

Ask YC: How do I promote a web app to bloggers? - samson

I created a simple web app (Mytipnetwork.com) that lets a blogger create a page where their readers can tip them off to interesting stories, images or clips that they find on the web.<p>example page
http://www.mytipnetwork.com/n.php?site=adtoferlnn<p>It works pretty simply you add a tipbox image to your page that tells you and your readers how many tips you've recieved today from them. And you can respond back by saying what you got tipped by(meaning heard for the first time and/or found interesting)<p>As a tool, what I thought it might achieve is help bloggers get inspired to their next blog post by their readers.<p>Problem is I don't have a blog, I don't have friends who are bloggers, and my only available currency towards promotion is time and energy.
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"Problem is I don't have a blog, I don't have friends who are bloggers"

I think the first thing you would need to do is start a blog. It's the whole
'eat your own dogfood' thing. If you had a blog you could do linking
agreements with other bloggers to spread the word, and you would be able to
better test your service.

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tx
How many fake "blogs" will this world be able to absorb? And you're advising
him to start another one. Do you remember what the word (and a thing) really
means?

Lets face it, todays "blogs" are nothing but little PR agencies, and your
advice really reads as "start your own PR firm".

Get real, running a successful "blog" is equally hard to running a successful
business, and he already trying to run one. Starting a real blog is easy: you
just write what's on your mind, but those blogs have nothing to do with
business and usually have an audience of 10-12 friends and family members.

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SwellJoe
I think this is really the wrong way to think about blogs in the context of
your startup. Sure, you could make yet another useless blog to brag about your
startup...or you could make a blog that provides useful information in your
field, thus proving your expertise and spreading around good will that's bound
to come back your way. You obviously shouldn't create another useless blog
about your product, and no one is suggesting you should (at least, I hope no
one here at news.YC is).

Wufoo gets a significant portion of their traffic from their (excellent) blog.
37signals got pretty much all of their initial uptake from people who read
their blog. Not because they talk about how awesome their product is...but
because they help people learn new things, solve problems, and enjoy their
time on the web a little more.

If you want to call a blog a "PR firm", that's fine. Most of us are doing our
own PR, as well, and if blogging fits into that line item on your budget,
that's fine. The OP wants to take advantage of blogs without blogging, and
people are telling him that it doesn't work that way. Nothing you've said
counters that advice.

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jgrahamc
How is this better than having a public email address? How will you prevent
spam?

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thorax
Well, we run into a similar consideration with our feedback widget we recently
released on featurelist.org: <http://featurelist.org/info/features>

It won't always remain so, but at the moment, the average spambot isn't
processing javascript or iframe content to populate spam forms. For now it
seems the spammers are content to submit to open/typical HTML forms.

To compare some of the spam levels we get on our site bug.gd:

* We have open email addresses on our site. These are spammed insanely.

* We have a feedback widget (powered by featurelist). This has never been spammed and is getting us great user data.

* We have basic HTML search forms, comment forms, and solution forms. These are spammed 10 or more times a day.

* Our blog comments receive a good bit of spam each week.

All in all, widgets are pretty resistant at the moment. (Please no one here
start a company to do this. Of course someone will.)

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staunch
Feel free to post in their comments (when appropriate) and send them email.
There's nothing wrong with being upfront about it. Just make sure that you're
not in any way obnoxious about it and no one will mind.

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hendler
<http://shareit.com> consolidates submissions to social bookmarking.
<http://mashable.com> is a popular web 2.0 news site.

Develop a "press release" and submit it to all the valley news sites you
can... including here.

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samson
Thanks hendler, I'll try that

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fourlittlebees
So along the lines of Skribit and Outbrain?

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samson
not quite the same, but I can see some similarities with skribit

