Ask HN: My free app has gone slighty viral – looking for ideas to monetize it - <AUTHOR> A bit of background, I built the app because I was running an old Nexus One and the Facebook app was too large to install alongside my other "essential" apps (15mb at the time, its now 38mb!). So I spend about an hour or so and cobbled together the app.
For almost a year and a half it had less than 1000 installs and then in Feb this year it started to rapidly gain installs. It is currently sitting at 241,000 installs (with 55,000 active users).
I figure I should take advantage of this and figure out some way to monetize the app.
Unfortunately the app is all about size and trust (as it sandboxes the FB web app) so most of the ideas I've come up with don't seem to be in the spirit of the app.
Some of the ideas I've had:
* Put in ads and add an in-app purchase to turn them off
* Put in a "donation" in-app purchase * Add support for other social networks but only enable them after an in-app purchase
The app also has some pretty interesting demographics. Most users are from non-English speaking countries: Turkey 18.14%, Philippines 8.38%, Mexico 7.46%, Morocco 6.52%, India 5.27%, Indonesia 4.10%, Brazil 4.04%, Thailand 2.72%, United States 2.59%, Colombia 2.44%, Others 38.33%
The app is called "Social Lite" see here for more info https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rabidgremlin.sociallite
My current go-forward plan is put a survey in place and poll the users on what they want and what they would pay for <comment><USER3> I'd approach this differently and from reading your replies you seem to be a fairly laid back (non "cutthroat") guy so this might be interesting for you.

Use it as a fun experiment to see how much you can grow it not how much you can monetize. Formulate some assumptions and test them. I'd personally pick one of the countries and see if I can push installs in that country hard (might be difficult due to language issues). Try to figure out how people learn about your app and install it. Figure out what phones it is installed on and write a blogpost on using your app on that phone etc.

55k active users isn't bad. If you keep on growing someone will get interested even if you didn't monetize before (possibly even because you didn't) especially since it's not a "fad app" but something sustainable as long as there's low resource phones. [worst case you can use it if you ever want to apply at Facebook]

tl;dr: use it as your private growth-lab and learn a lot :)

<comment><USER4> Totally agree if you don't need the money it's the way to go.. it may become something even bigger.

<comment><USER5> On the other hand, if it generates some money, it can perhaps allow you to work on it full-time, and you can make it grow even bigger! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unlikely to succeed. Your users won't want to be monetized and they're from countries that are relatively unmonetizable. You don't say what you do for a living, but—personally—I'd slap this on my resume as a 'look at the awesome user base my apps have had' sort of event, and move on. Great way to gain better leverage for the next job move or raise request, but not likely to be more than that at present.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I'm a software dev by trade. Considering the opportunity costs, perhaps I should just use the app's success for brag rights.

<comment><USER7> Silly question perhaps but is the app able to display notifications? (primarily for 'messages' from facebook) as this is the main reason most people install the official apps. Perhaps you could build a messaging client that works in conjunction with it and that could be your income stream?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately this wouldn't be technically possible as the app just wraps the FB mobile web app.

<comment><USER8> technically it is possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tell me more... I suppose one could do some form of page scrapping in the background and then generate a notifucation

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi OP I'm from morocco and I can tell you that NOBODY in Morocco will pay your app. Why ? I'll tell you why.

Here in the 3rd world countries we don't have credit card unless we get a job, and when I say "get a job" I mean 28 and up . Morocco is very different from Europe and US because we don't have unemployement and just to make a living is really hard.

Also Piracy here is something commun because our ISP ( and we have only one lol who fuck the market with their High price and low value) Doesn't block torrent, as long as you stay out of Illegal stuffs...

Also even if I have a credit card at 21 ( I worked in a call center in the last summer so I can afford it) I will never lose money on apps. First: I'm poor Second : We only have 10 000 Dirhams ( 900 Euro ) to spend in a whole YEAR. Wich means we're very careful on what we spend money on.

So the best thing I can tell you is to add a banner and one or two Interstial ads and NOBODY will bat an eye .

Hope I gave you an insight OP :)

<comment><USER10> I'd say the same about Indian users like myself. The sort of people who are downloading this app on their last-generation hardware are unlikely to pay for in-app purchases, and definitely not for donations. Although you do have reviews on the Play Store claiming to the contrary, so your call to make.

Also worth evaluating whether the PPC network you're thinking of using will pay you the same rate for audiences in these countries as they do for audiences in the West (which is already very little)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is tough. When webOS was announced I got into the early Palm developer's program and created an application. It was kinda neat but also not incredibly complex. After the Pre was released within about 6 months it had over 100,000 downloads (which, for a new OS and device, seemed kinda awesome!). It was a free app but I thought I could try to monetize it a little.

First step was to try ads. It went from highly rated to about 3 stars because everyone hated the ads (understandable). I tried putting them at the top, bottom, middle; nothing worked at all.

There were no in-app purchases for webOS (or really any platform at the time) so I did what everyone else started doing: when they launched being able to pay for apps I provided my app for $.99 with no ads. After 2 years of running I made $9.

Essentially I destroyed the user-base my app initially had by trying a couple of ways to monetize them that provided poor user experience. I'm not sure what the best solution is here but don't make my mistake and worsen your user experience to make money; it won't work.

FYI for anyone curious my app on webOS was a take on the tip calculator. I know I know "why would you try to charge for a TIP calculator!?" but I thought the spin I had was novel, you could rate different parts of your restaurant experience to get an exact amount to tip rather than dealing with percentages at all (it only showed you the percentage after it calculated the tip). I had done a ton of tip research at the time and thought the idea might be worth something (plus I was young and dumb). It even had bill splitting! But yeah in the end I really shouldn't have charged for it I mostly wanted to experiment to see if I could monetize it and I ended up completely destroying it. [http://www.webosnation.com/dumb-waiter-free](http://www.webosnation.com/dumb- waiter-free)

<comment><USER12> I think nowadays "experimenting" monetisation methods and pricing strategy can be done in a much safer way than back then. for example geographical rollout, A/B testing on a small non-important niiche (that won't probably monetise big). Its very normal (or essential) to experiment stuff like that without the fear to "destroy the user base the app initially had"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> SocialLite is a great name btw.

Monetization via end users is not realistic. This is my hypothesis regarding your user profile: (1) low-income or no-income aka cost sensitive, (2) possibly bad mobile data infrastructure, (3) pay-as-you-go mobile data or limited wifi access.

Your app is valuable because it is a REPLACEMENT for the company's real app, because the real deal (as you put it nicely) is too large.

I would perhaps develop clones of your app for other social networks, and have a constellation of SocialLite apps for Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc...

Why?

Because the value is in how lightweight you are but still be able to satisfy end user needs. Do not add ads, or in-app purchase bullshit. Your users don't want that. And customers are gods.

Why?

Because you are collecting DATA. Usage patterns and quantifiable habits. The companies would be interested in that. Even just Facebook _might_ be interested in what stats you have now, and having data on their frienemies adds proportionally more value.

But

Before you write another line of code, please reach out and get some feelers to see if the companies indeed want data and what data they are looking for. Since you are in developing markets, and companies want to expand there, you are providing a unique and rare insight into those markets. Data driven insights are better than anything else.

P.S.:

I would not survey the users. Bad UX (specifically bad information timing) and whatever little data you ascertain will not be actionable anyway.

<comment><USER14> How would you price the value of data? Who do you go to to sell data?

If you had to guess, how much would FB pay for this apps data?

Are there any hot startups in this data space?

<comment><USER15> I fear that FB (or any other company) would not view this as a wonderful opportunity to purchase data about it's users, but rather another company stealing it's data. Remember when there were companies who made money off Twitter's API? FB is infinitely more territorial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had the same idea 4 years ago and did the exact same thing for several apps. This was a bad idea : [https://medium.com/@kirualex/an-android-developers- nightmare...](https://medium.com/@kirualex/an-android-developers- nightmare-105cb3f3beef)

Google content policy is now very clear : Do not post any applications whose primary function is to: generate traffic to a website; or provide an overview of a website that you do notown and you do not handle (unless you have permission of the owner / administrator of the website).

<comment><USER17> Wow, that's quite a surprise. I just checked the terms you quoted - [https://play.google.com/about/developer-content- policy.html](https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html) \- and of course you're absolutely right.

I can see why Google specify this since a store filled with spammy apps wrapping popular sites would be bad for everyone. But this puts the kibosh on privacy-focused apps like Tinfoil for Facebook or the Twitter equivalent, and bloat-reducing apps like the OP's. I imagine that these have yet to be suspended simply because nobody at Google has noticed them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mr slightly viral,

You priced your app at zero. It became a success. Monetizing your app now will probably make it less so. Rather monetize by building good will with your customers (brand) and applying lessons learned towards development of your app2. If it's good enough you can charge for it.

<comment><USER19> I second this too.

I wonder why are many advices in this topic don't consider the relationship between the OP and his users. That trust has a value, and OP should ever destroy it.

<comment><USER20> I can't be the only one who clicks on the developer's name in the app store to see what else they have available when the app I am using from them is good and free. If I get a good free app I'll be more likely to pay for the next one.

OP should think long term, he is a developer by trade, a quick buck now isn't a smart move imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Don't put third party advertisements in. If you are going to do any advertising, come up with a second project that might be of interest to your demographic, but that costs money, and advertise for your own product.

I'd consider some sort of soccer score app that integrates with FB.

</comment><comment><USER22> Actually there is an official app published by Facebook, for size-sensitive users. It's called Facebook Lite and here is the google store link : [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.l...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.lite)

</comment><comment><USER23> With a free app you have to have your monetization in before launch. But this is a great platform to launch other apps from. Apps even next to a popular free app get more visibility/discovery. Many companies launch a free app designed solely for users to help drive pay app usage.

Donation is probably the only option as advertising for those areas aren't as high in payout. Don't be sad by the letdown you will get from donation though, it is always way lower than expected. Ad supported apps also don't really get that much money.

The only successful app strategy is to have quality apps and as many as you can support with quality levels.

</comment><comment><USER24> Be mindful of what Facebook's lawyers will think of you monetizing their logo and their website.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm careful to never mention Facebook anywhere in the app or its description. FB is in logo and of course it does load the Facebook app so a very thin line I think :)

<comment><USER25> Hey Rabid congrats on the success. If interested, you should email me @ rbw at fb dot com. Edit: not a lawyer :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not accusing you of anything, but

Tinfoil is a great app thats similar. Also free and open source - [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.danvelazco...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.danvelazco.fbwrapper)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it is.

I actually came across Tinfoil after I released my app. It does the same thing buts its "marketing message" was different so I did not find it when I first went looking for this type of app :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am/was in the same situation as far as popularity goes with my desktop application (for OSX), and I personally went the route of not monetizing at all. To me, the knowledge gained through every feature I added and every bug I fixed is/was more valuable than the money I could have made.

Then again, I have a great paying job that I love, and I primarily built it because I couldn't find a similar application with the features I was looking for, so other people finding it useful is just a bonus. Plus, it's a great way to show that I have passion for development outside of work, and that I'm continually trying to improve myself as a programmer/engineer. I even provided detailed Arch/Design/Req docs in the github repos, just in case anyone was interested in looking.

Of the options listed in this thread, I like the idea of adding an "in-app" purchase for the feature you mention gets requested a lot (photo uploads I believe). The knowledge that will give you is immensely valuable (being able to turn features on/off in the same application), if you don't already have that built in.

Anyway, that's just my opinion, but you should do whatever you think will make you happy.

</comment><comment><USER28> First of congratulations on the app, it is fulfilling a real need.

You have cracked the first problem of getting people to download + use +care about the app.

I like the idea of doing the survey however from my experience (we did a paid for Google Customer survey) our users want more content and for price of free which wasn't hugely useful.

Personally I think you have three easy options:

1\. Add some low level not too obtrusive adverts in (you will get a nice trickle of money in)

From my own experience of putting adverts into a util app ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teazel&hl=...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teazel&hl=en)) no-one minds at all. The key is to not go overboard. We have banners that don't refresh too often, disappear if they going to draw over a dice. The number of apps I see show full screen adverts at start up, every page transition etc - all very icky.

2\. As others have said try and grow it and use it for Resume/CV building. My one reservation on this is make sure you actually try and capitalise on it. I'm reminded of friends staying in awful jobs due to the training/experience and years later never really harvesting the rewards.

3\. Use it to cross promote another app (either by yourself or sell the space). Getting an app to be downloaded is so hard now having this to kick start the next project is a great de-risker.

I would go for option 1 or 3 depending on whether you have other apps in the pipeline.

As an aside is this lightweight wrapping of a webapp model work for other providers? LinkedIn etc?

</comment><comment><USER29> Nice app. Developing countries love their saving data (I used to work with an app in a similar vein). In your shoes Id likely move forward in 3 stages;

1) Bug Fix - if you can build momentum on growth your really onto something. Given the 80% inactive rate, have you looked at why people are uninstalling (I saw a bunch of no photo upload button on my quick look)? Improving scale if probably the best way to make money if you don't really need the cash now.

2) Insert reasonably unobtrusive ads and see how they go. Given the countries involved you'll be surprised that even with a large number of users you're not hitting big money. Possibly try a few different ad placements to see the user experience vs. clicks vs. payments.

2) Once you have ads and know how many clicks you are getting, look for local opportunities for the bigger country(ies). Things like sponsorship of affiliate/offer type deals. These should pay more but come with a real time cost.

3) Once you have a view how much a customer is worth, decide if you want to take the cash out or re-invest back into growing the app. Ideally if you can spend $X on recruitment and get back $X+Y you should chase growth. If not, enjoy riding the organic wave.

Regarding the poll, I'd not bother. What people say and do are often very different. I'd be more inclined to test ads and placement for real response. Monitor for feedback and possibly make a ad free version if people want.

I've heard donation buttons don't really work.

Adding additional social support sounds good but at a price? Not sure there. These markets are super cost conscious so I'd personally look to focus on growth first and secondly monetising the user at no cost to them.

Good luck

<comment><USER30> The app page indicates that it might actually use more data since it wraps the web site.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Here's how you could play it:

1) Play dirty: serve high resolution media (pic an videos) to the users - <USER2> results in more data downloaded = costs more money to your users. Here is where you ask them to pay a fair monthly subscription that would cost them less than $x-internet-provider-money (you can make tailor made plans depending on the stats)

2) Make it faster for who pays! At the very top of the page you could add a speed indicator (something like a thin progress bar) to indicate the speed of the page. Then make one of the views (the profile page for example) super fast to tease your users! and the ask for upgrade to premium to get all teH things fast :)

No matter how you play it I would "re-brand" it and remove any reference to the FB UI - which I guess is (c) Mark Boy

<comment><USER32> All of these ideas will make your users hate you.

<comment><USER33> They are using it because its lighter. Lighter means faster. So taking away those two features and you are left with no reason for users to use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Script the build & make such tiny apps for all popular permission hogging apps with websites. Then cross-promote them within your app.

This is what I would do :)

</comment><comment><USER35> Many apps or softwares are successful because the price is right. Often the right price is free. You need to consider if your user base even has money to give you. Your best bet is to use traffic from your current app as a way to sell another related service.

</comment><comment><USER36> Looks like a cool app and you've got some great reviews.

I would not add advertisements as you will risk damaging the good relationship you currently have with your users. Try adding a donation button and just see whether it brings in enough money. Adding support for other social networks also seems like a good idea, but a lot more work.

I'm actually in the process of developing my first Android app for our community at [https://fpvracing.tv](https://fpvracing.tv). Any tips / tutorials you would recommend?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is awesome! I'd suggest:

1) You work you way through all the Android dev YouTube vids from Google: [https://www.youtube.com/user/androiddevelopers](https://www.youtube.com/user/androiddevelopers)

2) Use the app compat and app design support libraries

3) Test on real devices with different versions of the Android OS

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Kickstarter campaigns often charge people extra money for getting access to Alpha and Beta builds. People are impatient, many want stuff sooner rather than later, so they pay for it.

You could offer a modified version of this; allow premium customers access to new features earlier, but roll out the updates to your free subscribers eventually as well. After a delay of 3 months perhaps?

It will gently encourage people to upgrade, but those who don't want to pay won't feel cheated as they will get the features eventually as well.

</comment><comment><USER38> Congratulations on the success of the app!

When i've been in similar situations i've tried to look forward and not back. By that I mean, if it's getting a lot of downloads then let the people who have already downloaded it have it, don't change their experience by adding adverts in or damaging parts of the experience. Charge for new people to get the app. Saying that, I've never had it with as many people already downloaded the app, but i'd like to think i'd still do the same thing.

I have an app that I originally charged for and it got very little downloads, I made it free for a while and didn't pay much attention to the downloads, went back to it at a later time and noticed it had a lot of downloads so I started charging for it just to see what would happen, I expected to make it free again within a week due to no downloads. Downloads obviously dropped a bit, but still kept a pretty consistent level and have done ever since. I make a point of always improving the app though, so maybe that helps too but I just think it comes down to timing and having those previous downloads could help, it seemed to help me.

I'm not sure if you can turn a free Android app into a paid one though, I don't think you used to be able to, so that might all be pointless and you'd have to make a new id for it, but you've proved people definitely want it.

Whatever you do, good luck. I'm sure having a high downloaded app will help you at some point even if you don't manage to do as much as you want with this one. I hope you do.

</comment><comment><USER39> Instead of all the pop ups, or ads etc, how about just a simple message to users asking for a contribution. It's a much more direct, and far less abrasive approach, plus it's personal and seems reasonable. I'm betting it will convert at 5 - 10% of users aged 16+.

E.g. Hi, I hope you are enjoying this app and finding it useful. Could you support this app by paying a one-time fee of just $1? It will allow me to keep the app updated and best of all running ad-free! Thanks in advance.

<comment><USER40> Based off of OP's user demographics, I'm really doubtful that a donate option would convert 5-10% or make him any considerable money at all.

I own a similarly popular free app and I offer an option to pay a very small fee to remove ads and get other features within the app. The income from this purchase (which actually benefits the user as opposed to a donation) takes about 5 months to equal what I do in a day off of ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Rather than monetize, I think instead you should try to get more people to install it. Make it better. Add features to block ads or something. Clearly you've built something people want. Find a way to engage with your users and build more trust with them. Your next app will be quite popular with them, I'm sure.

You're trying to monetize too early. Get real traction first. A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.

</comment><comment><USER42> I developed and maintained a game for Android devices for 3 years and the game was for Turkish players only.

80 percent of my time was spent for optimizing the game for low-end devices; low-end devices lead the market because of those are the ones that majority of high school (or even primary school) students' parents could afford.

Not surprisingly, revenue coming from low-end devices segment was almost zero because young people using these devices are usually under 18 and were not allowed to have credit cards. Even relatively older ones (such as college students) didn't spend any money because they were trying to survive as students with a limited budget.

Nexus One is a great smartphone with an acceptable large screen and you can still buy a working one from the second hand market. The weakest point of this cheap-heavy duty device is the limited memory, which is you focused on. (Actually it can be hacked to extend internal memory to micro SD card, but still hard for many people.)

Another example of low-end devices is Samsung Galaxy Ace. That is, my friend, a time and effort killer with almost no returns except always complaining free users.

</comment><comment><USER43> I have an app in the Google Play store, it has around 1,500 active installs and I decided to do a bit of an experiment last year by releasing a paid pro version. It was exactly the same, it just had a different colour icon and 'Pro' branding. I put the price at 99c/99p, and put a link to it in the free edition description (the descriptions were the same other than that). I was pretty surprised when people actually bought it...

I think I made about $5 before I realised after a couple of weeks, and then I took it down. The app hadn't been touched for a few years and wasn't the best quality, so I didn't feel happy for basically scamming people. I was considering doing the same for a donate version, but wanted to improve the app first - which I never got around to.

I think you could get some income by doing something similar, but it's very unlikely to replace your main income.

<comment><USER44> I don't consider it scamming to provide a paid version without extra features. There are other software products that have this, like Winrar and Cyberduck.

Additionally, if I see a "free" and "paid" version of something I think I need/want, I always get the paid version, because I don't want ads. I'd rather pay 99c~2,99c for no-ads then having those freaking annoying ads.

I want an ad-free home. No ads on my PC, TV or phone. Nowhere.

<comment><USER45> It really depends on how it was worded, if it was saying that paid version is exactly the same and is there to express your support, then it is not a scam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Don't monetize the app, but build from the success of it.

You have an App with 240k installs, that's very good in a CV or when pitching your services.

This demographic is not going to pay you, sorry.

Now, developing apps that are light and work in older phones can be a marketable skill.

</comment><comment><USER47> I wouldn't bother with ads. One of my apps [1] has about 13,000 active users and I make ~£20 a month with it. Ads just don't make you any money. Although this is just my experience, obviously, and there may be reasons why the ads in my app aren't as successful as yours could be.

Still, I think it's probably not worth annoying your users for the paltry amount of cash you'll raise.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyappe...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyapped.sayit)

</comment><comment><USER48> You could add a 1 second splash count down whenever they open the app from multi tasking, and a simple payment can disable that. It's not an ad. Just a countdown timer with an unlock feature. For a typical user, it wont be that big of a pinch, but for power users who cycle between apps and check back it could be worth monetizing.

Once again you're not putting ads, you're just exercising your right to monetize something you built ;)

OR if there are premium features you can push out that are not ad-removal related you might stand a chance at converting 1% of your users (freemium model)

</comment><comment><USER49> ☻ I'm sure everyone else has gone through the pro's and cons of different monetisation and product strategies.

☻ But having looked through the thread, I don't believe anyone has asked you to think about Why the app is getting traction.

☻ You can come up with your own hypothesis or you can ask your users.

☻ Once you've understood why, you'll be better placed to take the next step. Whether that involves monetisation, creating clones, developing the app, not developing the app - that is up to you.

☻Tl;dr Find out why users like your app and try to strategise based on that.

</comment><comment><USER50> This kind of happened to me. I've tried building serious apps with limited success and traction. I'm a huge reddit/imgur fan so a built a hobby site for myself using reddit's api to browse through their images: [http://www.flipmeme.com](http://www.flipmeme.com). Currently gets 100k uniques per month, can't monetize!!! In other words, the stuff you really work on doesn't get anywhere, random stuff you build as a joke suddenly takes off?!

<comment><USER51> Why can't you monetize? You could stick ads in there, at least.

<comment><USER50> It's against Imgur's terms of service. You can't show ad's and direct link to their images. Any other ideas :).

<comment><USER51> Ask for donations. If the donations don't at least cover the cost of running the site, shut it down (unless you're happy paying out of pocket).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> How about the WhatsApp approach: first year free, then $0.99 per year?

<comment><USER52> WhatsApp has a distinct advantage in the fact that it can rely on lock-in since the app itself is responsible for the connections that are made within it; Once the .99 price-tag comes along, you are faced with paying for it or losing your entire WhatsApp chat network/groups/etc. With OP's software, all of those connections are handled by FB, not his app. Therefore, if he were to charge something, people could simply opt for the next-best one that is free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Looks like the same kind of users as Opera Mini which has high number of users in Indonesia, India, Pakistan etc. They face similar problems as you do. Many users which don't have much money.

Idea 1) Sell it to Opera Software Idea 2) Do like Opera and sign deals with mobile network operators to include operator content Idea 3) Sell Internet access through your app. Internet access is normally sold by hour in these countries. Sign deals with operators and similar. Idea 4) Advertising in app

</comment><comment><USER54> Given your motivations and comments, I would recommend that you have a whatsapp like subscription in place. One can get around paying for the subcription by inviting friends. For best results, make it easy enough to select all for the invite [you will soon realize that you'll get most of your users from such people who don't mind inviting a friend to an app they like a lot]. At some point in the next 1-2 years, you would likely get to 1 million downloads!

</comment><comment><USER55> Looks like fb got the same idea now. [http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/04/download-facebook- lite/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/04/download-facebook-lite/) wrt monetization you can try adding a splash page, which the users can see they when login/log out of the app. Can connect you to some Indian app / game guys if you are interested.

</comment><comment><USER56> Why not put 'App Recomendations' messages that drive installs for other apps?

There's a ton of CPA networks that pay anywhere from .5 to $3 for an app install.

</comment><comment><USER57> 1\. Do not touch the current app. As everybody said, you will simply lose people.

2\. Create extra features for a PRO version. Perhaps simply a tab that let you switch between Twitter and Facebook? From what I understand, your app is pretty much a wrapper with a mobile site inside of it. Add tabs for other social websites. Pinterest, Twitter, etc. Something simple that people are going to be willing to pay a few extra coins for.

</comment><comment><USER58> I was looking around and I found [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.l...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.lite) which comes from Facebook itself. Strangely it is incompatible with all my devices and I think this is due to a play store location based restriction (I am based in India).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I noticed that... very interesting

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> If you do this I suspect most users will move to "Tinfoil for Facebook". It does exactly what you describe and is popular and open-source.

</comment><comment><USER60> Rabidgremlin since you are planning to put a survey in place to understand what your users need, you can actually integrate Pollfish ([http://www.pollfish.com](http://www.pollfish.com)) which actually allows you both to survey your users for free easily, and also monetize in a different way than classic ads!

</comment><comment><USER61> You could try adding a "Social Lite Deals" page where you put affiliate offers (e.g. stuff with reduced prices from Amazon).

This way you provide some kind of additional value and don't risk offending your user base. Granted it won't be as effective as ads but perhaps it's a good starting point to figure out what your users like and accept.

</comment><comment><USER62> Add an upgraded app that lets users redirect their traffic via servers you control. If they installed your app for privacy reasons, give them a reason to pay you for more privacy.

If Turkey is very popular that tells me that your users might want to conceal the fact (from their government) that they use facebook at all.

<comment><USER63> May I ask why you think that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> One of your recent reviews: "Cool! (mainly because there're no ads) To developers: keep ads out please -- willing to pay for it. Android ads are getting extremely intolerably utterly annoying and painful and stupid. Also, please keep network traffic minimal."

</comment><comment><USER65> Create a supporting website and put ads on that. Blog about updates and maybe even your experience creating the app. If you had that right now, you could be getting a lot of traffic from HN.

I'm afraid if you put ads in the app you will lose a lot of users and get negative feedback.

</comment><comment><USER66> When I think light, the last thing I think of is ads. Ads will make your app feel bloated to users.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Monetization just got a little tricker :( [http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/04/facebook-lite- app](http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/04/facebook-lite-app)

</comment><comment><USER68> My opinion is not to listen people telling you not to put ads. Remember, your demographics is not first tier so that advice doesn't apply... You'd be surprised what a banner or an interstitial can bring on those countries....

</comment><comment><USER69> I have very similar install numbers to your app on one of mine and I have had excellent monetization off a single banner ad across the bottom.

It reduces the usable screen area by only a little and is hardly intrusive to the experience.

</comment><comment><USER70> 55k active users is super! Since you are popular in 3rd world countries I would suggesting adding something your users can earn some extra money directly from phone. Maybe fiverr integration, odesk, amazon turk, etc.

</comment><comment><USER71> You can take the opportunity to build your brand, or someone else's. Gaining peoples thrust and building a reputation is hard, but very critical! Fifty thousands active users are worth about one million dollars.

<comment><AUTHOR> A million dollars? How so ?

<comment><USER71> It's generally what's people are willing to spend on exposure, in lets say commercials, calculated for one year. It's an estimate on what you would earn from adds in one year.

Introducing ads might make the users leave though, so be careful. There's also a risk Facebook would have something to say about your monetizing on their product.

So my suggestion is to implement that feature ppl want, let them know about the awesome dude behind it, and that you care about their user experience. Then leverage the goodwill it creates to get free exposure and users to your other product(s), that are monetized. Basically you can use the app to build a loyal user base.

An example is the dude who made Flappy Bird. He also got lots of downloads and exposure for his other games just by having his name on it.

<comment><USER72> 50K DAU won't get you more than 500k$ in annual revenues from ads

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Don't do ads, people will uninstall it in a jiffy. Create a second app, call it Social Lite Plus or something, and have some extra options - bit of a freemium version, but not sure if that's a possibility?

</comment><comment><USER74> Is this really just a webview that loads m.facebook.com?

</comment><comment><USER15> Congrats! This is really awesome. You've found some amount of product-market fit, and that is really really amazing. I think you should keep going, as this is when things start to get hard. You've cleared a few hurdles, and now you need to clear some very different obstacles.

From the countless hours that I've spent trying to figure out how to get users to give me money, I can confidently say that a surveying your users about monetization is the worst data you will ever see.

I can also say, with 200% confidence, that ads are not the right decision at this point. Here is why: 1) They aren't your users. These are FB users, and if you start showing ads to them, FB will view this as stealing ad space from FB. Not a good spot to be in. 2) The geo distribution seems pretty clear that the light weight solution is a compelling feature. Ad SDKs are notoriously heavy on the binary, sometimes 20MB. Ads also use a large amount of data and are often slower than everything else. Most web pages could load in a fraction of time if they dropped the ads. So, putting in ads seems to kill the biggest feature of your app.

I don't buy the argument that you can't monetize that geo distribution. It's true that those geos are overlooked by larger companies, but that also means less competition. Just know that you're fighting for low ARPU users. Whatsapp used this strategy wonderfully. When their competitors were fighting over iPhone penetration in the US, they were building for feature phones in similar geos. They also kept the price point low, keeping in mind they had lower ARPU users.

I suspect that your best solution would be to find a compelling in-app- purchase (IAP). To do this, you'll need to start knowing everything about your users. What features do they use? What features do they not use? When do they use the app? What do they want to accomplish with the app? Remember, Line started selling stickers when everyone could use emotiacons. Sometimes the winning business model is the thing that no one thought to try or everyone thought was too dumb. What is FB missing from the experience that you could add? I've always been impressed at how user's actions can be the opposite of what they say. Your users will reveal their intent by what they do, so watch them very carefully.

I suspect a very telling analysis would be to start comparing users who hit the day-7 mark and leave vs those who hit the day-7 mark and stay. My guess is that you'll start seeing some patterns about how retained users are interacting with the app, and then double down on that.

As a side note, your DAU to installs ratio seems to imply poor retention for a social app. This may be because the growth is targeting the wrong type of user. Regardless, this is a number that you'll probably want to get to know very well. If you do have lower-then-average retention, find a way to turn it into a strength with other numbers that are really impressive, such as engagement.

This is really, really awesome and you should be proud of what you have accomplished. The next stage of growth will be harder to scale, but the bragging rights are a few orders of magnitude higher up there. Keep it up!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comments, lots to think about

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Wouldnt the users get a better experience using the browser rather than using webview wrapped site?

</comment><comment><USER76> Do the whatsapp thing. Free for 1 year. $1 afterwards. Its affordable even in all those countries.

</comment><comment><USER77> Yes, add google admob and facebook audience network ads, and a way to turn them off

</comment><comment><USER78> Make a pro version with a few extra features and sell it for $2.99.

</comment><comment><USER79> FYI, Philippines is an English speaking country.

</comment><comment><USER80> You spent an hour to write an app? ok.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, the app is embarrassing simple, maybe a 100 lines of code but apparently people find it useful.</comment></comment>


A lack of sleep can kill you - <AUTHOR> http://www.usmansheikh.com/random/a-lack-of-sleep-can-kill-you

<comment><USER2> Providing an India Centric view: Hard work is almost irrationally idolized here. True Anecdote - I wanted to check out a Car on a Tuesday afternoon, the first thing the Car salesman asked me are you on a holiday today from Work? (it was inconceivable for him that I could take off at 3.30). I was at a talk by a very senior Computer Professional and heard the following boast - "no one in my company puts in less than 10 hours a day". The company he speaks about has 20,000 employees in one location alone. After the talk a ton of people congratulated him for inspiring them to drive their employees to work harder. The stupidity in those comments just boggles the mind.

<comment><USER3> From my experience in a couple of 'large Indian IT companies': it is a matter being seen by your boss as 'being around'.

Out of an average of the 10 hours put in per day, I daresay only about 6-7 are productive. The rest would be spent in coffee breaks, meal-time breaks, smoke breaks, and sending around pictures of puppies, kittens and babies.

To be fair though, quite a fair number of these IT workers are expected to work standard hours, and then put in at least a couple of hours face-time with the client. The client is [more often than not] either European or American, so there's no real way out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My own conclusion: exercise and diet are overrated, I'll still do sleep experiments because I don't want to spend 1/3 of my life unconscious in bed. Things like uberman, everyman, siestas, melatonin supplements, and modifinil are all intriguing.

The writing of this entry bugs me. Generalizing from sample size of 1, "confidential sources" (he won't even link to papers apparently already published, all years ago!), and the sentence "For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture."

Taking the last stat to be true (Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease.) that's still only a change from something like 0.6% to 0.8%. (Initial percent from memory, so it may be off.)

<comment><USER5> You should have a look at this Reddit comment (and the rest of the threads under the parent post): [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/co5t9/i_attempted_poly...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/co5t9/i_attempted_polyphasic_sleep_for_a_documentary_ama/)

" _I tried the biphasic thing for about 2 months, then attempted the "uberman" thing for about 4 months. This was probably the biggest mistake of my life. [...] I'm actually now seeing several doctors (neurologists, endocrinologists) because I feel so "off" all the time. [...] This amount of masochistic, long- term sleep deprivation can fuck with your hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis._ "

There's several corroborating accounts in other comments under that post.

As I said in another comment here, everyone is different. Just be careful and make sure to pay attention to your body and mind's needs, and be aware of the risks.

<comment><USER6> Correlation is not causation. While his sleep patterns could have caused the problem it may have just happened at the same time.

<comment><USER7> "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

<http://xkcd.com/552/>

<comment><USER4> Oh come on, give him a break. He didn't say "Correlation doesn't imply causation", which of course is silly, but he said "Correlation is not causation", which is spot on.

Anyway, I've never been able to successfully do the uberman for more than a few weeks, though I did do the everyman successfully for a few months. As with everything involving messing with the brain, which includes things as simple as caffeine, the results could be disastrous in certain people. As far as I know I'm not such a person. I worry about what things like drunk-inducing- amounts of Alcohol or LSD would do to my brain, which is one of the reasons I don't use such things, but I'd probably be fine afterwards.

<comment><USER7> I am not saying that his/her statement is incorrect. I am saying that it takes one mighty coincidence for that person to get those issues due to unrelated causes exactly at the same time that person meddled with sleep.

Possible? Yes. Probable? I don't think so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article does not address the correlation between the amount of stress people endure and the amount of sleep they take.

People who pour their lives into work generally tend to have less sleep and be more stressed. So, is it the sleep, the stress, or both that kill people?

</comment><comment><USER9> Do people who deprive themselves of sleep truly maximize their potential?

I, for one, can feel a huge difference in my ability to focus on cognitive challenges when I'm well-rested and I've engineered my environment in such a way that eliminates distraction. Doing truly challenging work well requires peak mental performance. It's hard to see how it's possible to do that if one is actively sabotaging his or her physical and mental machineries.

</comment><comment><USER10> _If you are not getting enough sleep (7 hours)_

Why 7 hours? We're being preached the importance of REM sleep, and yet half the REM sleep of the night typically comes between the 7th and 8th hour.

Does anyone know how this reasoning applies to people taking multiple short naps? I had a friend who did this for a semester. What about hyposomniacs? Are they more efficient or is something missing? I have a friend who naturally cannot sleep more than 5 hours a night - he wakes up naturally after 5.

 _edit: I wrote apples instead of applies..._

</comment><comment><USER11> Wasn't there some poor kid who passed away of heart failure somewhere in Asia from gaming 24-7, and they blamed it on lack of sleep?

I was under the impression that the lethality of sleep deprivation was not something that was widely questioned..

On a related note, BBC Horizon has an interesting documentary on sleep and your body clock called The Secret Life Of Your Body Clock.

<comment><USER12> I realize that "The Secret Life Of X" is one of their title patterns, but in this case it just sounds awkward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't believe running marathons is considered healthy. Actually any kind of intensive (I don't know the English term for it) sports would be considered not good for longevity most research says. I've seen (semi) prof runners, rowers and a badminton player in my own circles die of heart attacks and cancer (long) before their time, while people who never did much of anything sporty (and smoke + drink) are currently over 90 (yes, I personally know _far_ more sport/health people dying before 60, and 50, than I know people who live unhealthy; no-one unhealthy died before 80, while in the 'healthy' category, I've had a lot of deaths). This all doesn't prove anything, neither does this article, but the lack of sleep would've been more interesting if the guy would be 'normal', aka, not running marathons, but play the weekly rounds of squash and golf.

</comment><comment><USER14> This does not surprise me, nor does "lack of x will kill you" and the same goes for "too much of x will harm you". Just do things in moderation, or do what you feel you need. Our bodies seem to be pretty smart and often work themselves out - so just listen to it. If you feel tired, go to sleep. If you're hungry, then eat.

For biologists and doctors, it might be fun/interesting to study but for the rest of us I think we should just use common sense and listen to our bodies. I personally abhor these "fads".

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of one of my favourites:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Terrors_(Star_Trek:_The_N...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Terrors_\(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation\)) (spoiler there)

But seriously, TNG writers managed to capture so many important ideas in sf- fashioned stories... Nice hack.

</comment><comment><USER16> this article is good but i'm not 100% sure marathoning is healthy as it implies...

<comment><USER17> They also never address whether he had a congenital heart problem

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> No sources cited; also, the facts the author claims the sources provided (chronic sleep deprivation <5 hours/night increases heart disease risk by 39%) are very far from justifying the conclusion he came to (that Ranjan Das's fatal heart attack was almost certainly due to his chronic sleep deprivation <5 hours/night). Justifying that conclusion would require that the relative risk be something like 10:1, not 1.39:1.

In short, while a lack of sleep can kill you, this article is superstitious nonsense that insults the intelligence of its readers.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why didnt the article cite any sources?Just saying "paper published in 2006" is not very convincing

</comment><comment><USER20> Sort of related: has there been any evidence as to why sleep deprivation kills you? A friend and I were hypothesizing about it once, although neither of us are particularly knowledgeable about biology so it was a bunch of probably wild guesses.

<comment><USER21> From the article:

"Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!

Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004."

<comment><USER20> So this issue has gotten to the "it just happens and we're not sure why?" The below comment (same depth level) is kind of the intuition I had, your post gives some reasons why, but I wonder if anyone knows the ground causes, or if that's as low level of abstraction possible at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Url broken for me

<comment><USER23> Here is google's cached version.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy&...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=955&source=hp&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.usmansheikh.com%2Frandom%2Fa- lack-of-sleep-can-kill- you&pbx=1&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.usmansheikh.com%2Frandom%2Fa-lack-of- sleep-can-kill- you&aq=f&aqi=g5&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=29l1965l0l2919l8l4l0l0l0l0l227l684l0.3.1l4l0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The weird thing is that in our understanding of business culture, it is widely accepted if not applauded to be putting in crazy hours and telling of heroic acts of not-sleeping-enough to work and stay fit. At the same time, drinking at work or showing up drunk to work is definitely frowned upon and is reason enough to get fired.

Now here is the thing: studies have shown that sleeping less than 5 hours WILL have negative effects on your body and mind and on your ability to do any job... and frequently or constantly sleeping less than 5 hours even more so, it can even cause hallucinations. And severe lack of sleep can be directly compared to the negative effects of alcohol on your ability to do any work.

But we are applauding the one and frowning upon the other...?

How ridiculous is that, really? Someone with as many responsibilities as a CEO for SAP India openly admitting to only sleeping 4 or 5 hours daily should be treated like someone who just openly confessed downing a glass of vodka for breakfast and lunch each day. And I strongly doubt his "ability" to pull that off... I would imagine someone so competitive and successful and career- focused with that little sleep would not refrain from relying on a little chemical "help". And even if he was still productive enough, just imagine how much better he could have performed if he actually got 6 to 9 hours each night?

This is really nothing but grossly negligent IMHO.

<comment><USER5> While I agree with everything you say in general and I'm a confident advocate of "you should get more sleep!", I find it hard to condemn people for specific cases.

I need 8.5 hours of sleep per night to function properly, and the effects are very noticeable if I get reduced sleep for more than a couple of days in a row.

At the same time, I know several people who sleep 3~6 hours per night and I will not convince them otherwise: One suffers from insomnia for as long as he can remember and has effectively adapted his life around it, and another genuinely feels rested and is unable to sleep more.

We're all different with different needs, and we need to take that into account. But unfortunately most people don't pay attention to their needs and walk around like zombies five days a week, or worse.

<comment><USER24> I can honestly hardly believe the 3- to less-than-6 hours figure if it constantly is less than 4 or 5 per day... studies indicate that this, by and large, is where it WILL start having impacts but of course there could be exceptions and maybe there is a kernel-hacker gene!

<comment><USER25> There is indeed a genetic difference, a very few people are able to sleep less with no negative side effects: [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/artic...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6795361.ece)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Sleeping well helps keep you alive longer. Among humans, death from all causes is lowest among adults who get seven to eight hours of sleep nightly, and significantly higher among those who sleep less than seven or more than nine hours."

<http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/07/deep-into-sleep.html>

Sleep itself probably doesn't make us live longer, but it could be a good measure of how we are living our lives - amount of stress, anxiety, etc.

<comment> T-hawk That last bit is important; don't confuse the correlation and causation. Sleeping more than nine hours a day won't kill you, it just correlates with other conditions related to death, like obesity or terminal illness or old age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The problem for me, as someone who working on a side project, while also holding a full-time job is that I get so sleepy and tired while I'm at work, and when I return back home I get so energized and don't feel like sleeping. It's like even if I sleep 5 hours that previous night, I just stop being tired when I get home to work on my own stuff

<comment><USER28> Yes, and those of us who look after children during the day, and write code from 10pm - 3am, then get up a few hours later to do it all again...

<comment><USER29> Reminds me of when Homer takes a second job at the Kwik-E-Mart to pay for Lisa's pony.

 _I'll work from midnight to eight, come home, sleep for five minutes, eat breakfast, sleep six more minutes, shower, then I have ten minutes to bask in Lisa's love, then I'm off to the power plant fresh as a daisy._

<comment><USER28> I'm totally not complaining at all. Bringing up a young child from a few weeks old when mom went back to work is quite a big deal for a guy in the US, and just a huge privilege that I've been lucky to experience. My daughter 'reading' and babbling and turning pages of books in her playpen is something to behold in a 1 year old.

But 'the fact of the matter is' there's just no way to work for the 10-14 hours you and the child are awake together, at least not on computer programming.

So I've adapted to working in short 1 - 5 hour long bursts either during nap time (short) or after bed-time (long). Using git and GitX has really helped me out with focusing on just one or two aspects and getting those to commit-able state in the time available, versus my usual touch every file and have my svn revision open for weeks.

I'm building my first commercial Cocoa app right now, and it just crossed into being developer-useful, for me personally, and will be more widely useful once the UI is all hooked up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Oh great. Yet another "foo can kill you" thread. Honestly people .. this is starting to sound like /.</comment>


Effective Django - <AUTHOR> http://effectivedjango.com/ <comment><USER2> I'd recommend a section on 'Function Based Views' in there as well. I've personally found the CBV-based approach is sometimes good but in most cases I still prefer the FBV approach. You see it often enough that I think it is worth going over in detail.

<comment><USER3> Is there any reason to still use them though? You could always just define a `get`, `post`, (etc etc) method and have pretty much the same effect of a functional view but with the added niceness of what CBV's provide (mainly inheriting some other view with a lot of boiler plate)

<comment><USER4> [http://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/djangos-cbvs-were-a- mistak...](http://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/djangos-cbvs-were-a-mistake/) [http://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/class-based-views-and- dry-...](http://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/class-based-views-and-dry-ravioli/)

IMO, CBVs are good, but for many cases FBV are simpler to code and easier to understand.

<comment><USER5> Defining a get method on a class is just as simple and allows for future expansion.

<comment><USER2> …future expansion that I will probably never use. And I disagree that it's just as simple. I think that CBV's encourage me (and my team, because I'm not working in a vacuum) to think about the problem all wrong. You may like thinking of the problem that way but for me it's like trying to think of a song while another song is playing. I usually think of Django views as a function, not a method on a class.

Django's FBV's are far from perfect and I think they really could benefit from some small changes to the way things are done, but I agree with the above links that CBV's were a step in the wrong direction.

<comment><USER5> I'll have to just disagree with you here. I don't find the following any more difficult then a functional view

class MyView(View): def get(self): return stuff

It's one more line, and is much more explicit in what it handles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want to see the video of the guy who wrote Effective Django giving it as a tutorial, here you go: <http://pyvideo.org/video/1717/effective-django-0>

</comment><comment><USER7> This is wonderful! I feel like the django documentation, combined with 10,000 stack overflow questions is the wrong way to get started, and yet, that's how it was for me. I will use this all the time for tips and pointers. Thanks!!

</comment><comment><USER8> Fantastic so far, easy to follow.

I've come to a snag at "Writing a Test" ([http://effectivedjango.com/tutorial/models.html#writing-a- te...](http://effectivedjango.com/tutorial/models.html#writing-a-test) ) though, it's not clear which file I should be adding the test class to.

From following the tutorial I would think models.py but from browsing the file structure I would expect test.py

<comment><USER9> I don't know if this is the absolute best way but Two Scoops of Django recommends having a tests folder in each app. So tests for example_app/views.py are placed in example_app/tests/views.py.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks fantastic! Is there a way to get the whole thing in ebook format?

<comment><USER11> I just built an EPub version from Sphinx; you can find it at <http://effectivedjango.com/epub/EffectiveDjango.epub>. There are links from the front page to the EPub and PDF versions.

<comment><USER10> Thanks a lot!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is awesome. I haven't touched Django even though I develop in Python on a daily basis... been meaning to but hadn't found a reason to. I've bookmarked this for when I finally get the itch.

Btw, there are some weird formatting issues in the tutorial (underscores after links?).

<comment><USER11> It's possible those are bad link targets in the ReStructured Text source, I'll take a look. Thanks for calling that out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not a single mention of AJAX.

<comment><USER14> Why is this an issue with an article about writing effective django?

<comment><USER15> Many web apps/services now use at least a little AJAX. Certain things in a framework can make it easier. Some discussion of how AJAX techniques, up through 'single-page apps', can use a DJango back-end would be nice. (Maybe not absolutely necessary... but nice.)

<comment><USER16> Return JSON. The end.

<comment><USER15> Then, a bit of docs about the JSON apis to use, and caveats/gotchas in using them with Django Models would be helpful. The popular Django extension TastyPie could be discussed, as well as URL schemes compatible with common client-side libraries.

Similarly, ways to mimic single-page-app URLs from the server side, for first- load speed or SEO benefits, could be discussed.

<comment><USER16> What is a JSON api? Anyway, your entire wish list is out of the scope of the document. If you want to know how to build a hypermedia API (which I think is what you meant by json api) what does that have to do with "effective Django"? That would be "building effective hypermedia APIs using Django".

<comment><USER15> A JSON API is the methods & options that are available for (de)serializing your native Python or Django objects into useful JSON.

Perhaps there's a more narrow 'scope' defined for this project, but simply from the title, it seems an 'effective' Django developer would appreciate guidance for the best ways to do AJAXy things (including, especially, RESTy web services for backing AJAXy front-ends).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The folks behind this project know Django really well - I've recommended this to people a number of times.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is awesome, I've been starting to get into Django over the last few weekends, and this is a godsend!

</comment><comment><USER19> This is nice, but I'd recommend two scoops of django over this.

<comment><USER20> Two Scoops is solid, but it's also a $14 ebook, whereas Effective Django is free. Not really apples to apples.

<comment><USER21> This frustrates me. Three hours of time to watch a video, if you charge $50/hr means you spend $150 opportunity cost of time on the free version. Assuming the time to consume both is equal, it gives an equivalent cost of $150 vs $164, or put another way, the difference in cost is a rounding error.

It seems to me the only durable advantage to the free version is that if it isn't working out you can abandon it after 15 minutes at a fraction of the cost. If there were a credible way to sell knowledge products "satisfaction guaranteed" I'd think that people would be a lot less sensitive to the difference between free and $14.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> considering that I already know python, if I wanted to make a good looking personal gtd type webapp, am I better off learning django or should I rather learn node.js?

</comment><comment><USER23> I worked with Nathan (guy behind Effective Django) at Eventbrite for a few years and highly recommend him as being a very informed python and django expert.</comment>


The story of a shy academic - <AUTHOR> https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/the-story-of-a-shy-academic?nopaging=1 <comment><USER2> The word _maskenfreiheit_ and its meaning were worth the time it took to read this article. Teaching is a role with easily understood behaviours and conventions - anyone who has shied ( _sic_ ) away from getting involved with training or teaching through worries about introversion or shyness should be reassured.

One comment left on the original article mentioned the 'networking' sessions with coffee which are such a feature of academic conferences these days. My method for handling those is to go into facilitator mode (get people talking, set up groups &c). Can't help it.</comment>


Do States Need Separate Schools for the Deaf? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/31/do-states-need-schools-for-the-deaf

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting debate. Many, I believe, in the deaf community would view this discussion to be similar to the debate about Mexican children having education in Spanish in CA, or perhaps the Ebonics debate that was the rage some years ago.

Should the deaf live in a city designed for and by themselves(see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent,_South_Dakota>)? Should cochlear implants be planted in deaf children ([http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/06/02/sunday/main10794.s...](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/06/02/sunday/main10794.shtml))?</comment>


Foreshadow: Extracting the Keys to the Intel SGX Kingdom - <AUTHOR> https://foreshadowattack.eu/ <comment><USER2> This is _bananas_.

\- Unlike previous speculative execution attacks against SGX, this extracts memory "in parallel" to SGX, instead of attacking the code running in SGX directly. It always works: it doesn't require the SGX code to run and it doesn't require it to have any particular speculative execuction vulnerability. This also means existing mitigations like retpolines don't work.

\- It lets you extract the sealing key and remote attestation. That's about as bad as it gets.

\- The second attack that fell out of this allows you to read arbitrary L1 cache memory, across kernel-userspace or even VM lines (and even reading ring -2 aka SMM).

If there was any doubt left that speculative execution bugs were an entire new class and not just a one-off gimmick...

</comment><comment><USER2> AWS bulletin: [https://aws.amazon.com/security/security- bulletins/AWS-2018-...](https://aws.amazon.com/security/security- bulletins/AWS-2018-019/)

Amazon Linux bulletin: [https://alas.aws.amazon.com/ALAS-2018-1058.html](https://alas.aws.amazon.com/ALAS-2018-1058.html)

TL;DR: AWS is patched. Go update your kernel (especially if you run other people's code).

<comment><USER2> RHEL patches are out. CentOS after delay, presumably. Nothing yet for Debian/Ubuntu.</comment></comment>


Windows 10 China Government Edition allows to control encryption and telemetry - <AUTHOR> https://betanews.com/2017/05/23/windows-10-china-government-edition/ <comment><USER2> So the Chinese governments gets the privacy and security controls we want, but we don't get to turn any of this off?

This looks like the most dystopian cyberpunk global corporate state-- mass surveillance for the masses, privacy and security opt-outs for the elite and governments.

<comment><USER3> No kidding. What about US customers that want "to manage all telemetry and updates"?

<comment><USER4> From the article ... "The Windows 10 China Government Edition is based on Windows 10 Enterprise Edition".

AFAIK the option to control telemetry was always there for Enterprise Edition.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/configuration/confi...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/configuration/configure-windows-telemetry-in-your-organization)

"IT pros can use various methods, including Group Policy and Mobile Device Management (MDM), to choose a telemetry level. If you're using Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 10 Education, or Windows Server 2016, the Security telemetry level is available when managing the policy. Setting the telemetry level through policy overrides users' choices."

<comment><USER5> > AFAIK the option to control telemetry was always there for Enterprise > Edition.

From what I've read, it doesn't work.

[https://twitter.com/m8urnett/status/866353982217699328](https://twitter.com/m8urnett/status/866353982217699328)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Windows had been banned from Chinese government computers in 2014 amid > concerns about security and US surveillance.

Really? Which ones? I see Windows running in the police station, DMV, ... "Government" is a quite broad term.

What do they use instead? Ubuntu Kylin or their internally developed Linux?

<comment><USER7> I'd imagine the ban was much more of a political stick to bring Microsoft to heel than an actual change in policy.

In short though: thanks, NSA, for providing exactly the argument authoritarian nations around the world were looking for in order to meddle with US software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Excellent! Where can I get my copy?

<comment><USER9> _> Lenovo will be among the first OEMs to provide hardware with Windows 10 China Government Edition preinstalled._

eBay?</comment></comment>


The Algebra of Algebraic Data Types, Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://chris-taylor.github.io/blog/2013/02/11/the-algebra-of-algebraic-data-types-part-ii/ <comment><USER2> I think this is one of the clearest explanations, to me, of the similarity and differences between nullable & Maybe types. Both encode "n + 1" possible values, but the nullable version pretends it encodes only "n" values, while Maybe makes it explicit.</comment>


Bitcoin Pioneer Charlie Shrem Launches Private Equity fund on the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-charlie-shrem-launch-intellisys-capital/ <comment><USER2> > Announced at CoinDesk On Tap in New York today, the venture is Shrem's first > since his first startup BitInstant shut down amid regulatory concerns.

specifically, _the founder going to jail for money laundering_.

good Lord, Bitcoiners are gullible.</comment>


BBC Panorama Documentary: Apple's Broken Promises [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaTl2kW6YU

<comment><AUTHOR> Unacceptable, Apple. Tim, you can rattle on about how you're deeply offended by this documentary, but I flat out don't believe you.

Apple has always been a tough company. It's in the DNA, with Jobs' infamous abuse of early Apple employees. The recent folding of GT Advanced over sapphire crystal manufacturing failing because of being squeezed.</comment>


In Secretly Recorded Phone Calls, Officers Say Innocent People Were Framed - <AUTHOR> https://gothamist.com/news/mount-vernon-police-tapes-innocent-people-were-framed <comment><USER3> > Caught on tape by a whistleblower cop, the officers said they witnessed or > took part in alarming acts of police misconduct, from framing and beating > residents to collaborating with drug dealers, all as part of a culture of > impunity within the department's narcotics unit.

Probably the single most effective thing to reduce police abuse in America would be to end the war on drugs and decriminalize drugs.

No-knock warrants were originally used to try to catch drug dealers before they could flush the drugs down the toilet.

Civil forfeiture was originally created to try to take money from drug dealers.

The war on drugs has taken a wrecking ball to the Fourth Amendment restrictions on search and seizure.

<comment><USER4> I'm honestly pretty pissed off with the Democrats picking a candidate that's not pro legalization.

The one alternative we have to the republicans is just doing the same crap.

<comment><USER5> Democrats haven't had the courage to take a real position for a long time. Their program is basically to run as the slightly better Republicans.

Obama wrote a really nice article a few days ago. But when he was running things he basically did nothing to improve the situation although the issues with police were well known.

<comment><USER6> The Obama administration was supportive of consent decrees which _force_ reforms (with penalties) on otherwise recalcitrant police departments. The current justice department will not such consent decrees, and this is exactly the wall we in Minnesota are going to run into As we attempt to force change on our police department.

<comment><USER7> > The current justice department will not such consent decrees

Well, plus the current administration outright abandoned investigations and publicly stated that it opposed the _idea_ of investigating local law enforcement for systematic issues. It's not just an issue of neglecting an important tool of enforcement when the department now fairly overtly opposes the _idea_ of enforcement.

<comment><USER8> Can't Minneapolis do its own investigation? And institute the reforms it needs?

<comment><USER7> To the extent that it is a systemic problem in Minneapolis, self-investigation would be compromised. Could Ferguson have investigated itself? Sure, and it did. Unsurprisingly, that investigation by the system that the federal investigations found deeply and thoroughly broken somehow missed the problems with the same system that the federal investigation found.

But, yes, and the State of Minnesota could also investigate.

<comment><USER8> Hire outside investigators, appoint/deputize independent lawyers to be special prosecutors, etc.

Most states of cities with police problems have very strong civil rights laws (often stronger than federal protections) -- they have the legal tools to make real change happen.

They don't need the DOJ to fix their problems. Relying on the DOJ makes sense if the local government is supportive of the bad policing -- like back in the civil rights/segregation era. Some states would not comply so the feds had to make things happen. You don't have that situation today.

<comment><USER9> Again, the problem is that localities with systemic police problems almost by definition lack the will to investigate and fix those problems.

<comment><USER10> It looks like the Minneapolis City Council is up for election next year? ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_City_Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_City_Council))

If everyone hasn't forgotten all about this by that time, you could make police reform a major election issue. And then hold them to it.

But, odds are, everyone will have forgotten by then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I want to remind people of Chris Dorner[1]. Chris Dorner was a black police officer that based on his manifesto, had witnessed many use of excessive force by his colleagues. When he reported them, he was fired in retaliation.

When the manhunt begun, the police started shooting at people that vaguely fit his description. The police shot 102 bullets at a mother and daughter delivering newspaper. People had to paint messages on the back of their truck so the police don't shoot at them.

Watching it at the time was unreal. The police and media portrayed him as a psycho, while the people whose car he stole had a different story.

In the last stand off, he was in a cabin and the police burned it to the ground. The police denies burning it down, but they did use tear gas and in the police recording, you can hear a man say "use the burners".

One year later, LAPD chief Charlie Beck, admitted that 8 LAPD officers had violated the use of force policy.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_and_manhunt)

Edit: as the comment pointed out, Dorner killed 4 people, including 2 officers and the daughter of a police captain. I did not omit this information, it is included in the very first paragraph of the wiki.

<comment><USER12> You accidentally forgot to mention that the manhunt wasn't because of his manifesto but because of the people he killed.

Doesn't excuse the behavior of the police, but it's a weird thing to skip over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My theory on how to fix this is to maintain the adversarial nature of the courts. Don't force the DA to prosecute cops. Have them maintain the relationship as it currently works and let the DA become the the cops' lawyer by default while the Public Defenders' office take over the role of prosecuting police.

Since the PD and DA are already set-up this way in relationship to policing, this makes more sense than trying to wring impartiality out of the DA; they have to work hand in hand with police to convict criminals and need to maintain a cozy relationship. The simplest solution would be to keep the dividing lines the way they are.

<comment><USER14> My suspicion is the Public Defenders' offices are nearly universally underfunded and overworked, so the only way to make this work is to make sure they're resourced appropriately, which would be a tough battle politically.

<comment><USER15> >My suspicion is the Public Defenders' offices are nearly universally underfunded and overworked [...]

By design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to disclose information to > defendants that could help establish their innocence. But there's a big > debate in criminal justice circles about when police misconduct allegations > in unrelated cases fall under that requirement.

Contrast that with Prosecutorial immunity

>Prosecutors cannot be sued for injuries caused by their own misconduct. For example, even if a prosecutor deliberately withholds exculpatory evidence in violation of professional ethics and a defendant's constitutional rights, and this willful misconduct results in an innocent person spending decades behind bars for a crime of which they are subsequently exonerated—the prosecutor remains immune from civil liability.[0]

What incentive do they have to provide the evidence? If prosecutor happens to be caught hiding evidence the remedy is dropped charges nothing more. They'll move onto the next case and do the exact same thing.

[0] [https://fedsoc.org/events/prosecutorial- immunity](https://fedsoc.org/events/prosecutorial-immunity)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutorial_immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutorial_immunity)

<comment><USER17> I assume they can still be disbarred for professional misconduct.

In general the justice system seems to have extensive functionality built to prevent its inner workings from facing the kind of personal liability that everyone else faces.

<comment><USER18> There are two extremes: (a) hiding evidence that helps defendants; (b) prosecutorial discretion to help their allies by not pressing charges. One may get disbarred for(a); however, no one gets disbarred for (b).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's the police lying to the NY Post: [https://twitter.com/keithcalder/status/1268204578421407750](https://twitter.com/keithcalder/status/1268204578421407750)

Police: $2.4 million in Rolexes stolen. Rolex: No watches were stolen. Only broken windows.

<comment><USER20> I believe the police in this case. Why would people break into a Rolex store and not steal expensive watches that are close to impossible to track.

<comment><USER21> No offence, but even basic perfumeries will clear out their window displays and put them in safes or other secure storage for the night, to talk of a store that sells watches with price tags in the thousands of dollars - <USER2> your argument is that the alleged looters were kitted out for a full-on burglary heist and not, as is usually the case, simply lashing out opportunistically.

Beyond that, there are other holes in the story like how exactly the police managed to come up with the $2.4M figure apparently without any collaboration from the store itself, or what motive Rolex SA would have to lie about losing $2.4M in merchandise.

But as always, people are primed to believe that the police _must_ be telling the truth somehow, even in a post about a whistleblower laying out years of lies and deception on their part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can never find the survey, but I remember reading that something like 80% of officers think they've never arrested the wrong person for a crime. Which would imply that these officers thought they were just closing loopholes that would let these criminals go free.

That is what makes these stories truly terrifying. The cops still probably think they're righteously pursuing justice.

<comment><USER23> this is human nature, and it's why criminal protections exist in the first place

it applies elsewhere too. I'd be willing to be a lot of HN readers have broken the rules governing code quality because they felt it was justified by the outcome, ignoring the reasons those rules were put into place

<comment><USER24> _I 'd be willing to be a lot of HN readers have broken the rules governing code quality because they felt it was justified by the outcome, ignoring the reasons those rules were put into place_

Which rules are they again?

<comment><USER23> They are different wherever you happen to work. Most teams have development standards in place, and in places where software is certified (aerospace, automotive, medical devices, etc.) those standards are formalized.

But you what I mean. Skipping reviews, bending rules around complexity, data concurrency, style, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Whistleblower cops should receive $500,000 for every fellow cop or administrator their testimony helps convict. As a tax payer, I will happily pay my portion of that award to help keep my local police clean.

<comment><USER26> Wow it's looking like you'd be broke pretty quick. At least at first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This unfortunately isn't surprising anymore: 1\. State and local governments wanted order above all 2\. They created laws and regulations that gave too much leeway to police with little oversight 3\. Cops think they can act with impunity.

In this moment of reckoning, I wonder if the US will be able to undo some of these terrible policies

Relevant References: [https://www.joincampaignzero.org](https://www.joincampaignzero.org) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4uCOAzrbM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4uCOAzrbM)

</comment><comment><USER28> It should be obvious by now that our 'law and order' approach over the last several decades has gone too far. We did this in Los Angeles less than 30 years ago and here we are again. When will we learn?

</comment><comment><USER29> > Prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to disclose information to > defendants that could help establish their innocence. But there's a big > debate in criminal justice circles about when police misconduct allegations > in unrelated cases fall under that requirement.

Why is this debated? If there is convincing evidence that an officer committed perjury or fabricated evidence, isn't there reasonable doubt about anything else they've done?

<comment><USER30> Playing devil's advocate for a moment, information from unrelated cases is often excluded from trials. For example, you generally cannot discuss a victim's prior sexual history in a rape trial, etc.

The debate, then, would be about which cases such exclusions should be appropriate in and which not. There's general agreement that neither "all" nor "none" is an appropriate answer.

<comment><USER31> Isn't evidence that establishes a witnesses credibility relevant and allowed? Wouldn't this information ruin their credibility?

<comment><USER32> Generally character evidence is avoided in most cases. Often, character evidence that is negative against an individual is excluded as unduly prejudicial. Trials determine legal facts and judge whether these facts constitute a crime or liability (depending on whether a criminal or civil case). What a person is like is not a legal fact. Even so far as "being the type of person who has been convicted of a crime in the past" is not a legal fact in a case of "did this person do this new thing?"

There are two common exceptions.

The first is establishing the bona fides of an expert witness - you want to establish the individual as an expert in the eyes of the court. Only an expert may opine (offer an opinion) regarding facts to which they were not a witness. Lay witnesses may only testify to facts which they have observed.

The second is with regard to truthfulness, as you have mentioned. If a witness's credibility can be called into question, then this can cast doubts on the veracity of their testimony. Having an established history of lying, or having perjured oneself in the past can be valid character evidence to cast doubt on testimony.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Let us abolish policemen who carry clubs and revolvers, and put in a squad of poets armed to the teeth with poems on Spring and Love."

\--Mark Twain, 1900

<comment><USER34> So, instead of bludgeoning or shooting them, bore them to death!

<comment><USER35> In violent cases they will send out the S.W.A.T. team. Song Writers Against Terrorism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Part of the problem may be the budgets of cities.

Real policing, with councilors, with recording, with community involvement may be prohibitively expensive. Especially with those kick the can down the road pension plans.

I suspect this has resulted in the strategy of hire goons, don't pay them that much (yes I know cops in CA are well paid), let them bust the occasional head to keep the rabble somewhat down and the goons happily employed and stick your fingers in your ears and go la la la until the whole scheme blows up.

As another poster mentions, ending the drug war may go a long way towards freeing up resources for better policing.

</comment><comment><USER36> defund, demilitarize, disband

</comment><comment><USER37> > ... the officer said he was unwilling to go further with [the FBI] because > he did not want to wear a wire or take a polygraph test.

Why is the FBI still using widely discredited tech (polgraphs)?

</comment><comment><USER38> It's bad news for the protesters where police departments are corrupt; if the cops are dirty, they will fight hard against reform and accountability (because if someone actually audits them they might go to prison). I suppose it's the same with the Trump-enabling GOP politicians...

The book "Thieves of State" (a long review/synopsis of it: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption- rev...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-revolt) ; an AMA by the author: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t244h/iama_anticorru...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t244h/iama_anticorruption_expert_w10_years_working_on/) ) is eye-opening; as an example, in Egypt police officers had to pay their higher-ups monthly a cut of their racketeering money, and this continues all the way up to the minister level. So when the revolution happened, the police fought hard to keep the regime standing, because they would've been personally held accountable too.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm shocked, shocked I say

</comment><comment><USER40> Defund Police.

</comment><comment><USER8> Bad policing or bad police is a consequence of bad governance.

Bad local policing is the consequence of bad local governance.

It seems that the urban cores with the most problems are under complete control by a combination of democratic politicians or democratic socialists. In many cases, they control the county and state of the cities with the most problems.

Why won't democratic constituencies hold their own politicians accountable?

edit-to-add:

I expected the insta-downvotes, but why is no one addressing the issue?

It would take one local election cycle in most urban cores to start fixing the police. Or, at least one police contract negotiation, assuming progressives already control the local government (e.g., Seattle, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and many more).

Why is the blame directed toward those who have little if any influence in the governance of local police in urban cores?

<comment><USER41> _I expected the insta-downvotes, but why is no one addressing the issue?_

Because nobody is obliged to take your bait.</comment></comment>


Brute force way to prevent the "Terminate Batch job (Y/N)?" prompt - <AUTHOR> http://www.xs4all.nl/~itsme/projects/misc/patching-cmdexe.html

<comment><USER2> I'd hardly consider binary patching to be "brute force". Definitely unconventional, but clever and very, very cool.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice. I just use bash on Windows instead.

<comment><USER4> Which bash do you use? I get the "batch job" message about half the times I ctrl-D a Cygwin bash.

<comment><USER5> I switched to the cygwin urxvt a few months back and I've not seen a single "batch job" complaint on ctl-D since.

(As an added bonus I get the best terminal emulation compatibility since... well, since ever)</comment></comment></comment>