky but a large part of my success was due to the statistical software I was using.

"No company have ever increased the revenue by changing an insignificant detail like a button color. None. Zero. Get over it."

I remember Josh the founder of Omniture said how they first got hired by ebay back in the day. Changing the color of the ebay homepage and button to yellow helped ebay increase sales by 15%. That slight increase on a heavily trafficked website resulted in millions of dollars in increased sales.

As someone who lives in provo aka silicon slopes, this is great news!

I don't think most people realize how tech-based this area is and this should only help the companies in the area!

This once happened to me about 2 years ago. I got furious and called up godaddy wanting to talk to someone that could give me an answer. They said we don't buy domains but when a domain is looked up on our website sometimes it is publicly available and sometimes other people end up buying them on speculation.

I searched for the domain godaddysucksbigbigballs.com multiple times and it ended up being taken after 10 mins.

I assume that since there was a grace period where people could simply drop a domain and get a refund after a couple days that squaters somehow obtained the information and weree buying domains that people were searching in hoping to profit.

do you have an email? it'd be fun to shoot some ideas with you ! :)

yup i would get up too $40 EPC for some tweets but usually averaged in the $15-$30 range.

when you create value, people will click and most likely buy. on twitter, you can see what exactly is on their mind so it becomes pretty transparent what they specifically want when they tweet.

I have this idea myself for many years and even had a friend build his funded startup around this concept for the past year or two.

The biggest issue is with compliance with the companies. There is a reason the affiliate process is vetted and takes alot of steps to make sure your serious about promoting. You indirectly represent the end company when promoting your aff link.

When you have someone blasting their affiliate link all around the web and on twitter it doesn't sit well with the end company and they usually bear the brunt of the compliants.

Good luck on the idea. If you can make it work the all the props.

As a affiliate who LOVED promoting on twitter and would see up to an insane $40 EPC on tweets, a freinds influence is great.

I don't see how this going to help small businesses.

As a registered small business S Corp, if this passed it would be thousands more in taxes for me( about 10k).

is there anyway to take that default google search bar off the homescreens or does it just stay on all the time?

i guess i spoke too soon.

Numbers are still down mostly due to international user base about 50% of pre-play levels.

Deems like the international crowd is just as much or even more confused about the market/play transition and as a result not downloading apps as much.

It seems the my numbers are rebounding and slowly creeping back to normal.

Especially since my app has a large user base outside of the US, I'd assume the sudden switch to PLAY was even more confusing for them.

totally agree. If we the hackers/devs are getting confused, I can't imagine the confusion the common android phone user is having.

is there a API or a way to affiliate model to integrate this on our own sites? i could totally use this on my travel related sites/apps :)

you said you are ranking 250ish on android right now.

what is the best way to find your ranking on android? is their a website or tool or did you just go on the market and scroll down and counted till you saw your app?

awesome numbers btw! thanks!!

80k dowloads a day? really thats crazy

and this is on the android platoform?

this is so true. theres a bunch of people banking but why divulge secrets when it only invites competition :)

heck i would pay hundreds if i could have live support and perhaps a rep/agent that I could ask questions too