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The Secret Psychology of Snapchat

You’ve undoubtedly heard of Snapchat, the habit-forming messaging service used by over 100 million people monthly. This week, I teamed up with Victoria Young and Dori Adar to help explain what makes the app so sticky.

We decided that instead of writing a long blog post, we’d share our insights in a slide presentation.

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Why Do Fads Fade? The Inevitable Death Of Flappy Bird

Nir’s Note: Parts of this article are adapted from Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products.

Game Over screen in Flappy Bird On February 8, 2014, an app called Flappy Bird held the coveted No. 1 spot in the Apple App Store. The app’s 29-year-old creator, Dong Nguyen, reported earning $50,000 a day from the game.

Then, the Vietnamese developer sent a shocking message. In a tweet many dismissed as a publicity stunt, Nguyen wrote, “I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird‘ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird‘ down. I cannot take this anymore.” And as promised, Flappy Bird disappeared the next day.

This is not the way success typically ends. (more…)

You’d Be Surprised By What Really Motivates Users

Face in a computerNir’s Note: This article is adapted from Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products, a book I wrote with Ryan Hoover and originally appeared on TechCrunch.

Earlier this month, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone unveiled his mysterious startup Jelly. The question-and-answer app was met with a mix of criticism and head scratching. Tech-watchers asked if the world really needed another Q&A service. Skeptics questioned how it would compete with existing solutions and pointed to the rocky history of previous products like Mahalo Answers, Formspring, and Aardvark.

In an interview, Biz articulated his goal to, “make the world a more empathetic place.” Sounds great but one wonders if Biz is being overly optimistic. Aren’t we all busy enough? Control for our attention is in a constant tug-of-war (more…)

The Real Reason You’re Addicted to Your Phone

Nir’s Note: I no longer agree with this article. It’s been several years since it was written by Avi Itzkovitch and published to my site and I’m leaving it up for posterity. But after extensive research, I do not think it properly depicts “addiction.” Please see my thorough research on addiction here:  https://www.nirandfar.com/addiction/ as well as my other articles on the topic of “Who is Really Addicted you to Technology.”

Phone with unhappy face on screenDo you constantly check your smartphone to see if you’ve received messages or notifications on Facebook? Does your phone distract you from your studies or work? Do your friends, parents, children, or spouse complain that you are not giving them enough attention because of your phone? You may be addicted to your phone.

The smartphone has become a constant companion. We carry it throughout the day and keep it by our bedside at night. We allow ourselves to be interrupted with messages from social media, emails and texts. We answer phone calls at times when it is not socially acceptable, and we put our immediate interactions with friends and family on hold when we hear that ring tone that tells us a message is arrived. Something fundamental in human behavior has changed: our sense of phone etiquette and propriety has caused us to get out of whack in our interactions with one another.

So why is it that we allow ourselves to be interrupted? (more…)

From Laid to Paid: How Tinder Set Fire to Online Dating

Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover takes a look at Tinder, a red hot dating app. Ryan dives into what makes the Tinder app so popular and engaging. Ryan blogs at ryanhoover.me and you can follow him on Twitter at rrhoover.

TinderTinder, a hot new entrant in the world of online dating, is capturing the attention of millions of single hopefuls. The premise of Tinder is simple. After launching the Tinder mobile app and logging in with Facebook, users browse profiles of other men or women. Each potential match is presented as a card. Swipe left if you’re disinterested and right if someone catches your fancy. Once both parties express interest, a match is made and a private chat connects the two potential lovebirds.

The Tinder app has become a fixture in the U.S. App Store as one of the top 25 social networking applications, generating 1.5 million daily matches as more than 50 percent of its users login multiple times per day.

This isn’t luck. (more…)