Using Facebook Ads API, we can create new creative set, and replace it in the ad group, but this result in loosing the performance records (and engagement).
Is there anyway to update the picture/text without loosing the performance records ?
Unfortunately, you will lose the likes and comments every time you change your creative.
It makes sense though.
Let's say I like your ad because it had a nice image of a dog.
Then you'll change the image to be image of a cat.
If I see your ad again, containing image of a cat and it shows me that I liked it, I would be upset (as I don't like cats...).
Therefore, you should not be able to carry the likes and comments when changing the image.
Regarding "performance records", AFAK, these ones do carry on when you change your creative, as they are in the ad/adset/campaign level.
Related
For context: this is an HTML app, with little or no browser side JavaScript. I can't easily change that so need to do this on the server.
CouchDB is built to not have side effects. This is fair enough. But there seems to be no method that i can conceive of with shows, views, lists to change what is shown to a user with subsequent requests, or based on user objects, without writing data.
And can a get request for document result in the creation of a new record? Im guessing not as that would be a side effect.
But if you can, you could just create a log and then have a view that picks an advert firm a set of documents describing adverts which is affected by the change in the log when a previous ad was shown.
I'm not actually going to show adverts on my site, I'm going to have tips, and article summaries and minor features that vary from page load to page load.
Any suggestions appreciated.
I've wrapped my head around how to work with the grain for the rest of the functionality I need, but this bit seems contrary to the way couchdb works.
I think you're going to need a list function that receives a set of documents from the view and then chooses only one to return, either at random or some other method. However, because you're inside a list function you gain access to the user's request details, including cookies (which you can also set, btw.) That sounds more like what you want.
In addition, you could specify different Views for the list function to use at query-time. This means you could, say, have only random articles show up on the homepage, but any type of content show up on all others.
Note: You can't get access to the request in a map/reduce function and you'll run into problems if you do something like Math.random() inside a map function.
So a list function is the way to go.
http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/transforming.html
Look into the various methods of selecting a random document from a view. That should enable you to choose a random document (presumably representing an ad, tip, etc.) to display.
I'm working on a website with a major social networking component.
I want the short username display (1 icon (maybe 2) + a styled username) to indicate:
presence (active, idle, away, offline) - font weight
avatar (autogen or uploaded) - 16x16px prefixed icon
explicit relationship to current user (followee, follower, mutual friend, FOAF, none) - hue?
implicit relationship to current user (scalar based on level of interaction) - saturation?
predicted match (multiscalar based on AI) - replaces avatar icon?
More info and details will be in a tooltip. This core part will be displayed all over the place (think e.g. the styling of usernames in StackOverflow comments, not in post signatures), and therefore needs to be compact and elegant. It doesn't need to show these data perfectly - that's what the tooltip is for - but it should give at least a subtle indication.
"Explicit relationship" means Facebook/Twitter-type "friending". This is more a permissions thing than a real "relationship" one per se.
One security feature it gives is to help prevent someone from trying to fool you with a username that looks similar to one of your friends' - you'll notice that they are implicitly colored as unrelated to you. Explicit status also affects what actions are available in the tooltip (e.g. you can't friend a friend, or poke a non-friend).
"Implicit relationship" means e.g. the difference between the 2 people you talk to all the time, the 10 you have regular contact with, the 50 you listed as your "friend" but never talk to, and the 50 you don't (yet) list as your "friend" but have talked to.
"Predicted liking" is the output of a very complex backend AI, à la OKCupid's "match score"; its purpose is to gently nudge you towards talking to people you'll probably like more. In the zero-knowledge-about-you case, it reduces to a Slashdot-style "objective" karma rating. I may also want to display some semi-categorical hints, like whether the AI thinks you'll find this person 'funny' vs 'interesting'.
How can I indicate indicate the things above in a maximally graceful way?
It might not be a good idea to show so many things at once in the small amount of space you will probably allocate to the display of the username. I think, at best you can show 3-4 things at once without confusing the user. More than that, and the user will be confused as to what is what. The task of remembering will defeat all usability aspects.
Another way to show all the stuff would be using a popup-like thing, but even that is not a good idea for the amount of information that you want to show :( I think you will probably be better off if you can simplify the problem so that you end up with fewer variables.
I would like to know as a newbie programmer what the benefits are of using for example google search API or newest buzz API for data content gathering instead of screen scraping; obviously apart from the legal aspects.
API's are less likely to change than a screen layout.
One big downside of screen scraping is that the screen can change and break your scraper. So you end up having to continually adjust your code to match theirs, and since you don't know about changes ahead of time, you suffer downtime/outages as a result.
Also, you may be violating their TOS, and they won't like it. If you have paying customers for your service, you can find yourself between a rock and a hard place pretty quickly.
Also, if you're simulating many users, you'll produce an unanticipated drag on the servers. So using a published/permitted API would be much more efficient for you, and for the web site serving up the source material.
I am looking for some ideas on enhancing a trial-user's user experience when he uses a product for the first time. The product is aimed at a particular domain and has various features/workflows. Experienced users of the product naturally find interesting ways to combine features to get the results they want (somewhat like using an IDE from a programmer's perspective).Trial users get to use all features of the product in a limited fashion (For ex: If there is a search functionality, the trial-user might see only the top 20 results, or he may be allowed to search only a 100 times). My question is: What are the best ways to help a trial-user explore/understand the possibilities of the product in the trial period, especially in the first 20 - 60 mins before the user gives up on the product?
Edit 1: The product is a desktop app (served via JNLP, so no install required) and as pointed out in the comments, the expectations can be different in this case. That said, many webapps do take a virtual desktop form and so, all suggestions are welcome.
Check out how blinksale.com handles this. It's an invoicing app, but to prevent it from looking too empty for a new account, they show static images in places where you'd actually have content if you used the app. Makes it look less barren at first until you get your own data in.
if you can, avoid feature limiting a trial. it stops the user from experiencing what the product is ACTUALLY like. It also prevents a user from finding out if a feature actually works like they want/expect/need it to.
if you have a trial version, and you can, optimise it for first time use. focus on / highlight the features that allow the user to quickly and easily get benefits for useful output from the system.
allow users to export any data they enter into a trial system - and indicate that this is possible/easy. you don't want them to be put off from trying something because of a potential for wasted effort.
avoid users being required to do lots of configuration before using a trial. prepopulate settings based on typical/common/popular settings. you may also want to consider having default settings for different types of usage. e.g. "If you want to see what the system is like for scenario X, use configuration J. If you want to see what the system is like for use case Y, use configuration K." where J & K are collections of settings best suited to a particular type of usage.
I'll speak from personal experience while evaluating trial applications.
The most annoying trial applications are those which keep popping up nag screens or constantly reminding me that I'm using a trial. Trials which act exactly like the real product from the beginning till the end of the trial period are just awesome. Limited features are annoying, the only exception I can think of when you could use it is where you have rarely used feature which would allow people to exploit the trial (by using this "once-in-lifetime" needed feature and uninstalling). If you have for example video editing software trial which puts "trial" watermark on output, I'd uninstall it as soon as I'd notice it. In my opinion trial should seamlessly integrate into user work-flow so that once the trial ends they would think "Hey, I have been using this awesome program almost each day since I got the trial, I absolutely have to buy it." Sure some people will exploit it, but at the end you should target the group which will use your product in daily work-flow instead of one time users. Even if user "trials" it 2 times per year, he will keep coming back to your product and might even buy it after 2nd or 3rd "one-time use".
(Sorry for the wall of the text and rant)
As for how to improve the first session. I usually find my way around programs easily, but one time only pop-up/screen (or with check-box to never show it again) with videos showing off best features and intended work-flow are quite helpful. Also links to sample documents might be helpful. If your application can self-present itself (for example slide-show about the your slide-show program) you could include such document. People don't like to read long and boring help files, but if you have designer in your team, you could ask him to make a short colourful intro pdf. Also don't throw all the features at the user at the same time. Split information into simple categories and if user is interested into one specific category keep feeding him more specific information. That's why videos are so good, with 3-6 x ~3-5 minute videos you can tell a lot. Also depending how complex your program is you could include picture with information where specific things are located on the screen.
Just my personal opinion, I have never made a trial myself. Hope it helps.
An interactive walk through/lab exercise that really highlights the major and exciting offerings of your application.
Example: Yahoo mail does the same when the users opt to use new mail interface
There are so many ways you can go with this. I still can't claim to have found the best approach.
However, my plan from the beginning with my online (Silverlight) software was to give away something thousands of people will find useful and can use for free. The free version is pretty well representative of the professional product, with only a few features missing that enhance productivity (I'm working on those professional features now). And then I do have a nag popup that comes up every 5 minutes suggesting that you should buy it. That popup can be dismissed as many times as you want. I know that popup will annoy some people but I suppose that's the trade off. There is no perfect plan. But I don't think the occasional nag popup scares that many people away, especially when it can be dismissed with a single click.
I was inspired by Balsamiq Mockups, which has been hugely successful over the past couple years. My trial/nag popup way of doing things was copied almost exactly from Balsamiq. I honestly don't know if this is the ideal plan, but it has obviously worked for them. By the way, I think another reason for Balsamiq's success is that the demo doesn't have to be downloaded & installed. Since the demo is in Flash, there's a very high conversion rate of users actually trying it and becoming addicted to it.
I've read about systems which use the Flickr database of photos to fill in gaps in photos (http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=629).
How feasible is a system like this? I was toying with the idea (not just a way of killing time but as a good addition to something I am coding) of using Flickr to get photos of a certain entity (in this case, race tracks) and reconstruct a model. My biggest concern is that there aren't enough photos of a particular track and even then, it would be difficult to tell if two photos are of the same part of the racetrack, in which case one of them may be irrelevant.
How feasible is something like this? Is it worth attempting by a sole developer?
Sounds like you're wanting to build a Photosynth style system - check out Blaise Aguera y Arcas' demo at TED back in 2007. There's a section about 4 minutes in where he builds a model of the Sagrada Família from photographs.
I say +1 for photosynth answer, its a great tool. Not sure how well you could incorporate it into your own app though.
Its definately feasable. Anything is possible. And yes, doable for a single developer, just depends how much free time you have. It would be great to see something like this integrated into Virtual Earth or Google Maps Street View. Someone who could nail some software like this could help 3D model the entire world based purely on photographs. That would be a great product and make any single developer rich and famous.
So get coding. :)
I have plenty of free time, as I am in between jobs.
One way to do it is to get an overhead view of the track layout, make a blueprint based on this model, and then get one photo of the track and mimic the track's road colour. That would be a start.
LINQ to Flickr on codeplex has a great API and would be helpful for your task.