

Ask HN: Viral Marketing - danecjensen

Cam.ly is a video monitoring platform.  We sell cameras that stream and record video to the internet.  You can place our cameras to watch anything and you can watch from anywhere.  We originally envisioned our product as a Security Camera, but could work well as a baby monitor, nanny cam, or dog watcher.  We built this demo (http://cam.ly/pinata_buster) to showcase our product (keep posted for a blog post about how we did it).   We would like some feedback from HN.  What do you think of demo?  Does the demo help you understand our product?  And finally how do we make this go viral?
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miratrix
The differentiating factor over the typical webcam software is the fact that
the data is stored in the cloud, and can be retrieved and replayed at any
time, right?

If you want to get a lot of eyeballs looking at it, what about finding
something that people will watch, will want to "rewind", and will want to
share?

People love puppies, so what about finding a local breeder and asking them if
they'd mind having a camera there in return for showcasing them? And allow
people to watch not only the current streaming version, but the old archived
footage and vote & share their favourite moments? It doesn't have to be
puppies, but anything that people enjoy watching... though population that
might be looking at puppies might have overlaps with, say, population that
might have kids and may be in the market for a nanny-cam or something...

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staunch
WARNING: My brutally honest opinion ahead.

The quality of this demo horrible. The UI is hideously blocky, oversized, and
ugly. The pinata/bat look like a chopstick on a rollerblade trying to hit a
pair of yellow truck nuts. The lighting is horrible and it looks like it's set
up inside a dog house. The camera you're using (which I presume you also sell)
is very low video quality.

It really just looks very chintzy and not well done. As a "showcase" for your
product it is a very bad one.

I'd call this a prototype and start over from scratch. Make it look really
beautiful and slick. Scale up the size to a real size pinata. Use a real
baseball bat. Use a real video camera. Light it properly. Have an awesome
prize inside for the person who breaks it.

Basically, go all out and make it amazing or don't bother.

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acangiano
I'm afraid that the general public will perceive the demo as "creepy".

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27182818284
Didn't even see the demo and I felt creeped out by the HN description.

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noahc
This is cool, but geeky. What I mean by that is that it's cool in the sense
that you've basically created an interface to the internet. If you want it to
go viral, your best chance is probably to document how you did this and
provide any source code, electronic diagrams, etc, etc.

I think you're sending a confusing message. If I were to do this my self, I
probably wouldn't buy your product. I'd get a cheap laptop, with a broken
screen or an old small form factor computer and roll my own webcam. Your viral
demo should be viral to people who are going to buy your products.

What demo could you create that someone who isn't nerdtastic would use?

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prawn
Improve the design of the page and also explain how you're demonstrating the
product. It's fun to muck around with, but also easy to completely forget
who's behind it.

Iron your backdrop sheet - looks a bit lame. Get your logo printed on the
backdrop too, and maybe a short catchphrase or bullet list of uses for your
camera.

Could try to ride some coat tails by replacing the pinata with a baseball and
the swinging stick with a bat and plug it during baseball season. Or rig up a
leg and have a soccer ball in a cage.

It's a start and has potential though, I'll give you that.

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AndyIngram
I think it is hard to see from the demo what your product actually is and its
ultimate purpose. To correct this I would add some product description details
on the left or right of the video with a call to action, or noticeable link
for more info. To make it viral, find an individual who is hated and currently
hot in the news, advertise "hit x in the face", paper mache individuals image
over a round piñata. I also would increase the sharing methods and make it so
individuals encourage others to do the same, a twitter tool at minimum. Also
allow voting on the next individual to be hit in the face.

Now if you do not agree with the violence, as some will, how about aligning
you marketing with the product. For example: Offer to loan 20 free cameras to
individuals living in a bad crime ridden area. Allow voting for the
neighborhood and easy sharing tools so people can ask for votes. Next when a
crime is recorded on the service, post images with a reward of a few hundred
dollars or so for the first person to identify the suspect that leads to an
arrest. You will need to do some PR work to get the word out for this to work
but it should get some mainstream mentions. People may say it is against civil
liberties, but this will work to your advantage with PR.

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TheSaaSGuy
Guys, I like your logo. Very cleverly done. The demo is useful to understand
what the solution can deliver.

Viral - In my opinion, a video is truly viral when my mom forwards it to me.
That said, you can make a product video viral amongst in target market without
it being to my definition. Do you know who is key target? If you do then a
contest aimed at that group is likely your best path.

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bbuffone
This is pretty cool me and my daughter are trying to break it.

My daughter had the following suggestions:

\- Be able to spank the guy that fixes the setup

\- Be able to it hit bob in different areas

\- Sound effects

\- Compete to go next

edit: Waiting for the machine to be fixed is more exciting than hitting it.

edit #2: Make it like the saw movie just with pinatas

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NathanKP
I would make it go viral by doing some sort of contest giveaway. Encourage
people to buy your camera and use the service, then make a YouTube video or
blog post about their experience.

Tell your users that the best entry will receive _______ where _______ is a
product or gift which is worth the effort of making a video or blog post about
cam.ly

In this way you get other people to do your viral marketing for you. For even
bigger success you can assign them points. For example:

10 points for a blog post about cam.ly, 20 points for a YouTube video about
cam.ly, 10 points for a Twitter mention (possibly have some sort of adjustment
based on how many followers they have).

This will encourage your users to spread the word about cam.ly to others on
their own. If the contest prize is something like an iPad, it could cost you
about $500 but chances are you will get far more than $500 worth of
advertising value, backlinks, etc from the contest.

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alastair
What if you planted cameras in a couple different cities (with building owners
permission), and have people try and locate them? The first to hold up a
"Cam.ly rules!" poster in front of the camera wins a free subscription...

make it hard so you build a bit of buzz while ppl try and figure out where
they are. could be an ongoing thing...

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danecjensen
Clickable: <http://cam.ly/pinata_buster>

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jonbishop
A quick suggestion: add retweet and facebook like buttons to the pinata buster
page to make it easier to share.

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minalecs
another vote, to add social media buttons on the page. I really don't
understand whats going on. I press the live button, and what now ?

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meatsock
oh gosh just 'secretly' point them at some lame celeb randomly and have
someone blog about seeing it.

