PHP Coders 42% Nicer Than Ruby Coders, Java Coders The Meanest

Quick disclaimer: This is meant to be tongue in cheek 🙂

For the past six months I’ve been using my webapp Pluggio to grow my Twitter following based on the this strategy here.

A key component is to enter hashtags relating to the type of people I want as my followers.  Pluggio uses this data to make friend suggestions based on who Tweets those terms. I’ve been searching on hashtags like #css, #html, #php, #ruby, etc. because I want a tech following.

Pluggio has been keeping track of stats. It tells me who I followed and who was kind enough to follow me back (based on hashtag).

Using this data-set if we say that Apple Fanboys have a niceness factor of 100% (they followed back the most) then we can see that PHP coders are a whopping 42% nicer than Ruby coders. Horrible stingy Java coders are more than 50% meaner than Apple fan boys.

Hashtag I followed Followed back % Followed Back Niceness Factor
#apple 481 80 16.6% 100%
#api 568 89 15.7% 94%
#php 244 36 14.8% 89%
#html5 852 116 13.6% 82%
#firefox 2007 268 13.4% 80%
#css 463 60 13.0% 78%
#ror 382 49 12.8% 77%
#javascript 411 51 12.4% 75%
#android 1944 224 11.5% 69%
#perl 316 35 11.1% 67%
#rails 547 59 10.8% 65%
#stackoverflow 431 44 10.2% 61%
#cakephp 603 60 10.0% 60%
#ruby 509 50 9.8% 59%
#java 306 24 7.8% 47%

So, next time you’re in a bar and ask someone what they do.

If they reply “I’m a Java coder”.

Just remember, be wary.

Be verrrry wary.

Of course another way of looking at it is that Java & Ruby coders are just more discerning 😉

 

This is a test of Pluggio’s Automated RSS -> Twitter Posting Feature

I added this new post to my blog to make sure that Pluggio auto posts it to Twitter.

For more information watch this video: http://pluggio.com/videos/feed_automation

A retrospective of the first 110 episodes of the TechZing tech startup podcast

This is a guest post by Gordon Oppenheimer who submitted these comments on the TechZing blog for episode 110.

In the past month and a half, I have listened to all 110 episodes [of TechZing]. Here are my thoughts:

The Show Name

In my opinion, you were committed to the name with the first link/mention pointing to TechZing. All the discussion about it got kinda old but in retrospect it is one of the aspects of the show I like the best. I got to listen in on your struggles about the name and your decision making process (more on that later).

Unusual Guests

It is a great idea, and I like the choice of guests. This is the “Zing” part of the show.

Straying off Tech Topics

You seem to have a good balance. The non-tech topics, for the most part, do interest me. More “Zing” parts.

Build vs Reuse

You most often talk about this with regard to frameworks. In different ways, you both advocate writing your own framework. You have both been coding for a long time and I think you forget what it is not to know all that you know. For me, I started using a framework (Codeigniter) about a year ago because the possibilities for coding were too vast and I felt lost. The framework gave me some structure that was built on what others had learned. I may not understand all the reasons it helps or hurts yet but at least it gives me a reasonable direction.

Justin and Jason Projects

This is the BEST part of the show. I get the sense that you feel a little guilty asking guests about your own projects. However, this is where I learn the most. The rest of the stuff on the Internet tries to distill everything down to THE answer. But as you have mentioned, there is no ONE answer. When you ask about your own projects or discuss them with each other, I get to listen in on the decision making process.

Show Suggestion

Get a panel of guests and use the whole show to discuss all aspects of a single project (yours or some other struggling startup). Discuss marketing, pricing, freeium vs trials, payments, technologies, A/B testing, revenues, costs, professional help (accounting, legal, business entities), etc… It would be like a case study.

Thanks for the show!

End of guest post. If you haven’t heard TechZing and you’re looking for a totally new type of tech podcast we invite you to check it out at http://techzinglive.com

Infinity Inbox

I recently listened to episode 2 of Those Optimize Guys podcast. They were talking about the idea and methodology of Inbox Zero.

The idea is to keep zero messages in your inbox as often as possible.

My approach is somewhat different. In fact the exact opposite. I haven’t moved a message out of my inbox (other than spam) for about 15 years.

I had the same approach pre-Gmail. I was so happy when Gmail arrived that I could import my entire inbox from Outlook into it.

I now have over 30,000 messages in my inbox and I love it.

The pile of messages is so impossibly large it has the exact same effect as inbox zero. It’s impossible to see the wood for the trees. It’s just one very large Forrest.

I think of it like a big white screen with 30,000 white pixles on it. Pure zen.

Over the years I’ve carefully developed 100’s of Gmail filters that auto label incoming email with big bright primary color labels. I don’t even need to read subjects to get a general sense of what’s going on.

Instead of an inbox I use ‘bold’. I know if anything is ‘bold’ I haven’t dealt with yet. When I see something bold I click into it and deal with it (or apply the .todo label).

Many of my Gmail filters auto mark messages as unread when they come in (ie un-bold them). Things like recurring saas billing emails, ebay notifications etc. Because they are un-bold I ignore them. They take no time out of my day. But it’s nice to have a record, just in case.

In many ways I now have the same relationship with my inbox as I do with svn or git commit logs.

The upsides I get from this approach are:

  • Same low stress level as inbox zero because I’ve “let go”
  • Complete peace of mind that my information is safe and backed up
  • Instantly search 15 years worth of MY information, correspondance, recipts & contacts
  • Minimal email management due to 100’s of inbox filters with auto tagging. No need to archive etc.
  • Ability to scan recent few days to a week to get a sense of what’s been going on (like looking at svn log)
  • Easy to track todo list

I’m happy to say my inbox will always grow and grow. I have no intention of declaring inbox bankruptcy.

Ever.

Of course I’m sure I’m not the only one. I bet plenty of other people do it!

Do you have an Infinity Inbox? If so how many messages? How old?

Let us know in the comments below!

Twitter Stats By Email Launched

Half the battle of growing a successful Twitter account is keeping track of your stats.

That’s why I’ve created “Twitter Stats By Email” a new service that sends you a weekly snapshot of how you’re doing.

It’s free with instant sign-up @ http://pluggio.com/twitter-stats

How We Record TechZing

Hardware

We both have Macs (and did the same thing when we both had PC’s).

Jason’s mic (at the time of writing this is a standard Plantronics skype headset) Justin’s mic is a combination of Centric Mic Port Pro, Sure Headset Mic & Sony Headphones. The headphones were chosen because they are light and can be comfortably worn with the Sure headset. Jason will soon be switching to the same mic combo.

Software

During the shows we talk to each other using Skype. Justin records the audio using Audio Hijack Pro. As a redundant backup we also record the show using Call Recorder at the same time (on both sides).

Audio Hijack Pro is setup to record audio into two separate mono audio files. One file is a direct input of Justin’s mic recorded to raw aiff. The other file is a recording of skype’s input also recorded as raw aiff.

Editing & Processing

After the files are recorded both are processed via Levelator. Just drag and drop files onto it. Then two output files are created. Those files are imported into Mackie Tracktion 3 where the show is edited removing any drops or static. Another part of the editing is removing the cross talk so that it sounds like the conversation flows naturally.

When editing the show both tracks have the Mackie filter “Final Mix” on them and then the same filter is used again for the master output (so it’s used 3 times). It is used for split band compression and dynamic limiting. Also both tracks have dynamics processors on them to stop any clipping and also as a gate to only allow noise above n-DB (test for best results) to be heard (eliminates background noise during silence for either track).

The track is then rendered directly as mp3 with 128 mbps with normalize set to true.

Publishing

Then the artwork and id3 tags are added to the .mp3 using Jaikoz. Then the mp3 is uploaded to Soundcloud. Finally a post is added to techzinglive.com. techzinglive.com uses WordPress and a hacked version Burbery Podpress for podcast publishing. The hack is to enable soundcloud player to work on the website. There is also a cheeky URL 301 redirect from http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-<SHOW#>.mp3 –> http://soundcloud/techzing/techzing-<SHOW#>/download/ to enable us to abstract file location.

Why You Should NOT Charge for Your Webapp From Day One

Cargo Cult

When I launched my webapp Pluggio last year there was a cargo-cult meme doing the rounds…

“You should charge From Day 1”

…that meme is still doing the rounds today (Jan 2011).

If you’re about to launch your web app let me tell you don’t do that!

Lucky Mistake

I made the lucky mistake with Pluggio of not charging from day one. Not because I didn’t want to – but because I didn’t have the payment stuff setup and I was too lazy to do it before launch.

Lucky for me, instead, I made it very easy to signup for free and explained that I would be charging in a few months, but for now it’s 100% free. So signup! Play while you can! Get value out of it! (before it costs anything).

Free Testers & Focus Group

As a result a lot more people signed up because they felt like they were getting a deal.

This approach enabled me to have 200-300 users a day for the first few months using the software. I didn’t realize at the time but that was an awesome advantage. People were reporting bugs and making suggestions via Get Satisfaction left right and center. (Make sure to put your Get Satisfaction link at the top of every page)

So, for two months, I worked like crazy fixing all the bugs and adding as many features as I could for those free users. Because it was free people were very forgiving and supportive of the work I was doing.

Then after two months of free – I turned the site paid.

Note: I gave all testers one year free paid account as a thank you.

Better Product. More Money.

Due to having so many people testing it out, the site was massively better than it could have been if I had a pay-wall from at the beginning. Subsequently Pluggio retention rates of paid users are thorugh the roof – with the average paid user sticking around for six to nine months.

In my opinion, you won’t make real money on your product until it’s rounded out and bug free.

By opening the flood gates for the first two months of existence, keeping it free, making it super easy for people to report bugs – you will get a rounded out bug free product, wayyyy  faster than if you had any kind of pay-wall.

End result. Better product. Happier users. More money.

Plans & Pricing Page? No way!

I would especially suggest not having any kind of Plans & Pricing page that committed to price points or plan limits. Yes have a plans and pricing page, but just say “coming in a few months, for now everything is 100% free”. If you put any kind of real plans and pricing it hurts you because it makes it way more likely for people not to test your product.

This turned out to be hugely helpful for me with Pluggio because then I could review the stats and see exactly how to create my small, medium & large plans. I could define triggers for each plan  based on what people were actually doing rather than just guessing.

Disclaimer: As always there is no one truth, so if you have any counter (or supporting) examples please feel free to comment below.

How to get the mime type of a remote file in php (with redirects)

Just in case it’s of any use to anyone else out there, here’s a function that can get the mime type of a remote file. It will also follow any redirects that are in place.

function get_url_mime_type($url)
{

$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, 1);
curl_exec($ch);
return curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_CONTENT_TYPE);

}

How To Make Twitter Work For You In 5 Minutes A Day

When I first started hearing about Twitter over a year ago I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. Now, a year later, I understand exactly what all the fuss is about!

Twitter is a genuinely awesome tool to help you grow your business and your personal network, and when paired with resources like direct tax compliance services, it can also help you navigate the financial aspects of your business. You also have the option to buy ig followers cheap if you want to promote your business on your Instagram page.

By participating in Twitter for 5 minutes a day I have seen the following benefits within one year:

  • I found an awesome business partner who is co-founder of my new start-up and who may know of details like the nebraska llc fees
  • I raised awareness of my start-up Pluggio and made $12,000 revenue as a result
  • I asked many questions about things I was struggling with and instantly got excellent answers
  • I asked if anyone needed a contractor with my skill-set and instantly got a job
  • I drove hundreds of users to the weekly tech podcast that I co-host (TechZing)

Getting Started

When embarking on my Twitter journey I decided on a few important rules from the outset:

  • I didn’t want to spend more than 5 minutes a day using Twitter (I have so much other important stuff to do)
  • I didn’t want to use any kind of spammy Twitter “bot” to grow my following
  • I only wanted to connect with people into the same things as me (in my case tech & programming)
  • I didn’t want to spam my followers. I only wanted to Tweet useful information

How I Did It (in 2 easy steps)

  1. On a daily basis, I searched Twitter for people into the same thing as me (and followed them)
  2. Every day (without fail) at regular intervals throughout the day I Tweeted things my followers found interesting

On a daily basis, I searched Twitter for people into the same thing as me (and followed them)

There is a convention on Twitter that people use called Tagging. If someone wants to tag a tweet they will type # and then the tag. For example – #britneyspears – (it’s always just one word, no spaces).

I found the best way to search for people is by using single word tags. Then I could be sure that I was targeting the right type of person. I used search keywords like:

  • #css
  • #html
  • #java

I know the only people who will tag a tweet with any of those terms are programmers and techies, people like me! So, on a daily basis I searched twitter using those keywords, and when I found people that looked interesting I followed them. Then, I hoped they would think I look interesting, and follow me back. It’s a simple yet effective strategy—much like how creators optimize their content for engagement, as seen in viral successes highlighted by The Marketing Heaven.

That is how I grew my highly relevant and valuable following, and it’s a strategy that can be enhanced with tools like the SMM Panel TikTok to further broaden your social media reach and engagement.

Once I had converted a follower I needed to convince them they had made the right decision to follow me. I needed to show them that I was worth listening to and connecting with. Otherwise they would un-follow me and  certainly not take note of my recommendations or mentions about Pluggio or TechZing.

Every day (without fail) at regular intervals throughout the day I Tweeted things my followers found interesting

Interesting Tweets can take a few different forms:

  • Tweet something funny or informational that you think of
  • Tweet a link to something funny or informational that you created
  • Tweet a link to something funny or informational that someone else created

I decided to go with option 3. Options 1 & 2 just seemed like sooo much work!

So, every day, first thing in the morning I scoured all my favorite news websites Digg, HackerNews, TechCrunch, etc. and found 10 interesting articles that I knew my followers would also find interesting. I copy and pasted the links and titles into a text file, shortened the links, then pasted 10 Tweets into Twitter.

Too many Tweets in one go

This was almost the right strategy and my followers definitely appreciated the great content, but it didn’t take long to find out that no amount of great content would make up for how annoying it is to get 10 tweets in a row from the same person…

So, I changed my strategy. I still scoured and found 10 great articles first thing in the morning but now I made a new commitment to only Tweet one story every hour.

At this point my daily routine became:

  • First thing in the morning find 10 awesome articles, shorten links, store them in a text file for later Tweeting
  • Login to Twitter every hour:
    • Tweet a story
    • Search twitter for new folks to follow
    • Answer Tweets that people sent my way

The great news was that I had discovered a process that fulfilled nearly all of my goals. My following was growing rapidly. I was striking up new friendships with folks who were into the same thing as me. I was beginning to see how important Twitter could become to me.

The not so great news was that my hourly Twitter logins took a huge toll on my productivity.

I didn’t want to spend more than 5 minutes a day using Twitter (I have so much other important stuff to do)

By this stage I knew that what I was doing was not spammy and was percieved as valuable by many of my followers (about 1500 at this point). I was regularly being thanked, re-tweeted and also on many peoples #FollowFriday lists.

Even so, I couldn’t help thinking how much time I was wasting. Almost everything I was doing could be done by software. That’s when I decided to use my programming skills to build  software that refined the above process into a 5 minutes a day session.

5 Minutes A Day!

I created software that did all of the above (apart from the link curating). Then a few friends asked if they could get access so I made a semi-public version. Then finally gave in and release it into the wild. At first I called it TweetMiner, then I changed the name to Pluggio. I’ve been using it for 5 minutes a day to grow and maintain my following ever since. All the benefits I’ve seen have been through this daily 5 minute routine.

You can get the exact same effect without using Pluggio. Just follow the process outlined above. It will take more than 5 minutes a day but it’s well worth it!

If you do decide to get a bit more serious and use a productivity tool like Pluggio I thought it would help for me to outline the daily process I use and show how Pluggio helps with each aspect:

Conclusion

At first glance the value of Twitter is not obviously apparent. It can even seem like it might be a waste of time and a bit silly. However, I hope with this article I’ve helped to show that Twitter is worth pursuing from both a business and personal perspective.

For me, the 5 minute a day investment I have made during the past year has returned huge big benefits – from helping me meet awesome people in the same space as myself – to helping me spread the word about my podcast and start-up.

If you would like to find out more about Pluggio (the tool I made) click here.

How to Start a Sucessful Bootstrapped Web App Business

After recording 87 episodes of TechZing it occurred to me that we now have a goldmine of audio information about how to start a successful bootstrapped web app business. I’ve assembled our best shows on the subject into an 12 hour audio seminar!

If you are really serious about going out on  your own, leaving your day job, and starting your very own successful web app business you owe it to yourself to listen. Each show is an interview with a guest about their successful business. As they tell their story each entrepreneur teaches us valuable lessons. I’ve grouped shows into over arching themes to make them easy to navigate.

Deciding on an Idea

If you’re just starting out and need to decide what your new business will be these shows have some very useful information. Also check out the Patrick Mckenzie interview in the marketing section.

Rob Walling / The Micropreneur Academy

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-056.mp3]

Thomas Thurston / Modeling Disruption

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-076.mp3]

Building Your Idea

One of the reasons why web apps fail is because they look bad and are difficult to use. This interview with Luke can help you build a product that is more likely to be successful because of a better UI.

Luke Wroblewski / The User Interface Is The Product

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-087.mp3]

Launching & Marketing Your Idea

Once you’ve built your app you need to start bringing in customers. These interviews have lots of information about how to go about that!

Patrick McKenzie / The Long Tail of Optimization

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-079.mp3]

Gabriel Weinberg / DuckDuckGo

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-068.mp3]

Peldi / Balsamiq Mockups

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-004.mp3]

Turning Your Idea Into a $1m+ Business

Once your app is turning over a few thousand dollars a month you might want to think about turning it into a larger business. Here’s two interviews with entrepreneurs who did exactly that, and share their lessons learned.

Central Desktop / Relentless Execution

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-034.mp3]

Jason Cohen / Smart Bear Software

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-012.mp3]

What To Do After You’ve Made Millions

Once you’ve built a company and sold it for more than $20 million what do you do? Derek Sivers muses on this question with us in this excellent interview.

Derek Sivers / The Sivers Effect

[audio:http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-070.mp3]

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