Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Interesting book. Terrible performance.

Would you listen to Hooked again? Why?

No. Painful narration. Bad microphone. Record again with a real narrator please.

What did you like best about this story?

The content is good and the examples useful if you can get over the performance.

Would you be willing to try another one of Nir Eyal’s performances?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No.

Any additional comments?

Re-record please!

24 of 25 people found this review helpful

Can't believe I paid for this audio book

Would you try another book from Nir Eyal and/or Nir Eyal?

Yes

How could the performance have been better?

Read by a possible teenager who doesn't know how to read. Incredible. He skips the words that he mispronounces, doesn't even bother to correct it. Stops before some words in totally random places which is so distracting.

I was tracing the actual book while listening and he replaces phrases like "internal triggers" with "an internal trigger". Dude! If you want to write a book then write one, but don't modify this!

Finally there are weird cuts and merges in the recording.

Incredibly unprofessional. This audio book should be banned on audible. If I wanted low quality I'd go to other sites. I'm paying to get quality.

Such a good book but a terrible audio book.

60 of 64 people found this review helpful

Good content but bad audio and little overview

The narration is done by Nir Eyal himself. Overall he does it okay, but the microphone he has used must have been really cheap. And post-processing (compression, noise gate, etc) skipped altogether.

Add to the above that he occasionally stumbles over his words. These mistakes have not been edited out of the audiobook. Not a huge problem, but it leaves an impression of a very unpolished, maybe rushed, audiobook.

The content itself is good. Nir Eyal certainly knows his stuff. I watched an interview with him on Growthhacker.tv before getting this book. But: the content lends itself much more to a written format. As an audiobook, I miss a sense of overview.

So I'll be getting this in kindle ebook format instead, and I recommend you do the same;)

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Good Book, Terrible Recording

What did you like best about Hooked? What did you like least?

As a survey of how to capture interest online, Nir Eyal has some fantastic insights and the words are worth the price. It will give anyone good ideas and builds a credible thesis. BUT, his recording of this book is awful. He obviously recorded it himself it in a very low tech way, and the audio quality switches throughout the book from bad to worse. I've worked audio recording sessions throughout my career, and I can tell that Nir did little research or trial and error practice recordings to create the audiobook.. If you can survive the recording, you'll learn good things from what he has to say. You might be better off buying the lower cost eBook instead.

Would you be willing to try another book from Nir Eyal? Why or why not?

Yes, his research and insights are good.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

IN ADDITION to the poor audio quality, he often stumbles through his words. LEARN TO DO MORE THAN 1 AUDIO TAKE if you record your own book! We pay a lot of money for these, and expect at least a bare minimum quality that isn't in this book.

30 of 33 people found this review helpful

get a professional studio

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

yes for the content but the recording is terrible - i have hear music in the background in some sections and car noise in another. like it was recoded on an iphone a car.very amatuer

What was one of the most memorable moments of Hooked?

the airplane is the background at one point

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Nir Eyal?

he was ok but again terrible product for a book taking about quality products.was totally a distraction

17 of 19 people found this review helpful

The new re-recording is even worse. Returned it.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

This book is supposedly for product leaders or entrepreneurs, but I'm sure anyone who knows what they're doing already knows everything here. There are LOTS of books on this subject, and this one didn't seem to offer any new insights. If you've read Robert Cialdini's "Influence" and used any mobile social network, you've already read this book and then some.

What could Nir Eyal have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I really wanted to enjoy and learn from this book, but a consultant/part-time lecturer's experience just isn't as valuable as a successful entrepreneur's, no matter how much 'research' is involved.

Would you be willing to try another one of Dave Wright’s performances?

I wouldn't, it read like an artificial intelligence dictation which made it extremely hard to focus on and impossible to enjoy. If you're an Audible subscriber you know what I'm talking about.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products?

The content of this book probably didn't warrant a book, perhaps a podcast.

Any additional comments?

Unfortunately I cannot recommend this, I've never seen so many complaints about recording. Luckily was able to return it.

10 of 11 people found this review helpful

Interesting concept, boring narration

This book was recommended to me by a colleague. It provided a useful framework to identify and amplify habit forming ideas. Some of the visuals lost in audible can be found online and very helpful.
The hard part is to keep engaged with such a monotonous narration...

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Incredible content TERRIBLE recording

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes because the content is excellent

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Nir Eyal?

Anyone else

Any additional comments?

The content is soooo good and so up to date. Yet I think the narrator recorded this in his bathroom.

I never leave reviews but this is too good of a book to have this sloppy of a recording

9 of 11 people found this review helpful

Narrators shouldn't sound like commercials

Hooked is a great book - part of the canon of product development, and a good listen even with numerous references to charts or diagrams in the printed edition that don't translate into audio. However, the narrator on this book sounds like he's narrating an ad for a time-share. He's not telling a story, and the tempo and modulation of his voice are quite distracting. That takes away from what is an otherwise good read.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great book, wish the narration was a little better.

Loved the insight on this book provides. It has changed my entire outlook on how and why I use the every day products I use. Great for aspiring entrepreneurs. If you can make it through the narration, you'll definitely get your money's worth.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful