A few weeks ago we posted a open survey for Signal vs. Noise readers. We were curious what people liked, disliked, what kind of organizations people worked at, how often they read Signal vs. Noise, if they thought the site got better or worse, what they’d like to see more of, their favorite posts, etc.
The survey was open for about 36 hours. 869 people participated before we closed the survey. As promised, here are the complete results.
Thanks again for taking the time to participate.
Luisgo
on 30 Dec 08Care to share your take on the results or how you think it could help you improve?
Doug R
on 30 Dec 08Ok, so it looks like the survey uncovered some pretty common opinions. What do you guys think you learned from this, and do you plan on actively addressing some of the complaints? (Specifically, many people, myself included, seem to dislike the new flood of short quote/link/photo posts. Any plans to resurrect Sunspots?)
Joe Mako
on 30 Dec 08I created a Wordle on “What do you like most about Signal vs. Noise?”.
And when looking at just the 113 answers that included a URL, The benefits of a monthly recurring revenue model in tough economic times was the most popular with 6.
James
on 30 Dec 08In the past year, SVN has gone from a must-read to a maybe-read for me. I’m not sure why, but it was highlighted when I watched a 37s live event and you guys actually came across as thoughtful, normal people who didn’t know everything – the impression I get from SVN is that you mostly think you know it all, don’t have much more to learn, and maybe, yeah, “think that you invented common sense” (to quote from the survey results).
If I could pick one word from the survey results, it would be “preachy”. Not all of the time, but enough to put me off. It feels like you’ve gone from using the blog to work out what’s the best approach, to just using the blog to reinforce what you thing you already know. It’s a subtle shift, but noticeable (to me, anyway).
It may be an odd thing to say about a blog, but reading SVN is getting more like listening to someone talk about himself all the time. A good blog should be like listening to someone talking about himself and his place in the world – there should be a sense of exploration, of learning new things. I miss that on SVN. You don’t seem to be challenging your boundaries as much as you were before, and that shows through in the blog.
JF
on 30 Dec 08I learned that design posts are the most popular. We’re been lax on those lately so we’ll ratchet those up.
ML
on 30 Dec 08We read the survey results thoroughly and really appreciate the feedback. Lots of good stuff in there.
Moving forward, I’m excited to start bringing in more content inspired by the new book to SvN and discussing more outside examples from other businesses.
Peter Cooper
on 30 Dec 08These results are like gold dust to other bloggers. It’s SvN specific in many cases, but the “What do you like best”, “like least”, and general comments are awesome market research. I’ve already copy and pasted for later reading :)
I’m shocked that only 850 or so of 80000 subscribers bothered to respond though. I doubt the figure would be significantly higher on other blogs, but it just seems.. “weird” that only 1% of subscribers would care enough to engage in such a way.
Mark
on 30 Dec 08I think that 1 percent is pretty typical for any kind of response. Marketing gurus use 1 percent response as a pretty standard / typical measure.
C
on 30 Dec 08It was open for only 36 hours, so I’m not too surprised about the numbers. I think a week may have been more typical, but then you’d have a much larger mountain of data to process.
JamesK
on 30 Dec 08The result I enjoyed the most was that 84% of respondents access SvN via RSS despite Jason’s writing off RSS as dead. I guess that’s why we do surveys, eh?
CJ Curtis
on 30 Dec 08I found it odd that you asked the question about “jumping the shark” without explaining what it was…you even went so far as to make “What?” one of the responses.
I finally looked it up, and to a certain extent, I think you have.
Everything you guys put out is about Getting Real, software that “does less” and so on. Yet you’re constantly doing SvN posts on “new features” on one or more of your products. Also, when I first started reading SvN a couple years ago, I think you numbered five people. Now you’re at 12. I know that’s still a small number, but that’s more than 100% growth in 24 months. Doesn’t quite stick to the “stay small” formula.
JF
on 31 Dec 08CJ, “Getting Real” isn’t about standing still. Improving your products by adding things or making things easier isn’t inconsistent with Getting Real at all.
We have more people, but we could just as easily have 30 or 40 or 50. Lots of companies with our revenues and product likes have well over 100 people. So we’re bigger than we were a few years ago, but our entire company is smaller than most departments at other companies like ours.
CJ Curtis
on 31 Dec 08Jason:
I’m not suggesting that what you’ve been doing is bad…it just doesn’t seem very consistent with your original message. Your original “hook” was providing simple software at affordable prices…software that does “less.” However, I think you’re starting to realize that real-world business people want their software to do a lot of things.
”...but we could just as easily have 30 or 40 or 50. But our entire company is smaller than most departments at other companies like ours…”
In my humble opinion, this is total BS.
I’ve worked with companies all over the country that produce and manage online apps. Some are similar to yours, others are very different, others still are much more complex. None of these companies ever had more than 10 employees. Some of them were interactive departments of a larger company, but that’s not the same thing. You continue to sell and manage the same four products as you have the past several years. I don’t see how, under any circumstances, that would ever require an additional 40 people. Unless, of course, you are servicing 10 million users and those people are all customer service reps.
JF
on 31 Dec 08CJ, we do things today the same way we’ve always done things. We add what we believe should be added. We make easier what we believe should be made easier. We remove what doesn’t work or rework it so it works better.
Getting Real isn’t about a number or a tally. It’s not about never adding or never changing or never growing.
To suggest that adding anything to a product is inconsistent with our message is to get the message wrong.
Pete
on 31 Dec 08Jason & Co, thoughts on what Jason wrote?
ep
on 31 Dec 08> we do things today the same way we’ve always done things
I think you should meditate on this one and try to consider for once that you are wrong, at least for a growing part of your day-one customers…
Colin
on 31 Dec 08You guys have a lot of open-ended questions in your surveys (which I think is the way to go).
Do you actually read through all that free text, or do you have some way to categorize or analyze the aggregate data?
mikemike
on 31 Dec 08haha, I think my comments were too intellectually superior. They were not displayed. They had no cursing or insults, but rather outlined business advice… but were not displayed.
thanks
S
on 01 Jan 09After reading through a good portion of the survey comments I’m relieved to discover that I’m not the only one who thinks SvN and it’s contributors are rife with arrogance; I was beginning to think I had become bitter.
It seems that 37signals’ success really has had a negative impact on the quality of the content posted to SvN. It has definitely changed from collaborative in spirit to something between ego evangelism and shameless self promotion.
Furthermore, I’m baffled by the passively aggressive and defensive replies posted here in the comments so far in response to perfectly valid criticisms. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable, or even a new opinion, that Getting Real is inconsistent with 37signals’ own business practices. It might even be a neat idea to try and learn something from those criticisms. After all, it doesn’t matter that you think you can write a book about business if your audience thinks you’re full of crap. The best you can do is get better by learning from your customers. I think I read that somewhere once.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but with all the great content out there to occupy my precious few free cycles, 37s might be losing my attention altogether.
-s
J
on 01 Jan 09I love when people like “S” above call other people arrogant.
My father taught me something I’ll never forget: “The most arrogant of acts is calling someone else arrogant.”
I agree with pops.
S
on 01 Jan 09That’s a vicious little infinite loop you’ve got there, J. That’ll leak like mad.
In any event, it’s not my intention to offend. 37signals have done a lot of really good things for the community. I’d really love to see them keep trekking down that path, and figured I would offer an honest opinion on the matter. One that’s evidently shared by many.
-s
CJ Curtis
on 01 Jan 09Jason:
It seems I’ve attracted your attention with my criticisms…although I don’t necessarily call them “criticisms,” as I tried to express in my original reply. Just observations really.
Your defensiveness is not warranted.
You posed the question about “jumping the shark.” That can be perceived in a lot of ways. In my own perception, I think 37s has done it. In the very near future, your software will do just as much than any other online mgmt software available.
If it doesn’t already.
And if that’s the way 37s has decided to take its company, then GREAT. But don’t tell me that you’re the same company as you were three years ago.
This discussion is closed.