
Ask HN: What to do with this meme? - dchest
Hello,<p>I made this little web app - iwl.me, which is just a box with a button. You give it some text, it analyzes it and tells you what famous writer you write like (I won't go into algorithmic discussion for now), and gives you a badge for blog and a link for sharing on Twitter/Facebook/Buzz. It's up for 3 days now, here are stats:<p><pre><code>   2nd day - 12,000 uniques
   3rd day - 100,000 uniques
</code></pre>
It's spreading just like a perfect meme should :-) E.g. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=iwl.me<p>My question is, what should I do with it:<p>a) for monetary gain (It already achieved the SEO effect I planned, not sure what to do now).<p>b) for a good cause. I'm already thrilled to notice that people discover and re-discover writers and say "Oh, I write like [writer], I must read more of his works." What can I do to get more of this effect?<p>What do you think? I'm open to ideas or deals. Thank you!<p>PS Technical details: it's running on a single Rackspace Cloud instance with 512 MB RAM, Apache+web.py.
======
jonafato
How about then giving the user a list of works by that author via amazon? If
the users really do want to read more of that writer's stuff, this might be a
good way to get some affiliate business. You could possibly even point to
specific works that they "write like". You might also take a look at the
goodreads api (<http://www.goodreads.com/api>) for some possible social
networking aspects? Maybe you could show people reading things they write like
via goodreads or something along those lines.

~~~
dchest
I thought about Amazon affiliate program, but I'm outside the US, and it's a
huge hassle to deal with checks here.

Thanks for suggestions!

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I presume you mean cheques of money sent you from Amazon?

If it's too much hassle to cash potentially huge affiliate checks then you're
rich enough, give the site to someone else that wants more money.

Seriously FB has 400Million active uniques. If you capture one-hundreth of a
percent of those and then of those 1% convert and you make $1 on each
conversion that's $400.

Even if it took me a whole day to organise cashing the cheque that would be
worth it.

For Amazon though the problem is that they fragment their affiliate scheme (to
create less opportunity for small sites to break the cash-out threshold
presumably) so AdWords or whatever might be better.

~~~
dchest
I'm in a new country (Montenegro), haven't got residence permit here yet,
don't have a permanent address, and don't speak the local language to figure
out how to cash checks.

Anyway, I've added Amazon affiliate links now, maybe I'll cash out with gift
certificates.

~~~
Yaggo
Can anybody confirm it's possible to join Amazon Associates outside "Amazon"
countries? (US/UK/FR/DE/JP/CA)

Spent 5 minutes on Googling but didn't find the information.

~~~
dchest
Yes, it's possible. Just sign up here <http://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/join/getstarted>

------
ankeshk
1\. Quickly send an email to the Top 20 writing sites out there. And make them
an offer: they could get a white label version of your script to be on their
URL with their logo for a fee. Strike while the iron is hot.

2\. On the results page, quickly create a form that asks for peoples email id.
And then publish a newsletter that helps folks become better writers.
Capturing email ids also give you a big base of folks with whom you can share
your future apps with. Faster seeding.

~~~
dchest
2\. Done. Thanks!

------
GBKS
I'll share some experience with your from cornify.com, which had the same
effect and still goes strong 1.5 years later (this year invitation to ROFLCON,
SXSW people's choice award, installed in 550000 web pages...). This is my
experience with a project that's different from yours, so I hope it will help
with your specific situation.

The main thing you need to achieve is to make your site about a bigger theme.
This feature will remain the core, but you need to be associated with
something bigger. With Cornify, it's always been about happiness. Unicorns and
rainbows are (almost) second to that, which gives me much more room to work
with. Make your site about famous writers, becoming a better writer, or
something like that. Use imagery that matches the theme.

The second big thing is to make your tool deep, while keeping it simple.
People know it for this one thing and the one thing only. Make it so you can
find something new every time you use it, make it smart so it learns with the
number of times you use it. Surprise people. Tweak, tweak, tweak.

Third recommendation is to build a voice and talk to people. Get Twitter and
Facebook accounts. Decide on how you want to relate to people and what they
should get out of being interested in you. I've gotten so many "Oh, I can't
believe Cornify is on Twitter" comments, it shows that you care about the
site. A brand would also be a big help. Maybe you can look into using imagery
of famous writers.

Find a way that people can create things on your site. With Cornify, people
really like the photo uploader. Find something that people can create on your
site and then share. This keeps people coming back.

Most importantly, keep things fun. This is not serious business, this is a
meme. If things stop being fun or get cluttered with ads, people will not take
your serious and won't come back. Be very careful about monetizing. A meme
that people like is an incredibly thing to have in your resume and a great
talking point. I worked on projects for MTV, Nintendo, EA, etc, but people get
way more excited when they find out I created Cornify. This is a meme and you
may be more proud of other things you have done, but in terms of public
recognition, you should take this very serious.

And congratulations. It's very exciting to see a project blow up like this.
Hope you have a great time with it.

~~~
dchest
Thanks for sharing your experience!

~~~
GBKS
Just wanted to emphasize one more time that you need to act right now. Stop
sleeping if you need to. The next few days are super important.

------
waterlesscloud
Many of my FB friends are writers, this thing has spread like wildfire through
them today. But the thing is it's a flash in the pan effect. It'll do huge for
a very short period of time with no revisits. If you monetize, do it RIGHT
NOW. Tomorrow is too late. Almost literally.

~~~
dchest
I agree, just like almost every meme, it's short-lived.

~~~
niels_bom
A lot of the memes on the web are short-lived, however there's nothing about
memes that makes them inherently short-lived. Some memes live extremely long.

~~~
dchest
I'd be interested to see examples of long-lived memes like this.

~~~
dabent
<http://icanhascheezburger.com/>

<http://www.hotornot.com/>

~~~
hugh3
Those at least give you neverending variety. There are novel thousands of new
variations on the lolcat theme every day, and no end to the slot-machine-like
fun of rating people hot or not in the hope of eventually getting to one who
is either particularly hot or hilariously not.

But once you've posted in a sample of your own writing, gone "Hahaha, I write
like Mario Puzo, hey guys, guess what?", I find it hard to imagine anyone
coming back time after time.

~~~
dabent
That is true. There's a lack of stickiness to the original poster's app as it
is. It might be interesting to see how other people's writing was rated.

The newsletter addition was a good idea. I have a feeling many "writers" would
be upset to learn they wrote like Dan Brown, no matter how many novels he's
sold. Possibly a "From Brown to Updike: How to Improve Your Writing" course.

The OP's idea is darn viral, however. I love the success he's had.

------
dchest
Clickable: <http://iwl.me>

------
ComputerGuru
I know you said you're not discussing the algorithm, but to me, the biggest
proof of silliness (I won't say "nonsense") is that when I entered 7 different
blog posts of mine, I got 6 different results.

~~~
AgentConundrum
I tried two different posts I wrote (in fact, the entire contents of my
rebooted blog, since RSI has kept me down lately), as well as one half-written
post, and apparently they all appeared to be Dan Brown works.

I'm not quite sure what to think of that, but at least it was reasonably
consistent for me.

~~~
irahul
It was completely inconsistent for me. I tried 4 posts and got 4 different
results. I tried 2 different parts of the same post and got different results.

I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers.

Also, NLP classification is a hard problem. I don't think doing it reliably
over a weekend is possible. I think that had OP done any good work on NLP, he
would have discussed it. I am more inclined to think the app is just giving
random results.

~~~
dchest
_I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers._

Nope. It's just a Bayesian classificator :)

~~~
timdellinger
You realize that there is a niche of academia that works on using computers
for analysis of writing samples in order to determine probable authorship,
right? Algorithms exist that have been tweaked and improved over the years
that you might be interested in reading about.

You might also connect with the people who try to identify students who turn
in term papers and lab reports written by other people.

You could also add a game (who wrote the following paragraph? (Multiple
choice)). That would be an avenue for return visitors.

You could also have "write like Hemingway / Dickens / Neal Stephenson / etc."
contests. Kinda like painters going to famous museums and copying the works of
famous painters, it's a way to extend and hone the craft of writing. I recall
a good version of Twas The Night Before Christmas written as if Hemingway
wrote it. Also, connect with specific writers' fanbases (especially Chuck
Palahniuk), and with writers workshops, and fanfic groups. Poetry, too.

There are a lot of ways you could take this. Make sure your algorithm is
effective, though!

~~~
dchest
Yes, I even have been contacted by people who research this, and received a
lot of pointers to interesting works. But I'm sure I wouldn't be able to
integrate and figure out this in 3 days.

You suggestions are helpful. Now that I'm interested in this topic, I may
release something better. Thanks.

------
pclark
upsell a relevant product

affiliate deals for the authors books

enjoy the seo :)

------
wlievens
I fetched a document I wrote and entered several paragraphs, and got a
different author each time. What does that say about me (or your algorithm)?

Congratulations on the traction though!

~~~
forcetenhen
I tried a couple of times, got Raymond Chandler, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King
and... Dan Brown. All for different elements of the same page. In turns
inpsiring and soul-crushing..

------
patrickmclaren
Obviously this would be something that would mean a lot more work, but how
about.. Tracking a users's blog feed, parsing each post and see how their
writing style evolves over time?

This would certainly increase the longevity of your app.

~~~
dchest
This is a great idea. I'll do this when I have time, thanks.

~~~
nedwin
on that note checkout 750words.com. Basically you write 750 words a day and it
analyses the text to tell you about what you have written - whether it's
extroverted, self-centred, positive etc. These stats are then displayed with
nice graphs.

------
ssn
There is no info about the 'famous writer'. At least an Amazon affiliate link
to the author should generate some income. Also, the first paragraph from
Wikipedia would be useful.

------
mynameishere
Based on your post, you write like Dan Brown.

~~~
dchest
:-) Here's some funny feedback:
[http://www.codingrobots.com/blog/2010/07/13/funny-
feedback-o...](http://www.codingrobots.com/blog/2010/07/13/funny-feedback-on-
i-write-like/)

------
ncarroll
Depending on which paragraph within the same blog post I checked I write like
Margret Atwood, Mark Twain or Isaac Asimov. By removing the last sentence from
my Asimov-like paragraph: H.P. Lovecraft. Removing another sentence I write
like Edgar Allan Poe.

I'm not sure what this tells me about my writing, but it does stroke my ego.
Sometimes that's just what a writer needs.

------
mindcrime
You might consider pinging somebody at Lulu (print-on-demand self-publishing
company). They might be interested in partnering with you in some fashion...
since they specialize in helping authors get published, there might be some
synergy there; even if it were no more than a Lulu advertisement on your site.
Other self-publishing outfits (CreateSpace, SmashWords, etc.) might have a
similar interest.

Disclaimer: I'm a former Lulu employee and still like those guys a lot, which
is why they came to mind first. :-)

Also, if you're interested and need any help making a contact there, feel free
to email me. I still have a few connections left over there, I think.

------
kapranoff
First, congratulations.

I think your first goal now should be encouraging users to return later.

I would definitely promise right on the results page that more writers would
be added regularly and algorithms would be improved so that people had reasons
to bookmark you or to subscribe to your twitter/facebook waiting for their
favourite authors.

I would also make local pages for all writers you have. Link to Amazon in that
place is unexpected.

You could also encourage showing off by enhancing badges. That could be
percentages (e.g. I write like 7% of users) or cool portraits or even
something like "I write like Stephen King - I could have written The Stand".

------
drtse4
Impressive uniques progression... what did you do on day 1? I mean, what
strategy did you employ to launch the meme? I guess you launched it on
codingrobots blog/newsletter/twitter, did you do anything else?

Regarding the spreading, a tweet from some real author will be great (how?).
And what about publishing some real-time stats about the results? i.e. 30% of
our users write like Dan Brown, 10% like xxx, etc...

EDIT: "Margaret Atwood, who is in our database of famous writers, tweeted
about it (apparently, she doesn’t write like herself… oops :)" Already
happened... enjoy the exponential growth in visits :)

~~~
dchest
Yes, newsletter, Twitter and blog. First "outside" referrals were from reddit
([http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/cnmny/what_famou...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/cnmny/what_famous_writer_you_write_like_check_with_this/))
and my HN comment on "What are you working on today?"
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1501078>). Total of 132 visits on the
first day.

Currently:

    
    
      facebook.com 20.75%
      tumblr.com   8.24%
      twitter.com  5.57%
    
    

Of the popular writers, Margaret Atwood tweeted about it (apparently, she
doesn't write like herself -- she is in the database :)
<http://twitter.com/MargaretAtwood/status/18463485898> and William Gibson
<http://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/18450533599>

I don't track any stats regarding results of analysis, I can only see which
result pages get more visits.

------
hcho
How about recommendations like "people who write like Bukowski enjoys
Burgess"? Of course the author names are links to your affiliate program.

BTW, the banner at the bottom of your site is taking ages to load.

~~~
dchest
_BTW, the banner at the bottom of your site is taking ages to load._

Hmm, it's hosted on Rackspace Files CDN.

------
paraschopra
Bit off topic, but it will be interesting to learn how you seeded the meme.
Will be good for people like me who churn out such minor projects which always
fail to get >100 visitors :)

As far as monetary gain is concerned, immediately you can find some of the
writers books on Amazon and link them up in the results page with your
affiliate id. Long term you can capture email ids and send them offers on
email.

------
mirkules
It would be interesting to see a comparison graph of other users. For example,
I would be interested to see how many other people write like Vladimir
Nabokov, and maybe even what the top 10 writers are.

Congratulations on your success!

P.S. You said you're in Montenegro but don't speak the language -- just
remember "pivo" (beer) and "poshto?" (how much) and you'll be fine ;)

------
jackfoxy
It says I write like James Joyce. You sure know how to pump up my ego! There
must be money in that.

~~~
kashif
Makes the two of us. Want our money, you can have it.

------
fragmede
Depending on how well it's done, I could imagine 'niche' writing analysis
doing alright. What 18th-century philosopher do you write like? What CS
textbook writer do you write like? Which Doctor Who do you write like? Etc.

------
vinhboy
Dude, you have no facebook Like, Tweet this, Buzz it, links?

.... oh wait.... they do exist...

Umm ok... How about you use the regular icons for familiarity sake?

I also like the "bio" idea. Seeing a name I don't recognize makes the
experience a bit hollow.

------
revorad
Oh you should totally join forces with this guy -
<http://www.finishstart.com/> \- it will be a whacko mashup.

------
ckeen
I just pasted some irc logs. IRC writes like Mark Twain...

------
xutopia
Amazon affiliate links for books by said authors?

------
JMiao
pg ~ kurt vonnegut

------
Ardit20
I write like Joyce apparently and Defoe

------
ssn
Lovecraft here.

