How to create stickiness.

User narratives:

A deeper approach for identifying triggers for your business is through what Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey calls “user narratives.” In a lecture with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, he said they spend a lot of time writing narratives about the experience people are going to have, so the story unfolds like a play. The plot, place and action in these narratives can be translated into triggers for your products. More importantly, it helps companies develop better user experiences and stickier products.

"...they spend a lot of time writing narratives about the experience people are going to have, so the story unfolds like a play. "

@Adam - Didn't know they did that, awesome! I use this tactic as well, but a bit differently. My usage is more of a soap opera, or a T.V. series drama. Think in terms of "Lost" and how they make you feel at the end of each episode, instilling a desire to watch the next episode.

Anyways... cool stuff!

Cliffhangers are so good for building emotional resonance -- I concur!

LOST is hypertext storytelling.

Interesting link!

That post is uber long, can't digest it all right now so I may be missing the mark a bit. With that said, what they are terming "A hyperlink structure" with Lost, I call something else, yet have been using it in a very similar way.

Mine are subplots. They are uber powerful. So instead of planting one seed at the end, you create a subplot (or two) before the ending. You then answer, or continue that subplot at a future date.

Now take all of that and apply it to what we do with our startups. You can clearly see the power of this in T.V., Lost is a great example but there are SO many more. Layer that process and flow on top of people engaging with our software. People will prattle on and on about game mechanics, but this far more powerful. This is something most of America knows, understands and wants, but will never ask for... This is a pattern of behavior that exists within people, and people will slip right into that behavior without them even understanding why...

That's profound, Chris.

I'm going to think about what to do with that insight.

Stories are essential to connecting, and subplots are essential to stories.

More than happy to riff on it with you sometime, just let me know...

I'd like that, Chris.

PandaWhale is starting to resemble one giant hyperlinked story to me...

Basically, it comes down to emotion.

A product must exist in response to an emotion.

Peretti was saying that Google is optimized for bots, not humans and this is why it gets viral wrong. It's finally clicking for me why this makes so much sense.

Reminds me of something you and I discussed when I was visiting. You said Google hits you with an SEO penalty when your headline is a question because it seems your post doesn't have the answer.

On the flipside, most of what I read about virality says that having the answers usually dampens virality as opposed to asking questions which invites discussion, debate and sharing.

Google and people are at odds here, and I doubt this is the only place...

"On the flipside, most of what I read about virality says that having the answers usually dampens virality as opposed to asking questions which invites discussion..."

@Eric - Interesting! I've definitely noticed this but never articulated it until you just now mentioned it. As an aside, I notice this works well as a sales tactic too. Answering potential customers questions directly, at times, gives them the chance to say no. Answering by asking a deeper question, invites them to a discussion...

Sticky vs Quicksand. (I'm sure you can come up with some great brand examples. (Sticky goes beyond brand loyalty ro is a subset of brand loyalty?))

Sticky is a subset of brand loyalty? How so?

Going back to emotion, top of this thread.