4 years, 5 months ago

I haven't posted for a while, but things are really moving on creating Spoil My Spouse. We've renamed it to Spoil On in order to capture all sorts of relationships and not just marriage relationships.



Currently we're promoting a ton of great Christmas gift ideas. We'll be posting a ton more ideas for Christmas gifts. We've just barely scratched the surface here.



We're also rolling out the Spoil On facebook app which will share gift ideas and spoiling ideas across all of facebook.

4 years, 10 months ago

Another possible partner:

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/

4 years, 12 months ago

http://www.signaturedays.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.signaturedays.com/

5 years, 1 month ago

Thanks Jill. I think that things are finally coming together and I'm almost ready to advertise the various parts of the project to have people start participating.



I'd love to have your participation. It seems like you could probably help out with figuring out the various affiliate programs that would match the ideas. Possibly some of the contacts with vendors that could potentially work with us. We'll talk more.

5 years, 1 month ago

Hi TG,



I like the way you have itemized things on the wiki.



I will monitor and jump in if there is anything useful I can contribute.



It's good to be able to see the direction and the form of the thing shaping up. Well done ;-)



jill

5 years, 2 months ago

Great ideas micco. I added them to the wiki. Keep the ideas coming.

5 years, 2 months ago

I'm just coming into this discussion, and I'd like to comment on the ideas of having surveys, keywords, and tags to allow the site to filter the spoils presented to each user. I think this would be crucial to having the site be a real benefit to a diverse audience. Some things like flowers, candy and massages may seem like general-purpose spoils, but anything more specific may be hit or miss. Some people might like a silk scarf, being read poetry, or an evening of theater where other people might be completely turned off by the same things. I believe that constructing a fairly detailed and precise profiling survey would be key to providing each user with a spoil that might help them.



I'd compare this to the Netflix recommendation system that looks at movies you've rated highly and suggests movies that match those genres. Or Amazon's display of titles that other people bought along with the book you're looking at. However, in this case it won't be as easy to build a profile because you don't have a renting/buying profile being built implicitly. You'd need the user to fill out a description of the person they're trying to spoil.



I think tags are a great idea, but I think in this case you'd need more detail than user-selected tags could generate. I think you need a deeper survey that covers interests on a variety of topics. It might have broad topics like travel, books, music, etc. and each topic would drill down into a few more detailed questions. For instance, under books you could pin down how often the person read and what types/genres of books. It would be great to have the level of detail similar to some online dating services, but some of them have profiles that could take hours to complete. I think we could come up with a fairly broad two- or three-level hierarchy of questions that would not be daunting to the user if it was presented in a slick web 2.0-ish format.



All the questions in the survey would generate a hierarchy of keywords that could function much like a tag cloud, but you'd be guiding the user through generating those tags rather than just letting them input a few words they thought might be descriptive.



As an added benefit of this survey, you could use it to jump start the crowdsourcing aspect of recommending spoils related to the tags. For instance, if the profile indicated the person liked historical novels, adventure travel, and winter sports, the last part of the survey might ask them to suggest one or two spoils appropriate to each of those interests. Then you'd immediately have some suggestions you could provide to other people who had the same keywords.



Just as an aside in the discussion of domain names, one that occurred to me was SpoilsOfLove.com, playing off the "spoils of war" saying.

5 years, 2 months ago

what about just Spoilhim.com and Spoilher.com as brother and sister sights? they are both for sale (but may be for a lot)



I think that SMS is a fine name, but i agree it eliminates some of your possible market.

What about some of these:



superspoil.com

coolspoils.com

quickspoil.com

Now am I wrong in thinking that company's will pay us a commission to sell their products? I mean if someone clicks a big spoil and they like romantic things then why not bring up a micro site for say a sun set cruse? so we act as a middle man.

Getting a commission off of selling products is definitely part of the model. I expect there will be a mixture of companies that pay a flat price to advertise with us, those that pay a small price and give us some commission and some that could be solely commission.



During Valentine's day I was listening to ESPN radio and they were promoting a flower company and they all said to put the DJ's name in when ordering. I'm sure that was because ESPN was getting a nice commission on each sale.

Is it possible to use a IP address program, to customize the services offered by where your IP address is coming from so if you are in Toronto I lists day spas in Toronto and if you are in Miami it lists spas there...

I think initially we'd want to find products that apply to all categories, but as we got more sophisticated we could definitely have advertising that targets specific regions. We already have the IP to location lookup since RHF bought it. Although, I expect that we'll have people fill out a profile with some basic information that we could also use to target the gifts.

Grate idea cant wait to get started!

I'm glad you like the idea. I can't wait until the platform is done so the community can start working on it.

5 years, 2 months ago

what about just Spoilhim.com and Spoilher.com as brother and sister sights? they are both for sale (but may be for a lot)



I think that SMS is a fine name, but i agree it eliminates some of your possible market.



Now am I wrong in thinking that company's will pay us a commission to sell their products? I mean if someone clicks a big spoil and they like romantic things then why not bring up a micro site for say a sun set cruse? so we act as a middle man.



Is it possible to use a IP address program, to customize the services offered by where your IP address is coming from so if you are in Toronto I lists day spas in Toronto and if you are in Miami it lists spas there...



Grate idea cant wait to get started!

5 years, 3 months ago

On February 7, 2007, 3:30 pm dunkley said:spoil my spouse should be something more like spoil my love... or "spoil you spoil me"

Great point dunkley. It's balancing the niche while still being able to satisfy the mass. I think there's no reason we can't have it generic and then start with spouses and then expand. Or if we can make it generic enough to apply across many groups.



Since Don requested my latest thinking, I decided to do a little. Here's a couple ideas:



Spoilum.com

SpoilThem.com (is up for sale, not sure how much)

5 years, 3 months ago

I think you are on to something but may I suggest this,



spoil my spouse should be something more like spoil my love... or "spoil you spoil me"



I think the concept on a whole is on target and I have over the years looked for a site that would allow me to simply click click click and my husband would receive or even my kids would receive a hand picked gift from me to them either at their job or at home. Outside of your online florist, there really isnt any place. If you set up a site that will allow you to hand pick and piece together a "gift basket" and the price is reasonable and you can have it delivered that day if needed, then you have hit pay dirt... But the name spoil my spouse may seriously limit your potential customer base.

5 years, 3 months ago

On February 7, 2007, 6:12 am Lindyhoppr said:



Hmmm....Re-reading the original idea, I think that TechGuy's vision of his site is completely different than what I was expecting. It looks like he is thinking of an idea site, rather than an action site. i.e, Guy gets ideas on things to do, rather than guy buys a package and things are sent to his sweetie.



hmmm....



I am tossing the idea around of posting this as an independant idea, but I think that it would be better as a subcomponent of the SMS site.



Idea- Spoiling packages. Guy pays $80.00 and gets a three month spoiling package. Kind of like a gift of the month club. He can specify the dates that the presents arrive or select random dates, Of course, larger or smaller spoiling packages are availible. I'll concede veto power over the gifts if I have to; but I think it is more fun if it is a surprise. These spoiling packages can partner with Prezzle for online gifts (or just an online teaser to expect the gifts?)



Let me know if this is too far away from the vision of SMS. Otherwise, I'd love to head up the effort on the subcomponent site.

This is definitely one of the components of the SMS idea. However, I look at it as the second phase. The first phase is to build a community of people that are interested in spoiling their spouse. Then, having a package like you describe is the second phase where you monetize the traffic and community that you've created.



The problem with doing the packages initially is that you have to have the infrastructure to support the package processing and you have no bargaining power with vendors to get good prices. If you have a large community of people that will likely buy, then you can negotiate better pricing from vendors which then translates to either better profit or a better service or both.



Plus, adding services like the above are things that will continue to add momentum to the site as it continues to build.



I'd love to work with you on building that part. The key right now is for CH to determine what's going to be done with SMS and free up the RPs for it.

5 years, 3 months ago

Hmmm....Re-reading the original idea, I think that TechGuy's vision of his site is completely different than what I was expecting. It looks like he is thinking of an idea site, rather than an action site. i.e, Guy gets ideas on things to do, rather than guy buys a package and things are sent to his sweetie.



hmmm....



I am tossing the idea around of posting this as an independant idea, but I think that it would be better as a subcomponent of the SMS site.



Idea- Spoiling packages. Guy pays $80.00 and gets a three month spoiling package. Kind of like a gift of the month club. He can specify the dates that the presents arrive or select random dates, Of course, larger or smaller spoiling packages are availible. I'll concede veto power over the gifts if I have to; but I think it is more fun if it is a surprise. These spoiling packages can partner with Prezzle for online gifts (or just an online teaser to expect the gifts?)



Let me know if this is too far away from the vision of SMS. Otherwise, I'd love to head up the effort on the subcomponent site.

5 years, 3 months ago

Hi Bterrier, welcome to the Cambrian House community - and congratulations on your first post!



I agree that Spoil My Spouse is catchy name. SMS, however, isn't - so, I personally don't think it should be shortened (also, we'd never get any sms url). Spouse is kind of an odd term - it's really not used much by this generation (I can't image anyone saying, "are you going to be bringing your spouse with you?"



It is important to nail this down - nothing can really progress with designing a test-market until it is. Hmmmm.



Techguy? Has the delerium of sleepless new dad syndrome given you any sparks of inspiration?

On February 1, 2007, 7:44 pm Bterrier said:



Hello,



I'm new here, but I thought I'd post my thoughts.



I realize that spoil my spouse, the name may turn away a great deal of people. Although it is very catchy, and I'd like to see the name stay. So trying to think of ways to keep it and still include girlfriend/boyfriend crowds. I came up with 2 ideas



1 what if you just used SMS and leave the name a choice between spouse and sweetie when you sign up.



2 make sister sites to target the other crowds.

5 years, 3 months ago

Hello,



I'm new here, but I thought I'd post my thoughts.



I realize that spoil my spouse, the name may turn away a great deal of people. Although it is very catchy, and I'd like to see the name stay. So trying to think of ways to keep it and still include girlfriend/boyfriend crowds. I came up with 2 ideas



1 what if you just used SMS and leave the name a choice between spouse and sweetie when you sign up.



2 make sister sites to target the other crowds.

5 years, 3 months ago

Well, SMS hasn't "turned into" anything. It is going to be completely redesigned from the ground up. Yes, it needs to be more than a shopping site. What we're doing is collecting input and then tackle the thing again. Right now it's just the collecting phase. No one is actively working on the site except for comment in these forums.



If anyone is interested in trying to nail down site philosophy and maybe a rough sketch of the key interactions, I'm sure Techguy (or whomever ends up being the project lead) will be generous with Royalty Points.

5 years, 3 months ago

Upon further reading, I see that Spoil your Sweetie seems to have dropped the spoiling packages.

Perhaps I missed the intent behind these, but I thought that for a flat rate of $49.99 (for example) your sweetie would receive four different mailings on days you choose addressed to your sweetie from you.



She may get

-a box of truffles

-a box of gardening implements

-a knife blick that looks like a stick man

-a bunch of flowers



These gifts were specially chosen for her based on the profile selected. (perhaps approved by you)



Has Spoil your Sweetie turned into a shopping website that sends gifts? Man, I have Proflowers for that. And they send out reminders too.

5 years, 4 months ago

Great contribution, Lindyhoppr. I like the survey idea - it would help draw out the description from the user. I still think tags are the way to go - maybe have some tags for each answer that then get assigned to the person (for instance if they choose "climb a mountain" the spoilee would be tagged with 'adventurer, athletic etc.')

5 years, 4 months ago

I am going to call it "Spoil My Sweetie" no matter what the name comes out as, because I like it. And it fits with most of the graphics.





This seems like a creative but very convienient way to continue showing your sweetie that you care.



I like the idea of keywords, but I think a short 1-2 page questionaire would work as well. Questions such as "If your sweetie and you were taking a vacation, where would s/he suggest going? a. Cliff Diving in India b. on a relaxing cruise c. On a party trip to Las Vegas d. An African Safari" and "Say your sweetie just got an unexpected day off. How would s/he spend it? a. Getting a manicure and pedicure b. running errands c. going out for lunch with an old friend d. go to a museum"



I'd be willing to write up a quick survey as well as make up some results. (I find I am an excellent gift giver, but horrible at writing thankyou notes!)



I also like the idea of picking dates that gifts are delivered. That way I can plan for my anniversary, my sweetie's birthday, finals week, and whatever.



Perhaps the gifts can be rated, i.e. a diamond tennis bracelet is big spoiling, but a small box of truffles is a little spoiling. That way, the customer can have a little more say about which gifts are given as well, but they'd still be a surprise when they show up.





As an aside, who picks out which gifts are sent? I want to get in on this. I love shopping, and think that it would be great to have an excuse!

5 years, 4 months ago

Fantastic debate! Awesome contribution, Techguy. I can't agree more that content is king and that a store itself, even dressed in spoiler's clothing, is essentially boring. But I still think it should be built in from the beginning.



I see the mailings as the center piece of the site - it's our way to keep in contact with the majority of community members who don't participate actively. The content for the mailings is created and shaped on the site in its forums, surveys, ratings etc.



The mailing could be a custom Flash piece (or pdf) that is put together with the keywords that the user gave to described their loved one. The interface allows them to view the filtered top spoiling suggestions, stories, and products to spoil with. Not shoving anything down their throat, just giving them a quality magazine style mailing with a few relevant products in the mix.



I hate it when I find something I really like and then, as it becomes more popular, it's nature changes. If we find the right balance I think having products will actually be appreciated.



(see photojojo for an example. They have a nice design with a mix of tips and products)



Another thought (alluded to above), instead of a profile 'picker,' you enter keywords - you can choose ones that others have added to a 'tag cloud' or add new ones you think are necessary. (see menuism for interface idea) So the task becomes describing what their loved one is like rather than drilling down a list that we've concocted.

5 years, 4 months ago

I agree with what techguy says 100%... build the community first and then you will sell to them later... repeatedly!



SMS has a unique flavour when you focus on the creative spoiling ideas aspect... it is just another web site when you focus on product rating and selling.

5 years, 4 months ago

On January 9, 2007, 2:19 pm donh said:

The idea of tying products in with the spoiling tips is important for monetization - there needs to be a stronger revenue generator than just ads. If people rate and categorize products by personality we can send the email reminders and tips with "buy now" links to products that, in theory, will match the personality of the person on their spoil list. I agree there are a lot of product rating things out there - personality matching (especially crowdsourced) isn't as common.

I agree that there needs to be a stronger revenue generator than just ads. However, I think the vision of Spoil My Spouse doesn't need to have everything tied to a product. I think the product of Spoil My Spouse is a list of crowdsourced ideas. Some of them may be tied to products and some of them might not. The service that is useful to people is to get creative ideas.



I think the first priority for Spoil My Spouse on delivering a quality product that is useful and innovative. This is what's going to make the website successful.



By focusing on creating and distributing quality ideas, quality stories on people spoiling others, delivering something useful, then we have the potential of creating a community of interested people who like our product and keep coming back. If we focus on making sure that each idea has a salable/rateable product, then we are just a half baked Amazon.



My suggestion is that spoiling ideas are submitted by the crowd with the person submitting the most popular idea getting their idea (or some other incentive). If the idea matches one of the shopster products, then we integrate a link to purchase it. If there's no match then we try to find a way to monetize the idea some other way, or just deliver the idea because it will keep people coming back.



Revenue wouldn't just be coming from advertising. It would be advertising and affiliate programs at first, but we'd be creating a quality product and community around spoiling people as opposed to just trying to push products down people's throats. The focus should always be on developing a community of spoilers, their stories, and great ideas. Why not even get our resident psychologist, PsychSplash, to contribute some Web 2.0 style relationship counseling on the site as a means of promotion and to give credibility to the site? Eventually this could be expanded to other things like an personal shopper area.



Once a strong community is built, then we can continue to innovate the product around affiliate and advertising. This could include things like the following:

-Monthly spoiling packages

-Clothes that are coordinated

-The one click spoil (purchase) or at least something like it

-Personality matching used to send targeted gifts



I also don't think that we should shy away from what I call oldies, but goodies(ie. flowers, chocolates, jewelry). Having unique and creative ideas is what is going to bring people to the site and keep them coming back. However, if Spoil My Spouse is where I go to buy stuff for my spouse, then I don't always have to be creative. Often, I may just want to send some flowers or chocolates. These type of oldies and goodies products could be a major revenue stream for this type of community.



Spoil My Spouse should be my one stop shop for creatively making a relationship last.



Put that on a napkin. That should be the vision of SMS (in my humble opinion). Thoughts?



Yes, I know I used spouse throughout this. I did that for ease of writing. I should have said loved one or some other variation.

5 years, 4 months ago

Yes, of course you're right about the focus - version 3 or 4 maybe. It's much better to position it for loved one spoiling.

5 years, 4 months ago

On January 12, 2007, 2:51 pm Doymarn said:



Haven't done any availability checking on these, just some quick thoughts:



4Get them Not



Never a Lost Moment



LuvUlots



Spoilem



Spoilem Madly

I like the spoilem.com idea, but it's taken. I'm totally fine and agree that it would be good to find a branding that would include all people and would be more broad to include more products. My only caution is if we make it to broad then it's hard to market. It's hard to crowdsource cool ideas that apply to all the categories. I think initially it should focus on a loved one(spouse or otherwise) and then it could expand to other spoilings.

5 years, 4 months ago

Haven't done any availability checking on these, just some quick thoughts:



4Get them Not



Never a Lost Moment



LuvUlots



Spoilem



Spoilem Madly

5 years, 2 months ago

I started a feature list for Spoil My Spouse. It needs a lot of work, but I wanted to get it started so we could get all the details of what needs to be done with Spoil My Spouse. Feel free to add anything that you think is missing to the list.

5 years, 2 months ago

I think it's pretty clear that we would be ok with a website that encompasses all relationships. This could be spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, moms, dads, daughters, sons, partners, etc. So, we've started the brainstorming on a good domain name.



I've included the domain name selection on the wiki. I'd love your help in finding the right name.

5 years, 2 months ago

I just wanted to put a link to the previous forum posts for Spoil My Spouse since it is now showing It's Just Lunch under SMS. I think they'll fix it soon.

5 years, 3 months ago

jagerbomb,

This is absolutely one of the core features of SMS. We'd love to have your help on building it out.



I'm currently just waiting for the platform/RP distribution to figure itself out. Once that's done we'll be rockin and rollin on getting SMS working. We'd love to have you as part of the team.

5 years, 3 months ago

Hey Jagerbomb,



It sure is a part of the SMS stuff!

I'd say drop Techguy a pm and get involved, because it sure is a good idea.

5 years, 3 months ago

What do you guys think about this idea as an add on to spoil my spouse?



http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/0FHQYM4/

5 years, 4 months ago

I think everyone agrees that Sex and the City is out. Although, I think this is one of the smallest of changes that needs to be done.



Another thread details what I think should be done on Spoil My Spouse. I'd love to hear people's feedback on that.

5 years, 4 months ago

This is the web site.



Have fun.



http://www.triggerst...t.com/gyrobase/index

On August 5, 2006, 3:46 pm AndyDoan said:



What's the URL for that Kevin Spacey I'd love to check it out!

5 years, 4 months ago

Trust me, if you went to the site and all the models were black or all asian, you would notice. You would say, "This must be a black site or an asian site." If the characters were from Soul Food or Queer as Folk, you would probably think it an odd site.

5 years, 4 months ago

I don't think we should go out of our way to cater to people who judge others by race.

5 years, 4 months ago

I think you may have misread his post. I don't think it was his own complaint, he was just throwing an idea out to possibly get more people to sign up.



Personally, I don't even notice ethnicity of models/graphics when viewing sites, but I know some people do, so I wouldn't push my opinion because I don't know how many do notice or would be more inclined to view a site if it appealed more to their ethnicity.



I do, however, dislike the whole sex and the city theme. The target market is male, and I'll bet the high majority of males either don't care much for the show or dislike it. I don't think it's a huge problem, though. It's not based on sex and the city, it's just a vague reference. It personally wouldn't alter my decision on whether to buy or not because it's not an ugly site, the look just not especially appealing to me.

5 years, 4 months ago

I'm sorry that you can't accept them for who they are, but they physically can't change for you. I see no problems or faults with people because they happen to be one ethnicity or the other.

5 years, 4 months ago

You should have something other than Caucasian models in your pictures.



I know Sex in the City is cool and all, but this will not appeal to a variety of ethnicities.



Plus, you don't get enough different profile choices. You need a profile of an earthy person who is not into any designer stuff but would like gardening tools or a nice backpack.



Just a thought.

5 years, 4 months ago

Cambrian House is has decided to give Spoil My Spouse another test market. We are retooling it to take into account the suggestions that were made about test number one. I'll make a new forum topic and post the framework the market test.

5 years, 5 months ago

I'm currently waiting for DonH to get some feedback on what kind of RPs CH will offer to people that participate in making Spoil My Spouse happen. Doymarn has asked the question in the forums and we're waiting for a reply from DonH. I expect that CH will be generous with the RPs. It seems like they have little to lose at this point.



I'm interested to see who in the CH community is interested in participating in Spoil My Spouse. Of course, some interest may depend on how many RPs CH gives out.



I expect we'll need at least some marketers, programmers, and copy people. Anyone interested in participating?

5 years, 5 months ago

Once we hear about available RPs for Spoil My Spouse, I'd like to put together a plan of what can be done to Spoil My Spouse to make it successful. Does anyone have any thoughts on what should be done? I know some things have been mentioned in other forums, but I'm interested to know where people think we should go from here.

5 years, 5 months ago

No, I don't have an answer on royalty points yet, should have something by Mon or Tues

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 13, 2006, 1:29 pm donh said:



I'll check into what we can offer for Royalty Points and post it right here. I think we can be quite generous in this situation.

Don:



Has anything been resolved here on the RPs yet?

5 years, 5 months ago

I'll check into what we can offer for Royalty Points and post it right here. I think we can be quite generous in this situation.

5 years, 5 months ago

I think Imhotep's ideas for SMS are spot on.



I would like to add my personal feelings why it may not have received any orders..



I think the pricing of the gifts was generally too high and there was not enough of a price range present.



I also think you should have put more focus on the reminder service, treated it as a lost leader and not tried to signup customers into a commitment of purchase on signup.



I am personally very selective of any sites that try to hook me into a term commitment, as i am sure most people are.



I would have rather tried to build a community of potential customers and every time you sent out a free reminder then you look to encourage the purchase of a gift at each and every activity of reminder. You need to build trust in the customer first and then they are more likely to buy and commit to a term.



Question for CH???... please give the community some guidelines as to what range of RPs you will allocate if the community picks up the development and hands it back to you for marketing and operation. This is very important if you want the community to work for you in this regard!



My 2 cents

5 years, 5 months ago

The repository is now shared. SVN access at "http://dev.spoilmyspouse.com/svn/trunk/ ", and use the password you use for the ch.com website repository.

5 years, 5 months ago

Well, I guess the point is that the market test so far has had almost no orders. So even as a vehicle for, or add-on to, Prezzle, there is no compelling data that we should spend more time on it (HQ resources, anyway). So, we're leaving it up to the community to make suggestions and implement them. If anyone wants access to the repository for website or photoshop files, just send me a message and I'll help you get setup. We will dole out royalty points for any adopted contributions if the project gets put back on the front burner.



If there are people to improve the current test-market offering, we will startup the advertising campaign to drive traffic again.



cheers,



Don

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 8, 2006, 1:39 pm donh said:



Primarily because, although somewhat useful, it doesn't change any paradigms. (For example, FundableFilms could change the filmmaking paradigm by creating a whole new way of raising money for films - from the people who are going to be viewing them!)

Donh,



Not every lucrative idea will change paradigms.



Shouldn't you market this idea from a different perspective ? Spoil-my-spouse already uses prezzles, wouldn't it be possible to market it from Prezzle.com as a service that integrates prezzles and promote it like that :



- It could be viewed as an original way to send prezzles/valuable add-on

- It could open opportunities to have prezzles integrated by third party services/vendors ! It could demonstrate HOW easy prezzles can be integrated in a third party service.



cheers



Imhotep

5 years, 5 months ago

Here's the scoop. We have had *very* poor results so far with the test market.



Techguy posted some valid concerns with the execution of the test - especially the last page where the visitor purchases their 'holiday spoiler.' It's just not that clear what's going on. But, even so, there's not a whole lotta lovin' goin' on for this idea. Primarily because, although somewhat useful, it doesn't change any paradigms. (For example, FundableFilms could change the filmmaking paradigm by creating a whole new way of raising money for films - from the people who are going to be viewing them!)



However, that doesn't mean SMS can't make a bunch of money. So, what we've decided to do is pause google adwords for now and open up the repository for the members to download files and tweak and tear. If there is community interest to do this, I'll help coordinate, then we'll pop the new improved site back up, pay for another round of adwords and see what happens. Sound fair?

5 years, 5 months ago

Demo Day 2006-12-07 Part 08 Spoil My Spouse

http://video.google....54876741230&hl=en-CA



I'm maintaining the master 2006-12-07 list in Rachel's thread at...

http://www.cambrianh...ums/view/thread/423/

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 8, 2006, 6:57 am Becca_Collins said:



Read through the site, and think it is great - except - I'm not digging the "Sex and The City" references. It's a nice idea, but I'd be willing to bet that there is some copyright infringement, and also too vague to appeal to a general audience, especially those who don't watch the show. I remember my frustration at quizzes in teen magazines that referenced a character in a show I'd never seen.



Recommendation - replace with cartoon clip art and a better description. Then I'll buy a package.

I kind of agree with this. This is especially unappealing to those who dislike the show. Plus, wasn't that show on HBO? Not everybody has HBO. I don't have HBO.

5 years, 5 months ago

Read through the site, and think it is great - except - I'm not digging the "Sex and The City" references. It's a nice idea, but I'd be willing to bet that there is some copyright infringement, and also too vague to appeal to a general audience, especially those who don't watch the show. I remember my frustration at quizzes in teen magazines that referenced a character in a show I'd never seen.



Recommendation - replace with cartoon clip art and a better description. Then I'll buy a package.

5 years, 6 months ago

Here's an adendum for Devin's post. Find the test site at test.spoilmyspouse.com and only the "spoil your man" side is done (but still needs some cleaning up). Comments and suggestions welcome for the text and offers etc.



Don H

5 years, 6 months ago

Hi everyone, my name is Devin, and I have been working on spoil my spouse for the last little while.



I just pushed a new version to the website, and although its still a little rough looking, it should give a good idea of what we are looking to do with the site.



I am looking forward to your feedback.

5 years, 5 months ago

OK, my bad. I didn't read the post closely enough. It was f***ed and now it's not. And the little description of JumbleLunch is done too, btw.

5 years, 5 months ago

I found the same problem.



It's not fixed yet.



Try clicking the link at the top of the projects page where it says: http://www.spoilmyspouse.com. That's the link that goes to Gwabs.

5 years, 5 months ago

Hey Stefan,



You must have gone there just as we were deploying the new project pages! It's OK now.

5 years, 5 months ago

I tried to get to the Spoil my spouse site through this link and it took me to Gwabs. Whats the deal?



http://www.cambrianh...test-spoil-my-spouse



-Stefan

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 7, 2006, 7:23 am Stefan_Dodge said:



Is there any way to track referrals? Is there any incentive yet? I am trying to get friends and family to sign up.



-Stefan

Stefan,

If you send your friends to a link like the following:

http://www.spoilmysp...?chuser=Stefan_Dodge



Then I (really Google analytics) can tell you how many times someone has clicked on that link. That's the only tracking that I know of.



CH will have to respond to the incentive question.



It's nice to see some other community members promoting the site. Here's the post I wrote for my friends and family about spoiling my wife.

5 years, 5 months ago

Is there any way to track referrals? Is there any incentive yet? I am trying to get friends and family to sign up.



-Stefan

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 4, 2006, 2:15 pm cybercerberus said:



Antialiasing is a process in computer graphics whereby neighboring pixels are colored to account for the nearby presence of a pixel being drawn.



In other words, it makes lines look "clean" instead of pixellated.



http://en.wikipedia....rg/wiki/Antialiasing

Ha...tail between my legs Cyber...thanks for increasing my vocabulary...I had no idea that that was a real word!

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 7:07 pm donh said:



Wow how things change. I've just done some research and took action on it. We now have access to our google analytics - all active sites. Just another step towards transparency. Here's the info:



go to: analytics.google.com



login with:

[url=mailto:donh@cambrianhouse.com rel=nofollow]donh@cambrianhouse.com[/url]

pass: cambrianhouse (it's really fun typing into the *** password box!)



Go ahead, look around.

Wonderfully fantasticalicious!! Thank you!! I'll be playing with this later.

5 years, 5 months ago

Wow how things change. I've just done some research and took action on it. We now have access to our google analytics - all active sites. Just another step towards transparency. Here's the info:



go to: analytics.google.com



login with:

donh@cambrianhouse.com

pass: cambrianhouse (it's really fun typing into the *** password box!)



Go ahead, look around.

5 years, 5 months ago

Oh, I forgot, what url's should I be looking out for? (I can't give out access to our google account cuz it's wide open admin for all our sites)

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 6:00 pm donh said:



Nice job Techguy! Especially for a self-professed visual thingy hater!

You didn't like the ones I made? Bummer. I thought they were decent.

5 years, 5 months ago

Hey guys, sorry, I dropped the ball on this one. I didn't notice there was such and active forum happening!



Nice job Techguy! Especially for a self-professed visual thingy hater!



I will post the results of traffic from your site every few days. Yay crowdsourcing!

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 4:41 pm techguy said:

On December 5, 2006, 12:50 pm cybercerberus said:



Free may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for. A few bucks of Google AdWords expenditure could put the banners on hundreds of sites, not just 10.

Hundreds of sites for a couple page views or 10 sites permanently. There are pros and cons to each of them.

True. Why not do both? A market test is pass/fail after all...

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 12:50 pm cybercerberus said:



Free may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for. A few bucks of Google AdWords expenditure could put the banners on hundreds of sites, not just 10.

Hundreds of sites for a couple page views or 10 sites permanently. There are pros and cons to each of them.

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 11:52 am techguy said:



You could use them in Google Adwords, but why do that when I have 10 or so sites to put them on for free. Granted adwords could be more targeted, but I think free is even better.

Free may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for. A few bucks of Google AdWords expenditure could put the banners on hundreds of sites, not just 10.

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 4:58 am Aidan said:



Nice banners - I particularly like Cybercerberus' matched pair :-)



The banners could be used in Google AdWords, as you mentioned, as well as through other sites like blogads, adbrite etc. If you place any of these banners on a site somewhere, just make sure and make the clickthrough URL look something like this:



http://www.spoilmysp...guy&banner=techguy-1

http://www.spoilmysp...r=cybercerberus-male



That way, the analytics tracking can easily pick up clickthroughs provided by you, and we can easily see which banner has created it.



I'll also ping the SMS team - they may have more specific/targeted ideas about all this.

Good idea on the linking structure. I've always used the referral pages part of the stats program, but now I see why the page count can be useful. I've added banners to 2 of my sites so far. We'll see how it goes.

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 2:22 am cybercerberus said:

On December 5, 2006, 2:14 am techguy said:



Get me some conversion statistics and I'll consider it. Of course it would be more valuable if the banners were on your sites.

What? Conversion rates? Sites? Dude, I don't have "sites". I'll make the graphics, but you can figure out the sites yourself, yo. And the conversion rates, too.



For that matter, you could use these in a Google AdWords campaign if you really want to track the conversions. That stuff's not my cup-o-tea. Art, I can do (barely). Coding, I can do (readily). Marketing, I do not do.



I can tell you without a doubt, though, that animated banners will get more click-throughs than static ones.



(For those who care, I made those banners with the help of the marvelous Xara Webstyle 4.)

I'd be happy to play around with the conversion rates. It's a little hobby of mine. What do you say CH, want to make the stats open to us? It's hard to run a decent marketing push without good stats. I could have it run through my own link and have it forward to you, but that's too much work when you already have the stats.



You could use them in Google Adwords, but why do that when I have 10 or so sites to put them on for free. Granted adwords could be more targeted, but I think free is even better.



I think I'll try each banner for a week or possibly place your banners on some of my other sites. Then, hopefully we can get some stats on it.

5 years, 5 months ago

Nice banners - I particularly like Cybercerberus' matched pair :-)



The banners could be used in Google AdWords, as you mentioned, as well as through other sites like blogads, adbrite etc. If you place any of these banners on a site somewhere, just make sure and make the clickthrough URL look something like this:



http://www.spoilmysp...guy&banner=techguy-1

http://www.spoilmysp...r=cybercerberus-male



That way, the analytics tracking can easily pick up clickthroughs provided by you, and we can easily see which banner has created it.



I'll also ping the SMS team - they may have more specific/targeted ideas about all this.

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 2:14 am techguy said:



Get me some conversion statistics and I'll consider it. Of course it would be more valuable if the banners were on your sites.

What? Conversion rates? Sites? Dude, I don't have "sites". I'll make the graphics, but you can figure out the sites yourself, yo. And the conversion rates, too.



For that matter, you could use these in a Google AdWords campaign if you really want to track the conversions. That stuff's not my cup-o-tea. Art, I can do (barely). Coding, I can do (readily). Marketing, I do not do.



I can tell you without a doubt, though, that animated banners will get more click-throughs than static ones.



(For those who care, I made those banners with the help of the marvelous Xara Webstyle 4.)

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 1:29 am cybercerberus said:



Here's are a couple I made. You can use them if you want to, CH (and anybody else):











Hm. Maybe I should get an RP or two if you do though.

Very nice. The top one for men and the bottom one for women.



Get me some conversion statistics and I'll consider it. Of course it would be more valuable if the banners were on your sites. I've been seriously considering finding a way to share some of the RPs for my ideas with people that promote it.



My biggest barriers to doing this are as follows:



-tracking who promotes what and conversions by those people

-determining how many RPs to give away(ie. how much is a RP worth)

-having an avenue to promote the giving away of the RPs so enough people participate to make it worthwhile



Once the above are resolved, one line of thought is to put 10 RPs out there for 10 people that get the most people to sign up for SMS (or some other measure). My feeling is the more people with RPs in SMS, the better it will do. By giving 10 RPs to 10 people then those people would then have a vested interest in the success of SMS.



This is similar to what's being done with prezzle and the $1000 giveaway. Just RPs are more valuable than $1000.



Doing things like this is why I think CH could be powerful. A crowd of people all doing small things to promote an idea is a very powerful concept.

5 years, 5 months ago

Here's are a couple I made. You can use them if you want to, CH (and anybody else):











Hm. Maybe I should get an RP or two if you do though.

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 5, 2006, 1:19 am cybercerberus said:



That looks much nicer.

Thanks!



Now I just need access to SMS stats so I can know how many time people are clicking on the various banners I've placed and check out conversion rate. I have some extra google analytic sites available. I wonder what stats program CH uses. Does this comment need to be moved to its own thread?

5 years, 5 months ago

That looks much nicer.

5 years, 5 months ago

On December 4, 2006, 5:07 pm cybercerberus said:

On December 4, 2006, 4:53 pm techguy said:



I should say that a lot of it was chopping up images from the SMS website. I only added the "Spoil your Spouse with the Click of a Mouse" text.

I know, I could tell. That was the only part that was not antialiased.

So, that one is antialiased. It's just the small text makes it look bad. I originally made a little bigger banner but it wasn't the standard 486x60 it was 486x68. Here it is:





Disclaimer: I hate doing graphics, looking at fonts, or anything visual.

5 years, 5 months ago

Once I finish the captcha for RHF I'd like to finish a blog for Spoil My Spouse. The blog template is pretty close.



Is the SVN for SMS ready? It would be nice to have access to the source files so I can do all the integration for you:-)

5 years, 5 months ago

I can't tell you how happy I am that CH has given us access to google analytics for the various CH websites. I'm a complete stats addict and so this is perfect. It will also be very beneficial for me to see how well the ads on my websites are doing.

I did want to point out that I've noticed that Spoil My Spouse is averaging about 6.3 page views per visitor. I think that is a really good sign that people are interested in the Spoil My Spouse product since there only about 20 pages on the site and people are viewing on average 6 of those pages. Comparing it to all the other CH websites, only CH.com comes close to the same type of average page views per person.

I'd be interested to know how many of those people have actually signed up for the Holiday Spoiler. I don't think the conversions feature of Google Analytics has been set up for SMS right? It didn't show my sign up so I'm assuming no.

My bet is that not many of the visitors are actually being converted into sells. I think that the Holiday Gift Spoiler page needs some work. Looking at that page I know what's going on because I already know prezzle. However, if I wasn't a part of CH then I wouldn't know what a Prezzle was and how it worked. I wouldn't know that it's a cool online package that gets sent to my spouse. I wouldn't know that the package on the right is an example of what will be sent to my spouse. I wouldn't know that the prezzle open date was the date that my spouse was allowed to open the online gift.

My point is that this page is what needs to sell the product. As a consumer I need to better understand what I'm getting for $25 so that I buy the product.

Also, why does the purchase button say "go to paypal"? If I'm not familiar with online transactions and even if I am why do want to go to paypal? I don't! I want to "Purchase the Spoiler" or "Spoil My Spouse" or "Start the Spoiling" or something that entices them to make the quick $25 purchase.

In the past week there have been 737 visitors to SMS with 253 visitors to the Holiday Spoiler page. They are spending an average of 30 seconds on that page which is pretty good I think. About 22% of them then Exit the site (this could be "exiting" to paypal) and the rest navigate to some other part of the site. More of these people need to be converted into sales.

I just think the stats speak volumes. However, the pages that sell your site have to be continually tweaked to convert more sales.

Along with knowing how many have signed up for SMS, how many people have signed up for the newsletter(this still needs its own page)?

Ok, that's all the stats for now.

5 years, 5 months ago

Cool, glad to hear it was sorted

5 years, 5 months ago

My wife got this prezzle today. She was pretty excited in the email she sent me. She was pretty upset that she had to wait to open it. It was perfect.

5 years, 5 months ago

I've alerted the relevant team about this. In the meantime, can you give me some specifics about when you ordered? I'm not sure if they need this information, but it won't hurt to have it - PM it to me if you prefer.

5 years, 5 months ago

As you can imagine I signed my wife up for Spoil My Spouse. The money was taken from my account, but nothing else has been done.



Shouldn't my wife have received the Prezzle that I purchased? Shouldn't I have received an email saying that I signed up for Spoil My Spouse and that I was entitled to a $50 discount in January?



I'm nervous sending people to the site if they sign up and nothing happens. What's going on?

5 years, 6 months ago

what would compel me to join is notification of new and innovative gift ideas. I sign up to spoil my spouse for 12 months, but then get some advice as to the types of gifts I could give over that 12 month



Somthing along the lines of "Do you ever wish you could come up with better ideas to spoil the one you love? Do you want to be on the cutting edge of gift giving? SMS will keep you posted regularly with great gift ideas. We will even make sure they are packaged nicely!!! (prezzle)"



PsychSplash

5 years, 6 months ago

I've obviously been thinking a lot about Spoil My Spouse lately. I've shown a lot of people the idea and the website and this is the conclusion I've found.



The Holiday Spoiler is really a no brainer. You get a $25 gift certificate for a $25 investment. In fact, you even get it in a nice Prezzle (which is something people don't understand right off the top). This is something that anyone could sign up for since it really costs you nothing if you shop at any of the stores.



However, it's not a compelling purchase that I want to go out and get my wife. Do husbands get wives (or vice versa) a gift certificate somewhere? Maybe. The gift certificates to Sephora and Bath and Body Works makes sense for a wife and are ok to give to my wife.



My point is, what compels people to sign up for Spoil My Spouse? The anticipation of what's to come? I guess there is the $50 towards a future package which is good. I'm just trying to figure out a way to better sale the product. What could be done to SMS to create that impulse buy that makes the market test a greater success?



By the way...

Since SMS is a no brainer, I encourage all of you reading this to sign up and Spoil Your Spouse.