6 ms·

the first point here: be narrow is such an overlooked and important idea. Facebook didn't have more than one photo for over 18 months and is now the largest ph

the first point here: be narrow is such an overlooked and important idea. Facebook didn't have more than one photo for over 18 months and is now the largest photo sharing site by FAR.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago
Yes, but it annoys me to read that kind of "overlooked" ideas over and over again and never see the issues discussed by the author. If Evan Williams tells me to be narrow, maybe he could also tell me how not to be just a tiny feature of some powerful entity's app, waiting to be replaced as soon as my app gets traction.
- patio11 17y ago
  If Evan Williams tells me to be narrow, maybe he could also tell me how not to be just a tiny feature of some powerful entity's app, waiting to be replaced as soon as my app gets traction. I sell a strict subset of Microsoft Excel. My strategy for competing with Microsoft Excel is two-fold: first, I'm not Microsoft and second, I don't sell Excel. Plus, if you'll forgive me one of my hobbyhorses: there is a titanic gulf between your application's feature set and your business. I think as engineers we look at the feature set and see 90% of the value, and naturally assume that something with 100 times the features is 100 times better. I think the truth is that the application itself is closer to 10% of the value, and that huge ginormous feature sets have costs as well as benefits. One quick example: if you have a very focused vision of your product or users, you can afford to play depth-versus-breadth on marketing to your niche.
  - InclinedPlane 17y ago
    Every product will always have a set of intrinsic features; things like usability, aesthetic appeal, performance, efficiency, robustness, etc. When you use a brain-dead functionality checklist approach to development you are almost assured to fail at delivering on the intrinsic featureset, which is often the most important. In mature industries most of the competition is on these intrinsic aspects, just look at automobiles, furniture, or food. When Apple initially revealed the first iPod in 2001 there was a considerable amount of initial criticism from the tech savvy community and many people thought it would flop. The critics called it just another MP3 player and pointed out where it lacked seemingly important features that the competition already had. And yet the iPod became one of the most phenomenally successful products of all time, and has played a major role in revolutionizing the way that music is produced, distributed, and listened to. All because Apple is smart enough to know how critical it is to deliver on the intrinsic featureset.
axod 17y ago
You can take it to extremes though. Twitter is such a narrow simple app. I think they'd probably do well to add features and expand the scope a bit. Sharing videos/pics/urls are things twitter should just implement themselves IMHO. Then we wouldn't have the bizarre situation of bit.ly twitpic, twitvid etc etc Or god forbid extend the character limit from 140.
- tjogin 17y ago
  Ok, so Twitter is basically doing everything wrong in your view, and yet they are tremendously popular. Have you considered the possibility that you are wrong, and they are in fact doing it right, in light of their success, I mean?
  - axod 17y ago
    Twitter is quite like the emperors new clothes. Lots of 'hip' people talk about how wonderful it is. But when you actually look at what they've done: * Create a simple pub sub backend message system * Limit it to 140 characters * Allow everyone uninhibited API access to it That's a great public service they've done, but for me, it's not a great business. They've definitely done a great job at appealing to a certain demographic. However, twitter isn't about engagement. It's not about communication. It's about broadcasting 1->many. It's about producers and consumers. That's IMHO what limits its usefulness. As a business decision, giving away access to 3rd party developers seems like favoring short term growth well above profit and the future. Most people don't use twitter.com which if I was an investor would be worrying. Facebook OTOH is far more engaging and compelling in its usefulness. You can quickly paste URLs, images, vids, etc. It's more about communication. I'm not sure being popular should be the aim of a startup. You can be wildly popular for a year or two, then go out of fashion. The people using Twitter aren't particularly known for their loyalty either.
    - jasicom 17y ago
      ya.. correct

the first point here: be narrow is such an overlooked and important idea. Facebook didn't have more than one photo for over 18 months and is now the largest photo sharing site by FAR.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago

Yes, but it annoys me to read that kind of "overlooked" ideas over and over again and never see the issues discussed by the author. If Evan Williams tells me to be narrow, maybe he could also tell me how not to be just a tiny feature of some powerful entity's app, waiting to be replaced as soon as my app gets traction.

patio11 17y ago
If Evan Williams tells me to be narrow, maybe he could also tell me how not to be just a tiny feature of some powerful entity's app, waiting to be replaced as soon as my app gets traction. I sell a strict subset of Microsoft Excel. My strategy for competing with Microsoft Excel is two-fold: first, I'm not Microsoft and second, I don't sell Excel. Plus, if you'll forgive me one of my hobbyhorses: there is a titanic gulf between your application's feature set and your business. I think as engineers we look at the feature set and see 90% of the value, and naturally assume that something with 100 times the features is 100 times better. I think the truth is that the application itself is closer to 10% of the value, and that huge ginormous feature sets have costs as well as benefits. One quick example: if you have a very focused vision of your product or users, you can afford to play depth-versus-breadth on marketing to your niche.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  Every product will always have a set of intrinsic features; things like usability, aesthetic appeal, performance, efficiency, robustness, etc. When you use a brain-dead functionality checklist approach to development you are almost assured to fail at delivering on the intrinsic featureset, which is often the most important. In mature industries most of the competition is on these intrinsic aspects, just look at automobiles, furniture, or food. When Apple initially revealed the first iPod in 2001 there was a considerable amount of initial criticism from the tech savvy community and many people thought it would flop. The critics called it just another MP3 player and pointed out where it lacked seemingly important features that the competition already had. And yet the iPod became one of the most phenomenally successful products of all time, and has played a major role in revolutionizing the way that music is produced, distributed, and listened to. All because Apple is smart enough to know how critical it is to deliver on the intrinsic featureset.

axod 17y ago

You can take it to extremes though. Twitter is such a narrow simple app. I think they'd probably do well to add features and expand the scope a bit. Sharing videos/pics/urls are things twitter should just implement themselves IMHO. Then we wouldn't have the bizarre situation of bit.ly twitpic, twitvid etc etc Or god forbid extend the character limit from 140.

tjogin 17y ago
Ok, so Twitter is basically doing everything wrong in your view, and yet they are tremendously popular. Have you considered the possibility that you are wrong, and they are in fact doing it right, in light of their success, I mean?
- axod 17y ago
  Twitter is quite like the emperors new clothes. Lots of 'hip' people talk about how wonderful it is. But when you actually look at what they've done: * Create a simple pub sub backend message system * Limit it to 140 characters * Allow everyone uninhibited API access to it That's a great public service they've done, but for me, it's not a great business. They've definitely done a great job at appealing to a certain demographic. However, twitter isn't about engagement. It's not about communication. It's about broadcasting 1->many. It's about producers and consumers. That's IMHO what limits its usefulness. As a business decision, giving away access to 3rd party developers seems like favoring short term growth well above profit and the future. Most people don't use twitter.com which if I was an investor would be worrying. Facebook OTOH is far more engaging and compelling in its usefulness. You can quickly paste URLs, images, vids, etc. It's more about communication. I'm not sure being popular should be the aim of a startup. You can be wildly popular for a year or two, then go out of fashion. The people using Twitter aren't particularly known for their loyalty either.
  - jasicom 17y ago
    ya.. correct