Great article by @nireyal on growth hacking's secret weapon.

It starts and ends with behavioral design:

Why can’t behavioral design be copied like a distribution strategy? Because competitors are not able to recognize and act upon these kinds of insights. You can know the competition’s product feels better to use, but you won’t know why. Engaging products gain their advantages by leveraging tiny improvements, which together create huge advantage. From the outside, you can’t tell what’s working and what isn’t.

It's not about viral tricks. It's about design that engages users.

See also:

• Andrew Chen's article on growth hackers to learn from

• Zach's summary of Nir's article

Interesting to look at the dirty tricks and abuses of design as well:

http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Home

"Dark Patterns are different – they are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind."

Ok, I'm frightened. Privacy Zuckering is scary because Facebook does it.

I do note that this site has not been updated, for the most part, since 2011.

I'd much rather find good "white hat" techniques that get users to sign up and/or come back.

See for example:

• 90% of Tumblr users join from seeing the JOIN TUMBLR and FOLLOW buttons

• What makes Pinterest addictive

• 7 sneaky reasons why Draw Something is a Hit

• Why Angry Birds is so addictive

Any other articles / techniques I should be reading?

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/ff_abtesting/all/1

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_likes

http://blog.crazyegg.com/2011/12/28/deceptive-ui-design/

I love the Oatmeal.

How do you get more likes? By putting your energy into making things that are LIKEABLE.

Easier said than done.