Wolfram Alpha - a web site promotion puzzle
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Another good study will be stackoverflow.com. It also became popular in no time.
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Heh well let's not forget most times it's friggin money that makes the difference. Those guys get a sponsor (or become their own sponsor, once they got enough money) and pay everything and everyone to get interviews, articles, visibility. So if you follow the trail of breadcrumbs, you might end up in... a bank. :P
2+2=5 for very large amounts of 2 (always loved that one hehe!)
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Another good study will be stackoverflow.com. It also became popular in no time.
And what are your conclusions?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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Heh well let's not forget most times it's friggin money that makes the difference. Those guys get a sponsor (or become their own sponsor, once they got enough money) and pay everything and everyone to get interviews, articles, visibility. So if you follow the trail of breadcrumbs, you might end up in... a bank. :P
2+2=5 for very large amounts of 2 (always loved that one hehe!)
With respect, I disagree. In fact, I've proposed this little exercise to dispel this particular self defeating myth. If people believe that the only way to gain notice is by throwing money at the machine, then they'll simply give up before they even start. From my previous lifetime of teaching sales & marketing, I can assure you that the biggest black hole of expense for a company is advertising. It costs tons of money and often produces very little result other than buying a Porsche for the ad sales rep. The advent of the web, along with other things requiring good old fashioned elbow grease, makes for some surprisingly effective promotional devices that cost no money at all. It does, however, require effort, both mental and physical.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly?
Easy... Hype, hype and hype again! Here's how the meeting went: Bod 1: We've invented an online almanac! Bod 2: Great... what does it do? Bod 1: Well, you see those almanacs you invariably get at Christmas, you know from that relative who you don't see from one year to the next but insists on sending you a present, you know, those almanacs stuffed full of really tedious facts that only really tedious people looking to get on television quiz shows read? Bod 2: Yes... Bod 1: Well it's one of them. On the web. Bod 2: I see... I can't see this capturing the public imagination... *thinks* Bod 2: ... unless we send out an immediate press release saying we're working on a Google killer. Job done :)
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
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And what are your conclusions?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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And what are your conclusions?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Well the conclusions are in the form of a report which I am willing to provide to anyone interested at a nominal fee. 1. Full report for StackOverflow.com -> $10 2. Full report for wolframalpha.com -> $30 3. Unlimited reports 1 year subscription -> $50 Jokes apart: I would think word of mouth, blogs and tweets are extremely powerful.
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With respect, I disagree. In fact, I've proposed this little exercise to dispel this particular self defeating myth. If people believe that the only way to gain notice is by throwing money at the machine, then they'll simply give up before they even start. From my previous lifetime of teaching sales & marketing, I can assure you that the biggest black hole of expense for a company is advertising. It costs tons of money and often produces very little result other than buying a Porsche for the ad sales rep. The advent of the web, along with other things requiring good old fashioned elbow grease, makes for some surprisingly effective promotional devices that cost no money at all. It does, however, require effort, both mental and physical.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I see your point, and I agree. If one of us unknown programmers comes up with a good idea or product, he would definitely need a huge amount of work to gain visibility. Wolfram for example is well known, and that can buy you visibility without needing money. I guess I'll have to follow some breadcrumbs and see where they lead! :)
2+2=5 for very large amounts of 2 (always loved that one hehe!)
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Well the conclusions are in the form of a report which I am willing to provide to anyone interested at a nominal fee. 1. Full report for StackOverflow.com -> $10 2. Full report for wolframalpha.com -> $30 3. Unlimited reports 1 year subscription -> $50 Jokes apart: I would think word of mouth, blogs and tweets are extremely powerful.
Well, that's a pretty good plan, mister smarty pants. :-D So then, how do you let people outside of this particular forum know about the reports you'd like to sell? A one legged chair is of limited value.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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I see your point, and I agree. If one of us unknown programmers comes up with a good idea or product, he would definitely need a huge amount of work to gain visibility. Wolfram for example is well known, and that can buy you visibility without needing money. I guess I'll have to follow some breadcrumbs and see where they lead! :)
2+2=5 for very large amounts of 2 (always loved that one hehe!)
Moreno Airoldi wrote:
Wolfram for example is well known,
Actually, I'd never heard of them before a few weeks ago, which is why their sudden ubiquitity impressed me from a marketing perspective.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly?
Easy... Hype, hype and hype again! Here's how the meeting went: Bod 1: We've invented an online almanac! Bod 2: Great... what does it do? Bod 1: Well, you see those almanacs you invariably get at Christmas, you know from that relative who you don't see from one year to the next but insists on sending you a present, you know, those almanacs stuffed full of really tedious facts that only really tedious people looking to get on television quiz shows read? Bod 2: Yes... Bod 1: Well it's one of them. On the web. Bod 2: I see... I can't see this capturing the public imagination... *thinks* Bod 2: ... unless we send out an immediate press release saying we're working on a Google killer. Job done :)
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
[Ding!] Half a point (and a 5) goes to the illustrious Mr. Hughes!
martin_hughes wrote:
unless we send out an immediate press release saying we're working on a Google killer
You jest, but in fact this is an extrememly effective technique. Unfortunately, it can also be wicked expensive. BusinessWire, for instance, costs a minimum of $650 per press release (audience options add cost) not to mention a few hundred bucks annually for a membership fee. Thus it's out of reach for most developers (hence only half a point for highlighting the value of press releases). Want the rest of the points that you really have coming to you? Explore the other methods you could use to get circulation for your press release without spending money.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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Moreno Airoldi wrote:
Wolfram for example is well known,
Actually, I'd never heard of them before a few weeks ago, which is why their sudden ubiquitity impressed me from a marketing perspective.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I'm probably biased in the opposite direction hehe. For me he definitely is famous, but maybe he is not for the majority out there. I really dunno. ;P He is the guy who developed Mathematica (see his website here[^]), and has become known again in 2002 with his controversial book "A new kind of science". You can see his biography here[^].
2+2=5 for very large amounts of 2 (always loved that one hehe!)
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
You need a URL that sounds Trekkie that subconsiously rings bells. Like "Memory Alpha" and wasn't "Wolfram" some star system in the Trek universe? Never mind that this is supposed to be the guy's name. Oh, and to prove my point, google "Star Trek Wolfram" and notice how many links come up mentioning the Wolfram Alpha website! Marc
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[Ding!] Half a point (and a 5) goes to the illustrious Mr. Hughes!
martin_hughes wrote:
unless we send out an immediate press release saying we're working on a Google killer
You jest, but in fact this is an extrememly effective technique. Unfortunately, it can also be wicked expensive. BusinessWire, for instance, costs a minimum of $650 per press release (audience options add cost) not to mention a few hundred bucks annually for a membership fee. Thus it's out of reach for most developers (hence only half a point for highlighting the value of press releases). Want the rest of the points that you really have coming to you? Explore the other methods you could use to get circulation for your press release without spending money.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Well if it were me I think I'd try to appeal to natural human laziness, and in particular the average overworked journalist's reluctance* to spend time and effort researching a story when a perfectly good one (pre-fabricated by yours truly) lands in their laps. I give you Operation: Testify Phase 1 Knock up holding web page. Be deliberately obscure about what the site will do - create a certain "mystique" and an aura of "shhhhhh!". Phase 2 Pick a famous/high-profile "target" competitor. Create a dossier highlighting the weaknesses of your competitor's platform and the strengths of yours. Include (made up) business projection about how much more successful your platform will be. Include made up, anonymous and unattributable "quotes" from your competitor. Include made up, anonymous and unattributable positive feedback from industry commentators. Make sure to include some method that you can be contacted by for the inevitable "no comment" you'll give later. Print multiple copies. Put each copy in its own nondescript brown folder with the words "Top Secret" and or "Private and Confidential" emblazoned on the front. As we all know, if you want to keep something secret, the last thing you do is put "Top Secret" on the front as people as drawn to those words like moths to a flame. Phase 3 Phone several IT journalists and gently probe to see if they've heard anything about your website. Employ a little subterfuge and pretend to work for your competitor. "Lose" one (or more) of your top secret dossiers. Trains around big cities are a good bet, taxi's, IT conferences - anywhere there might be journalists. Pick one journalist and send him/her a copy of your dossier - pretend to be a third party who thought the recipient "might be interested". Phase 4 Issue some statements via your (still alpha) web site. You might allude to the "missing" documentation, give some vague progress reports or simply chew the cud. By now there'll have been at least one or two stories reported in the online press - contact those journalists and offer some interview time if they haven't asked already. Rumor mill well and truly started, it's time to start offering "exclusive" pre-registration. Start a few online discussions anonymously - these will invariably pop up anyway due to the strange phenomena that is the "fan boy", but a few more can do no harm. Issue more statements via the website and be available for comment when journalists phone. And I'd see how it goes from there :)
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I think they had a few things going for it that other run of the mill companies don't 1) Stephen Wolfram is a respected scientist so you would expect his brilliant mind to come up with something.. well.. brilliant 2) They already have a reasonably unique and powerful software product. Mathematica. 3) They are going head to head with one of the world most powerful technology companies, namely, google.
Cheers Garth I don't really care whether or not i really care or not.
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
From what I've noticed about stuff like this, the thing that makes a difference is how controversial the subject is. Controversial and massively exaggerated claims are the key to this. This guarantees people will rant and rave about it, they will will repeat the various claims without regard for accuracy, with each repetition getting more and more fantastic. This causes still more controversy, which results in more people checking out the various web pages that "report", which in turn causes more people to "report" the claims! Things like Digg, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Slashdot are *perfect* for this kind of thing, which then percolate into the "press" who simply copy-n-paste the "information" and post articles on it. This works well with Google ratings, since the more sites link in to yours, the better. So the secret is to make fantastical claims, the more outrageous the better, and hope to stir up controversy over it. P.T. Barnum would have *loved* the Internot.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I heard about it here for the first time, and nowhere else ever. As far as I can tell, the secret to success online is to get a couple of CPians to pimp your site in the Lounge, then let nature take its course. Fame and fortune are sure to follow, unless your site crashes under the load as so many have. I called that the CP Effect many years ago, but I guess I don't have the charisma to make it stick; the term never took off. :sigh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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There are tons of us here who not only develop software for others but also run companies or do projects of our own, and more often than not these are web sites. We all love programming and building cool things, but when it gets down to the marketing, everyone just chants the massively incorrect mantra, "If we build it, they will come." The reality, of course, is "If we build it, it will be ignored." Coding is easy. Building traffic is hard. With that in mind, I've noted that everyone's been talking about the Wolfram guys for a couple of weeks now. Here, /., Cnet, you just can't swing a dead cat (to coin a favorite phrase of the small hairless canine crowd) without hearing about these guys. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's rear end about yet another pseudo search engine query and response web site. However, in terms of media coverage and publicity, these guys went from 0 to 60 at an impressive speed. If you've ever built a web site, what you should really be asking yourself is not how they do their internal little algorithms, but rather how did they promote themselves to so quickly become a household name? How did you hear about these guys? Where did you hear about these guys? And more importantly, how did they get themselves noticed in these places? What marketing, promotional and other devices did they use to garner such widespread attention? And how was this accomplished so quickly? This is a puzzle of sorts, folks - an exercise that will reward you well should you take it on. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs that lead you to them and see if you can mentally reverse engineer the promotional techniques that they used. Regardless of whether or not the site itself is worth anything, what you learn through the exercise will be of great value to you the next time you want to launch and promote a site of your own. So what's the prize for this puzzle? The most valuable one on the web, of course. Free traffic. Let the games begin... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Don't forget 1 thing. wolfram alpha is well known within one very small community. How many people outside of the development community have heard about it. Yes I agree, it has grown quickly, but it's not got the same level of penetration that something like facebook has.
Simon
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Moreno Airoldi wrote:
Wolfram for example is well known,
Actually, I'd never heard of them before a few weeks ago, which is why their sudden ubiquitity impressed me from a marketing perspective.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
You're kidding right? Did the whole "A New Kind of Science" thing not ring a bell? Or Mathematica? The run ups for NKS were very similar to Wolfram Alpha, outlandish claims, controversy, etc. For example: "I have come to view [my discovery] as one of the more important single discoveries in the whole history of theoretical science."* That's pretty bold, almost guaranteed to provoke a reaction, and it hasn't gathered much steam either as far as I know. *Wolfram, A New Kind of Science, page 2. (retreived from http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0464.html?printable=1[^])
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
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I heard about it here for the first time, and nowhere else ever. As far as I can tell, the secret to success online is to get a couple of CPians to pimp your site in the Lounge, then let nature take its course. Fame and fortune are sure to follow, unless your site crashes under the load as so many have. I called that the CP Effect many years ago, but I guess I don't have the charisma to make it stick; the term never took off. :sigh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
I think the term you're loooking for is "Slashdotted." Oh, my, what a nasty glare I just got from the hamsters... :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com