3 ms·
Gimmicks are in the eye of the beholder. A lot of very standard business practices started as "gimmicks" including free phone support and being open on Sundays.
by jasonshen 15y ago
Gimmicks are in the eye of the beholder. A lot of very standard business practices started as "gimmicks" including free phone support and being open on Sundays.
I think real gimmicks are things that trick you into doing something you didn't really want to do. I don't think any of the examples I listed were of that nature.
Check out Seth Godin's post on gimmicks: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/gimmicks.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/gimmicks.htm...
- alanh 15y agoMy broader point is that some of these examples aren’t of a personality being present throughout a product, so much as one isolated instance: A 404 page, an omnipresent chimp. Less that gimmicks, as I used the term, are bad so much as they are insufficient. Admittedly, showing pervasive personality is harder to do in a format such as your blog post. (And it’s quibble-y and dead-horse-beating of me, but the MailChimp mascot has tricked me into clicking links I did not really want or need to click.)