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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,

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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.

pitaa 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.