Posts Tagged Web 2.0

HelloBar’s Awesome Survey

Apr 26

Posted by Andrew Machado in Brand Advertising, Web 2.0 | 8,697 Comments

HelloBar recently launched version 2 of their product.  It looks like they are going the freemium route with a nice set of free features, but if you want a/b testing you’ll need to upgrade.

As a user of version 1.0 I logged into their site this morning to find this.

hellobarwelcome

Now this isn’t anything special we see this type of emphasized UI all the time with products in tiers, but notice the No Credit Card Required text? Well after seeing that I decided to click Upgrade to Pro.

free-trial

You’ll notice I’m greeted with all the benefits of moving to a pro account, but what really impressed me was the survey requiring an answer before hitting submit.  Instantly HelloBar is going to be able to find out how close they are to product market fit with the pro product.  Instead of administering a survey via email, every single user who makes it to this page has a high probability of submitting an answer to them.  Genius.

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Zynga continues to grow and hits homeruns on retention

May 21

Posted by Andrew Machado in Web 2.0 | 9,156 Comments

Zynga continues to hit new highs in terms of usage and expansion. Their iPhone Mafia Wars application continues to hang in the top 25 free apps on iTunes, but I think what is most interesting about Zynga is the little things they do within their applications.

Linking their online applications to the iPhone
Not only has Zynga started porting some of their great online properties to the iPhone like Poker and Mafia Wars, but they have integrated Facebook connect into the Poker product allowing people to get rewards for their usage on either platform.

the blog is back

Making Their Applications Feel Social
Constantly visible in their poker application is a leaderboard, but not just any leaderboard. It shows all of your friends on Facebook and what position you are compared to them currently. This not only encourages you to compete with your friends, but also allows you to quickly see who is moving up the ranks and who is currently online that you can play with. See the screenshot below.

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Marketing their other properties
Zynga has many great applications, but what impresses me the most is that they never fail to advertise their best ones at the top of every one of their applications. They are constantly there to remind you that hey if you are getting board of Mafia Wars, there is always Texas Holdem Poker. This kind of merchandising can really keep someone who might be falling out of love with one of your products and turn them back into an addict in another.
Getting Users to Make Them Money
Zynga has been printing money for months with their micro transactions and their ads within the applications, but I think people forget that they also reward players for trying other services. Unwilling to wait for the next day to get additional poker chips? Don’t worry Zynga is here to offer you 47,000 poker chips (equivalent to playing the game once a day for 23 days) for simply signing up for a free trial of Netflix. Zynga wins both ways in that scenario. Netflix gives them a kick back and they get to keep their user engrained in more advertising.

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