When I was in high school, my Judo instructor once told me that "all work and no play makes Adam a dull boy." It rings true to me now, but at the time I didn't really know what he meant. Every so often, I run into something along the same vein, such as the following excerpt from Eric Hoffer's diary.

"Idealists never weary of decrying capitalism for its trivial motivation. Yet a discrepancy between trivial motives and weighty consequences is an essential trait of human uniqueness and is particularly pronounced in the creative individual. Not only in the marketplace and n the battlefield but also in the world of thought and imagination, men who set their hearts on toys often accomplish great things. The idealists prize seriousness and weightiness. Let them go to the animal kngdom! Animals are deadly serious."

Many of the greatest inventions of mankind started out as toys. In China, there were tops with feathers attached that flew when spun. The wheel was most likely first incarnated as a child's toy. The list goes on.

Reflecting on my work, I find that I am too serious. I push and push to get the next feature out, never taking time to experiment, to play. Many of the brightest programmers I've met enjoy a good game of poker, while I avoid it like the plague. To me it is indeed trivial, meaningless, a waste of time.

I wonder if I can be more playful and actually let go and enjoy a game of poker. Perhaps I can go further than that -- not only enjoying it but embracing it whole heartedly, though I know it's just a game. If I could learn to do that, perhaps I could learn to be more playful when coding, not always taking the most direct route to the solution.

IM (instant messaging) is an important part of the user acquisition process for many sites. Although many sites provide a way to invite new users via email, it is also important to take into consideration the capability to acquire new users via IM.

The Cool Link Test

A link passes the "Cool Link Test" if you think you're the first of your friends to see it and want to IM it to your friends and get a response of either "LOL," "Wow," "Damn," "Saw it," or "Heheheh." A link fails the test if it gets only "heheh," or "hmm", or "huh." I get multiple "cool links" every day from my friends via IM. I don't get any over email, except perhaps from my dad. Two characteristics stand out about IM vs. email that make it more appealing for sharing links. The first is that feedback from your friends is instantaneous. The second is that you don't have to remember anything to use it. You just copy, paste, click on your friend's IM name, and hit send. You don't have to remember their email address, or which email address they'll most likeley check.

Your Site and the Cool Link Test

Does anything on your site pass the cool link test? If there is nothing interesting enough, funny enough, or shocking enough to pass the Cool Link Test on your site, it will be difficult to acquire new users. If it is cumbersome to send a link via IM with immediately rewarding results due to registration requirements or links that break without the correct session data, user acquisition will be difficult.

Credibility

IMs have more credibility than emails. What happened in the following exchange is that my friend Jason invited his friend Joel to my site, and then had to IM joel to tell him to look at the invite. Jason told me that he had not customized the invite "because he is lazy."

jason:
i invited you to awesomesite.com
Joel:
whats that?

jason:
adam's new site

...

Joel:
if i saw this email ever, and you hadn't messaged me, trashed :)

You can allow your users to customize their invitation emails in order to make them less spam like, but there's a big chance that they won't use it. Email just has a lot less credibility than IM, so don't force your users to use email to let their friends see your site.