Fomo
p/fomo-2
Online equivalent of a busy store.
Erik Torenberg
Fomo — Online equivalent of a busy store.
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the world's first social proof proof marketing platform, with a vision to give honest entrepreneurs the credibility they deserve.

Replies
Nick deWilde
Really like this idea. Brings a party to any static e-commerce website.
Cody Juric
This is great! Not disruptive to customers and provides a sense of activity to otherwise quiet brand engagement.
Shashank
Looks like a good idea but what if the people just start faking all these notifications ? Will that count as fraud ?
Ryan Kulp
@itsshashank This is a valid point and something we take seriously. Fomo users are encouraged to use our API, Zapier connection, and other direct integrations so that 'spoofing' data becomes more difficult; in the case that folks abuse their ability to manually 'hard-code' notifications, we reserve the right to challenge their account status. Because unless the data Fomo streams is accurate, nobody wins. So we're keeping an eye on that. Good looking out. :)
Drew Meyers
To play devil's advocate - why is this not just a tool to trick people into buying stuff they don't want or need?
Justin Mares
@drewmeyers Because it's not a trick. There's no bait and switch and no deception at any point. In the same way seeing a line of people at a restaurant doesn't "trick" someone into eating at that restaurant, showing what other users are doing on your site doesn't trick someone into buying your product or service. Plus, this only works if someone is already on your site :). Hopefully, if they're on your site, they're not there to buy things they don't want or need.
Dave Gerhardt
Congrats on the launch @jwmares - excited to see what you guys do!
Justin Mares
@davegerhardt Thanks man!
Vidit Shah
This is definitely the most exciting product that I have come across! Great Job @ryanckulp and team!
Ryan Kulp
@shah_vidit appreciate the support vidit!
Elliot Nash
I love this. I didn't realize @JustinMares (co-author of Traction, which is one of the most important startup books) was one of the makers until reading the comments here, but it makes perfect sense. Awesome work, can't wait to use it!
Brent Summers
This is awesome. "Don't fight your users" is something more growth hacking products need to follow. Turn off your popups and stop turning off potential buyers.
Ryan Kulp
@brentsum thanks Brent! BTW, super impressed with the Codefreebnb.com project -- was admiring it earlier this week when it was featured on HackerNewsletter.
Jeffrey Wyman
interruption marketing. not a fan.
Justin Mares
@jeffrey_wyman Respectfully, I completely disagree. I think popovers, full screen grabs, etc. are interruption marketing. We think of Fomo more like reviews or testimonials on steroids than as a tool that interrupts. With Fomo, you can opt out for months at a time, it will never stop you from reading content or doing anything on a site, and it won't insult you. Instead, it gently surfaces information to your visitors. I wrote about this more on our blog, would love your thoughts - http://blog.usefomo.com/dont-fig...
Jeffrey Wyman
@jwmares wouldn't you rather have their full attention on your content?
Justin Mares
@jeffrey_wyman Truthfully, that's often not enough. For lots of content, adding a social proof layers - reviews, comments, testimonials, etc. - makes people want to engage further in your content, not leave your site.
✎ Andrew Warner
@jeffrey_wyman I've been on sites that do this and I never thought of it as an interruption or as marketing. It just felt like the store was active. Often, I can't tell if an online business is even running any more or shut down. I check the copyright date for a clue, but that often auto-updates. Something like Fomo lets me know it's still up and other people trust it.
Ryan Kulp
@andrewwarner @jeffrey_wyman "Fomo lets you know what's up!" << I dig it. :)
Elizabeth
Hm... It's cool, but... not sure if this would create FOMO, as much as... annoy me... and make me feel unoriginal for wanting something... hm...
Thomas Evans
A/B tested something similar using Google Sheets (to store and hold purchase data) and some simple Jquery only last year. This solution would have made it much quicker to get up and running.
Ryan Kulp
@td_evans Very cool Thomas, looks like you beat us to it! Would love to see screenshots of your project, are you interested in possibly sharing with our audience on the blog? Feel free to reach out, I'm ryan@ usefomo.com.
✨Lauralynn Stubler✨
pretty darn cool, looking forward to trying it!!!
Ryan Kulp
@lauralynnz Thanks Lauralynn! Ping me if you need any help setting up.
Ben Tossell
What's the feedback been so far? I've no doubt that it would convert people but I can't help thinking that it would drive some people mad!
Please delete
@bentossell the first time I saw something like this was on @themakeshake website. It definitely answered the question "would anyone use this" and it gave me that hint of anxiety that I was missing the train by not getting anything. As long as it's discrete and not too invasive, I thought it was done well.
Ben Tossell
@caprihiggins @themakeshake yeh and thats why I can definitely see it will convert people. But being in the startup game and previously in marketing... 'growth-hacking' techniques dont work on me... a pop up to get my email puts me off more than makes me want to use it. I feel like this would do the same for me. Although that may well be the minority
Please delete
@bentossell oh does FOMO pop ups ask for email? I never saw that on Make Shake. I will say that the more I am immersed, the more I see through the fishing nets but this world is definitely the minority. Most people (at least in my circles) have no concept of half the stuff on PH and would be impressed with the show.
Ryan Kulp
@caprihiggins @bentossell we're proud that Make Shake was a Fomo customer!
Ryan Kulp
@bentossell Thanks Ben, and agree. We value user experience far beyond "capturing more emails" and recently wrote about this here: http://blog.usefomo.com/dont-fig... Instead of asking for anything from* your users, Fomo lets you share information to* your users, and it's up to them if they want to consider it in their browsing behavior. Visitors may also disable Fomo permanently on their browser, by simply clicking the 'x' button in the top right corner of most notifications.
Troy Osinoff
I've seen apps like Recently for shopify doing something similar. I like the angle of having the ability to show ever action.. certainly makes for more notifications. (Great name too)
Ryan Kulp
@yo thanks Troy. we were actually the first app like this on Shopify; the other guys launched many months later. oh well. :) https://apps.shopify.com/fomo
Robert Hopman
Cool!
Jason Wise
Great idea and interesting events to showcase! I dig. The only criticism I have is related to the image choices for the orange section benefits under the hero on your landing page...Arnold as the Terminator with a gun above "Inspire action" made me cringe...
Ryan Kulp
@jawise You don't love Arnold?!
Jason Wise
@ryanckulp I saw the drawing as Arnold but someone with less pop-culture savvy might see something different or misinterpret your intentions. More about first impressions than feelings about Arnold.
Ryan Kulp
@jawise thanks for the feedback jason. a new homepage design is already in the works -- we'll consider this in that iteration.
Ross Blankenship
Super. Simple. Brilliant. Absolutely love this product. What's in store for long-term product pipeline? Ross Blankenship CEO | AngelKings.com
Ryan Kulp
@rossblankenship Thanks for the support, Ross! Longer term, we have several things in mind: * Cross-site persistence, ie: end-user gets a cohesive experience jumping from site A to site B, because both use Fomo * Tapping into social graphs (instead of "John Smith did this," "Your friend Sam bought this") * Affiliate promotions (Sunglass site has notifications that up-sell another website's suntan lotion) * Giveaways (ie, users will visit sites that show Fomo notifications with special deals or free event tickets, etc every 1 / XXX times they're shown) ... and much, much more. :)
Brian Roach
Would this work to show Ticket purchases that happen on Ticketfly? Ticketfly doesn't allow embed a widget on your own site, so the customer has to leave your site to make the purchase. Any ideas?
Ryan Kulp
@anodigital hey brian! thanks for asking. looks like ticketfly has an API: http://start.ticketfly.com/api/ you could simply poll ticketfly for new sales, then stream those through the Fomo widget, hosted on your own site. i figure that once the user gets to your un-editable Ticketfly website, they don't need the 'nudge' as much anymore.
Bruno Wong
This looks really cool! Have you guys seen it increase conversion % for any of your customers? And by how much?
Ryan Kulp
@brunowong thanks Bruno! Great question. About 6 weeks ago we launched an analytics tool for a small group of our ecommerce customers. Of the 130 who authenticated their Google Analytics platforms with Fomo, they generated a collective $511,000 in sales. Since we have a few thousand customers, we predict Fomo has generated north of $10 million in sales for our customers.
Nathan Windsor
VERY COOL! WOAH~