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How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

blog.cubeofm.com

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Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#51

Post by thesethings »

javery wrote: post #44
sabat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they don't really create value Maybe they do -- it depends on who's judging. To use Max's example, let's say I am casually interested in owls. Seriously, there are such people. I'm 60, I am on the internet but am somewhat uneasy with how to use it, and I like owls. Somehow, I find Max's owl video site. I like it! Maybe I even see an ad and click and buy. Maybe. But to me, finding the site and being entertained by his…

Yeah, the people who created the owl videos are providing value, youtube is providing value by making them available, the owl site is just leaching off of that to make a buck.

I really disagree. Some call it "aggregation," but I'm starting to call this layer "discovery." This very site, Hacker News, is a filter that is mere pointer to content elsewhere. (There are occasional "Ask HN," but most every post posts elsewhere).

Most sites and tools I use every day are filtering tools. Techmeme is another great example.

It is true that a purely automated owl video scraper wouldn't be as good and one that was even cleaned up for five minutes a day, but that wasn't the suggester's point.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#52

Post by javery »

qjz wrote: post #49
javery wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the people who created the owl videos are providing value, youtube is providing value by making them available, the owl site is just leaching off of that to make a buck.

Aggregation has always had value (the Bible, Familiar Quotes, Readers Digest, The Big Picture, etc.).

Thoughtful aggregation does add value, to me it sounded like the idea was to grab the first X videos on youtube.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#53

Post by windsurfer »

maxklein wrote: post #38
sabat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Max is proposing that it isn't that difficult for a programmer to find a way to make $1/day. Max -- care to elucidate?

If you want to make $1 a day, go search for a keyword. Like Owls. Then find a bunch of videos of owls in YouTube, put them on the site and call the site OwlVideo.com. In a week you will be making $1 a day. Or if you prefer to program for the desktop - go wrap ffmpeg and make an AVI to MP4 converter. Def make $30 in sales in a month. Or if you prefer to program for the web, make something that parses Apples XML of new…

Do you have a newsletter or blog?

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#54

Post by allenbrunson »

gcheong wrote: post #48
sabat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Max is proposing that it isn't that difficult for a programmer to find a way to make $1/day. Max -- care to elucidate?

Well, I have 2 apps on the app store right now. One of them makes nothing, it's not free, just does not make any sales and one makes just about $1 a day (after I raised the price from .99 to 1.99). Both apps are pretty simple, are in the same category (healthcare and fitness) and I've done nothing to promote them.

Yeah, I'm in that same boat. Two apps on the store, one is free, the other is making about $3.00 a day:

http://www.platinumball.net/hearts/

Kind of frustrating, because when I made my app free, it was being downloaded 1700 times a day. So it seems like there is demand, but not enough to push them over into the 'pay real money' category.

I'd love to work with somebody who is better at marketing than I am, if somebody wants to get in touch.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#55

Post by maxklein »

vaksel wrote: post #39

Did you set the "in crowd #" at 400 twitter followers because that's what you have? Because 400 is pretty low, I'd say the number should be closer to 15,000

15k followers is not in-crowd that's more like the exclusive country club crowd. Most seem to have 60 or 70 followers. The people who are just random programmers and not real marketers seem to have 400-600. But I obviously did not do any serious research on this.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#56

Post by gcheong »

allenbrunson wrote: post #54
gcheong wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I have 2 apps on the app store right now. One of them makes nothing, it's not free, just does not make any sales and one makes just about $1 a day (after I raised the price from .99 to 1.99). Both apps are pretty simple, are in the same category (healthcare and fitness) and I've done nothing to promote them.

Yeah, I'm in that same boat. Two apps on the store, one is free, the other is making about $3.00 a day: http://www.platinumball.net/hearts/ Kind of frustrating, because when I made my app free, it was being downloaded 1700 times a day. So it seems like there is demand, but not enough to push them over into the 'pay real money' category. I'd love to work with somebody who is better at marketing than I am, if somebody…

It looks like you're in San Francisco. Mobile Monday Group is holding some kind of event tomorrow about how to increase app sales. I saw the post on the Silicon Valley iPhone Developer's Meetup Group mailing list. May just be a sales pitch but might be worth checking out as it's free: http://momosvfeb10.eventbrite.com/

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#57

Post by levesque »

Sukotto wrote: post #4

There's a third option not mentioned in the article. That's creating a $1/day project, then working to make it a $2/day, then $3/day. Either through improving the thing you're selling, or by finding better ways to sell it. Take, for example, Patrick@bingocardcreator.com . He seems do have done pretty well following that method. I don't know if that's any more or less work than building 400 projects, each selling for…

And being followed on twitter will help you a big deal in growing.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#58

Post by thibaut_barrere »

aw3c2 wrote: post #28

How on earth are you supposed to create and maintain 400 "projects" at once?

It all depends on what you put behind the word 'project' (and there's no judgment in my sentence).

For most programmers, a project is something that has already a decent size, is complex to get out and test on the field.

If you think this way, a "side-project" can only be rare.

On the other hand: a friend of mine started exactly the way Max describes a long while back, and currently runs way more than 400 sites/projects.

He is also doing way more than 12k€ per month.

The thing is 95% of his projects wouldn't even catch the 'regular' (if there's such thing) programmer's interest :)

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#59

Post by allenbrunson »

gcheong wrote: post #56
allenbrunson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm in that same boat. Two apps on the store, one is free, the other is making about $3.00 a day: http://www.platinumball.net/hearts/ Kind of frustrating, because when I made my app free, it was being downloaded 1700 times a day. So it seems like there is demand, but not enough to push them over into the 'pay real money' category. I'd love to work with somebody who is better at marketing than I am, if somebody…

It looks like you're in San Francisco. Mobile Monday Group is holding some kind of event tomorrow about how to increase app sales. I saw the post on the Silicon Valley iPhone Developer's Meetup Group mailing list. May just be a sales pitch but might be worth checking out as it's free: http://momosvfeb10.eventbrite.com/

i actually don't live in san francisco, i was just there when that photo was taken. and i'm kind of over doing marketing on my own, i know perfectly well i'm not any good at it. i'd like to work with somebody who has the personality for it.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#60

Post by brianobush »

agbell wrote: post #22

I think if you try to create 400 projects, most will make 0/day and a couple will make 10/day. Then you optimize those. Slowly you end up with a small number of projects generating a half decent amount money. This is actually a great way to prevent yourself from choosing a local maximum in the product space. You climb a bunch of hills a little bit. (edited)

Over diversification is dangerous too. Jack of all apps, master of none? I like the idea, but the problem with this product space search is that is dead slow. You might want to search like this for a bit and see what takes off, then put more energy into the ones that are doing well.
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