October 30, 2012 at 11:04

How to find a girl through a common ax - Mine unites owners of things

    Mine things social network

    No, we are not a dating site even once.

    Mine is a worldwide graph of private property
    Mine is a contact account for your little faces

    Seriously, Mine is a site where people connect through their things. Finally you can:
    • Join the club of owners of a penknife
    • Tickle your fat materialistic ego
    • Publicly admit touching tenderness to your laptop
    • Show everyone what you are standing for (literally)
    • Find a female geek on a white Harley and with a dandy prefix
    • Watch for the owner of the new Vertu at night at the entrance! (to chat)
    • Openly hate the owner of 7 iPhones! (etc.)

    Why do we think that such a seemingly light-minded undertaking can become a strong link in the global e-commerce market, why stores should get in line with us and a couple of strategic secrets - under the cut.



    Context



    Hi, we are Vova, Petya and Lesha.

    I’ll quickly tell you what we’ve been doing here for a couple of years.

    There is a huge e-commerce market where the Amazons and Ibei rule the ball. But you already know all this. On it there are also (now numerous) aggregators of customer likes - sticky services such as interest , fancy , svpply . But all this happens in the primary market, i.e. Like and discuss products for sale are offered. And the niche that we are going to talk about right now is the sticky potential of the secondary market.

    Not every interesting thing is for sale, but it definitely belongs to someone. Thus, Mine is not about preferences (likes), but about real, accomplished purchasespeople - i.e. about what they actually choose and what they own.



    Appeal to the user.



    Dear friend! You have already developed a Pavlovian reflex: lips with a duck in the mirror - instagrams, clever thoughts and jokes - twitter or a blog. Where to go when you have cool stuff? (clothes, grandfather’s oil car, great-grandmother’s ring) - to you on Mine. Things are the focus here. Unique, popular, new, old, any.


    The site is certainly primarily for entertainment. But at the same time there are positive side-effects, which are not a sin to mention:

    • Finding your double is priceless. By adding a thing, you contact all its owners. Somewhere there is probably a person sitting with whom your tastes completely coincide, or with which you have the same watch that you got from your grandfather.
    • Interesting people, hobby colleagues, and local trendsetters. Follow them and enjoy the “seething union of souls”.
    • If you are looking for a specific type of person - it can sometimes be calculated on the basis of characteristic objects.
      Mine: Guess the owner
    • Tools for choosing gifts for friends. All things the user is in sight. See what is already there, what you may like and what you should not give. In addition, internal “wishlists” - Like and Envy buttons show that a person likes and wants
    • Recommendations It is one thing to read something on Amazon, another thing is to see what else the person who bought the goods owns. You can determine the relevance of his advice or his choice for you. Need more info? Just ask him.
    • What kind of socks does Jessica Alba wear, and what kind of deodorant does Johnny Depp use, you will find out immediately as soon as they register on the site (we are working on it)


    The profile is made on a flash (this is a necessary measure, not a revolution of common sense) in the form of an intricate "Tree of Things." Here is one of the real profiles , for example:

    Mine tree of things

     


     

    A few strategic secrets:



    Monetization.



    We have several potential sources of income:

    1. Affiliate Clicks. Each item is a potential product, and may have a link to the store. Third-party services such as skimlinks can transform links from ordinary to affiliate links on the fly.
    2. Access to the advanced API. Having valuable data on things and their owners, we can act as a back-end for other sites that can benefit from this data. Example: look at me, lookbook.nu, any shopping and material communities (including stakeholders), owners clubs, drive2.ru etc.
    3. Selling data. Again, data can be studied and analytics built. Aggregated preferences of people, their dynamics - are of interest to participants and market researchers.
    4. Advanced paid accounts for representatives of brands / stores, with whistles and pyrotechnics


     


     

    And the most important secret



    Only shh. Seriously.

    A secret plan to capture the Internet through the introduction of (free) widgets on the post-checkout pages of online stores.
    At the moment, they (stores) are almost not associated with most of their customers and know little about them. You bought something and disappeared. And they want to be friends with you, so that you return, that you are loyal. And they spam you. Well, who does this?

    Here we arrive such supermen, III ..: The

    Order recieved, Mine offer is shown

    buyer, unsuspecting, clicks on “add thing”. The fly is trapped. Now the store can:

    • To know him : in what other places does a person make purchases, what does he buy, what are his interests, what is his network of influence.
    • Increase loyalty by creating a long-term relationship with the buyer. If we are talking about a cool product (new, unusual, bright), which they will gladly tell their friends about, will be ready to publicly announce that they bought it from you , then do not miss this opportunity. There is such a thing as an endorser, a kind of loyal supporter of the brand. In fact, every customer is invited to become such a supporter.
    • Create a micro community , a club of owners of every thing. All customer comments, their thoughts on this product, their photos are collected on the aggregated product page . Now you can monitor the communication channel of this particular product and even communicate with them directly.

    In the end, it's called dried media marketing . After all, what is happening on Mine? People tell other people about products. Isn't that what (most often in vain) any SMM worker tries to achieve ..?

     


     

    Count of things.


    Count of ThingsAs expected, our project has a great mission, a dream. We want to become a global graph of things, aggregating all the information about what anyone has to “feed” the Internet of things through access to our API. This means that our key value is in quality content and connections.

    Now, to maintain the quality of connections and content, we use UI-tricks, the promotion of high-quality content using ratings and points, and moderator tools that can be used to turn a fifth iPhone into green peas (like customs officers).

    But this is not enough to create a quality graph, and we are faced with a large number of conceptual forks. For example, the current system includes only one type of communication. Ideally, the owner of the MacBook Pro 15 "should be connected with all owners of the MacBook Pro, but at the same time, its connection with the owner of 15-inch models should be stronger than with 13-inch models. But improving the quality of information complicates the process of adding things , which is a critical “no-no” on the User-generated-content-site,

    and there are dozens and hundreds of such forks, but at the moment we are focused on improving UX, because without a quality product that users like, no "global" will happen.



    Finally



    Think about what you have that characterizes you. What objects surround you, personal, innermost, everyday, dear to the heart, rare, dear?

    http://mine.is - We cordially invite you to go and get a couple of things. Because besides, of course, the most overwhelming audience, Habr - it is IT specialists who do not hesitate to sincere and undisguised criticism, find jambs, share their thoughts with colleagues fortunately. What do you think?


    Yours truly,
    petergreen , fuzz and Lesha
    Tags:

    Also popular now: