Disqus - Latest Comments for spanky

Re: http://mashable.com/2009/05/11/world-of-warcraft-social-media/

spanky — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:29:17 -0000

The article started out well until you mentioned 40-man raids - noob! You obviously don't play much at all...

Re: Virtual goods: Who will be the Amazon.com of virtual item sales?

spanky — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:32:04 -0000

imvu - already largest, and it's all UGC (cafepress model - hard to compete against)

Re: Virtual goods: Who will be the Amazon.com of virtual item sales?

spanky — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:01:45 -0000

Now I understand :) Yes, imvu (we, full disclosure) has a ways to go in terms of it's e-commerce. But where do you put resources when your footprint spreads across so many paradigms - 3D technology, social networking, UGC, real-time chat, and e-commerce (virtual goods)? But I agree - virtual catalogs will at some point "borrow" features from the Amazons out there.

Re: Facebook Now More Popular Than Sex

spanky — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:15:59 -0000

I really wish others would stop discussing the rise of social media over adult interest - shows a lack of research. The reason why we do not see as many searches on adult terms via google is that people can now go straight to the source: adult video sites and search there. Just pull up the alexa 100 for US and witness the five or six adult "youtubes" on the list. Collectively, they dwarf youtube. After checking out a few of the sites, I find that the content and traffic is mind boggling. If anything, sex interest is rising much faster than social media based on alexa...

Re: Nasty ad on Facebook

spanky — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:40:42 -0000

Funny you mention the AFF geo-targeted ads... The CR on those are INSANE - I know having worked there.

Re: Nasty ad on Facebook

spanky — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:17:28 -0000

Alex, I'm not sure about the other dating sites, but I can tell you for sure that the AFF ads, and profiles are not fake. They are real members who live in your area. It actually freaked me out when I saw a woman in a San Carlos grocery store who I saw in an AFF ad...

Re: Ask the readers: If you could drop 100M users onto any site, what would you build?

spanky — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:12:23 -0000

Build a 3D social network around the following interests (from your list below):

* Fashion

* Knitting

* Board games

* NASCAR

* Kittens

And extract at least $1 per user by:

* selling virtual goods related to fashion

* make & sell virtual goods - the knitters out there

* selling flash games in 3D rooms

* selling virtual cars

* selling furry virtual goods

And there's already one doing that today, and it's not SL...

Re: Innovation from Asian-based social sites

spanky — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:24:31 -0000

What's the IMVU banner doing in there? makes you wanna go "hmm"

Re: As Facebook saturates in the US, what’s the next step?

spanky — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:22:22 -0000

I agree, Andrew. I buy directly from Fox, and it's obvious they have veterans from the online ad industry. And there's a lot of ad industry expertise around myspace, in LA. As far as facebook - that's a different story...

Re: Remnant ads and the advertisers who love them

spanky — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:38:01 -0000

I think it's also important to point out the the impression price points can be represented by a pyramid - with the $10 CPM on top - meaning just a few imps. Don't you love it when sites quote $5 CPMs, as if ALL of the inventory is selling for that? I'm amazed by how many CEOs fail to understand the CPM pyramid...

Re: The first 6 steps to homegrowing basic startup metrics

spanky — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:54:27 -0000

On top of that, generally the first thing I do from an acquisition standpoint is to set up a landing page system - where you can dynamically create new landing pages that write to a field in the database called acquired_by. For all traffic landing on that page, you can easily calculate CPA on each campaign by querying the database against each unique acquired_by. Then over time you can add reports that will give you the CPA, activation rate, viral rates, retention rates, etc. against each acquired_by source.

Re: I have blogger’s block!

spanky — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:47:53 -0000

How 'bout something that touches on:
recession = escapism = big win for VW/games (as long as your VW/game doesn't rely on ad $$)

I found this post most interesting: http://www.marketingvox.com/escapism-propels-ha...
just a thought...

Re: Virtual items design: Build it yourself or use UGC?

spanky — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:10:40 -0000

Hmmm, Charles makes some good points. I, too, am not sure where to start w/ my response... There's actually a step between DIY and UGC that hasn't been mentioned - and that is: Derive-DIY to get to UGC. IMVU provides tools for the casual developer to derive from a DIY asset, and simply re-skin it. For example, a developer can take a really cool 3D room, and just change the texture map to make an entirely new room. In terms of skills, basic photoshop is the only requirement. When it's sold in the catalog, there's a rev-share, if you will, between the original developer and the one who derives. So with a few really good DIY assets, you can have lots of UGC in no time.

Also, Charles is right - managing UGC is challenging. With UGC you also have less control of the size of the assets which impact overall performance. And if you allow your UGC to be derived, then you run the risk that derivation chains can be broken, if a developer at the top of the chain makes drastic changes to the asset.

Re: Amazing presentation on leadgen tactics from Jay Weintraub

spanky — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:47:20 -0000

Thanks for sharing! I wondered what happened to Jay after ad.com...

Re: What would Facebook look like if it sold out to ads? Click here to see…

spanky — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:57:46 -0000

Ok, Andrew, what's your point w/ the imvu ad? jk... I wish that fb ad inventory would open up :)

Re: Poll results are in - what YOU want to read on this blog, revealed!

spanky — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:39:40 -0000

So we've been reading about the success of Obama's online strategy around the Web... Eric R. even states he worked on the campaign. I wonder if the team had a good handle on analytics and metrics? just a thought...

Re: How to calculate cost-per-acquisition for startups relying on freemium, subscription, or virtual items biz models

spanky — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:13:48 -0000

Nicely put, Andrew. When it comes to acquisition, I typically put on my blinders - and ignore CTRs, CR, CPMs, CPCs, etc. and focus primarily on CPA and LTV when determining a thumbs up or down. Sometimes a source of traffic might have a really high CPM, yet has a higher CTR and CR, and leads to about the same CPA & LTV as other campaigns.

Additionally, I calculate both a paid CPA and an overall CPA, and a viral ratio to get from one to the other. That ensures that the "viral angle" is built into the decision making. You then take that viral ratio and apply it to your campaign's paid CPA to get a campaign's overall CPA. And if the campaign's overall CPA is below LTV, then you're good-to-go.

Re: How to calculate cost-per-acquisition for startups relying on freemium, subscription, or virtual items biz models

spanky — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:19:57 -0000

Good point - don't want to forget about branding. Maybe I'm calling "viral factor" the wrong thing - it's actually the "freebie factor." If you calculate overall CPA as total media spend divided by total sign-ups, and back out a freebie factor - which includes direct viral, WOM, SEO, etc. - then it takes into account the branding value. It's just that it's really hard to measure and might take time to see. So a campaign that gets tons of impressions, but shows little direct LTV, might actually increase the freebie factor over time, and drive down overall CPA, which is the ultimate goal.

Re: Taking a quick blog vacation…

spanky — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:04:25 -0000

lol "I’VE JUMPED THE SHARK" - a reference to Happy Days and The Fonz...

Re: Freemium business model case study: AdultFriendFinder ARPU, churn, and conversion rates

spanky — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:58:50 -0000

Interesting post, Andrew. Yes, all acquisition is via affiliates, except for adwords. If you look at affiliate payouts for FriendFinder, it's 100% of what FF makes. The strategy is to get the mainstream user in the door, and then introduce them to "the good stuff." The users converting to paid is low, but the LTV for them is pretty high. (I plan to look at this later - stated numbers seem low) I could go into more detail, but it might get me in trouble. :) But I can say that Andrew Conru, the founder, was obsessed w/ funnel metrics, and spent many, long nights coding the reporting for everything mentioned above...

Re: Freemium business model case study: AdultFriendFinder ARPU, churn, and conversion rates

spanky — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:06:32 -0000

Cams comes from Legendary Lars Mapstead - he and Andrew merged their companies a few years ago. I'm surprised it isn't making much money - I know other large players in that sector, and they are making a killing.

The good stuff I was referring to was adultfriendfinder - seeing a "nude" pic of someone who lives in your same town, after looking at "clothed" photos on friendfinder. Although there are probably ten men to every woman, there are actually a lot of legitimate woman who use the service, and not decoys as noted. Andrew actually worked hard to keep solicitors off the site. The geo-targeted banners use real people. Subscriptions average about three months. And a lot of couples belong to the service - swinging is HUGE on AFF - it was eye-opening, let me tell ya...

Re: Treehouse by Tham & Videgard Hansson is Almost Invisible

spanky — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:12:06 -0000

That definitely tops the list of dumb-ass projects. So where is the treehugger scoreboard for bird crashes? Please post a pic...

Re: Treehouse by Tham & Videgard Hansson is Almost Invisible

spanky — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:12:06 -0000

That definitely tops the list of dumb-ass projects. So where is the treehugger scoreboard for bird crashes? Please post a pic...