Copy & paste from a friend who called this over 2 weeks ago:
"12/3/13
>Free pussy riot!
>But I hear he's giving them amnesty. Khordokovsky too. All hail Putin!"
Look for Pussy Riot to be the next to be released...
Cool video - nice touch adding the dog at the end:)
Just curious, how long did it take to integrate the basic Leap API into your app? Does it have built in gesture recognizers like iOS or do you have to "roll your own"?
It wasn't too bad, it took a few hours to get the basics up and running, then there was quite a bit of tweaking. The leap sdk is coming together but theres still a lot for developers to do. There are gestures but you still need to roll quite a bit yourself. I'm going to do another post much more in depth about the gestures and how to handle them in the next week or two.
I was very excited when I saw early versions of the new app store that eliminated the need to page through search results five apps at a time and replaced it with a scrollable list. Then at the last minute though, it seemed like Apple had a change of heart and added the screenshot-centered design - very disappointing from my perspective as both a user and developer..
The copy on this article and the book page itself feels so spammy that I would never buy the product. I respect the desire/need to make money, but I do think a certain percentage of your potential audience will be turned off immediately by the excessive use of this type of obvious marketing-speak (excessive use of bold fonts, short, pointed sentences, all the vague truisms, "money back guarantee"..). I hope this doesn't become the standard type of post on Hacker News, I'm sorry but after clicking on that link it really feels like I've just been spammed.
Thanks for the comment, and I used to agree with just about everything you said.
However, there's nothing at all wrong with "marketing-speak". It's based on psychology: people skim, bolding is used to emphasize importance, and money back guarantees - well, they're exactly what they mean.
For most things, I personally prefer easily digestible content over blocks and blocks of text.
So you've made around 3 sales per hour since you've submitted it.
Assuming 3 sales/hr directly from HN, that is encouraging.
I don't know how anyone can verify 3 sales/hr from HN only from that screenshot, however. Sorry my thirst is unquenched, it's just this whole deal reminds me of ClickBank sales where fudging screenshots and hyping and bullshitting others is fairly commonplace.
I would believe 1 in 7 overall users click through, but I'm still curious who is doing it because I am a jaded, jaded marketer.
You'll just need to take my word on it - I'm not going to post ejunkie/PayPal creds :-)
Total uniques for the main article: 7,772
Total uniques for the sales page: 1,238
A 2% conversion rate (26 sales) isn't that far fetched. It was converting higher with the pre-HN traffic (about 6% on average).
take off the tinfoil hat, there's a reason you see that kind of copywriting and styling a lot...it works, and it works very well.
So long as the product being sold is legitimate, usage of that styling and copy is more than acceptable as it's a proven way to increase sales and conversions.
The last thing I need is this kind of kruft polluting my brain causing me to continuously second guess myself. I have a hard enough time deciding if a purchase is "business related" or not, now I have to ponder the future implications that every purchase I make will have on my permanent record? Sorry but I can't play this game without encumbering my mind with an amount of stress that completely outweighs any future benefit this bit of clever purchasing discretion would bring. I surrender to our big data overlords and beg for mercy on my consumption footprint. Maybe someday someone will be able to provide a technical defense to all of this nonsense: e.g. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/apple-...
Probably will get downvoted for this, but I didn't really think this was as vile as apparently everybody else does. Sure it's a bit cheesy and stupid, but the dancers seem to be wearing shorts and a full shirt (essentially standard dance attire) and not doing anything particularly suggestive. As to the lyrics, again stupid attempts at humor but not any worse than what you might see on an evening TV sitcom. Maybe I am just old..
That's forgetting context. On a sitcom, sure. What if it were at a funeral or as part of a job interview? It's similarly inappropriate at a programmers' conference where we should be avoiding activities and messages that reinforce male privilege. Don't believe me, believe women who have responded about it, e.g. https://twitter.com/serendipitousP/status/211470656242589698
When I first came across this phenomenon years ago, I managed to find a thread on a mailing list (I think it was for East Asian studies) that included personal reports from researchers as well as some interesting suggestions about why they might do this. The consensus seemed to be that this was akin to how the Taiwanese might sacrifice a pack of the deceased's favorite cigarettes or a bottle of his favorite liquor at his funeral.
Such dance shows are also offered up as tribute to the deities at temple festivals. As bizarre as that is, I can't help but be amused by the thought of their gods appreciating a flagrant display of T&A. It sure turns the Hermetic motto "As above, so below" on its head, doesn't it?
> as part of a job interview
Taking a male job candidate to a strip club isn't unheard of in the US. In South Korea (and I presume other parts of East Asia), it's commonplace to go to hostess bars on the monthly hwaeshik outing with coworkers; sometimes they will continue the night at straight-up prostitution joints for sam cha. I wouldn't be surprised if job interviews were often conducted similarly to entice candidates. I know for a fact that Korean salespeople often seal deals by taking customers out for "entertainment".
To be clear, I'm not condoning any of these practices, just saying they're out there and probably more commonplace than you realize.
it's not the things they did or any particular word or formulation that ticks me off. It's the sentiment and (if it succeeds) the baseline of emotions it seeds for that event or evening.
Now we can all say that everyone needs to grow thicker skin or something, but in the end it's simply bad taste to alienate significant parts of the crowd. That being said, if I would have been there, I would have been more embarrassed at the stereotype they apparently decided to appeal to than offended, because it was so over the top stupid.
I wouldn't downvote and I probably would have a laugh with my kid sister at how inept MS is.
However I do have concerns for young girls who are interested in programming and technology and believe this is how women are perceived in this field. This is especially true of those who don't have a sound parental foundation or looking to define themselves.
I think female peer pressure and the fear of ostracization for getting outed as a geek is a much bigger deterrent to women entering the IT field than some silly jokes that a mature adult sure can deal with.
Does anyone else think it odd that being a software developer automatically means you're a "geek"? I never thought of myself that way, still don't, and am surprised that a career choice automatically confers such an odd label. It makes no sense.
Did anyone find anything insightful, interesting, or entertaining about this article? To those that upvoted it - why? I ask because I think I must be missing a kernel of wisdom that you may have observed.
In this case the article is only there as a prompt for conversation.The comments have been quite interesting to me.
One of the points the article did make though (well, along the same theme anyway) is that interest in ageing will wax and wane as you go through life. As a 28 year old, soon to be married ageing is on my mind more now than it was 3 years ago. I went through a similar stage when I finished University. Between the two though I may well have skipped past this story.
This looks really great, thank you for sharing it. One question, do you think you'll eventually extend the API to allow for uploading to these services as well?
Absolutely. That's already built into the Chute SDK, actually. We're still polishing the docs (we haven't formally launched the API yet), but the functionality is there. Feel free to email me directly if you'd like any help.
Agreed, I honestly don't understand how it could be so well received on HN. Do you really need to use boldface <b>at the end of every sentence?</b> This article just seems like money-worshiping, social-climbing drivel.
Look for Pussy Riot to be the next to be released...