Hunting for Habits: Keying in on smart design to make a product irresistible
Are Companies Too Obsessed With Growth? How to Measure Habits
Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Abhay Vardhan, discusses how to measure the strength of user habits with cohort analysis and retention rate. Abhay is a founder of Blippy.com and blogs at abhayv.com. Follow Abhay on Twitter @abhayvardhan.
You would think PinterestForDogs is doing quite well, right? Well, it depends.
A common mistake entrepreneurs make is to focus too much on user growth. Instead, it is often more important to ask: “Is the product creating a habit so users keep coming back?” and “How do we measure the strength of such a habit?” (more…)
3 Ways I Use Technology to Find Happiness
Nir’s Note: This guest post comes from Brendan Kane who has built technology for MTV, Paramount, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and the NHL. In this article, Brendan describes how he reprogramed the way he views the world using little more than his iPhone and iPad to find happiness.
What if In-App Purchases Came to Real Life?
Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Jonathan Libov explores free-to-play apps with in-app purchases, and takes a wry look into our future. You can connect with him on Twitter at @libovness or visit his website, Whoo.ps.
Three-card Monte is a classic street hustler’s game. The dealer shows you the target card — say, the ace of spades — then leisurely shuffles it with two other cards and places them in a row, face-down. Your job is to pick the target card. Pick right and you win.
The game starts out shockingly easy. You’re offered the chance to play a few rounds for free — or at a very low cost — just to get the hang of it and you win each hand. Not only does your confidence rise with each turn, but you find yourself amped-up from playing the fast-paced game on a bustling street.
With your adrenaline rising, you reach into your pocket, pull out your wallet, and drop $20 on the table to up the ante.
And just like that it’s gone. (more…)
Bible App: Getting 100M Downloads is Psychology, Not a Miracle
Nir’s Note: An edited version of this essay appeared in The Atlantic. Below is my original.
It’s not often an app has the power to keep someone out of a strip club. But according to Bobby Gruenewald, CEO of YouVersion, that’s exactly what his Bible app did. Gruenewald says a user of his app walked into a business of ill repute when suddenly, out of the heavens, he received a notification on his phone. “God’s trying to tell me something!,” Gruenewald recalled the user saying, “I just walked into a strip club — and man — the Bible just texted me!”
YouVersion recently announced its Bible app hit a monumental milestone — placing it among a rare strata of technology companies. (more…)