Referly Blog

Personally, I'd be OK if someone "refers" me something through an affiliate link, but I wouldn't be so sure that my friends / everyone else thinks the same way. Pinterest got away with it, though. It sounds a little like http://refer.ly/ and I'd recommend to take a look at them if you haven't done it already. They have a neat product, although the name can potentially turn off some people (see above). And don't get me wrong, I think there's always room in the market if you do your job extremely well. :)

This Referly page may be right up your alley: https://refer.ly/the_men_behind_movie_trailers/c/aaf97926603b11e2b5ab2… The routine by Pablo Francisco makes me laugh every time. On a more serious note, one of the gems in this page is the Art History series called Civilisation by Kenneth Clark. PG recommended this guy in one of his essays, and it's one of the best things I've watched all year. I feel like I have such a better perspective on art now.

This topic makes me think of the Jack London story "To Build a Fire", which is one of my favorites. http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html Also timely, one of our power users at Referly just made a preparedness kit list for winter driving. I probably should have had some of this when driving alone in the Sierra Nevadas last month. http://refer.ly/winter_driving_preparedness_kit/c/789d5ae0507511e2b5ab…

I returned 2 15" Retina MBPs in 3 weeks. First had dead pixels, second had a very squeaky spacebar, and now this third machine has the same ghosting effect you've mentioned. It's really not that much of an annoyance because it goes away quickly, but you do think they would have corrected it. To protect my MBP, I rock this classic black briefcase, which fits the laptop and cables perfectly: http://refer.ly/agTA

NB: the actual URL is http://refer.ly (not http://referly.com as linked in the article, which seems like a weird typo when the article is about the company)

I just used a site with Chute for the first time yesterday (http://www.refer.ly) and it blew my mind how easy it was to grab photos from the various cloud like places I upload them to (facebook, flickr, etc) and use them right there on Referly through Chute's widget. Instead of having to do the old "Right click, save, upload" method. It is ridiculously easy and awesome. Well done, Chute.

>Brilliant. Except that, if you're removing nails, there are much better tools than the claw on a hammer. [1][2] I've done demolition, and I've had to pull a lot of nails, and the claw on a hammer is about the last tool I'd use for the job. I basically only use the claw to straighten or remove a partly-hammered nail that's gone wrong. So yes, the analogy is brilliant. [1] For really big nails, more leverage is good, and the hole in the flat part can be used to pull longer nails out than you can pull with a hammer claw: http://refer.ly/abwW [2] To get a nail started, something sharper with points, and that (here's the important bit) can be HAMMERED under the nail head: http://refer.ly/abw2

Getting a 404 on the homepage. http://www.refer.ly/

- They are partnering with businesses and many of those businesses aren't familiar with .ly to the extent that tech people are. http://refer.ly/business The local pizza shop probably isn't aware of bit.ly. Which now uses bitly.com (bit.ly redirects.). Ditto for recur.ly -> recurly.com. - Their current branding shows "referly" not "refer.ly" - Email addresses at the company are @refer.ly and could easily get addressed to @referly.com - best case scenario it bounces (and the bounce is noticed). Worse case scenario the email is read by someone else. - You are underestimating the amount of word of mouth in a domain being passed along. You don't want to have to spell it out that's refer dot .ly anymore than you want to call it "referlee.com" and have to spell that out. - A mainstream media article on the company will throw off potential customers that aren't familiar with .ly domains - Ditto for mention on any TV etc. Swimmers shave their body hair to gain any additional advantage in speed they can. Definitely worth avoiding problems in this area. The name of a company is always an important issue to consider.

Good point. dmor wrote about this yesterday http://refer.ly/is_twitter_s_vine_launch_a_response_to_popular_social_…

The fundamental rule I have is "don't buy sets -- buy individual items as you find uses for them". I bought a lot of really expensive stuff on eBay (Staub, Demeyere) and in Japan (Global Pro knives), and I actually only use a few of each. A cast iron enameled wok, though, is awesome. I got mine from the Wok Shop in SF for $30 with spatula/etc. http://refer.ly/cooking_tools/c/59d5b57c118b11e2a4ec22000a1d0d51 is what I came up with a while ago.

I clicked through to the Startup Office Snacks link (http://refer.ly/startup_office_snacks/c/984171a826c511e2a4ec22000a1d0d… and immediately felt myself getting fat. Not to mention the first thing on the list is popcorn. Not sure how everyone else feels, but nothing distracts me more at work than that smell.

Direct link: http://refer.ly/blog/a-doable-sacrifice-y-combinator-as-a-married-man/

Full roster of YC S12 batch here as well: http://refer.ly/aYtt (quick fix: Authy was YC W12)

I thought Referly was pretty cool and decided to sign up and created my own link for the new Apple MBP. But when I click on the claim rewards link: http://refer.ly/claim It's telling me a different story (compared to on their main page - Earn rewards like whoa.)about getting the rewards. "During the beta period we are not yet able to redeem your rewards, but we are saving them for you. We'll let you know as soon as you can claim them." I really felt like being Bait and Switch'ed.... Totally not whoa at this point.

http://refer.ly/aWhX PPTP

Very interesting post. Now that we're talking about growth hacking... Funny thing is the first thing I thought after finishing it was my recollection of their previous landing page where they practically forced me not to give out my email address and how that decision would have impacted the activation rate via proper retention drip email campaign. To me it felt like they were ignoring a low hanging fruit in their post-registration activation funnel. Of course it was only after I checked up on their landing page again that I realized they had indeed changed their UX pattern from the previous lazy reg / "instant candy" (ie. letting people just have the URL to share right from the frontpage w/o getting them to sign-up [1]) to the "standard" approach of requiring a sign-up before any gratification. Not only that by they had also gone quite aggressive with their approach by showing a 0 sec delay dialog box demanding a registration via FB / Twitter. Would be very interesting to hear how these changes have reflected in their lp conversion rates. Would be especially cool to hear how the controversial pop up is performing for them. It's a ballsy move. Gotta like that. :) [1] http://refer.ly/blog/referly-homepage-simplification-retrospective/