

The Horizontal Distribution Hack - conradwa
http://www.growhack.com/2013/08/30/the-horizontal-distribution-hack/

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alanctgardner2
I think this is a unique observation that doesn't really scale to other
platforms: Facebook is a giant sea of rubbish apps, and the goal is to snatch
attention from someone scrolling through a whole pile of their friends'
updates. In this case it makes sense to post something as appealing and
specific as possible to the timeline, to better appeal to a random passerby.
App discovery on mobile is not drive-by: none of these apps will ever hit a
leaderboard (splitting them up fragments the userbase), and they'll look bad
in search results because of few downloads, few reviews, and a seemingly over-
specific purpose.

That's not to mention the fact that Apple won't let you publish 200,000 apps
from one account. This is like an article recommending that everyone become a
bounty hunter because it was a good way to make money in the Old West: it
takes advantage of a single market at a specific point in time. I wouldn't be
surprised if Facebook starts cracking down on this sort of spam as well soon.

~~~
teej
This guy's Facebook tactics haven't been valid for over 4 years and they
certainly won't work to the same degree on the App Store.

This particular tactic worked on Facebook because ratings of spaminness and
blocking happened on a per-app basis. You could take a spammy app, reskin it
1,000 ways, and release them in to the wild seperately. If a user blocked
"Diwali gifts" app they still get messages from "Christmas gifts" app. It's
essentially a hack to workaround the way Facebook's app ecosystem was designed
at the time.

He has two really important points, whether he knows it or not -

* There is a powerful long-tail search of apps in the App Store

* Users will be more likely to click and download an app that is more targeted at their search intent

Both of these are really hard to leverage with a single app right now in the
App Store. Apple WILL shut you down if you create 10,000 shallow copies of
your app, so that isn't an option.

~~~
ankurnagpal89
I have not developed for the Facebook platform since the latter half of 2011
so there might be some truth in it - but this was certainly effective up until
then.

The spam-rating was only one aspect of it - horizontal distribution attracted
users that otherwise simply would not have been interested in the application
otherwise.

Regarding iOS shutting you down, I think two things are important. The first
is making a good case for the application not being shallow - looking at the
way Udemy has full course (some of which have 10+ hours of material) on
drastically different topics as separate applications might be a good
template. They have over 100 iOS Apps and have not faced any action.

The other interesting strategy to consider (one that I haven't tested) is
talking power users (such as meetup group organizers) through the process of
generating the correct signing keys and then letting them download a complete
application binary that they independently submit to the App Store under their
own account. This casts a wider net and potentially might alleviate the
getting shut down issue.

With that said, I haven't tested it on iOS myself so cannot speak
authoritatively.

I have succeeded with horizontal distribution on Google Play by using screen
automation technology to submit applications - but finally, had to take it
down since the applications were based on quotes from TV shows which Google
claimed did not come under the Fair Use Act of the Copyright law (whole other
issue)

~~~
thetrumanshow
Nice. I call this technique the "attack of the clones". I was slammed with
this method by competitors in FB apps in 2007.

Cleverly done my nemesis. :) As you note, this is effective in many other
places too.

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ignostic
The premise here doesn't support the hypothesis. We start out talking about
Facebook apps, and it makes sense. The name of a game, when it appears on a
timeline, is far more compelling than the brand names. If you're trying to
sell a product, you need to get the product in front.

Here's where things start to break down. People don't look for meetups in
their apps - they look for meetups online. No one looks for a "SF singles
app." They don't even go to the appstore for that - they go to Google. And
despite the fact that I pulled this term out of a hat, guess who's first in
Google for "SF singles meetup"? Meetup.com.

The second reason this doesn't apply - meetup isn't selling a SF singles app
like a company sells a game. They're selling a platform to help people
organize. By putting the app name in front, they put the product in back.

Honestly I think the fragmentation of apps would be a mess, and that it would
ultimately result in lower visibility, awareness, and traffic figures for
meetup.com as the meetups themselves become the brand.

You cannoy simply assume that a branding strategy/architecture that worked in
one case will work as well for a different product or industry. Sometimes
umbrella/family branding is the way to go.

~~~
olefoo
You're right, and the reason why you're right is pretty interesting.
Meetup.com's business model is built around charging meetup organizers and
building the relationships between organizers and participants. So Meetup's
interest is to form a lasting relationship with it's users with the aim of
converting them to organizers; and single purpose distribution of apps for
individual meetups doesn't help that.

I would say that the OP is looking at the wrong metric for meetup's business
model; it's not mobile traffic that counts, it's contacts per user per
month[1] that tells meetup whether they're succeeding at building lasting
relationships.

1\. This would actually be a weighted moving average of the last three months
and another of the past year. Obviously, not the only metric in play.

~~~
conradwa
I don't think the argument is focused on what Meetup should do, but what they
could do if new user acquisition were a priority. It's a growth tactic that
can be balanced with retention and engagement approaches, that Meetup right
now understands and is heavily investing in.

Taking this approach also doesn't mean you'd have to go full throttle. You
could test and decrease the pace by only allowing a segment of quality
organizers the ability to create their own app.

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emhs
As some have mentioned, this is essentially spamming the markets with shallow
copies of your apps, which is typically verboten by major app stores. What's
really necessary to truly take advantage of this concept without being spammy
is a better form of keyword association for apps, allowing you to associate a
gift app with "birthday", "holiday", "diwali", "christmas", "hannukah", and
all the other holidays and occasions I can't think of at the moment. Of course
this would need some sort of check to prevent people from spamming keywords
you're not really relevant to (maybe a means of downvoting one of the keywords
that brought you to the app on the app's page?), but assuming you can enforce
a degree of responsible usage, this would allow app makers to build out the
semantic associations of what their app can provide to people. Google in
particular ought to be interested in something like this, as it would allow
them to further build out their sematic trees, and associate holiday gift apps
with specific holiday keywords more easily, enhancing their search results and
ensuring they stay ahead in the app-market game.

~~~
lsiebert
Let the app creator create initial tags. Have system tags like spam or
malware, that cause the app to be reviewed. Let users add and vote up or down
tags, perhaps prompting them when they update (so they will have used the app.
Downvoted tags are removed. Upvoted tags are placed higher in a search for
that. let users searching specify tag only, or app name and description, or
both.

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evadne
So, in short, spam the app stores? ;)

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mikekij
This makes a lot of sense. Someone should be an easy GUI to create lightweight
Facebook apps like the Meetup apps the author talks about. (Maybe this exists.
I've never developed for Facebook.)

~~~
ignostic
Meetup already integrates with Facebook, and it shows the name of the Meetup
rather than the product. Meetup wouldn't gain any additional advantage from
breaking their app down into a million pieces.

