Ask HN: What to do with this meme? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#11

Post by jonafato » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 9:54 AM UTC

dchest wrote: post #5

jonafato wrote: post #3

How about then giving the user a list of works by that author via amazon? If the users really do want to read more of that writer's stuff, this might be a good way to get some affiliate business. You could possibly even point to specific works that they "write like". You might also take a look at the goodreads api ( http://www.goodreads.com/api ) for some possible social networking aspects? Maybe you could show peopl…

I thought about Amazon affiliate program, but I'm outside the US, and it's a huge hassle to deal with checks here. Thanks for suggestions!

How about trying to sell ads directly to booksellers? Even if affiliate programs won't work, you could offer users up the same kind of book list as sort of a customized banner ad. Being able to serve up that many impressions must be worth something, even if only for a short time. Even sites that don't directly sell books, but are related (back to goodreads, because its the only one I have really used) would probably be interested in this. Hope you get something off the ground.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#12

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:00 AM UTC

dchest wrote: post #5

jonafato wrote: post #3

How about then giving the user a list of works by that author via amazon? If the users really do want to read more of that writer's stuff, this might be a good way to get some affiliate business. You could possibly even point to specific works that they "write like". You might also take a look at the goodreads api ( http://www.goodreads.com/api ) for some possible social networking aspects? Maybe you could show peopl…

I thought about Amazon affiliate program, but I'm outside the US, and it's a huge hassle to deal with checks here. Thanks for suggestions!

I presume you mean cheques of money sent you from Amazon?

If it's too much hassle to cash potentially huge affiliate checks then you're rich enough, give the site to someone else that wants more money.

Seriously FB has 400Million active uniques. If you capture one-hundreth of a percent of those and then of those 1% convert and you make $1 on each conversion that's $400.

Even if it took me a whole day to organise cashing the cheque that would be worth it.

For Amazon though the problem is that they fragment their affiliate scheme (to create less opportunity for small sites to break the cash-out threshold presumably) so AdWords or whatever might be better.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#13

Post by pclark » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:03 AM UTC

upsell a relevant product

affiliate deals for the authors books

enjoy the seo :)

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#14

Post by ssn » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:08 AM UTC

Lovecraft here.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#15

Post by ssn » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:09 AM UTC

There is no info about the 'famous writer'. At least an Amazon affiliate link to the author should generate some income. Also, the first paragraph from Wikipedia would be useful.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#16

Post by patrickmclaren » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:13 AM UTC

Obviously this would be something that would mean a lot more work, but how about.. Tracking a users's blog feed, parsing each post and see how their writing style evolves over time?

This would certainly increase the longevity of your app.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#17

Post by wlievens » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:23 AM UTC

I fetched a document I wrote and entered several paragraphs, and got a different author each time. What does that say about me (or your algorithm)?

Congratulations on the traction though!

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#18

Post by dchest » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:34 AM UTC

patrickmclaren wrote: post #16

Obviously this would be something that would mean a lot more work, but how about.. Tracking a users's blog feed, parsing each post and see how their writing style evolves over time? This would certainly increase the longevity of your app.

This is a great idea. I'll do this when I have time, thanks.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#19

Post by ckeen » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:36 AM UTC

I just pasted some irc logs. IRC writes like Mark Twain...

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#20

Post by dchest » Wed, Jul 14, 2010, 10:36 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #12

dchest wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about Amazon affiliate program, but I'm outside the US, and it's a huge hassle to deal with checks here. Thanks for suggestions!

I presume you mean cheques of money sent you from Amazon? If it's too much hassle to cash potentially huge affiliate checks then you're rich enough, give the site to someone else that wants more money. Seriously FB has 400Million active uniques. If you capture one-hundreth of a percent of those and then of those 1% convert and you make $1 on each conversion that's $400. Even if it took me a whole day to organise cash…

I'm in a new country (Montenegro), haven't got residence permit here yet, don't have a permanent address, and don't speak the local language to figure out how to cash checks.

Anyway, I've added Amazon affiliate links now, maybe I'll cash out with gift certificates.