(Thanks to @magnuson for the original tweet)#5yearsagoThis is actually something I think about fairly often. When I give talks, I often mention where I came from, not only to illustrate that anyone can actively contribute to space exploration and scientific discovery, but also in hopes of finding other stories like mine. Stories about being overwhelmingly infatuated by communities of makers and changing your life/location to simply be surrounded by it. As a result, my life and the forces that drive me have radically changed over the course of 5 years, and more often than not, I seem to cross milestones the months of July/August.I thought I'd briefly share where I was in each of the last 5 years in the months of July/August, in hopes of reading yours as well:5 years ago, it was August 2006, I was working at a creative interactive agency in Kansas City, VML, that had been my dream job since the time I was 14. Despite being aware of just how late to the game I was when it came to blogging, I started my first blog, Shake Well Before Use, about the hybrids of art, advertising, sex + technology.4 years ago in August, I took what I still consider to be the biggest leap of faith in my life - I left my job of 8 years and moved to San Francisco without another job lined up. The first "gig" I got was working at a new startup called Pownce, where I met Leah Culver, Kevin Rose, and Daniel Burka for the first time (all of whom greatly inspired me with just how much a tiny team could build). There were many reasons I chose SF, but a large influence had been meeting so many amazing people at SXSW 2007 who *made* all the things I usually just blogged about.3 years ago in July/August, I was watching a documentary called When We Left Earth. I found it so inspiring that I took a shot in the dark and emailed NASA about wanting to work for them. Serendipitously, a job description had been crafted that very day that eerily read like my resume. I got the job. It changed my life forever.2 years ago in July, I attended Sci Foo, an unconference of ~200 world renowned scientists, after receiving a highly coveted invite from the O'Reilly team. As an un-scientist I was a bit terrified, to be honest. But I survived and it drove me to speak out more publicly.1 year ago in July, I rounded up 15 of the awesome friends and acquaintances I had made over the previous 4 years and we collectively started planning Science Hack Day San Francisco. Though the event didn't take place in July/August, looking back, I think putting it together is one of the best decisions I've ever made. Science Hack Day is just awesome.Today, I'm writing while on "half-vacation". Half-vacation because in July/August of this year, I learned that the first grant proposal I had written had been awarded. Like working for NASA, I don't think I had envisioned writing a grant proposal in my life. So, very happily, I'm now burning the midnight oil in Berlin, Paris and now Málaga, alongside the most lovely and awesome person (he came along ~2 years ago, but not in July/August). And yeah, it freaks me out to think where I was 5 years ago.
First Impressions and Last Logins
There's a saying along the lines of "the amount someone spends talking about themselves is inversely proportional to how interesting they are". Beyond first dates and keynote presentations, this opinion directly affects social network services.Users drop off at an accelerated rate from accessing/signing up for a new site to actually using it. Even if the sign-up process is super slick and the site is easy to use and helpful with telling users how to get started, more often than not companies forget one significant thing:If the first impression is a ghost town until the user interacts with the service more (e.g. adds friends, follows feeds, etc.) - that will be their impression of your service and most likely their last login to it.For Pownce, a social network I was a community manager for, this was a known weakness. I don't have the data to show the drop-off rate from users who signed up for Pownce, but as with any social network, there's always a large divide between active users and total users - and keeping the divide as small as possible plays a large role in the longevity of a site.
(original screenshot via Chris Messina)Comparatively, when users sign up for Flickr, they're shown the activity that is being created by other users on the site immediately:
(original screenshot via Chris Messina)Additionally, Flickr always shows content other users are contributing on their service on your personal dashboard, regardless if you've added friends or uploaded photos of your own. In this way, Flickr is communicating that they have a live and constantly active ecosystem to participate in - making the user feel less uncertain about adding to that activity and interacting with the site.The recommendation being - don't use emptiness as a motivation for users to interact more with your site, even if you have super friendly instructions. Displaying example content not only shows that your site isn't dead inside, it shows users what's interesting without saying it.
Side note: I've been looking for other blog posts or links to data that discuss the ratio of sign-ups to returning users. My insight on this topic has mainly come from discussions with various social network developers. If you know of any links I should check out, please leave a link in the comments!
One size does NOT fit all
Recently, there has been a rash of one-size-fits-all services that aim to provide a solution to "managing" various sites like Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr, Jaiku and Facebook all at once. As with most of my rants, they begin on Twitter and then trickle their way into a blog post - and if you've seen some of my tweets, you have seen my personal distaste for these services and the people who use them.There is definitely an increased need to edit down the information influx we receive everyday via email, IM, web apps, etc. There is also definitely the stress of joining all the new sites your friends keep joining. However, just as a recent blog post pointed out the potential resurgence of separating public and not-so-public content, there is also arguably a need to cater which content resonates most with which audience.A quote from 2006 that I often refer back to and has always resonated with me is "the internet favors infinite niches, not one-size-fits-all fare".So, why I think one-size-fits-all services like HelloTxt, Ping.fm, Twhirl, and Mahalo Share are missing the mark:SpamThe one-size services assume your followers and friends are only following you on one site. In reality, most of us go between various different sites as much as we would go between kissing partners at a game of spin the bottle (as Sean has stated, I have a non-proprietary crush on Twitter and Pownce). This mass broadcasting may help you spend less time catering to each site, but will end up filling up all your friends' social inboxes two or three times over with the same content. Undoubtedly, this will annoy them - especially if they really didn't need to see that you're broadcasting live on Qik in 3 different places every 5 minutes.RudenessWorse than a wish-I-could-be-there video award acceptance speech, it's centered around broadcasting without valuing interaction. Almost all people I've observed who use these services to cross-post, rarely ever login to the individual sites to see the replies, nor does it seem like they care. As a result, the content suffers significantly - as people learn to not click through or respond to things where they know their opinion won't be heard.Poor CateringIf not interacting with a community and spamming your friends didn't hinder you enough, the services completely overlook the most important aspect: the content. On Pownce, seeing your 5 latest 140 character @ replies you had on Twitter is completely useless, annoying and a total giveaway to the fact that you're probably never going to take the time to send me that new song you like or point me to a video you wanted to talk about outside of the 5,000 YouTube comments it received. As such, I've most likely already stopped following you.To quote myself from 2006 in reference to advertisers, "So what if you reach a larger ... audience? Did you reach the right audience? There's so much talk about demographics, but in the end, people only care about numbers instead of the effectiveness, no less defining effective influence."Have these microblogging sites given rise to an advertising-like mindset of reaching numbers rather than niches?