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While it's an interesting article, I think he's being a bit hyperbolic in translating his local experience out to a generalization. This isn't simply a 19 year

While it's an interesting article, I think he's being a bit hyperbolic in translating his local experience out to a generalization. This isn't simply a 19 year olds experience. It is a white, suburban, middle-class, male attending a conservative university in a culturally regressive state. If nothing else, he's about as radically distant from an urban minority as you could get to the point where I'd imagine it is really impossible for him to have any perspective into other demographics and how they use these tools. I value his opinion, but it's important to take it into context. Atleast he attempts to hedge his lack of experience in his opening statement.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
It is a white, suburban, middle-class, male attending a conservative university in a culturally regressive state. Which is the demographic that all of the services in question care about (except whatsapp) - which kind of proves the point.
- bcRIPster 12y ago
  I'm going to argue that. Many of these services are targeting a more diverse crowd. If they were only targeting this kids demographic, they would be limiting their growth potential out the door. Especially given that the growing base of users of these tools are international users. Also, I'm going to argue just against my experience with urban teens living in more diverse communities which doesn't really align with this kids experience.
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    Agree in principle, disagree in execution. Pretty much any app maker (whatsapp aside) starts with a skewed market: people with smartphones. iOS makers even moreso. These people trend toward being white and middle/upper class. Now you need to narrow to who buys shit on their phones. Again that demographic skews younger. [1] [2] So right away, if you want a successful smartphone app in the U.S. then you need to target, urban white men between 18-29 with at least some college and 75000+ a year in income. I think as you say more people should target international etc... but people build toward the problems they have and the language they know. Whatsapp is killing it because they broke out of the mold. So yes, they should for many reasons, but if you just follow the money then who you target looks very homogenous. [1] http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fact-sheet/ http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fac... [2] http://www.voxburner.com/publications/6766-who-makes-in-app-purchases http://www.voxburner.com/publications/6766-who-makes-in-app-...
    - bcRIPster 12y ago
      What you say makes sense when you're selling a product. With most of these applications, their potential money making product though is the back-office data they collect on the users themselves which they then sell to brokers or data warehousing services, or provide to targeting advertisement firms. From that stand point you simply want the largest installed user base you can get. A successful smart phone app based on these metrics is the one with the largest user base. You get that user base by providing a simple to use product that quickly addresses a need for the largest number of people, rich, poor, white, black, etc... Now, if you're talking about targeted applications like certain types of gaming apps. Or apps that provide an extended retail experience? This is when you talk about focused demographics.
      - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
        You get that user base by providing a simple to use product that quickly addresses a need for the largest number of people, rich, poor, white, black, etc... Totally agree here. A successful smart phone app based on these metrics is the one with the largest user base. This is where we diverge. An app is only as successful as what it can make money from. Having a billion people use something and they don't generate revenue from it is worthless in the long run - bloated investments not withstanding. A reliable proven to be profitable user base is what consistently makes money - the facebooks etc... are extreme outliers that got lucky with monetization after growing the userbase are not really cases to be emulated.
        bcRIPster 12y ago
        I'm not sure of what the divergence you're indicating is. I agree that an app with no monitization is worthless for sure. A bloated app user base where you aren't monetizing your users is a money sink. Granted there are other cases of revenue models that we may not even be aware of that are in play. For instance Twitter initially was making money off SMS bulk transactions. They would buy SMS network blocks in volume and sale broadcasting blocks to marketers at a markup which was lower than outbound texting rates. There was good money in the margins here for a time. They don't like to talk about it publicly but they still admit that the service was built around a focus on SMS... https://blog.twitter.com/2010/introducing-fast-follow-and-other-sms-tips https://blog.twitter.com/2010/introducing-fast-follow-and-ot... This is why for a while they also tried like hell to push people to take Tweets over SMS instead of having pulling them from the web via a web browser or other web based client. Smartphones unexpectedly gimped this business model for them. There are boutique companies today that still are trying to eep out business around this model such as this one... http://www.fabit.com/products/mobile/sms/websms/overview.aspx http://www.fabit.com/products/mobile/sms/websms/overview.asp... ...now I'm just rambling...
- _almosnow 12y ago
  >Which is the demographic that all of the services in question care about (except whatsapp) - which kind of proves the point. Hahaha, no way that is true man. Also, bcRIPster, I believe your comments provide a valuable POV, that thing about the demographics, it hadn't ocurred to me. Thanks for posting and don't take the witch-hunt personal, remember that karma is given for people that spend all their time here, they don't reflect the holder's knowledge or politeness. Most of the downvotes here are just another way of saying "I don't like what you say but I'm uncapable of coming with an intelligent response on to why I don't agree with your opinion, hence I'll just downvote you (and absolutely everything else you post afterwards)".
  - bcRIPster 12y ago
    Thank-you... beyond that I just learned from another user that even though I've been using this site for years I have never seen a down vote option, so I always suspected it was a mod activity. Now that I know it's just other users doing it I don't feel so bad. Thanks for the kind words :)
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    See my post below this one. The numbers don't lie my friend.
bcRIPster 12y ago
Ok mods, I'm concerned that I have made some valid criticisms on this article as have others in their comments, yet mine is being down modded into negatives. I'm left feeling this is immature and punitive for a joke I made on a prior news posting where I complained about the down modding. Would someone like to explain just how my criticism is so much more severe as to warrant attack over the other criticisms?
- bcRIPster 12y ago
  And seriously? WTF!
  - dang 12y ago
    Please re-read the HN guidelines. They ask you not to post comments complaining about being downvoted. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - bcRIPster 12y ago
      Thanks and no worries. It's just been one of those days. :)
- josu 12y ago
  I think that the downvotes have nothing to do with the joke you mention. Your comment doesn't add any value to the discussion, we are aware of the things you highlight.
  - bcRIPster 12y ago
    Good! Good! Then I wholly expect to see every comment that is stating an obvious concept to now be down modded off of this site. That's really healthy for discussion.
    - vxNsr 12y ago
      You understand that users are the ones downvoting you, as a relatively inactive user you don't have a downvote button but many of us do and don't like complaints (about downvotes) or broad generalizations ("culturally regressive") that don't add to the discussion. I was with you until you started attacking an entire ethnicity.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

It is a white, suburban, middle-class, male attending a conservative university in a culturally regressive state. Which is the demographic that all of the services in question care about (except whatsapp) - which kind of proves the point.

bcRIPster 12y ago
I'm going to argue that. Many of these services are targeting a more diverse crowd. If they were only targeting this kids demographic, they would be limiting their growth potential out the door. Especially given that the growing base of users of these tools are international users. Also, I'm going to argue just against my experience with urban teens living in more diverse communities which doesn't really align with this kids experience.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  Agree in principle, disagree in execution. Pretty much any app maker (whatsapp aside) starts with a skewed market: people with smartphones. iOS makers even moreso. These people trend toward being white and middle/upper class. Now you need to narrow to who buys shit on their phones. Again that demographic skews younger. [1] [2] So right away, if you want a successful smartphone app in the U.S. then you need to target, urban white men between 18-29 with at least some college and 75000+ a year in income. I think as you say more people should target international etc... but people build toward the problems they have and the language they know. Whatsapp is killing it because they broke out of the mold. So yes, they should for many reasons, but if you just follow the money then who you target looks very homogenous. [1] http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fact-sheet/ http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fac... [2] http://www.voxburner.com/publications/6766-who-makes-in-app-purchases http://www.voxburner.com/publications/6766-who-makes-in-app-...
  - bcRIPster 12y ago
    What you say makes sense when you're selling a product. With most of these applications, their potential money making product though is the back-office data they collect on the users themselves which they then sell to brokers or data warehousing services, or provide to targeting advertisement firms. From that stand point you simply want the largest installed user base you can get. A successful smart phone app based on these metrics is the one with the largest user base. You get that user base by providing a simple to use product that quickly addresses a need for the largest number of people, rich, poor, white, black, etc... Now, if you're talking about targeted applications like certain types of gaming apps. Or apps that provide an extended retail experience? This is when you talk about focused demographics.
    - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
      You get that user base by providing a simple to use product that quickly addresses a need for the largest number of people, rich, poor, white, black, etc... Totally agree here. A successful smart phone app based on these metrics is the one with the largest user base. This is where we diverge. An app is only as successful as what it can make money from. Having a billion people use something and they don't generate revenue from it is worthless in the long run - bloated investments not withstanding. A reliable proven to be profitable user base is what consistently makes money - the facebooks etc... are extreme outliers that got lucky with monetization after growing the userbase are not really cases to be emulated.
      - bcRIPster 12y ago
        I'm not sure of what the divergence you're indicating is. I agree that an app with no monitization is worthless for sure. A bloated app user base where you aren't monetizing your users is a money sink. Granted there are other cases of revenue models that we may not even be aware of that are in play. For instance Twitter initially was making money off SMS bulk transactions. They would buy SMS network blocks in volume and sale broadcasting blocks to marketers at a markup which was lower than outbound texting rates. There was good money in the margins here for a time. They don't like to talk about it publicly but they still admit that the service was built around a focus on SMS... https://blog.twitter.com/2010/introducing-fast-follow-and-other-sms-tips https://blog.twitter.com/2010/introducing-fast-follow-and-ot... This is why for a while they also tried like hell to push people to take Tweets over SMS instead of having pulling them from the web via a web browser or other web based client. Smartphones unexpectedly gimped this business model for them. There are boutique companies today that still are trying to eep out business around this model such as this one... http://www.fabit.com/products/mobile/sms/websms/overview.aspx http://www.fabit.com/products/mobile/sms/websms/overview.asp... ...now I'm just rambling...
_almosnow 12y ago
>Which is the demographic that all of the services in question care about (except whatsapp) - which kind of proves the point. Hahaha, no way that is true man. Also, bcRIPster, I believe your comments provide a valuable POV, that thing about the demographics, it hadn't ocurred to me. Thanks for posting and don't take the witch-hunt personal, remember that karma is given for people that spend all their time here, they don't reflect the holder's knowledge or politeness. Most of the downvotes here are just another way of saying "I don't like what you say but I'm uncapable of coming with an intelligent response on to why I don't agree with your opinion, hence I'll just downvote you (and absolutely everything else you post afterwards)".
- bcRIPster 12y ago
  Thank-you... beyond that I just learned from another user that even though I've been using this site for years I have never seen a down vote option, so I always suspected it was a mod activity. Now that I know it's just other users doing it I don't feel so bad. Thanks for the kind words :)
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  See my post below this one. The numbers don't lie my friend.

bcRIPster 12y ago

Ok mods, I'm concerned that I have made some valid criticisms on this article as have others in their comments, yet mine is being down modded into negatives. I'm left feeling this is immature and punitive for a joke I made on a prior news posting where I complained about the down modding. Would someone like to explain just how my criticism is so much more severe as to warrant attack over the other criticisms?

bcRIPster 12y ago
And seriously? WTF!
- dang 12y ago
  Please re-read the HN guidelines. They ask you not to post comments complaining about being downvoted. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - bcRIPster 12y ago
    Thanks and no worries. It's just been one of those days. :)
josu 12y ago
I think that the downvotes have nothing to do with the joke you mention. Your comment doesn't add any value to the discussion, we are aware of the things you highlight.
- bcRIPster 12y ago
  Good! Good! Then I wholly expect to see every comment that is stating an obvious concept to now be down modded off of this site. That's really healthy for discussion.
  - vxNsr 12y ago
    You understand that users are the ones downvoting you, as a relatively inactive user you don't have a downvote button but many of us do and don't like complaints (about downvotes) or broad generalizations ("culturally regressive") that don't add to the discussion. I was with you until you started attacking an entire ethnicity.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]