5 ms·

Yik Yak destroyed their product the moment they introduced handles/names. That move, combined with bowing to pressure from community groups to block & de-anonym

by nxc18 10y ago

Yik Yak destroyed their product the moment they introduced handles/names. That move, combined with bowing to pressure from community groups to block & de-anonymize, ruined any trust in the service. The complete lack of understanding of their own product that they demonstrated was absolutely astounding. $3M almost sounds like too much; there's no reasonable way you can recover anything of value besides the employees in this situation.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago
I used Yik Yak as a tech observer as recently as 6 months ago, so I'm not unfamiliar with the platform. That said, it seems extreme to me that two reversible decision could so devastatingly and permanently tank what was a significant userbase ~1.25 MAU. Other platforms have endured much more with much less money and not been sold off in a fire sale.
- itsdevlin 10y ago
  At Backplane we sold for way the fuck less for not a much smaller userbase. Tech's wild.
- ericd 10y ago
  1.25 MAU isn't actually that much for a company with such a fickle userbase. It's a good start, but most of the valuation is still in the growth potential at that stage.
  - decwakeboarder 10y ago
    > 1.25 MAU 1.25 anonymous MAU. Unless you're a VPN provider, I can't see anyone monetizing anonymity.
nebabyte 10y ago
Destroyed, to the tune of 70M? Surely they could just issue a 'mea culpa' at that point and recommit to their previous direction? In spite of how the web acts, users can be incredibly forgiving as far as 'voting with their wallets' go - at the end of the day they'll just use whatever works, and a 'mea culpa' post would be sufficient for most to 'begrudgingly' resume using the old/familiar service? (I mean, maybe not all of them, but enough to not take such a massive hit...) Hot damn, adding this to my 'further reading' list.
- pitaa 10y ago
  >Surely they could just issue a 'mea culpa' They did [1], but that was 3 month later and by then it seems most of their users had moved on and forgotten about them. Plus, being an anonymous app they didn't have emails for their users, so there wasn't really any way for them to get the word out that they were reverting back. [1] https://blog.yikyak.com/blog/optional-handles-and-hot-feed-are-back https://blog.yikyak.com/blog/optional-handles-and-hot-feed-a...
  - adrusi 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure everyone at my University was aware that they reverted those changes within a month, just by word of mouth. But the people who reinstalled it were greeted with a ghost town and didn't fully re-engage, so it never achieved critical mass.
    - pitaa 10y ago
      I don't disagree. But I wonder if the reason it was a ghost town when people reinstalled the app was precisely because it took a month for all the users to hear about it via word of mouth. If they had been able to send an email blast out to all of their users at once, perhaps there would have been enough people reinstalling the app that day to kick start it back into popularity. Overall I find it a fascinating case study, just because they fell so quickly. If the founders wrote a memoir I would be very interested in reading it.
- csydas 10y ago
  Easily. Pretty much all of the appeal and audience attraction of Yik Yak was the anonymity and the self-regulating nature of the platform. Last place I worked was a smaller University and it was tasked to me to keep en eye on the posts due to the potential for harassment. The system was, at the time, 5 down votes immediately cleared a post - the users were very good at moderating themselves while still preserving the rather "raw" nature of the service. People were still wry and biting and uninhibited with their comments, but outright threats and harassment seemed to get moderated pretty well. Ultimately we never intervened (Yik Yak had a system to geo-block regions from accessing the service), and for the most part it was just the equivalent of a bathroom stall wall for most of the students. Hell, often times I'd learn about network issues from Yik Yak posts before I'd get even a hint from my networking team. You take away the anonymity and the isolating culture, you take away the magic of it. Since our Campus was situated right in the middle of a neighborhood, we'd often get nearby residents trying to participate. According to my student workers who used it, it was almost always obvious who was a student and who wasn't.
charlieflowers 10y ago
Makes sense. But, maybe it's a case where they knew the negativity (racism, harassment, bullying, etc.) was so bad, they had to do something to curb it, even if it meant destroying the company. Sounds crazy, even I'm skeptical, but maybe for once somebody chose to do the right thing despite the money at stake. Dunno.
nefitty 10y ago
I was a promoter throughout my time using it, turning lots of my friends onto it at its peak. I even have a Yik Yak beer koozie! The day handles came out was the day I uninstalled.

by nxc18 10y ago

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

I used Yik Yak as a tech observer as recently as 6 months ago, so I'm not unfamiliar with the platform. That said, it seems extreme to me that two reversible decision could so devastatingly and permanently tank what was a significant userbase ~1.25 MAU. Other platforms have endured much more with much less money and not been sold off in a fire sale.

itsdevlin 10y ago
At Backplane we sold for way the fuck less for not a much smaller userbase. Tech's wild.
ericd 10y ago
1.25 MAU isn't actually that much for a company with such a fickle userbase. It's a good start, but most of the valuation is still in the growth potential at that stage.
- decwakeboarder 10y ago
  > 1.25 MAU 1.25 anonymous MAU. Unless you're a VPN provider, I can't see anyone monetizing anonymity.

nebabyte 10y ago

Destroyed, to the tune of 70M? Surely they could just issue a 'mea culpa' at that point and recommit to their previous direction? In spite of how the web acts, users can be incredibly forgiving as far as 'voting with their wallets' go - at the end of the day they'll just use whatever works, and a 'mea culpa' post would be sufficient for most to 'begrudgingly' resume using the old/familiar service? (I mean, maybe not all of them, but enough to not take such a massive hit...) Hot damn, adding this to my 'further reading' list.

pitaa 10y ago
>Surely they could just issue a 'mea culpa' They did [1], but that was 3 month later and by then it seems most of their users had moved on and forgotten about them. Plus, being an anonymous app they didn't have emails for their users, so there wasn't really any way for them to get the word out that they were reverting back. [1] https://blog.yikyak.com/blog/optional-handles-and-hot-feed-are-back https://blog.yikyak.com/blog/optional-handles-and-hot-feed-a...
- adrusi 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure everyone at my University was aware that they reverted those changes within a month, just by word of mouth. But the people who reinstalled it were greeted with a ghost town and didn't fully re-engage, so it never achieved critical mass.
  - pitaa 10y ago
    I don't disagree. But I wonder if the reason it was a ghost town when people reinstalled the app was precisely because it took a month for all the users to hear about it via word of mouth. If they had been able to send an email blast out to all of their users at once, perhaps there would have been enough people reinstalling the app that day to kick start it back into popularity. Overall I find it a fascinating case study, just because they fell so quickly. If the founders wrote a memoir I would be very interested in reading it.
csydas 10y ago
Easily. Pretty much all of the appeal and audience attraction of Yik Yak was the anonymity and the self-regulating nature of the platform. Last place I worked was a smaller University and it was tasked to me to keep en eye on the posts due to the potential for harassment. The system was, at the time, 5 down votes immediately cleared a post - the users were very good at moderating themselves while still preserving the rather "raw" nature of the service. People were still wry and biting and uninhibited with their comments, but outright threats and harassment seemed to get moderated pretty well. Ultimately we never intervened (Yik Yak had a system to geo-block regions from accessing the service), and for the most part it was just the equivalent of a bathroom stall wall for most of the students. Hell, often times I'd learn about network issues from Yik Yak posts before I'd get even a hint from my networking team. You take away the anonymity and the isolating culture, you take away the magic of it. Since our Campus was situated right in the middle of a neighborhood, we'd often get nearby residents trying to participate. According to my student workers who used it, it was almost always obvious who was a student and who wasn't.

charlieflowers 10y ago

Makes sense. But, maybe it's a case where they knew the negativity (racism, harassment, bullying, etc.) was so bad, they had to do something to curb it, even if it meant destroying the company. Sounds crazy, even I'm skeptical, but maybe for once somebody chose to do the right thing despite the money at stake. Dunno.

nefitty 10y ago

I was a promoter throughout my time using it, turning lots of my friends onto it at its peak. I even have a Yik Yak beer koozie! The day handles came out was the day I uninstalled.