Now theres a nice pop

Okay, so I was checking the stats the other day and I noticed 150 users somehow found KungFuGrip.com. And of course my first reaction was elation. But the more I thought about it, my second was one of puzzlement. Because, when I looked into the stats, I realized the day was an aberration. That day was an island of potential in the sea of 50 - 60 users per day.

This many users by no means are bad, but the problem is Google analytics can't tell me jack about who those 150 users were and why they were there. So, yet again I am left to wonder.

The exciting thing is that my partner has discovered the world of viral video. Now this is a curious phenomenon because I was pulling most of my videos for KungFuGrip from the viral portion of YouTube, Google Video, and Yahoo Video. My thought was to get the most addictive viral videos on KungFuGrip. Then people couldn't help posting and coming to the site.

As usual, I would leave a message on the message board or forum where the video was located. This acts as a billboard to get at least the creator/poster of the video to come to KungFuGrip. At minimal, posting on a message board exposes more and more people to the virtues of KungFuGrip.

But from my search for videos I realized I was missing a major portion of the market. I was neglecting articles written about viral video. So I did a quick search and instantly found several. A couple of the articles were good and they even had comment boards. Finally I found the perfect medium to not come off like a spamming prick. I commented on a few articles and even offered my "impartial" opinion about YouTube, Revver, and of coarse KungFuGrip.

I have to say, this is my favorite form of advertising. It is sort of like an educated billboard sitting out there in cyberspace. More importantly, it is a gateway to the writing and tech community.

The "wisdom" of crowds

So, my partner sent me yet another article on how Digg.com is failing. It seems a small group of users control the stories that appear on the front page of Digg. This is a problem because this small group seems to be acting as a cohesive unit that votes all of their stories to the top. In the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" when ever you have a small group, they can be subject to group think. When this happens, the whole crowd tends to be not as smart as it could have been. And in the case of Digg, this can make their system not as democratic as it could have been.

Now, this relates to KungFuGrip because we use the same exact ranking system as Digg. Hence, we also want users to post, and we want them to vote. But, unlike Digg we have a big ad on our space that states "democratizing entertainment." This is not too cool to say, if your system is anything but democratic.

So, my solution is to post the new content with the gripped content on the front page. Also, I want to create a tab where links appear in random order. Then hopefully, people will learn we are truely "democratic" and come our way. Or at least more than 50 users per day!

Just another Tuesday.

Okay, so it seems I have taken on the task of trying to promote KungFuGRIP.com. I am learning just how difficult this is.

After several weeks of promoting the site, the stats just aren't moving. I have to say we are coasting at about 50 people per day. Now the tricky thing is that I don't know if this is a result of posting messages on forums, message boards, or direct email.

What I do know is that we seem to be the only site out there that aggregates entertainment from any entertainment site (that's good). But, there seems to be a whole number of sites that let you vote on entertainment like us (that's bad).

Well, regardless, my goal is to build up the audience. I am relying on teachings from "The Long Tail", "How To Sell a Lobster", "Buzzmarketing", "Grapevine", "Purple Cow", and "Free Prize Inside." And, yes, I do realize this is quite a list of books. But, I have to tell you, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what I have read.