5 ms·

How A Quiet Developer Grew Goodreads To 2.6 Million Members

57 points by kareemm 17y ago

dstorrs 17y ago
I'm seeing these video interviews more and more; I really wish people would start posting transcripts alongside them. I don't want to devote 30-, 45-, 60-, however-many minutes to watching a video that may or may not be useful.
- vaksel 17y ago
  there are text excerpts below the video
- AndrewWarner 17y ago
  I post them below my videos. I need to find a way to make it clearer.
  - mahmud 17y ago
    Andrew, fwiw, you have the highest ratio of useful-content / whiny-feedback out of any site that makes it to HN. It must be viscous preparing interesting interviews when you know you will catch the most flack for some tangential thing you "did". P.S. This is in no way meant to slight the grandparent; I just keep seeing complaints in mixergy threads, even though I find the content most interesting (yes, the transcripts have been there for a while too :-)
    - AndrewWarner 17y ago
      I'm trying to use the feedback to improve my work. Before reading HN feedback, I didn't realize how important transcripts are to people. Now I try to add them to every interview. Thanks to a few private message that I got from HN'ers, I even figured out how to use Mechanical Turk to get transcripts that are faster and cheaper than I can get anywhere else (though, admittedly it's not a perfect system).
AndrewWarner 17y ago
My hosting company is having trouble so my site may be down. If it is, you can see the video here: http://blip.tv/file/2855708 http://blip.tv/file/2855708 And the transcript here: http://mixergy.etherpad.com/12 http://mixergy.etherpad.com/12
- iamwil 17y ago
  Seeing the timeline of the transcript was interesting. He (Andrew) segmented the entire transcript into five minute segments, and then they start filling in. At first, I thought he was doing it all himself, but it seems like the whole point of segmenting it is so a lot of different people can do the transcription in parallel. So either he farmed it out to Amazon Turk, or he's got lots of college student friends.
  - AndrewWarner 17y ago
    I use Mechanical Turk.
coderdude 17y ago
I can't get to it right now, must be getting hit hard. http://74.125.155.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fmixergy.com%2Fgoodreads-otis-chander%2F&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&strip=1 http://74.125.155.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%...
ludwig 17y ago
I'd heard of Goodreads before, but was already using LibraryThing.com by then. Now I'll have to take a second look at goodreads and see what's new. Incidentally, does anybody know if there's an easy way to transfer books between those two sites?
tokenadult 17y ago
I have been asking Google to remove Goodreads landing pages from search results on searches I run, as I find out that those pages are simply fakes for SEO. That has completely turned me off to actually using Goodreads, which was originally recommended to me by a good friend. A company has to be pretty nasty to get me to disregard a word-of-mouth recommendation by a friend.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  Can you explain more? I ran a few searches where goodreads results show up and I have a hard time seeing how it's different from Amazon results. The page has useful information about the book, people's ratings and reviews, where I can buy it, etc. How are these "fakes"?
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    In my case, I run Google searches on people's names, and there is a link shown to a [person's name] review of [book] on Goodreads, only the person in question has never posted a review of that book! There is no such content by that person on Goodreads. I definitely know that in the case of my own name, which I check by ego-surfing once in a while to see what people are putting up on the Internet about me. I've seen some other spammers over the years that have been removed from the Google directory, and it looks like Goodreads will have to be the next site to get that treatment.
akamaka 17y ago
I was just beginning to warm up to Mixergy. I liked the Noah Kagan interview, which was also popular here. Gambit seemed like a really great company, and they both kept mentioned how much they liked the food at Chipotle. Only a week later, Michael Arrington broke the story on how Gambit is one of the companies that got banned by Facebook for running scam offers. Then, just this evening, I went to the new Chipotle restaurant that just opened in my town, and it sucks! Cold and dry meat, slopped together with some sauce and barely any fresh veggies. I'm pretty disappointed in Andrew Warner, and I'm going back to staying away from his interviews. (Yes, I take my food pretty seriously)
- niallsmart 17y ago
  No fresh veggies? Facebook scams? Smells fishy.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Game recognizes game, and you're not recognizing Mixergy. The point of the site is not to review local eats and treats joints, or recommend apps to you; that's the consumer side. Mixergy tells you about successful businesses, so you can .. be inspired by them. I have never eaten at Chippotle but when I saw the interview I had to listen to it; there is a Chippotle in every major city, and if the Chippotle guys made it to Mixergy, I was sure I will get the inside scoop on how they got the ball rolling (it takes hell lot of effort to glean that information from the sterile content issued by a company's PR wing; Mixergy gives you the founders' voice(s).)
- AndrewWarner 17y ago
  Your comment is making me think that maybe I should find a way to get more community input before doing my interviews so I can improve my research. Having said that, on the day I did my interview, I don't think the ads that Gambit/Zynga/others ran were considered scams. Facebook itself didn't have a problem with them and respected investors like Fred Wilson didn't object either. Even the HN community (which is quick to point out what I miss) didn't call the business a scam when I ran my interview. Perception in this industry changed after the TC article. Industry standards changed after that. What's considered right in an industry often changes. If you listen to my interview with Matt Mullenweg, you'll hear him say that the way he promoted Wordpress in the early days might be considered spam today. Industry standards change. Give my work another try akamaka. I keep improving it based on feedback like yours. And give Chipotle another try. It's really good.
flooha 17y ago
His story out of college sounds just like mine. Mechanical engineer, disillusioned with the M.E. environment and excited about computers and the internet. Same time frame too. Glad to see he is successful with his current startup.
thomasfl 17y ago
This looks like a ruby on rails application. The restful url's, the nginx as a webserver frontend and use of prototype javascript library is all very common for RoR.

57 points by kareemm 17y ago

I'm seeing these video interviews more and more; I really wish people would start posting transcripts alongside them. I don't want to devote 30-, 45-, 60-, however-many minutes to watching a video that may or may not be useful.

vaksel 17y ago
there are text excerpts below the video
AndrewWarner 17y ago
I post them below my videos. I need to find a way to make it clearer.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Andrew, fwiw, you have the highest ratio of useful-content / whiny-feedback out of any site that makes it to HN. It must be viscous preparing interesting interviews when you know you will catch the most flack for some tangential thing you "did". P.S. This is in no way meant to slight the grandparent; I just keep seeing complaints in mixergy threads, even though I find the content most interesting (yes, the transcripts have been there for a while too :-)
  - AndrewWarner 17y ago
    I'm trying to use the feedback to improve my work. Before reading HN feedback, I didn't realize how important transcripts are to people. Now I try to add them to every interview. Thanks to a few private message that I got from HN'ers, I even figured out how to use Mechanical Turk to get transcripts that are faster and cheaper than I can get anywhere else (though, admittedly it's not a perfect system).

AndrewWarner 17y ago

My hosting company is having trouble so my site may be down. If it is, you can see the video here: http://blip.tv/file/2855708 http://blip.tv/file/2855708 And the transcript here: http://mixergy.etherpad.com/12 http://mixergy.etherpad.com/12

iamwil 17y ago
Seeing the timeline of the transcript was interesting. He (Andrew) segmented the entire transcript into five minute segments, and then they start filling in. At first, I thought he was doing it all himself, but it seems like the whole point of segmenting it is so a lot of different people can do the transcription in parallel. So either he farmed it out to Amazon Turk, or he's got lots of college student friends.
- AndrewWarner 17y ago
  I use Mechanical Turk.

coderdude 17y ago

I can't get to it right now, must be getting hit hard. http://74.125.155.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fmixergy.com%2Fgoodreads-otis-chander%2F&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&strip=1 http://74.125.155.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%...

ludwig 17y ago

I'd heard of Goodreads before, but was already using LibraryThing.com by then. Now I'll have to take a second look at goodreads and see what's new. Incidentally, does anybody know if there's an easy way to transfer books between those two sites?

tokenadult 17y ago

I have been asking Google to remove Goodreads landing pages from search results on searches I run, as I find out that those pages are simply fakes for SEO. That has completely turned me off to actually using Goodreads, which was originally recommended to me by a good friend. A company has to be pretty nasty to get me to disregard a word-of-mouth recommendation by a friend.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Can you explain more? I ran a few searches where goodreads results show up and I have a hard time seeing how it's different from Amazon results. The page has useful information about the book, people's ratings and reviews, where I can buy it, etc. How are these "fakes"?
- tokenadult 17y ago
  In my case, I run Google searches on people's names, and there is a link shown to a [person's name] review of [book] on Goodreads, only the person in question has never posted a review of that book! There is no such content by that person on Goodreads. I definitely know that in the case of my own name, which I check by ego-surfing once in a while to see what people are putting up on the Internet about me. I've seen some other spammers over the years that have been removed from the Google directory, and it looks like Goodreads will have to be the next site to get that treatment.

akamaka 17y ago

I was just beginning to warm up to Mixergy. I liked the Noah Kagan interview, which was also popular here. Gambit seemed like a really great company, and they both kept mentioned how much they liked the food at Chipotle. Only a week later, Michael Arrington broke the story on how Gambit is one of the companies that got banned by Facebook for running scam offers. Then, just this evening, I went to the new Chipotle restaurant that just opened in my town, and it sucks! Cold and dry meat, slopped together with some sauce and barely any fresh veggies. I'm pretty disappointed in Andrew Warner, and I'm going back to staying away from his interviews. (Yes, I take my food pretty seriously)

niallsmart 17y ago
No fresh veggies? Facebook scams? Smells fishy.
mahmud 17y ago
Game recognizes game, and you're not recognizing Mixergy. The point of the site is not to review local eats and treats joints, or recommend apps to you; that's the consumer side. Mixergy tells you about successful businesses, so you can .. be inspired by them. I have never eaten at Chippotle but when I saw the interview I had to listen to it; there is a Chippotle in every major city, and if the Chippotle guys made it to Mixergy, I was sure I will get the inside scoop on how they got the ball rolling (it takes hell lot of effort to glean that information from the sterile content issued by a company's PR wing; Mixergy gives you the founders' voice(s).)
AndrewWarner 17y ago
Your comment is making me think that maybe I should find a way to get more community input before doing my interviews so I can improve my research. Having said that, on the day I did my interview, I don't think the ads that Gambit/Zynga/others ran were considered scams. Facebook itself didn't have a problem with them and respected investors like Fred Wilson didn't object either. Even the HN community (which is quick to point out what I miss) didn't call the business a scam when I ran my interview. Perception in this industry changed after the TC article. Industry standards changed after that. What's considered right in an industry often changes. If you listen to my interview with Matt Mullenweg, you'll hear him say that the way he promoted Wordpress in the early days might be considered spam today. Industry standards change. Give my work another try akamaka. I keep improving it based on feedback like yours. And give Chipotle another try. It's really good.

flooha 17y ago

His story out of college sounds just like mine. Mechanical engineer, disillusioned with the M.E. environment and excited about computers and the internet. Same time frame too. Glad to see he is successful with his current startup.

thomasfl 17y ago

This looks like a ruby on rails application. The restful url's, the nginx as a webserver frontend and use of prototype javascript library is all very common for RoR.