DISQUS

Andrew Chen (@andrew_chen): How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook and Zynga)

  • mytweetmark · 1 month ago
    Awesome read! Thank you.

    Cheers,
    @mytweetmark
  • facebook-1204604 · 1 month ago
    Good post. bundling is effective and can be beneficial to user when done well.

    i think arrington's point was not that bundling or offers in general were bad, but rather that the current networks seem overrun by misleading offers that result in users getting billed for things they had no idea were headed their way. and the problem is that if scams monetize better than legit offers, they outprice (or at least make things much more expensive for) those advertisers.

    the analogy might be charles schwab selling shares of bernie madoff's fund (if they knew it was a ponzi scheme at the time)
  • facebook-1204604 · 1 month ago
    so weird, it said i was logged in as james hong again, but there i am, posted anonymously again :)
  • Andrew Chen · 1 month ago
    Thanks for the comment James. Just read your section of Adam's book "Viral Loop" btw, fun stuff.

    I think you are probably logged in via Facebook for Disqus and there's something weird there. Might want to try the Twitter OAuth instead.
  • Darren Erik Vengroff · 1 month ago
    Andrew,

    I appreciate many of your points about bundling, but I don't think that bundling itself is at the heart of the debate Arrington has ignited.

    In a bundle, or any other kind of offer made on or off line you can legitimately represent the terms and conditions of your offer, or you can be sleazy and deceptive. Asking a customer, "would you like fries with that?" and selling them fries if they respond positively is very different than asking someone if they want to receive an SMS notification and not disclosing that you are signing them up for a $10/month subscription service.

    As I read him, Arrington is upset about deceptive business practices, not bundling as a whole.
  • Andrew Chen · 1 month ago
    Yep, I totally agree with you on the user experience issues. My point is just that I think it's possible for the offers industry to actually provide end user value, though clearly they are far from that, and I want to give the rationale for how something like that might happen.

    Thanks for the comment :-)
  • Matt McAllister · 1 month ago
    An awesome read, thanks Andrew. I have to agree with everything you said -- even, I'll admit, the part about the offers business standing room for improvement, although I think it is far from broken. It's actually very strong. But for it to remain strong it will have to be even more vigilant than ever in fighting fraud and keeping spammy, scammy offers at bay.
  • Andrew Chen · 1 month ago
    Matt, I think that if you guys don't get squeeky clean soon, Facebook will regulate you guys out of existence because of the public uproar it's causing... You guys need to get a LOT better on the user experience sooner rather than later.

    They'll do to leadgen what they are doing with bad actor apps and advertisers.

    I bet you guys have 6 months to figure it out, max.
  • Matt McAllister · 1 month ago
    I'd bet closer to 6 days than 6 months. Actually, most of the questionable offers have already been removed. Facebook is cracking down hard, and has been since last week. We've decided to err on the side of caution and remove anything in the gray area undefined by their policies. I think we and the other offer providers will take a revenue hit, but that in the long run it's good for the whole "ecosystem."
  • Andrew Chen · 1 month ago
    I don't think any of the recent actions Facebook has been taking will pose an existential threat to the offer providers in the short-term... it's the medium-term where continued degradation of the UX will cause FB to take big, unilateral steps...
  • Alexander Ainslie (@AAinslie) · 1 month ago
    MacHeist comes to mind as a good example of add-value bundling.
  • rashmis · 1 month ago
    Andrew, Most of these offers don't fulfill the "Makes sense" criteria in the context they are shown. For Amazon type of product bundling where end user gets real value, the whole industry would need to be much more algorithmically oriented (and only show relevant offers).

    It can be done, but I don't see any of the current players in the industry as doing it. There is too much low hanging fruit with the spray and pray approach.
  • Andrew Chen · 1 month ago
    That's right, current offers don't make sense at all. Right now the industry is just opportunistic, and not thinking about the long term.