5 ms·

Principles For Successful Web Apps by Fred Wilson

52 points by iSimone 14y ago

joshcrowder 14y ago
Hey HN, I'm one of the Founders of Arctic Fox the platform which is powering this presentation. You can find out more info at www.arcticfoxtv.com
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  FYI it worked for me on Chrome 20.0.1132.47 m but not on Firefox 13.0.1. The slide show advance is one slide behind the slide I click (so I can't see the last one) and the video doesn't play.
  - joshcrowder 14y ago
    Hey Ryan, thanks for letting me know, I just tested on Firefox 13.0.1 and it works for me. I will investigate further.
    - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
      I'm looking at it on Windows XP (hangs head in shame), in case that makes a difference.
      - alttab 14y ago
        Holy 12 years ago Batman!
        RyanMcGreal 14y ago
        The computer and OS are not my choice. At home and on my netbook I run Ubuntu.
- brittohalloran 14y ago
  I was just coming to post how much I like the viewer. Slides next to / in sync with the talk is really nice. Styling could be better (for me), but the functionality is really nice.
  - joshcrowder 14y ago
    Hey thanks for your feedback. For some of our clients we have implemented custom stylings its a feature we are looking to add in the next few months. Whats your suggestions to make it look nicer?
    - technel 14y ago
      I agree that the slide/video sync was handy, but I had a problem: about half way through the video, I put the computer in sleep mode. When I resumed, the video played for a while, but it hung where buffering had ended previously, and it refused to load forward any further. I tried clicking ahead, but it still wouldn't load. So I refreshed and clicked to the spot I was it. It instantly started playing, but the slide viewer was stuck on the first slide the whole rest of the time.
CharlieA 14y ago
The video is 27 minutes long, with about 5 minutes of Q&A at the end and IMHO worth watching all the way through, but the '10 Golden Rules' he discusses are... 1. Speed - more than a feature, mainstream users tend to be least forgiving, slower apps grow slower. 2. Instant Utility - service has to be useful straight away, without lots of length configuration or importing data, use tricks to add utility (crawl web for initial population), example: Google Video took weeks to encode video...YouTube made it available ~immediately. 3. Voice - Attitude/personality from software/application. Example: Twitter 'Fail Whale' creates a "voice". 4. Less is More - example: Facebook at launch had a tiny amount of features versus now. Del.icio.us was limited but powerful... "one little thing...get a lot of utility..." 5. Programmable - Allow other people to add value to your application. Read/Write APIs. Lets developers add data/utility and "energy". 6. Personal - User's own data / their personality establishes emotional connection between user and app. Makes them "invested" in the product. 7. RESTful - ?misuse of the term. All accessible resources in application have a clean URL where it can be accessed. Example: Twitter URLs easily understood from just the URL. ("https://twitter.com/#!/fredwilson/lists https://twitter.com/#!/fredwilson/lists) 8. Discoverable - How do people find your app? Take advantage of search (SEO) and social media (virality) and build apps from the ground up to BE viral and optimized for search. 9. Clean - Application has focus per page and functionality on each page is limited. Lots of space, big fonts. Don't let the user get it wrong. Example: Tumblr login ("http://www.tumblr.com/login http://www.tumblr.com/login) - ie. nobody won't know what to do. 10. Playful - Help users have fun and incentives for the user to behave in ways you want. Example: Weight Watchers has a game dynamic with setting goals and achieving weight loss / LinkedIn & Facebook & Twitter with friend/follower counts / FourSquare badges and mayorship.
- nckbz 14y ago
  I just wanted to say thank you for this summary! :) Very good overview in retrospective after having watched the video. Good start to the discussion.
kyletech 14y ago
Really interesting platform. Where can I read more about pricing?
ieg2012 14y ago
Great presentation - Love the Arctic Fox platform - we use this for all our presentations & recordings (1000 hours of content)

52 points by iSimone 14y ago

Hey HN, I'm one of the Founders of Arctic Fox the platform which is powering this presentation. You can find out more info at www.arcticfoxtv.com

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
FYI it worked for me on Chrome 20.0.1132.47 m but not on Firefox 13.0.1. The slide show advance is one slide behind the slide I click (so I can't see the last one) and the video doesn't play.
- joshcrowder 14y ago
  Hey Ryan, thanks for letting me know, I just tested on Firefox 13.0.1 and it works for me. I will investigate further.
  - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
    I'm looking at it on Windows XP (hangs head in shame), in case that makes a difference.
    - alttab 14y ago
      Holy 12 years ago Batman!
      - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
        The computer and OS are not my choice. At home and on my netbook I run Ubuntu.
brittohalloran 14y ago
I was just coming to post how much I like the viewer. Slides next to / in sync with the talk is really nice. Styling could be better (for me), but the functionality is really nice.
- joshcrowder 14y ago
  Hey thanks for your feedback. For some of our clients we have implemented custom stylings its a feature we are looking to add in the next few months. Whats your suggestions to make it look nicer?
  - technel 14y ago
    I agree that the slide/video sync was handy, but I had a problem: about half way through the video, I put the computer in sleep mode. When I resumed, the video played for a while, but it hung where buffering had ended previously, and it refused to load forward any further. I tried clicking ahead, but it still wouldn't load. So I refreshed and clicked to the spot I was it. It instantly started playing, but the slide viewer was stuck on the first slide the whole rest of the time.

CharlieA 14y ago

The video is 27 minutes long, with about 5 minutes of Q&A at the end and IMHO worth watching all the way through, but the '10 Golden Rules' he discusses are... 1. Speed - more than a feature, mainstream users tend to be least forgiving, slower apps grow slower. 2. Instant Utility - service has to be useful straight away, without lots of length configuration or importing data, use tricks to add utility (crawl web for initial population), example: Google Video took weeks to encode video...YouTube made it available ~immediately. 3. Voice - Attitude/personality from software/application. Example: Twitter 'Fail Whale' creates a "voice". 4. Less is More - example: Facebook at launch had a tiny amount of features versus now. Del.icio.us was limited but powerful... "one little thing...get a lot of utility..." 5. Programmable - Allow other people to add value to your application. Read/Write APIs. Lets developers add data/utility and "energy". 6. Personal - User's own data / their personality establishes emotional connection between user and app. Makes them "invested" in the product. 7. RESTful - ?misuse of the term. All accessible resources in application have a clean URL where it can be accessed. Example: Twitter URLs easily understood from just the URL. ("https://twitter.com/#!/fredwilson/lists https://twitter.com/#!/fredwilson/lists) 8. Discoverable - How do people find your app? Take advantage of search (SEO) and social media (virality) and build apps from the ground up to BE viral and optimized for search. 9. Clean - Application has focus per page and functionality on each page is limited. Lots of space, big fonts. Don't let the user get it wrong. Example: Tumblr login ("http://www.tumblr.com/login http://www.tumblr.com/login) - ie. nobody won't know what to do. 10. Playful - Help users have fun and incentives for the user to behave in ways you want. Example: Weight Watchers has a game dynamic with setting goals and achieving weight loss / LinkedIn & Facebook & Twitter with friend/follower counts / FourSquare badges and mayorship.

nckbz 14y ago
I just wanted to say thank you for this summary! :) Very good overview in retrospective after having watched the video. Good start to the discussion.

kyletech 14y ago

Really interesting platform. Where can I read more about pricing?

ieg2012 14y ago

Great presentation - Love the Arctic Fox platform - we use this for all our presentations & recordings (1000 hours of content)