I’ve never seen someone go from friendly and cheerful to all business so quickly. From the reaction, you’d think I’d said “I vivisect puppies.” I haven’t told someone “I work in marketing” since – at least not out of context.

The thing is, they’re partly justified. Think of marketing as a consumer and the first things that come to mind are probably an inbox full of spam, copious handfuls of junk mail (physical spam), phone calls while you’re eating dinner, commercials interrupting your night on the couch, and so on. Hell, why stop there? Don’t forget the bots posting nonsensical links in your blogs, or the bots and slimy “marketers” on Twitter (those guys with 50-100X more “following” than “followers”).

Yeah. Nowadays you’d better clarify: “I work in marketing, but I’m not one of the guys you hate.” Luckily these days I can say “I run my own business through websites,” and folks don’t always realize that that job description includes marketing. Being an entrepreneur is much more smalltalk-friendly than working in marketing.

Rule number 1 of modern marketing: Don’t be a dick.

Don’t send people any marketing materials they didn’t ask for: No spam, no junk mail. Blog comment spam, twitter spammers, etc, are Internet extensions of the old-and-broken mechanic of “I will interrupt people, steal their attention and valuable time, and they will buy my product.” People don’t react like that anymore. They hate you for it. I know I do. Don’t do it.

My projects will never spam you. I refuse to be that guy.

Listy.us will feature Google ads for non-paid accounts. Context sensitivity is it’s main selling point; If I have no choice but to show ads to support a project, I’m going to make sure those ads are something you want to see. As soon as a site can stand on its own without ads, the ads will be gone.

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During that chat, a lot of ideas were covered, and Raph briefly touched on how he thought offer-based marketing was a big new trend at GDC. Here’s the chat log, edited for relevance:

SL: Kim Chihuly: so fremium and microtransactions – any other new busines model stuff from GDC?
Raph: Yes! offer-based marketing
Raph: Huge new trend
gracemcdunnough: Raph, explain?
Raph: Offer-based marketing: where users are offered discounts/coupons/special access to partner programs, and referral revenue is paid to the oeprator
Raph: Reports from companies exploring this is that it has resulted in a 30% or so increase in their revenues
WorldMaker: Isn’t offer-based marketing entirely too 1990s Web 1.0?
SL: Dave Zeeman: Sounds like those “Get a free XBox 360!” ads.
SL: Adri Saarinen: Oh man, Offerpal was all over GDC
SL: Dave Zeeman: only in reverse
gracemcdunnough: Bounties, those were popular in the early web days

Full log here (Requires Metaplace beta account)

So I tossed “Research Offer-based Marketing” into my notebook, and forgot about it for a few days. Upon reading it again, I hit up good ol’ Google for some info. Probably the best article I came across was this one at VentureBeat. Good stuff.

How does this apply to my own interests, Listy in particular? Well, I’m always interested in marketing ideas – that’s just how I am. I’m particularly interested in marketing that doesn’t inconvenience the audience. No annoyance, etc. Given that, this seemed like a pretty good idea – I get revenue, user gets two somethings instead of one.

Now throw in virtual currency. What if the premium services on your web app cost a specific amount per month in virtual cash, and you can pick and choose the services you want (rather than free/premium boolean style)? Each service costs a little bit, user’s pages can have tip jars (tie it into twitter, even: @listybot: tip @tkstudios 100), users can buy points, or get ‘em via free offers.

It’s a pretty fun concept. A bit more complex than just having paid accounts, but definitely much cooler, and more importantly, much more fun. And fun’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? I mean, besides functionality and usefulness and a hundred other factors…

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Something unique to Metaplace is the idea of the Meep. It’s a small dustbunny like critter that rolls or jumps around. It’s kind of the unofficial MP mascot, and the testing community loves them. So much so, that they created a world purely to protest the potential change of the verb “Meep” to “Nudge.”

Meep, as a verb, was (as I understand it) an idea of Cuppycake, community manager of Metaplace, that got put into the game on their free time. It was intended to be like a Facebook “poke.” There’s a context menu option when you click other players to Meep them.

The problem that prompted the suggested change from Meep to Nudge, and the backlash that ensued, was that new users just didn’t get it. I even suggested myself that people don’t really know what Meep is, and might not feel comfortable doing something they don’t really understand. I suppose I never fully explained my concern there: My problem was that users didn’t understand the idea right away, it wasn’t with the idea of Meeping people.

Nudge is a bland, boring, and emotionally blank word. It doesn’t say anything about the Metaplace experience.

Meep, on the other hand, has a story. It has personality. It’s among the first few experiences of MP: Once you venture out into a hub world, you’re bound to be Meeped.

The problem is not the Meep. The problem is that the introductory experience, where you sign up and are plopped into your own little world, doesn’t really introduce the Meep. The hub worlds don’t introduce the Meep. The Meep has huge potential to be the cute, fuzzy, lovable mascot of MP – it’s kind of like a Koosh with eyes and mobility. It just needs to be introduced better.

Maybe when you log in for the first time, a Meep will appear and start introducing you to the gameplay. It’d have a little exclamation over its head, indicating it’s suddenly aware of you, and bounce/roll it’s way over, and start talking. “Hi! I’m a Meep!” and the dialog boxes that ensue could not only explain the Meep, but expand on the verb form, “Meeping.”

You could also have a sort of billboard in the MP Central hub, something like “Keep on Meepin’!” with a picture of someone nudging someone in the shoulder with a Meep. Clicking on the billboard would bring up a dialog similar to the one your House Meep would have presented you with.

Basically, my take on it is that Meep is a far better, more interesting, and more noteworthy verb than nudge. It’s something that people can feel one way or another about, and if taken care of properly, folks will mostly feel positively about it. The Metaplace crew just needs to make sure that they communicate the Meep story effectively.

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It’s also probably the first time I’ve ever found a slideshow amusing.

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Money is a renewable resource.

Time is not renewable.

Once spent, your time is gone, and you’ve got to make do with what you’ve got left. So, I suppose while you should pay attention to both of these, and their relation to eachother, you should never make the mistake of thinking they are the same. Time is infinitely more precious.

I’m sure someone else out there has had these same thoughts in a more interesting format, but I just felt I should commit it to virtual paper, so I can always come back to it and smack myself upside the head if need be.

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