Disqus - Latest Comments for nattomaki

Re: Growth vs Retention

Shanti Bergel — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 12:24:25 -0000

Retention is extremely important of course. But, I don't care much for the idea of looking at any metric in isolation. There is no "one number" in my opinion, although you might be able to get away with three - retention, monetization, cost of acquisition. All of which can function differently at scale.

Great retention stats may get you a second funding meeting but they won't build your business without a corresponding monetization vector that enables profitable LTV>CPI arbitrage...except in very particular cost of acquisition circumstances. Zynga masterfully exploited the early days of the open Facebook API to amass hundreds of millions of free installs. When traffic is free or discounted, the bar for retention and monetization is correspondingly lowered. Those "free growth" circumstances are often temporary or scale capped however so, in the end, it pays to understand both the cost and the revenue side intimately.

Re: commissary-proposals

Shanti Bergel — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 17:17:31 -0000

Of the proposals above, the one for the Presidio Exchange is the clear standout for me. I like the idea of an inclusive community oriented space with a variety of programs appealing to visitors and residents alike.

Re: Has Mobile Killed The Fast Follower Strategy? Sure Looks That Way...

Shanti Bergel — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 15:49:58 -0000

I think it may depend a bit on what tactics we mean when we say fast follow. Apple does feature followers in the games category. Fast & Furious 6 was highly inspired by the success of CSR Racing. Running with Friends came after Temple Run, Subway Surfers, and many other endless runners. Both were featured by Apple.

In mobile games, I'd say fast follow is alive and well. This is especially true if your follow is an improvement in some potentially small but meaningful way - often called the +1 strategy. What arguably doesn't work is shipping a lower quality product with stronger distribution and then iterating like mad to close the quality gap. In my opinion, part of the reason this doesn't work well is the combination of app store editorial policy and community ratings. You are less likely to get featured if your app is flat-out lower quality at launch than that which has gone before AND users may even punish you for it with bad ratings which affects your overall organic distribution opportunity and inorganic conversion rates. Moreover it is very hard to iterate out of that hole and the app store approval window only exacerbates things. Even if you have a cross-promotion syndicate to throw against it, sub-par ratings can drag down conversion and devalue your distribution network power. On Facebook and the open Web, this is arguably less the case. Zynga for example was once capable of usurping the opportunity window of the first mover with its distribution power and then out iterating them on the quality front.

So, for games anyway, I think the +1 flavor of fast follow is still being employed successfully on mobile but the fast dev/fast iteration-dependent version is not. Perhaps it can be said that the "minimum viable" bar for a fast follow on mobile is higher?

Re: The idea maze

Shanti Bergel — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 18:20:37 -0000

There are examples of ideas and businesses that find traction by finding alignment with a new/changed market despite multiple attempts in the past to build something very similar - i.e. Palm came in the wake of a long string of handheld/pen computing/tablet failures like Apple's Newton and GO's PenPoint. To expertly pilot the idea maze, I'd therefore suggest that one must not only know the history of what's been tried before but also how the market, ecosystem, and customers have changed since those ideas where tried. IMHO this speaks directly to the tactical value of smart iteration (ie informed by history) in one's search for market fit.

Re: Social Gaming Growth Underlines Market Shift To Digital

Shanti Bergel — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:33:44 -0000

Thanks - fixed!

Re: Designing For Monetization: How To Apply THE Key Metric In Social Gaming

Shanti Bergel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:25:30 -0000

@Andrew Chen: Indeed. The chart I embedded is just a time slice and gives the wrong impression - you can't hope to monetize a game that doesn't drive a certain level of sustained engagement. I'll swap that chart out. Thanks for catching that!

Re: Testing the new Disqus comment system

Shanti Bergel — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:25:29 -0000

new comment system...mmm shiny!

Re: Social Artifacts: The Powerful Building Blocks Of Social Gaming

Shanti Bergel — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:39:20 -0000

I'm very much in agreement with Jyri Engeström's assertion that people don't just connect to each other, rather they connect through a shared object. This is true both online and off. It can sometimes be the very thing that turns a stranger into a lifelong friend. "You like collecting Victorian doilies?!? So do I!" We are now BFF thanks to ye olde Victorian doily object.

If I'm understanding Mr. Engeström and the social object idea correctly however, in a social gaming context, the game itself would be the social object as it is the game that is shared and that does the heavy lifting of actually connecting people.

One potential difference between a social object and a social artifact therefore is that I actively self-select myself into association with a social object whereas social artifacts are passively generated as a result of my having done so. I don't think most social artifacts have the necessary gravitational pull to generate associations around themselves. They're too small and insignificant to interest a stranger or even elicit a reaction from a friend. As smart-targeted ambient information however they do serve a purpose. But, I'd argue that purpose is largely consumptive in nature and incapable of generating many new connections. My sense is that the value add of social artifacts revolves around existing relationships.

That said, social artifacts definitely connect people and it is only the manner in which they do so that is different. So, there's something to be said for the idea that social artifacts are a sub-class of social objects.

Re: #10Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media

Shanti Bergel — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:41:15 -0000

Yet another way to support charity through social media is to play games and buy virtual items on Whirled.com - a social gaming site. Whirled gives 10% of all proceeds to charity. Details can be found here:

http://wiki.whirled.com/Cha...

Re: How To Succeed In The Coming Social Gaming Explosion

Shanti Bergel — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:23:34 -0000

My sense is that the traditional value add of the publisher role has not been very pronounced in the social gaming space thus far as development costs have been self-fundably low, getting customers has been cheap through viral channels, and monetization is within reach of all via one of the major offer providers. Very democratic. No strong need for publishers. As things get more competitive/expensive though, the value add of a publisher increases.

Re: How To Succeed In The Coming Social Gaming Explosion

Shanti Bergel — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:22:21 -0000

It's been said that AAA games are like movies and Free To Play games are like TV. There are plenty of bad movies and perhaps even worse TV but most of us haven't given up on either of those formats just yet.