[puranjay]

They "automate" social proof. That is, when someone buys something on your site, or performs a specific action (such as sign-up for a newsletter), FOMO will show a little pop-up in the left corner stating so ("XYZ from ABC just bought 2 widgets"). The idea is that knowing something is popular will make others more likely to buy it.

I reckon they could do a better job of conveying this, but I work in marketing and I understood it immediately. So I imagine their target audience understands it well enough.

[aerovistae]

That is so weird to me. Does that actually work on people? I see it now that you point it out, the popups in the lower left, but before I had been automatically mentally dismissing it as just annoying sales bullshit, like any other popup ad. There's statistical evidence that sales are actually influenced by that kind of nonsense? That amazes me.

[puranjay]

It does. Probably not on the HN crowd. But on the usual e-commerce sites that use this app, it definitely works. The audience isn't quite as technically literate and doesn't have that banner blindness people here have developed.

Plus, the e-commerce sites that use it are usually small startups. They need to show that real people are buying from them to prove to shoppers that they're legitimate

[thirdsun]

It's not just banner blindness. Even as a less tech-savvy person I imagine I'd just assume those notifications to be fake, fictive customer stories that serve to illustrate a feature, similar to how "customers" used to rave about knife sets and fitness devices that changed their life on home shopping TV shows.

[puranjay]

Yet people continue to buy knife sets and fitness devices from home shopping TV shows, proving that it does work.

You have to see it as a part of a broader persuasive effort. By itself, it doesn't work. But when it is paired with reviews, testimonials, ratings, high-quality pictures, etc., it adds to the impression that this is a legitimate product

[ryanckulp]

https://blog.fomo.com/tag/case-study/

[pwython]

There's sort of 2 types of social proof. Fear of missing out and testimonial. My favorite examples of social proof (not fomo.com) are hotels.com and opentable.com. When looking at a hotel: "15 people have booked this hotel today," or while making a dinner reservation: "23 people have reserved a table at this restaurant today."

In these cases, you're being pressured to act fast before the hotel/restaurant is fully booked. Further, this "proof" that people are making all these reservations right now also could make you believe your choice is a popular recommendation, persuaded your decision making.

[ryanckulp]

yep, you can do this with Fomo(.com) as well.

[spike021]

FOMO means Fear of Missing Out.

So, say you're interested in a certain smaller brand that may not sell thousands or more copies of certain items, but something on the order of 50, or 100, etc.., then when you see that others have been purchasing said items you worry you'll miss out on your chance to buy one, and then you'll be one of the only people who like the brand who don't have said item.. thus, you wind up purchasing too.

[eswat]

Many hotel/flight booking sites – Expedia, Booking.com, etc. – have been using this pattern for a while. I assume it works, at least in that context, very well.

[radley]

Twitch.tv uses it a ton (check out their chat feeds).