

Ask HN: Do HN users appreciate Landing Pages being posted? - kisamoto

Ship Early. Ship Often.<p>It's an idea that I am forcing myself to adopt as it seems a little alien at the moment (Why would I want to show users an unfinished product??) but I've always been in two minds about landing pages being submitted on HN. I much prefer 'Show HN:' to be things I can play with.<p>How do you feel about clicking on a link and getting to a Landing Page with simply a 'Sign up for notifications' or 'connect to Facebook' form?
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ColinWright
Hate it with a passion, even to the point where now I make a note of them and
try to use a competitor, assuming anything ever sees the light of day.

Virtually none of them have. After a few naive sign-ups I've learned better
and never will again. Total waste of my time.

Does that answer your question?

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kisamoto
Yes it does.

I'm the same and have signed up to a fair few but never hear anything back. I
may be a sceptic but if I ever get a chance to put my first and last names in
I always use the name of the company/website to see if my email address gets
sold...

Only asking because I'm thinking of doing the same for a product of mine but
don't want to annoy anyone!

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jacobedawson
@kisamoto, I understand your trepidation, I'm working on customer discovery
(and the target market is startups / entrepreneurs), but posting landing pages
with no utility seems a bit obnoxious - are you using Adwords / FB ads, etc to
drive your TM to the landing page?

~~~
ColinWright
It's recommended by several people as a way to get sign-ups and gauge interest
before committing time to something that may not have a market. I can see why
that might be regarded as useful.

It also runs the risk of annoying exactly those people who might be your early
adopters. If you think the people who are annoyed by it are just a small
proportion of your intended market then it might be worth while. You have to
not care about those first people - treat them as fodder to get the numbers
you need to make your decision.

Feels sociopathic - it would be nice to have a method of assessing interest
without something that smells of dishonesty.

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ulisesrmzroche
Bad advertising can harm sales, yeah. But sociopathic? I think you're
reeeeeeeaching too far, bro.

~~~
ColinWright
You've prompted me to go and double check, and here is what I've found.

Creating landing pages and implying that products exist when they don't,
largely for the purpose of gaining sign-ups and assessing the potential market
for such non-existent products is showing:

* a lack of empathy (they don't care how the user feels when they discover the "product" doesn't exist)

* cold-heartedness (similarly)

* egocentricity (they put their own concerns above others)

* manipulativeness (the landing page is specifically designed to manipulate the actions of the user)

* irresponsibility (implicitly claiming something exists, and not taking responsibility for their actions)

* a lack of remorse (they take the results and simply don't care).

These are many of the defining characteristics of a psychopath:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy>

Note that, as it says on that page, this does not imply violence, and should
not be confused with being psychotic, despite the similarity in terms.

It also says in WikiPedia:

    
    
        ... the term sociopathy is preferred because
        it is less likely than is psychopathy to be
        confused with psychoticism, ...
    

So yes, such behavior in which someone completely disregards the effects their
actions may have on others and proceeds purely on the basis of what they think
is best for them is a defining characteristic of sociopathy.

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ulisesrmzroche
There's nothing wrong with landing pages. Try to sell the product rather than
just begging for signups though.

Bad landing pages will hurt sales, but you're all confusing the intent of
landing pages with the quality of bad ones.

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dynabros
If they're solely giving you a landing page then it's just an advertisement
isn't it? Just like those pesky ads you're tortured with on youtube when you
really just want to watch a JB video...

