

Feedback Army: website feedback for $7, inspired by HN post - dood
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-25-n66.html

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kqr2
He designed the site using sleep.

<http://sleep.dashnine.org/>

    
    
        * is a multi-paradigm scripting language for the Java Platform
        * easy to learn with Perl and Objective-C inspired syntax
        * executes scripts fast with a small package size (~250KB)
        * excels at data manipulation, component integration, and distributed communication
        * seamlessly uses Java objects and 3rd party libraries

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sh1mmer
I think it's great he's quickly turned around a site that lowers the barrier
to a specific problem. I'd just worry about the demographic makeup of the
respondents.

While Turkers aren't all geeks getting good sensible feedback is a skill in
itself. I would worry that most Turkers a) aren't you customers b) aren't
demographically vetted.

That said getting independent opinions is surely great food for thought and
that's a powerful tool.

~~~
raffi
I was worried about this too. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I
first built the software. Then I ran it against my own sites and I started
seeing very thoughtful feedback. This is when I felt I had something.

I also posed questions directly to the Turk community about what I could do to
make the process better and get results quicker. They spoke, I did what I
could, and I'm really proud of the results my customers are getting. I'm not
just saying that either.

I'm a researcher by trade and have absolute sales call reluctance. I won't
sell something if I don't feel it is worth the persons time to hear me or
money to invest into the product.

While this little project may only go so far, I'm not afraid to put my name on
it and say I'm giving people something of value for what I'm asking.

~~~
sh1mmer
_I'm a researcher by trade and have absolute sales call reluctance. I won't
sell something if I don't feel it is worth the persons time to hear me or
money to invest into the product._

Are you planning to introduce anything to help select the right Turkers to
comment on a project? That would be worth having.

Heck it might even be worth having as a standalone "selecting applicants for
usability testing" application.

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iamelgringo
He's using Mechanical Turk's API to create a "give me feedback on my site"
task automatically.

That task on Mechanical Turk usually goes for $.02-.05 a task. And, if you're
familiar with MechaTurk, it really only takes about 15 minutes to set that
task up.

He's charging $7 because people don't want to mess with Mechanical Turk. It's
brilliant, and I hope it takes off. I actually think that he should charge
$20-30 and give people 40-50 user comments. It seems like a better value.

~~~
raffi
Typical tasks may go for $.02-$.05. I pay the workers much more than that. I
experimented with different levels of payment prior to launch and had to offer
more than I expected but my customers are receiving quality results, very
quickly. To make this happen required paying up. My goal is to be a requestor
the Turkers want to work for. This community outreach is a whole other side of
what I'm doing that people don't see on the front end.

~~~
patio11
Have you posted to Turker Nation at all? It might be a good idea to start
developing a "brand" for your questions so that you start to have people
actively seek you out and prioritize your HITS. As it is, the Amazon search
interface lists 1 hit available per website which is getting FeedbackArmied
and it might not be obvious to the Turkers that requests for feedback on A, B,
C, D, and E are linked so if you had good experience (had an enjoyable task
and got paid promptly) on A and C then B, D, and E are right up your alley.

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dawie
This service is a great idea! It's simple and seems to be well implemented. I
liked how you ate your own dog food, by using Mechanical Turk to decide if
it's worthwhile putting up the service.

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dood
Just realised this is effectively a dupe
[<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373900>]. I should have checked if the
direct link had been submitted.

Looks like a lot of people missed it last time around, and it yielded some
different comments so seems it worked out ok.

Kinda interesting to think people can get quite different experiences of HN if
they're in different time zones or browse at different times of day.

~~~
raffi
It is a dupe but you have no idea how much I love you for it.

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mdolon
Personally, I don't understand the need for this. If I want feedback on a
website, I can simply ask friends, family or Hacker News. Friends and family
usually provide honest answers while HN tends to be very critical, both useful
feedback. The best part: it's all free.

If it's a product that already has a bit of traffic, I could just use a
service such as UserVoice to take care of feedback/suggestions by using their
little Feedback tab script. Posting about the site in a blog or a forum can
also help in the search for getting feedback.

Basically what I'm getting at is.. why would I pay $7 for Feedback Army when
there are so many free alternatives?

~~~
raffi
The initial customers of Feedback Army seem to be folks with niche websites.
The kind of stuff HN would probably flag if it were posted here. Also some
folks aren't as plugged into an online community and may be uncomfortable
posting there. I know I'm this way. I don't blog publicly and HN is the only
board I interact on. So I'd use something like Feedback Army over risking my
standing on a forum such as this for something off topic. That said, the
feedback is paid for and there is nothing stopping someone from going back for
multiple rounds in a few days on the same site. I think the free feedback
givers might burn out a little quicker.

~~~
mdolon
I guess that makes sense.. I wasn't thinking from the perspective of a non-
developer or someone not as well connected, in which case I could see them
wanting a generic service that offers feedback.

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smwhreyebelong
I wonder why one can't go to Amazon directly instead of going through Feedback
Army ?

~~~
raffi
Hi there, I address this on the site FAQ. I'm delivering value by making the
process to post a request simple and making the results easy to get via an RSS
feed. I also do this for a low margin. If someone wants to go to Amazon
directly and pay workers what I pay, depending on how they value their time,
they will be losing money.

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mkmark
This is really interesting. Is there a way to choose why type of users review
the site? Say my website is aimed at 15-30 year olds, then is there a way to
do that?

~~~
raffi
Not yet. You're not the first to ask for this feature. The demographics of the
reviewers are slightly more women then men, mostly 20-30 year olds, and over
half have college degrees.

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thorax
I really like the idea and will probably use the site from time to time to get
some more sanity checks. Good work.

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photo
What's stopping people from just using mturk itself? I've found it pretty easy
to use.

~~~
raffi
The value proposition is ease of use. Feedback Army manages the whole process
and makes results available via RSS. For someone who has never used Mechanical
Turk, Feedback Army is a low risk way to try things out. I pay the Turkers
pretty well to make sure users get good feedback quickly. The overall package
is well worth the $7 asking price. -- Raphael, FeedbackArmy developer

