I believe that's a mistake: we link to a special page (https://batch.com/insights/hn) made specifically for HN readers that lets anyone sign-up instantly and access 100% of the features we've built as of today.
EDIT: looks like it's our special page wording that caused the confusion – we're updating it right now.
We're working on getting destination link/deeplink + open rate + conversion rate next. But before that we have a lot of advanced analytics features to build on top of the content itself. Product roadmap is quite packed!
Hello HN. Founder here. Happy to answer any questions.
In a nutshell: I was inspired to build this service after the AppGratis/Apple disagreement back in 2013 where most of the controversy revolved around our supposed "abuse of push notifications" (Guideline 5.6, in Apple's book).
What happened next made me realize how important notifications were going to be: it's the next interface for users, while developers rely on them entirely for growth and engagement. But until today there was no analytics service dedicated to this new medium, which is what we're trying to build with Batch Insights.
> made me realize how important notifications were going to be: it's the next interface for users
Hi Simon. Why do you think that pn will be so important? I have Cyanogenmod without google apps, and I don't miss pn one bit. I understand that I am not the typical user, but what do you see in pn that I don't?
First off, for studying apps behaviors over the past months we've observed some pretty interesting content strategies: marketers and content producers are hard at work on making notifications are more polished experience. Then, platforms are pushing notifications forward, they know it creates addictions for both developers and users so they're likely to invest more there in the future. It's becoming the interface for users. For developers, it's growth + engagement. Eventually, notifications formats themselves are evolving: richer, with images, with more characters, with more elaborate call to actions, etc. I'll think we'll see some interesting innovations in this space in the next 18/24 months.
I'm still totally with you on Cyanogenmod with no pn. As someone wrote earlier today on the Internet: 'I miss the good old days of being AFK'.
How is push notification different from an SMS or a call?
I don't have all of them on vibration, they don't all have the same importance to me but mostly it's just another way of communication. When I receive an email, I wan't to know it, when someone contact me on Skype or Facebook, I wan't to know it too.
If I don't wan't to be disturb, I just press volume down and the vibration is off.
How do you deal with apps that have in-app preferences to toggle certain notifications on/off? Or is this just for notifications that are enabled by default?
Urban Airship provides a suite of reports to reveal the effectiveness of each of your messages. UA also offers custom events for ROI analysis as well as A/B testing.
I think this piece you're putting here shows quite well how much the definition of a round doesn't matter to anyone but VCs. Important stuff is: awesome product!
As a french entrepreneur who has hosted dozens of US friends in Paris, some of them being prominent members of the "hacker" community as we call it, I have always been struck with amazement at how little "hacking" these friends would apply to their Paris trip, easily falling for the Tour Eiffel visit, desperately wanting to see the Moulin Rouge (which is probably the worst place to visit in all Paris – and probably in all Europe), still marveling at the shitty 50m2 studio in Montmartre or Ile Saint Louis they were about to rent before I offered to host them and show them my version of the city, etc. How can it be 2014 and people still want to experience Paris by showing up on a Saturday morning at Notre Dame only to stand in line for hours amidst hundreds of Japanese people and their cameras the size of a small Segway.
I am not saying it is easy to "hack" a city you've never visited before, and for the 2 years I spent myself in San Francisco I still believe I coud have hacked my way around much better. But if I were to provide a few advices to anyone about to embark on a Paris trip, that would be:
– Buy the Paris edition of the Lonely Planet and decide to not go to all the places they mention.
– Don't come in August (most of the city is basically shut down during the holidays). May, June, July, September, October, November.
– Most of the most interesting buildings (+ the overall Haussmannian architecture of Paris) are better seen from the outside: better spend 30 great minutes on le Parvis du Trocadéro watching the Eiffel Tower, than actually waiting 3h in line to get "inside" the Eiffel Tower.
– Get in line at museums roughly 1:30 hour before they're about to close: shorter lines, people on their way out. You have less time but it's clearly optimized.
– When in doubt, rely on locals: I know many Americans actually living and enjoying their life in Paris. You're always a few friends away on Facebook from knowing someone who lives here.
– Somewhere in their inboxes Parisian people have crafted for friends and/or received from friends "lists" of insider places to go that they'll happily forward to you once you've made connexion (I made a very long and detailed one of my favorite restaurants once).
– Use local guides. If you're a foodie, following the Lefooding.com recommendations for example is always a guarantee to both eat at wonderful places and visit fun areas where these restaurants are located in. For all the things we suck at if there's one thing the Paris scene is amazingly good at is food & restaurant innovation.
– If you're part of the tech community: damn it, you just need to hit your local counterparts. At the opposite of gross taxi drivers, young french tech people are very welcoming and easy to get in touch with.
– You can definitely hit me up anytime even if we don't know each other, I'm always happy to help.
I'm probably omitting a ton here but there's an apéro down my street with friends waiting for me to show up :)
Here's a fun fact I learned while visiting Paris last month. Turns out the Eiffel Tower is open until about midnight during the summer. I recommend showing up late and taking the stairs to the second floor (if you're in good health). Not too many people, great exercise, beautiful views of Paris at night, and you get to see the tower from a really interesting and unique angle.
This whole concept of Paris Syndrome looks very suspicious to me. I'm talking from first hand experience. I was born in France and at the age of 20-something, I had to move to Paris, like millions other youngsters, just to find a job. Yes, the Jacobin model is still very much alive, HN readers might not be aware of this but in that country, Paris centralism is pushed to absurd levels, to the point that if you have a mere ambition to achieve anything academically or professionally in most sectors, you're pretty much guaranteed to end up in Paris.
I spent more than four years in that city and those years were probably the unhappiest of my life. I never felt disillusioned (in fact, you need expectations to feel so), I had no feelings of persecution, and the only hallucinations I might have had were under the influence of recreational drugs.
I don't think I suffered from Paris Syndrome at all, but from undeniable facts that the beautiful Paris postcard won't tell you about:
1) Overpopulation. The massive economic exodus to Paris has made this town the biggest urban area of Europe. The concentration of population is among the highest in the world (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_popula...). As a consequence, you pay absurd amounts of money to live in tiny shitty HK-sized flats. Crowds are an annoyance year round, in the metro, while shopping, or even while crossing on the sidewalk.
2) Hostile inhabitants: the dwellers of Paris are incredibly unfriendly, stressed out and stressful. I think they are responsible for the reputation of arrogance that the French have in most parts of the world.
3) Venice 2.0: inner Paris nowadays has just become an open museum. Its popular neighborhoods are progressively getting drained and the city is culturally dying slowly. Tourism seems to be the new business model and it is slowly crippling the city with fake, unauthentic, cliche like kind of businesses.
4) Consumerism: just ask a Parisian what he did over the week end, he'll most likely tell you he had a drink with buddies, then dined in a restaurant, then went shopping. Other than breading and walking, there's absolutely zero to do in Paris other than spending money. If you like sports, you're screwed, there's very little options in that town. The parks all suck, and the pollution makes it even hazardous to practice sports outdoors.
5) Horrible region: most maps of France are actually quiet political in the way they position Paris in the center of the country. The truth is that Paris is very much in northern France. As a consequence, the countryside around Paris (not talking about the ghetto ring), is among the ugliest areas of this country with flat, boring and depressing landscapes everywhere in a 100km radius. Only regions like Beauce or Baie de somme rival with this land in its hideousness.
6) Terrible weather: simply put, the weather in Paris is very much like London's, with greater co2 pollution.
Here's my tip to anyone embedding on a Journey to France: avoid Paris.
EDIT: looks like it's our special page wording that caused the confusion – we're updating it right now.