Mattias Swenson

"I couldn’t understand why my productivity went down when I had deliberately made more time available..."

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:44:26 +0100

“I couldn’t understand why my productivity went down when I had deliberately made more time available to write. Then I realized it was because I wasn’t flying as much. Before, I’d sit on a plane and pull out a computer and start writing a speech or whatever. And on most planes, there are no plugs, so I’d open up my computer and wrote until the battery died. Because I had this pressure of knowing the battery would die, I wrote monumental amounts in short periods of time.”

- Author Simon Sinek [thx SvN]

I really enjoyed seeing this presentation by Techcrunch’s...

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:14:35 +0100

I really enjoyed seeing this presentation by Techcrunch’s Mike Butcher at Plugg. Creds to Robin Wauters and his team for organizing a great event with inspiring people!

Give your connectors the megaphones they need

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:12:00 +0100

The “picture-twitter” service Bilddagboken became one of Swedens biggest websites because of two reasons:

It’s a great product that serves a common need.
A group of people with loads of friends (connectors) started using the product.

When the first connectors came to Bilddagboken - it was pretty shitty. But it served a need they had, to easy share pictures with the people they cared about. This need was strong enough to give them the incentive to teach their friends how Bilddagboken worked.

This must have taken a lot of energy from these connectors - energy that you can’t expect from them.

This is why you have to make it PISS EASY for connectors that publish content on your site - to get their stuff out to all of their friends. Without them, having to remind THEIR FRIENDS to check out THEIR STUFF on YOUR SITE everytime THEY UPDATE.

This is why you have to…

Help connectors out by equipping ‘em with megaphones

This can be done by asking publishers WHO they would like to share their content with and ask for those peoples mail adresses. By having that information you can alert those friends everytime the publisher creates new content on your site.

This feature makes it:

Easier for publishers to get their content out to the people they care about.
Increase your odds of making connectors that like your service super ambassadors.

To conclude:

Don’t build your product so you’ll need to have everyone on your site to make it work. Build it so that even the first visitor can attract a huge crowd.

Update 1. When I wrote this post i thought about the start-up Moyume and how they should grow through the help of connectors.

To Get Press, Teach. Don’t Sell. This is a very...

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:35:00 +0100

To Get Press, Teach. Don’t Sell.

This is a very intresting interview with Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo. Listen to the full hour! Creds to Mixergy.com

Two differences that makes Twitter a winner and Jaiku a looser

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:41:00 +0100

Feature-wise they resemble each other, both services let people communicate with others through an exchange of 140 characters. However, marketing wise they differ a lot!

Here are the two major differences that makes Twitter a winner and Jaiku a looser:

1. Their Marketing Pages

Twitter explains it’s purpose and the problem it solves - while Jaiku explains it’s functionality.
Twitter explains that the service helps YOU communicate with the people YOU care about. Jaiku shows you pictures of people you don’t know and conversations you don’t want to jump into.
Twitter has quotes from somewhat “trusted people” that reassures you that the service is worth trying out - Jaiku..doesn’t.

2.1 How they grow in new areas thanks to Google

When Googling for a name/alias both services rank high. Here Twitter tries to make their search results interesting enough to click on. This is something very important in order to encourage growth in new areas.
Twitter does this by explaining their service and Jaiku doesn’t do much of this oppertunity.

2.2 How they Convert Search Traffic into Members

Once you’ve clicked on a search result - most services goal is to convert that traffic into a new member.
Here Twitter greets the new visitor and explains that this person is already using Twitter and why he/she should start using Twitter today. While, Jaiku’s marketing is short, impersonal and it doesn’t explain what Jaiku is for.

What we can learn from Twitter

Make your market page focus on explaining your services purpose and the problem it solves.
Show a representative picture of the service - without people having to click to see it.
Make your search results interesting!
Make your Google landing pages focus on explaining your services purpose and the problem it solves. And if possible, make them super relevant for the people dropping in.