Comments on: Growing renewable audiences (a talk at O’Reilly Alphatech Ventures) http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/09/12/growing-renewable-audiences-a-talk-at-oreilly-alphatech-ventures/ Essays on viral marketing, freemium, and social gaming Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:01:41 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Chris http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/09/12/growing-renewable-audiences-a-talk-at-oreilly-alphatech-ventures/comment-page-1/#comment-1667 Chris Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:54:15 +0000 http://andrewchenblog.com/?p=558#comment-1667 wondering - how is <a href="http://mint.com" rel="nofollow">mint.com</a> driving traffic. PR for the most part? wondering – how is mint.com driving traffic. PR for the most part?

]]> By: Andrew Chen http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/09/12/growing-renewable-audiences-a-talk-at-oreilly-alphatech-ventures/comment-page-1/#comment-1626 Andrew Chen Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:33:47 +0000 http://andrewchenblog.com/?p=558#comment-1626 I haven't seen Mint.com's internal analytics so I can't tell you what their traffic sources are and the nature of that traffic. Perhaps you have a lot more information than I have.<br><br>Even with that said, you may be misinterpreting the argument in my presentation. My point wasn't that non-renewable traffic wasn't a good strategy, my claim is just that the "PR only" strategy is not repeatable for most startups. Putting all your eggs in the basket of being that One Hot Company is not a reasonable plan for 99.999% of the startups out there.<br><br>My claim isn't that this isn't possible. Clearly PR works well for some small percentage of companies - Twitter and Friendfeed are great examples of this - but it has inherent drawbacks as the strategy of first resort. I haven't seen Mint.com's internal analytics so I can't tell you what their traffic sources are and the nature of that traffic. Perhaps you have a lot more information than I have.

Even with that said, you may be misinterpreting the argument in my presentation. My point wasn't that non-renewable traffic wasn't a good strategy, my claim is just that the “PR only” strategy is not repeatable for most startups. Putting all your eggs in the basket of being that One Hot Company is not a reasonable plan for 99.999% of the startups out there.

My claim isn't that this isn't possible. Clearly PR works well for some small percentage of companies – Twitter and Friendfeed are great examples of this – but it has inherent drawbacks as the strategy of first resort.

]]> By: James http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/09/12/growing-renewable-audiences-a-talk-at-oreilly-alphatech-ventures/comment-page-1/#comment-1625 James Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:31:28 +0000 http://andrewchenblog.com/?p=558#comment-1625 Andrew, Enjoy your blog and presentation above, but how would you argue that PR and TechCrunch awards for consumer facing apps is Fool's Golds when sites like <a href="http://Mint.com" rel="nofollow">Mint.com</a> have driven nearly 100% of their traffic through this method? <a href="http://Mint.com" rel="nofollow">Mint.com</a> is inherently non-viral, so I'm curious on how you think <a href="http://Mint.com" rel="nofollow">Mint.com</a> was able to drive renewable users through "non-renewable" sources. <br><br>Cheers Andrew, Enjoy your blog and presentation above, but how would you argue that PR and TechCrunch awards for consumer facing apps is Fool's Golds when sites like Mint.com have driven nearly 100% of their traffic through this method? Mint.com is inherently non-viral, so I'm curious on how you think Mint.com was able to drive renewable users through “non-renewable” sources.

Cheers

]]> By: agray http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/09/12/growing-renewable-audiences-a-talk-at-oreilly-alphatech-ventures/comment-page-1/#comment-1026 agray Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:30:34 +0000 http://andrewchenblog.com/?p=558#comment-1026 Good sutff, Andrew. Focused and concise. I see your point about PR. I think I agree only to a point. I think the right kind of focused and strategic PR can help drive word of mouth, which will help (however unmeasurably) drive response to other forms of measurable advertising. Agree with you 100%, though, about avoiding the blogger/analyst trap and the feature race focus. <br><br>-Aaron Good sutff, Andrew. Focused and concise. I see your point about PR. I think I agree only to a point. I think the right kind of focused and strategic PR can help drive word of mouth, which will help (however unmeasurably) drive response to other forms of measurable advertising. Agree with you 100%, though, about avoiding the blogger/analyst trap and the feature race focus.

-Aaron

]]> By: ifu03727 http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/09/12/growing-renewable-audiences-a-talk-at-oreilly-alphatech-ventures/comment-page-1/#comment-963 ifu03727 Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:00:17 +0000 http://andrewchenblog.com/?p=558#comment-963 Very useful website and content - thanks<br><br><a href="http://www.TrafficGeneratorSite.com">www.TrafficGeneratorSite.com</a><br><a href="http://www.BlogTrafficToday.com">www.BlogTrafficToday.com</a> Very useful website and content – thanks

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