symptic

A great example of a good use of screenshots is HN member pxlpshr's company Salt Lick Labs ( http://saltlicklabs.com/ ). He is only marketing the iPhone apps, but there is a level of polish that makes you want to see more, even though you know you don't actually need to read about peoples' horrible relationships or to catalog your own relationship endeavors.

The gaming company Blizzard is known for their delays in releasing games, but they are also more known for having the sharpest, most intuitive user interfaces and game play out there. Take this ideology into consideration when preparing a service like OverTrainer (something I'm actually interested in using). Build it to work, but don't show it until it makes people think, "Wow, I need to get involved n this product/service/community."

The point is to be a sort of Google algorithm for Twitter. This is plenty of data to at least get a very solid idea of who the top Tweeters are based on their connections, influence, and popularity.

Also, keep in mind he scraped the TOP Twitter users (those with X+ followers). A lot of Twitters tweets likely come from those under that threshold, saving time, storage space, and effort.

The difference is most of those games realistically cost over $100M to develop, and World of Goo most probably cost under $100,000. Just goes to show how stale the gaming industry is; even when a large-scale game like Mirrors Edge is released, it's bashed for not being realistic enough.

Excellent! I've met with Philip (I'm redesigning his division's website here at the University of Texas) and he told me about this project. I didn't expect it to be mobilized this soon.

Sounds promising. :)

According to my affiliate marketer friends, Myspace is one of the only reliable sources of relatively cheap traffic. Google and Facebook are getting tougher to buy it cheap from.

There's a lot to learn about affiliate marketing at http://wickedfire.com. There are tons of affiliates to converse with and also several affiliate network CEO's who post there. It's not uncommon for many affiliates here to make more than $2,000 a day from AM, so it'd be valuable to pick their brains.

Because you want them to.

In the next few days I'll also be releasing my personal project, http://epictee.com to connect great t-shirt companies with the media they deserve. I helped co-found http://anticlothes.com and while I was there, a major problem was getting coverage for the brand and for the owner.

I've noticed this is common for most tee labels, especially as they start out (no coincidence), and rather than be a salesman trying to move shirts, I'll be a salesman moving brand equity, which I'm much more comfortable with.

My partner and I are going to remake http://jobzor.com. We were originally looking to make a job board and internship recruiter as a Facebook App, but it's just not our thing and there is enough competition in the market already for that.

Instead, since we both rely heavily on freelance work, we're positioning it as a directory of approved designer (with specific specialties), copywriter, and developer freelancers so clients looking for work or partners can find them easily.

Given my focus on delivering great designs within my focus-time of 24 hours, this should be a good help in finding clients, as well as any revenue we scrape together through the site if we choose to monetize it.

Any HN members interested in being listed?

I assume it's less. AdSense was roaring more so back in 06' but has settled and matured now. A lot of publishers who minted earlier on are now looking for better alternatives once more.

His site is so simple that if every action takes you to a new page it almost feels seamless. Most other sites make sure the convenience of taking you where you want in one click is accounted for, but for a site running off of AdSense, more pageviews = more potential clicks, so you can argue he's stretching it for the sake of chart rankings; I argue it's to maximize potential revenues.

I found this video much more compelling: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5K4yhPSQEzo&feature=relate...

A buddy of mine was showing me new designs he was pumping out for his new projects using Coded Preview and I thought the idea was really cool, considering I always seem to waste 3-4 minutes setting up demo preview pages for my JPG layout designs.

Your products are shipping out to be great man. I really appreciate the follow on Twitter @stevenkovar. The company's site looks really sharp as well. Simple and to-the-point. Keep it up!

I have a hunch he could spend a day or two sending out personalized emails to each person, be it one paragraph or a page in length. He's in the business of building people to be stronger marketers; he's not doing much a service to them in telling them they are awesome but not awesome enough.

I think Godin could learn a bit from the devotion Gary Vaynerchuk shows to his audience.

My handwriting has been very neat and tight. I write in cursive and in pencil, since being left-handed is horrible with pens, but people complain about it being too small and too light.

Woe is me? :P

That's as much as you make in one day. If he's as picky of an artist as I am, he spends several days on a design. Then there's the fact his skill set is highly specialized, thus providing the luxury of a higher price per project.

When you care enough about your new startup looking as good as it can be, a few thousand to have new icons made to make your site more usable and unique or your app more visible is worth the effort--or in this case, the capital.

A good designer is well worth his price. it's just a shame there is an overabundance of bad designers; they're each worth nothing more than 5 headaches, a poor end product, and a delayed project. But hey, you saved $500 in the process.

This post and the video sickened me. I think everyone had good points, but the panel (people we're supposed to respect?) would yell and change topics when someone made an actual valid point.

The one comment about 'Americans need to appreciate life and Europeans need to work better' is the best argument in the entire video and it was looked over. Arrington is blind to say the Americans had the best stage presence. Le Meur was the most reasonable I think through the whole thing and he was cast aside. Why? Because he's french.

Seems to me the American panelists (Feldman aside) only see the world how they want to. There are great people everywhere, and the mentality they exhibited-focusing purely on winning and being efficient-shows their lack of comprehension into what matters most, both in life and business.

No matter how efficient you are or how much you want to win, it's important to have a level head to be able to step back and appreciate the things around you. Shoving your face in your work 12+ hours a day will make you miss half your life. I don't know about most of you guys, but I learn the most living life as compared to reading blogs and business articles.

From a design standpoint, the green on the homepage is too dark with the black text over it. Lighten up that green, or make it darker and change the font to white. Otherwise, at first glance it looks great. I can give a more thorough review if you'd like (just email me).

G'luck!

I think it has the potential to gain enough traction to make it to the XBox and PS3 network stores. A few of my friends already want to buy it.

It's not my game, but once their site comes back up I'll send over your idea to them. Good idea. :)

Do you think it will be successful?

If I'm not doing school work, I'm typically freelancing. School + Paying the bills + Entrepreneurshipping is hard to maintain. Especially when two of them are mere formalities.

Permission Marketing http://www.sethgodin.com/permission/

http://www.pandora.com > Type in 'Cafe Del Mar' and get hackin'.

I wasn't aware entrepreneurs don't get laid. ;P

I think the problem comes from a certain form of parental neglect. I'm only 22 and have no children, but it seems to me like given our greater disposable incomes, a lot of parents think it is easier to raise kids by throwing money at their development rather than time.

You can't raise children on the macro-scale. You raise them at the micro-levels.

I like to make some time for myself on the weekends, even if I have a lot of work to be doing. It's necessary to have a mental and physical recharge period.

I would try to sell 60-70% of my share and use the remaining bit to outsource the work in maintaining the work I was doing, then sit on the $1-2k coming in every month as a safety net to pay the bills and give me the full purchasing price to invest in my start up (though I'd advise investing much less to keep your start up honest)

Make an API or an app for Facebook/Myspace or a widget for Wordpress and watch it spread. ;)