andrewteman.org

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much (if anything) user feedback really means when it comes to developing new products. How do you know where to draw the distinction between a few vocal users, and an actual groundswell that is representative of what the masses actually want or will use?

TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer actually had some fantastic thoughts on this at the Momentum Summit a few weeks back, but sadly, the audio of his interview is not on the wrap-up page. Do listen to these speakers though, they all were great (especially the story of Akamai from co-founder Tom Leighton).

ANYWAYS…

I was reminded of two great quotes on the subject of user feedback. One of which I’ve posted before.

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”

-Henry Ford

And

“Frind has resisted adding other commonly requested features, such as chatrooms and video profiles, on the same grounds. “I don’t listen to the users,” he says. “The people who suggest things are the vocal minority who have stupid ideas that only apply to their little niches.”

-Markus Frind

And lastly, since it is related and funny…

We recently added a “Feedback” tab on one of our consumer facing sites. The tab sits rather subtly to the side of the page, and is meant to give users a quick channel through which to send us (ideally meaningful) feedback. Since putting this up, we’ve had several users take advantage of this feedback tab. Their feedback? They don’t like the feedback tab.

Saw this article (via Lifehacker) today and loved it. I HATE those little mobile email signatures that excuse poor spelling and grammar, due to someone being mobile. Let alone the annoying taglines that advertise for the particular device and carrier.

In longhand, I think they say “I know there may be typos or I may have been a bit terse, but gimme some credit. I’m typing this on 5mm keys with my thumbs while waiting for my sushi, so be happy I triaged your email to be important enough to respond to right away instead of making you wait until tomorrow when it might get lost in my email pile. Gotta go … mmm, this food looks delicious …”

For a while now, I’ve been using this as my mobile signature. It may be equally annoying, but it makes me laugh and I’ve amused a few other people along the way as well.

Even if this signature is just as clowny, it at least serves as a good reminder to me, each time I type an email on my mobile device, to make damn sure that I keep it tight with the grammar and spelling. Or at least as tight as I would keep it when writing in my normal email client.

I was recently telling someone about Foursquare and how it worked, and the latter part of conversation (after I explained the basic mechanics of the app) went *roughly* as follows:

Friend: So you have to be IN the place to check in there?
Me: Well, you are supposed to be.
Friend: How does Foursquare know you are actually IN the place?
Me: It uses GPS to see where you are.
Friend: But can’t you just check into places nearby, even if you aren’t really in them?
Me:Yah, technically. Well, yes.
Friend: Well that seems kind of stupid.

And I had no response for that last line. She was right, that is kind of stupid.

Whenever I find myself explaining Foursquare to someone that doesn’t give a shit (there are bazillions of people like this by the way, lest us nerds forget), they initially think it’s completely stupid and don’t understand why on earth you would ever bother checking in someplace on your cellphone.

That is, until I explain that through Foursquare, businesses are able to reward their best customers (frequent checker inners) with cool freebies and specials. For instance, “Mayors” of Starbucks get a coupon…albeit a really lame one. Then these people who didn’t get it a minute or two earlier, start to see the value to them, as potential Foursquare users.

And as a side note, forget the pitch that you can use Foursquare to “see where your friends are”. My informal market research says that about 98% of non-nerds (and about 100% of non-nerd females) think this is totally creepy and passionately explain to me that this is a very strong reason for them to NOT use Foursquare.

ANYWAYS…so back to the value proposition that actually can attract new users. The freebies and discounts and rewards.

The big problem is the cheating. If your whole value proposition to the user is based around earning rewards for participation, but the mechanism for tracking participation is COMPLETELY full of holes and totally game-able, you’ve got a big problem on your hands. Namely in that people will get quickly disillusioned, angry, and quit. Foursquare game over.

So how can this be fixed? I saw the other day that businesses are going to be putting up Foursquare window decals (a lot like the Yelp decals you see around now), and my initial thought was that perhaps those decals would have a barcode that users could scan in order to check in. Which would be one slightly imperfect and slightly clunky way to solve the problem of check-in cheats. But it appears that these are merely endorsement/marketing decals and that’s about it.

But it got me thinking more about how and where the barcode scanning technology could work more elegantly within the check-in space. And more importantly, where could the check-in scan happen so that it effectively locked down cheating, and also upped the value of the check-in to both users and businesses?

What I ended up with was the idea that POS receipts in stores could include unique barcodes that Foursquare users could scan in order to get credit for a check-in. This wouldn’t necessarily have to fully replace the GPS based check-in system, but it would be a way for businesses to tie some subset of check-ins to not just attendance, but to ACTUAL purchases.

Within this sort of receipt-scan-based check-in system, there seems to be a lot of possibility for users, for businesses, and for Foursquare…

Users could get some sort of “verified check-in” credit, which perhaps could carry more weight than non-verified check-ins in terms of how these check-ins affected mayorships for retail stores.

Businesses again, would be able to start to really quantify, track, and understand the value of Foursquare users and tie check-ins to actual dollars. There is also the obvious potential for Foursquare to provide business with some generalized customer profile data here as well, which when tied with purchasing behavior and patterns, starts to get really really interesting for businesses.

And lastly, Foursquare gets into a better position where they start to lock down the cheating issue and develop a more effective system for pulling all of this together in a way that both users and businesses can really benefit from.

Obviously this idea works only for businesses and locations where an actual purchase can and would take place…but when it comes to cheating and rewards, this is the segment of businesses on Foursquare where this problem matters most. Isn’t it?

As the token “soccer guy” amongst many of my friends, I’ve been asked several times today about my thoughts on the USA v England game this past weekend. I’ll spare you the super boring details and analysis, and give you my quick synopsis, which is this. From a how-does-it-position-the-US-team-in-terms-of-advancing standpoint, the 1-1 draw was a fine result. We’ll take it. Overall a definite positive. As the New York Post said, “USA WINS 1-1!“.

However, from a how-does-this-result-bode-for-advancing-soccer-culturally-in-the-US, this was NOT a good result. A tie sort of plays into the ol’ “soccer is stupid” or “soccer is boring” argument nice and neatly. The tie (as ties do), sort of feels like a non-result. And after six months of waiting and hype, is a bit of a letdown to those that were hoping a US win over England might ignite some excitement for those on-the-fence types.

Anyhow, onto play Slovenia on Friday morning in what should be a fun game to watch, and a pretty necessary win for the US side.

And while we are here, how about some good soccer links from the past few days?

• Soccer Announces It’s Gay
• The Vuvuzela Twitter Feed
• Unfortunate font choice by ESPN for “CLINT” Dempsey.
• USA v England, Lego edition.
• Over in the UK, they just totally humiliate players that make mistakes.
• Soccer is coming to Fenway. Tickets on sale next week.