"I get a lot of value from HN: it's fast, doesn't require an app, curating is done by real people and the comments add a lot. I'd be curious to learn what types of content your product surfaces that's different from HN?"
It's hard to keep track of the convo on Twitter so I'll comment here.
I think there's something wrong with the data.
The full chart shows a sudden drop of about 9% market share for Google from March going into April 2024. Meanwhile there are significant gains for Bing and Yahoo.
statcounter says they track referrals from search engines (vs. queries directly on the search engine). This suggests to me that there was some change that stopped tracking a significant number of Google referrals, though I don't know enough to know why.
On AI: they do not count moments when a chatbot response references a page, only if you click into the page itself. I think the reactions about ChatGPT/Perplexity eating Google are not entirely correct, considering this + the magnitude of the drop.
I am on the commission overseeing a major public library system. I strongly disagree with your interpretation of what libraries do.
First, the real estate presence of the library is extremely important. Children's storytime is one of the strongest drivers of foot traffic. Some of the buildings act as designated cooling centers during heat waves. They are community centers and gathering spaces for local organizations.
Also, just because you can spend $10 on an ebook does not mean others would choose to do the same! That's important money to many people.
Otherwise, here are some other things I've seen libraries do that I think your comment underestimates:
- supplies reading materials to jailed inmates
- helps new residents navigate city services
- manages the city archives
- provides wifi access for the 10%+ of a big city that does not have wifi at home
- gives free books to build book collections at home
- loans tools and other "maker" equipment
Not all libraries are funded well enough to do the above, and the specific definition of a library in 2024 is very hard to nail down - basically converges on a community center.
All I'm saying is that libraries are making concerted efforts to break out of the traditional definition ("gatekeeper of information") - you should check out your local library to see all that they do!
The headline is way overselling it. It’s basically allowing you to decline a meeting and leave a note (questions, comments) that will pop up on people’s screens during the meeting.
Frankly, you may be unsatisfied with the wording of the post, but there are no better alternatives, and nobody in these comments would have done any better.
In one way, this is essentially the "wedge". You start with a very specific long tail keyword, but you also cover related searches and topics, and the nice part is that your website analytics will then feed you more long tail keywords that are related but not exactly this page: those are ideas for other pages.
This is one reason why you'll see a page with one topic as a title often branch off to cover many related but sort of unexpected topics throughout the page - it's to cover the main keyword but also grab coverage on the related ones that might be easier to rank for (by simply mentioning it in a page vs. dedicating a page to it). As the owner of that site, you might see that one of these pages could be getting traffic from hundreds of keywords, and 10 of them are on a distinct enough topic that warrants another page. So you build a page for that, etc.
Depends on the product. Not all products are built for these types of trials. If a product needs more heavy lifting to show value then you are more likely to have a sales team. And just because you can evaluate that complex product by yourself doesn't mean that happens for everyone else.
Selling, by the way, is not just demo'ing the product. It's also navigating legal, finance, security, end users who don't know as much as you do, etc. As a buyer, it's sometimes easier to have your rep help you identify what the quickest path is. Lets me move faster, anyway.
Sales is a process. If I (as the salesperson) control the process, then I am more likely to win the deal. On average, my company has shown that doing these 3-5 touchpoints in this order leads to the greatest success, so I want people to follow this order as much as possible, and so does the rest of my team.
I'm glad to meet someone who is very capable of working with new software. They're smart and they pick up on things very quickly. Not many people are like this. If they can evaluate and sign an order form without me doing anything, I call that a big win.
But, given an average prospect, if I let them kick around and then they tell me "Nah this isn't it." do I assume that they actually evaluated the way that maximizes my likelihood of winning (or, put another way, that maximizes their chance of finding something valuable)? If I didn't talk to them, then I'm not sure if they saw X feature or could see the Y value that I typically can tell a story around. So I'd rather work through the gated process. Heck, it's even better for them because they have a higher chance of solving their problem.
Now, if you're really insistent, then I'll notice that and find a way to make the process fit your style. But on average it's better for both you and me if we do it my way.
I have seen (these are from a broader pool of a couple hundred people +/- 1 year from me): business school, other/real graduate school (e.g., math), private equity, political campaigns (e.g., Buttigieg's), startup founder, startup early employee, tech companies of all roles (commonly biz ops and PM), software engineer, restaurant line cook, large corporations (e.g., McDonald's).
Essentially, the same stuff high-achieving new grads do, but I would say my peers come out a little sharper on communication, operating independently, driving work efficiently, etc.
Logos would be one way to measure success for a sales team but rarely the only one. Most times, there is a quota the salesperson has to hit, and there is a standardized discount schedule they are pre-approved to offer against in order to hit that quota.
"I get a lot of value from HN: it's fast, doesn't require an app, curating is done by real people and the comments add a lot. I'd be curious to learn what types of content your product surfaces that's different from HN?"