Hey folks, big kitty @floozyspeak here with the ChumpDump holiday update!

Version 1.2 is now live on both Android and Apple stores.

Get the droid love here: App Brain

Get the apple love here: Itunes App Store

What’s new?!!?

Better Lottery Engine!

Ok first up, we know the lottery engine is kinda lame.  We’re working to  make it better.  This new one is REALLY good for you players that dump/save back to back, you will always get new victims.. er faces!

Tighter Klout Integration

We’re working to improve your Klout experience.  Let’s face it, there’s a variety of factors to toss around when you’re reviewing a lottery winner- do they dm you, reply to you, are they following you, when was their last tweet etc.  But checking out their Klout score can be damn handy in getting a good look into the kind of tweeter they are and understand their potential realm of influence.  In ChumpDump 1.2, you get more than a simple Klout # score, you can tap their profile and see the logic behind that score for yourself.

Three Leaderboards!

Yep!  We got 3 leaderboards now.  See who’s really playing the game.  Who’s dominating today, this week and all time.  We’re constantly looking for ways to reward both our die hard users and the new breed of chumpdumpers entering the mix.  Look for future badge rewards connecting to these new leaderboard areas to come.

Chatter Improvements

You can now reply to other people and click and view links in chatter.  YES!

lastly.. the bit stuff…

Loads of cosmic tweaks, bug fixes and UI adjustments.  Mostly in various pages, just tighter better UX, at least we hope. We’re current with the latest twitter api so should be running smoother as well.

As always, keep that feedback coming, dump a chump and have a great holiday!  What’s next?  We got 5 new badges coming online shortly.  Tell us what you want to see in ChumpDump!

Tweet This Post

Tomorrow is Jimmy Kimmels “National UnFriend Day”" and we want to be the OFFICIAL app for it! Please Retweet this blog post heading/link  and YOU could win this FANTABULOUS T-shirt as modeled by @Janelle_Steele!

ChumpDump is to TWITTER what BACON is to Breakfast!

You can also just tweet out “@JimmyKimmel you need to use @ChumpDump as the OFFICAL #National UnFriend Day app!” to qualify!

Only 1 T-shirt will be given out to a tweet chosen at random!

Tweet This Post

Jimmy does a great job bringing the reality to light here people, clean up your friends list, dump a chump!!

We’re exploring ways to give you added bonuses for November 17th – National Un Friend Day.    (we’re considering double points for this great national holiday!)

PS – The Big Update is coming as promised, featuring tighter klout integration and new leaderboards.  Stay tuned!

Tweet This Post

What’s coming?

Better Lottery Randomizer

Many of you have complained about having to save the same person over and over again as if the lottery in ChumpDump is toying with you bringing the same person up over and over again.  Well that’s note true really.  The lottery is a pure randomizer, plain and simple, those people coming up again and again is just taste of the luck of the draw there.  There are only so many tweaks we can do so that it always brings up a fresh face.  Most of which would delay your experience playing the lottery… how much of a delay?  Depends on how many friends ya got.  If you had 40, not bad, if you had 10,000 thats alot to process.  That lag time, we feel is bad.  So what can we do?  Well we’re putting in a slightly smarter lottery that will always fish for new faces (basically re-runs the lottery over and over) when you do back to back lottery plays, so that you GET a new person more often than not.  Its not perfect but its good for you die hard players that play the lottery back to back over and over to crank up that karma goodness.  For you folks, you’ll see more fresher faces.  Now those of you playing casually we’ll your back to the basic lottery math of pure random logic.  Its only when you play back to back lottery spins does this new “hey ChumpDump go find me a fresh face, I just saw this guy” kick in.

3 LeaderBoards instead of 1

Ok so let’s cut to the chase here, there are a handful of folks who have rocked the game with their sheer domination goodness.  They just don’t play, the play WELL, and they keep at it.  However there’s plenty of other folks who are playing and need to get that recognition to keep going just the same.  3 Leader Boards are in the new update.  Daily- most active players today.  These are people making waves that very day.  They are saving and dumping, making way to get to the next board.  Weekly- these are the players dominating the week.  They are doing the most plays, either by adopting new people, saving or dumping.  Finally we have the All Time- these are the folks who have the most karma earned.

Tighter Klout Integration

How do people choose who to save or dump?  That’s a question that comes up quite often in the ChumpDump universe.  Lots of reasons really.  Could be most recent tweet activity, could be whether or not they are following you back, could be number of replies, retweets or dm’s?  Maybe its # of folks they are following?  Or maybe its something in their social profile, or maybe.. its their influence score via Klout.  The Klout influence score is pretty handy.  It computes a persons overall influence position online through a wide range of stats.  Is it the end all be all indicator of worthiness? No, is it a good one? Maybe.  And now ChumpDump is sporting tighter integration with Klout.  A number is fine but a reason behind the numbered score, that’s kinda better in our book- so now you can go right to the source itself- klout.  Clicking on a players klout score takes you to klout- from there, you can see how its computed and decide for yourself.

Clearer Adopt Indicators

We still get alot people asking us how adoption works- its simple really, you follow recent dumpies, thats adopting.  But we know the words are in the UI helping you add that up, so we’re putting those words in there to make it easier to understand.

Links in Chatter

Often we’ll see links in chatter and think.. hey why can’t we view those things?  Well now you can.  You can view links in ChumpDump or open them in Safari (iPhone version).

Badges are linked!

Now when you get a badge, its linked to the website allowing yourself and others to see your glory- and see who else has that coveted badge!

Thats about it for the big cool stuff.  After this update we’ll have an even greater slice of ChumpDump coming.. ChumpWARS or maybe.. ChumpDump 2!  But basically we’re sitting on a ton of feedback from people who want greater control and more crazy game play, and we got ideas.. so you’ll see goodness soon!  Meanwhile iPad lovers, be sure to get that 4.2 update coming for the iPad and then you too can dump on the ipad… woohoo!

We hope to see these updates made available soon, keep your fingers crossed!  (Early October for sure!)

Tweet This Post

Every so often you just need to take a little break. You know, recharge the batteries, refresh your thoughts, and plan out for the future. So with that taken care of, its time for us to get back to it!

Remember, these are “ACTUAL” replies from Chumpers playing the game…

Today’s BEST Top 10 Reasons Tweeps Were SAVED on Twiter:

10. “he’s a South African living on Bulgaria… why not?”"

9. “it’s planet eclipse

8. “she sounds normal and likable”

7. “OU Bobcat, current OSU Buckeye”

6. “It’s jack. chile please.”

5. “saving souls 1 day at a time”

4. “ITS SANTA!!”

3. “I know him in meatspace.”

2. “met wife there, go there daily”

Today’s best reason someone was SAVED on Twitter!

1. “Updates from Sesame Street are much needed in life. saved!”

Today’s BEST Top 10 Reasons Tweeps Were DUMPED On Twitter:

10. “too technical for this layman

9. “why not? they don’t ship to Asia anyway.”

8. “Only links to get more twitter followers, dump.”

7. “contest and doesn’t follow me, dumped”

6. “I wish they were more useful”

5. “too many mentions, hard to follow.”

4. “the user only gave intel on an app I already follow closely”

3. “not really interested in general sci-fi/fantasy anymore”

2. “I’m not into servicing appliances.”

Today’s best reason someone was DUMPED on Twitter!

1. “there’s no future in history!”

Tweet This Post

Adam Curry has been rockin the waves of digital video (VJ’s for those of you that forget), then audio (podcasting) and now app scene for longer than just about anyone else out there.  About a year ago I came across his app the Big App show on the iphone.  Its a cool app idea really and you’ll see others like it, however most have a degree of lameness that Adam’s app lacks.  Most other app recommenders are riddled with “see more pay now” avenues and funky navigation paths sort of forcing you to see only so much causing various missteps along the way.

The Big App show (itunes link) is simple goodness.  Each day, a big app is reviewed in a simple video.  Its hard to compete with good honest video folks, you get all the commentary and personal love from Adam, (it sorta takes you back to the days when he was a VJ on MTV) and you get a snippet into a app to consider and check out.

Promoting ChumpDump has been a journey for us here at Big Kitty Labs, ya know the drill, every dollar you have for promotion is one less you can spend on making the app better.  So far so good, we’ve lucked out on snagging press wherever we can get it and Adam steppin in today with his review definitely helps big time!  What I like best is that the concept with little intro was picked up and Adam saw the big idea behind using the app to not only dump the chumps but find new folks to follow as well.  All that in 3 mins, sweet!

Huge thanks to Adam and his crew for helpin us chumps land on Big App show coverage!

Get the Big App show people and tune into a daily app review goodness!

Tweet This Post

First I love press.

I want to specially thank Carrie Ghose and Columbus Business First for writing up a great story on ChumpDump and Big Kitty Labs.  Rocky, Tushar and myself, we’re humbled by the attention and it helps fuel us to continue on and make ChumpDump the app we all want to be.  Its one heck of a validation to get this much love 30 days from launch.

Its good to be recognized for an idea, hard work etc.  But the press isn’t always gonna get ya in the best light.  I mean it means well but if you didn’t express everything you needed to express, and well the story wants to be a story, some things get left out.  Its all good but for the record, I want to clarify one tidbit.. we did do our research.

NETNOGRAPHY

Netnography is ethnography online.  Instead of watching people in person or thru a camera lens, you’re doing it online, checking out their twitter, flickr, facebook, blog, whatever and wherever you can find them.

Netnography is getting bigger and bigger everyday.  More sophisticated netography is happening on the data mining side of things- where by a brand like “COKE” can data mine and monitor its presence online and tap into what people are thinking in regards to their brand with incredible ease and transparency because we’re all sharing our experiences online these days.

Makes ya a bit paranoid eh?  Well fear not, you’re just one of the gazillions out there whos info is pretty much open and public.  Its becoming the norm, which is why netography is taking off in a big way.

I conducted a bit of netography on the whys that would fuel ChumpDump very easily.  It was easy to find data as to why something like ChumpDump should exist.  I simply went to twitter and asked the question.

Using search.twitter.com and other data mining tools I searched for keywords of expression in and around my core theme, “unfollow” “why follow” “why do people follow me” etc.  The results were staggering.  There was never ending river of tweets in and around my core themes on the how/why/drama of following people online.

Now context is often missing, so don’t get all high thinking this is the new greatest weapon for researchers, its not.  But its great for anyone who’s thinking scrappy!

Right away if you didn’t get ANY tweets regarding your inquiry, then that’d be a huge red flag in a sense that it’d make you stop and think a bit more- especially if what you were making was a consumer facing product.  It may mean you need to broaden your inquiry as well.

But because we got an endless stream of chatter about our targeted keywords in question, we knew we had a good chance of fitting in with that stream of people generating those tweets.  Not to mention we’d data mine that stream of tweets to find emotional targets of goodness in our own concept.  A good emotion target is like honing in on a specific paint point in the chatter and making your product/service not just meet it, but exceed it.

Much of the branded attitude of ChumpDump comes from monitoring this feed of folks talking about the woes of following, unfollowing, the missing whys etc.  People were noticably emotional in their tweeting.  To me this meant, strike a chord vs be a bland utility.

PAST EXPERIENCE

COMPETITION

Now there was some competition to ChumpDump, but we we’re going the fun route first vs the utility route.  So in that regard we had no competition, and that could of been a red flag for a savvy investor dude.

With the barriers to make so cheaper and cheaper, i think the hunt to find competition is not as useful to me than knowing the netography landscape of a concept or having intimate domain knowledge.  Plus I don’t want the team to obsess around some competitive target to beat, you have your own inner demons to beat first, build your own stuff.

THE PROTOTYPE is THE RESEARCH

If you want to get a better understanding of how to run a good beta program, play some games.  Game developers go to great lengths to throughly test their games before they unleash them on the masses.  Getting into one of their beta programs is a good short course on how to conduct your own beta.

Plus your app sort of needs to be enabled to get the data out of people playing it better as well.  One way to do that is to track everything you can in the game, button presses to time on section to time on feature etc.  Collecting data on the backend of your app is HUGE.  At big kitty, we have a serious data metrics capturing mantra, you will do it or else.  On the front end of the experience in the app itself, make it expressive so folks can use it and share it with friends- this gives you an idea of how your app lives in the ecosystem of users beyond the clicks of game play.  Lastly you need to enable the app with a way to get the feedback directly- email us your comments, or a feedback place etc.

The prototype is your first best resource to get data to help validate your effort.  Its the heart of everything we do at BKL.  Build it as cheap as you can and then get some real data and then move forward.

WHAT WE DIDN’T DO

10k is actually pretty cheap for a focus group.  IDI’s individual interviews and what not, are even more expensive.  A survey could be pretty cheap, that is if you can get anyone to do it free provided that meet your demographic requirement.  There are lots of research methods, but we used the ones that resonated best for the task at hand.

We didn’t do a big research effort, not because we’re lazy or that we wanted to play the lottery on our idea but because we saw it as a tactical mistake, and mostly- a big waste of money at this stage of the game for a company that was completely bootstrapped.

Research is costly stuff.  It takes time, focus and effort.  I work in research everyday.  At any given time, there are a dozen or more projects active at Lextant.  From medical products to automotive to the future of financial systems, Lextant does it.  These are firms with million dollar contracts looking to do the next right move for a product that impacts a million, often established customers.  This isn’t a playground for scrappy first wave, proof of concept research.

Now that’s not to say Lextant doesn’t do research for startups, we do in fact, but its usually after a startup has acquired some funding and their making their way into scaling for bigger fish and clients and such.

At ChumpDump we did a lesser campaign of research based on eating our dog food, knowing the domain, leveraging netnography, learning from past experiences and above all else, built a vehicle to get real data sooner than later, ie the prototype.

So to clarify, ChumpDump was not a concept devoid of research data, its quite the contrary, we had ample data to back up the whys for its existence, this fueled the passion to make the game in the first place. Once we got into a beta the real goodness of real use started trickling in, and the rest is history as we evolve the concept with a living data set.

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

Thank you Lan Nguyen for the write up today on Klout’s blog about our game, and how we use your measurement tool! Klout is one of the nugget’s of information you get from ChumpDump to help YOU the player make the educated choice when it comes to who you follow on Twitter, SAVE or DUMP!

  .

Tweet This Post