

IsWhale – Find High-Value Users - edoceo
https://iswhale.com/

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joshstrange
I worry about things like this because I see them leading to the following
situations:

\-----

1) Whale signs up for game with IAP

2) Whale's game difficulty is increased so they will spend more in IAP

\-----

1) Whale signs up for shopping site

2) Whale's prices have a slight markup because they know they can afford it

\-----

This is similar to how airlines will price flights differently based on your
location and I think it was a travel site that was show OS X users higher
prices for travel packages.

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dangerlibrary
I'm pretty sure you just wrote their elevator pitch.

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joshstrange
I'm afraid that you are right. I'd also love to hear from HN to how they feel
about this... On one hand it's very interesting and what startup wouldn't want
to know which of their users they should focus on on the other does this mean
that non-whales don't matter and/or will we, unfairly, try and suck more out
of whales.

I can see great benefits from being able to listen to whales (prioritise their
bugs/issues/suggestions) it's a constant struggle when building a product to
know what advice to follow but I worry that this means that people without
money to blow will have their voices limited as a result which flies in the
face of what I love about the internet which is: everyone is equal (now I know
this doesn't work perfectly in practice but well enough IMHO).

At what point do we ignore users who are not whales or even kick them off our
platform because they are a leach on our resources? This sets a dangerous
precedent IMHO. I've wondered if one day they will be able to tag or detect
people who never click on ads (and/or have "ad-blindness") and force them to
pay to use resources supported by ads.

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bjourne
In online-gambling a whale is a gambling addict. It's the kind of person who
thinks the Martingale system is a good betting strategy. They are contrasted
with another sea creature, the shark, which are persons who are good at
finding games in which they have a small edge versus the house.

Those addicts are incredibly profitable. One addict can easily generate more
in life-time profit than a hundred regular users.

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edoceo
Whales are sort of defined by the user of this service. Highly visible social
accounts can make a whale but also social accounts that match terms. Finding
those who sign up and are also interested in Linux or Mongo or ServiceX.

Identifying high-vis users, kinda like the Klout score, means I can make sure
to focus on that one of 20+ daily sign-ups.

This could be used for pricing, I suppose but my intention when building was
to identify tech-savvy users when they sign up. Also investors or those
connected to them.

The back end tool is a little rough and as I expand it the Whale data will
expand too.

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pavel_lishin
What makes a user "high-value"?

As a friend of mine just joked in irc, this is Klout-as-a-Service.

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edoceo
Highly visible on multiple social networks. Likely to be an "ambassador" or
"cheerleader". Can influence others, has a high infection rate for viral
coefficient

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masukomi
That's not a whale. A whale is someone with a lot of money and willingness to
dump it into your pocket when giving the right incentives.

I get what you're trying to do, but the terminology is not only wrong it's
insulting to the users with whom it's most critical to maintain a good
standing with. If anyone discovered I was doing something to influence their
opinion of my apps based on the fact that a service tagged them as a "whale" i
can pretty much guarantee they'd spread NEGATIVE influence about my products
and myself.

~~~
edoceo
At casino's Whales know they are Whales and still love the special treatment.
I think all humans like to feel special. As an entrepreneur I have difficutly
identifying who is the most important to make feel special. All
customers/prospects are not equal. EG: when an investor-class user signs up I
want to know and make sure they get more than my programmed intercom.io
message schedule. (also intercom.io FTW!)

