Welcome the Chasing Rabbbits, where I chase the rabbbits of my curiosity. Wild hares, white rabbits, swamp rabbits, occult rabbits, rabbits of chance, jack rabbits, maybe even Peter and/or Roger.
These usually take the form of marketing, economics, books, human behavior, and, now, the moon.
New Moon
Happy new moon (yester)day! According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac moon guide, today is a good day to plant aboveground crops, make jams or jellies, or start a new project (maybe a blog / newsletter thing?). Maybe also a good day to learn what would happen if the moon crashed into earth.
What Can We Learn from Wordle?
Five letter words, duh. Do I have to do all the work around here?
We can also learn that the NYT wants all the puzzles. But we’re not here to talk about “successful exits,” in VC parlance. (I do recommend checking out this post on the sale though since the reaction was a bit…intense.)
We’re here to talk marketing, bay-bee!
If you’re unfamiliar with Wordle, it’s a word puzzle (get it?!). Every day a new puzzle is released and you have 6 chances to solve it. It’s always 5 letters. There are 3 types of feedback:
Green = right letter, right spot
Yellow = right letter, wrong spot
Gray = try again, suckah, this ain’t it
5 greens mean you win! Then you get a pop-up with your streak and stats and the option to share your results. But more on those in a bit. So, back to the question that kicked this whole thing off, what can we learn from Wordle?
Scarcity is the new Scarcity
Like Supreme drops, season premiers, and Apple releases, the wait is part of the reward. In our always on, binge scroll culture, being unable to binge can heighten the experience. Savor it. Sync it up with friends. Do it as soon as it’s released. Schedule it. You do you, boo, but whatever it is, it’s working.
Lesson: the wait can be a feature, not a bug
Buzzer Beater Meter
It’s not just about the waiting. Every day is a race against the clock to finish the puzzle before it flips to the new one. This isn’t a powerful lever on its own, but when combined with scarcity a moment in time is created. This puzzle only exists for 24 hours, once it’s gone it won’t come back (I’m assuming, how many 5 letter words are there? Will puzzles repeat? (Wordle is using used a list of 2,315 words to generate answers, which should last about 6 ⅓ years. (NYT has changed the solutions list so now I have no idea how long this thing could last))). And we all know that once you pop, the fun don’t stop. So do it now or do it never.
Lesson: FOMO is real (YOLO is also factual), use deadlines if they make sense (fake deadlines can come back to bite you)
We’re Going Streaking
Once you start a chain, you don’t want to break it. Seinfeld uses this as the key to his productivity and longevity. Wordle shows you this streak every time you complete a puzzle (if you’re using the same device and haven’t deleted the cookie).
Scarcity + Time Sensitivity + Streak Tracking = Phenomenon
This above equation is important because there are copycats that don’t limit the number of puzzles per day, but Wordle is still the OG. It’s hard to create a cultural moment if the individual moments can be asynchronous. People can solve their Wordle at a different time during the day but everyone is solving for the same word during the same 24 hour period. This is what gets shared.
Lesson: consistency builds habits, streak tracking helps maintain this consistency
Sharing is Caring
This is the true genius behind the spread: the emoji results grid.
Wordle 227 4/6
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
One-tap copy-paste to post this to your social network or messaging app of choice. To show off to your followers and compete with your friends. To market the puzzle itself.
I first saw one of these grids before I knew what Wordle was and was instantly intrigued. It seems like a coded message but once you play the game it makes sense. It creates a mystery with a low barrier to solve — to go from outsider to insider — and to perpetuate the cycle of interest.
This is cultural currency as network effect. As witnessed by this tweet. I can’t tell if it’s a joke or not and that’s part of the proof that this sharing mechanism works.
Lesson: humans are natural storytellers, we want to share
Keep It Simple
This game is intensely simple. Which means it is easy for people to get started, easy to talk about, and easy to fit into a daily routine. Doing one thing really well is a lot better than doing a lot of things mediocre at best. Instead of feature bloat, try feature excision.
Lesson: don’t half ass two (or more things) when you can whole ass one thing
The Velvet Underground of Puzzles
A popular quote (maybe from Brian Eno) is that “the first VU record may have only sold 1,000 copies, but every person who bought it started a band.” That’s Wordle for puzzles (except more than 1,000 people are probably playing, like later VU records).
Besides a number of spoofs and specializations of the Wordle gameplay. A number of clones popped up in app stores since Wordle is web only.
Lesson: You don’t have to be everywhere, but others will copy you where you aren’t