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Archives for 2014

Micro-experiments in shell entities

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Gary mentioned on Monday that some companies experiment with user interactions by firing up experimental apps. They drive paid traffic to the apps to calculate the user interaction’s success. After the user interaction is well tested, they integrate it into their primary product.

I set up a series of IFTTT recipes today. They watch Twitter and Reddit for tags graffiti and street art hash tags. When they find the tag, they retweet the image through twitter. I’m getting a lot of engagement from strangers through passively running these scripts.

The quality of retweeted content is low. I could improve this system by filtering what I actually repost. I could go as far as require manual selection of posts. I am finding value in identifying the kind of people who engage with the tags I am interested in.

“I buy my own supplies and pay my own tickets.”

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In developing my idea, Im conscious of the problem I can solve. I want to provide value to the parties involved in building the street art community. To refine my ideas, I’ve been using reddit.

The feedback I am getting is mixed. In the /r/streetart subreddit I got one person who expressed clear interest in wanting to monetaryily contribute to the creation of street art. In the /r/graffiti and /r/stencil threads, I am getting many more no’s.

One comment that stood out was by a person who sounds like an artist. The person said:

As an artist that works so so hard for any money that I make with art, no. No I wouldn’t. That being said I would never ask for that from another artist. An art trade maybe.

I thought the user misunderstood my question, so I specified my point. Instead the point was reaffirmed with this comment:

Nope. I buy my own supplies and pay my own tickets.

This forces me to reflect on the reality for artists. People dont want to be left asking for stuff. People may like being approached, as in sponsored, but they dont want to be in a place of vulnerability. This makes total sense.

I took a deeper look at AngelList today and realize I really like their model for showcasing startups. The homepage alone serves three distinct needs: job seekers, trend seekers, passive observers. I think the model they use is going to be reflected in my own presentation.