Live data from Hacker News

Inside a viral website

notfunatparties.substack.com

301–305 of 305 posts

Re: Inside a viral website

#301
post #290
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Asking for donations doesn't work" Depends. I have paid for things I could have gotten for free, and raised money for political organisations (not in the USA, so we could not sell laws the way the Americans do). The best way to get money is to ask. There is a lot of research into the best ways to ask, and what gives best results. But just asking thoughtlessly (not accusing you, no idea how you asked) does not work

That doesn't prove that donations work. It only proves that you sometimes donate. Most people don't donate to most projects.

I said I have "...and raised money for political organisations..."

Using the methods I outline.

Not proof, but I have experience and I tell you, done properly donations can be very lucrative.

Re: Inside a viral website

#302
post #4

> These reports aren’t just limited to the products you recommend — if someone buys anything within a 24 hour period of clicking your link, you can see, and you get commission. Anyone else find this a pretty gross violation of privacy on Amazon’s part? Why should your unrelated purchases be disclosed to affiliates just because you clicked an affiliate link for whatever reason? Let’s say the affiliate website use acco…

I run sites using Amazon's Associates affiliate program. I also track all outbound clicks from me site.

Luckily, Amazon scrubs any identifying info from their affiliate reports. So say I post an affiliate link to a book and then look in Google Analytics to see 50 readers clicked the link. The next day, I can log into Amazon's report and see I had 50 clicks and 30 sales of the book along with an addition sale of 40 toys, 10 movies, and 3 dildos.

However, I can't actually see which of my 50 readers bought what, if anything. Those 3 dildo purchases are completely anonymized, along with everything else. However, being told I also sold 40 toys really helps me because it lets me know I should probably start writing more about toys since that's what my readers are buying.

I'm also limited to 200 unique Amazon "tags", so I can't assign a unique tag to each of my readers to track them individually.

Re: Inside a viral website

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, you've beet me to it skrebbel. :) I actually wanted to write something like this. It's really hard to be what you are (in my case - a very introverted and private person), give something valuable to the world and actually live from that. That would be a beautiful life, really. p.s. Not saying there are no people who didn't manage to pull it off, but I'm pretty sure those people are exceptions rather than the rule…

fwiw I'm super extroverted and I still get stressed out about the idea of becoming an internet personality :-)

Haha.. Well in every "group" there are exceptions. It's like a Yin and yang thing I guess :)

Re: Inside a viral website

#305
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out any privacy policy that says they will never share or sell your data; the two boilerplate exceptions are law enforcement and transfering ownership of the parent entity. Two pretty big loopholes.

Uhh those seem like two really small loopholes. Buying the whole company makes sense. What is the alternative, the purchasing company has to accept that they'll purge all user accounts? Law enforcement.. What do you want them to do? Turn down a legal court order and say "naaa"?

> Law enforcement.. What do you want them to do?

Go to jail or shutdown the site, like the Lavabit guy.

Post reply on HN