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Path’s Playbook For Appealing To Normal People

43 points by kylebragger 16y ago

stcredzero 16y ago
This is the route that Diaspora and those who want to be "the next Facebook" should have taken. Just give ordinary users a mechanism for sharing things with their closest friends that's easier yet just as flexible as email, and you have a winner. Idea: have an easy way of sharing stuff that's for "everyone except for the parents." (Also have a way of tagging friends who are your parent's closest friends.) Combine this with a way of tagging already-published stuff as "not for the parents" which will revoke items which you've already sent. (Also delay everything sent to parents and friends of parents by 30 minutes or so, so you have time to change your mind without their ever knowing.) EDIT: We're reaching the point where your computer/smartphone photo sharing mechanism can detect your face in photos and detect scantily clad people. We should be able to have the device detect these conditions and your parents on the recipients list and pop up a dialog asking, "There's racy content in this photo, do you want your parents to see it?"
- wallflower 16y ago
  Apple is on it. Just text medium for now but I'm sure they will extend if they think there is a market. http://www.ismashphone.com/2010/10/apple-awarded-anti-sexting-patent.html http://www.ismashphone.com/2010/10/apple-awarded-anti-sextin...
- Jschwa 16y ago
  @tylerstalder left this in the comments of the post: http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2 http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-networ... It's an excellent deck from a Google UX Engineer that describes the scenario you are talking about with sharing with "everyone except for parents". The problem that the deck illustrates is that the breakdown isn't just Parents and Everyone else. Each person has 4-6 different groups, each with its own level of appropriate or relevant content. The trick is designing to account for each.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    I think the trick is to leave a path open for a person to discover that their personal social Venn diagrams are this complex. There should be several stages. At each stage, a user discovers some pain (I wish I could leave my parents out of this) and then discovers an easy solution. (Ah ha! I can use this "parent" tag and then it prompts me so I can choose to not let my parents see this.) The user is pleased, until they discover their next pain. (I don't always want all of my friends to know about...) The end result is that you've solved the user's pain several times over, and so they love your product.

43 points by kylebragger 16y ago

This is the route that Diaspora and those who want to be "the next Facebook" should have taken. Just give ordinary users a mechanism for sharing things with their closest friends that's easier yet just as flexible as email, and you have a winner. Idea: have an easy way of sharing stuff that's for "everyone except for the parents." (Also have a way of tagging friends who are your parent's closest friends.) Combine this with a way of tagging already-published stuff as "not for the parents" which will revoke items which you've already sent. (Also delay everything sent to parents and friends of parents by 30 minutes or so, so you have time to change your mind without their ever knowing.) EDIT: We're reaching the point where your computer/smartphone photo sharing mechanism can detect your face in photos and detect scantily clad people. We should be able to have the device detect these conditions and your parents on the recipients list and pop up a dialog asking, "There's racy content in this photo, do you want your parents to see it?"

wallflower 16y ago
Apple is on it. Just text medium for now but I'm sure they will extend if they think there is a market. http://www.ismashphone.com/2010/10/apple-awarded-anti-sexting-patent.html http://www.ismashphone.com/2010/10/apple-awarded-anti-sextin...
Jschwa 16y ago
@tylerstalder left this in the comments of the post: http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2 http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-networ... It's an excellent deck from a Google UX Engineer that describes the scenario you are talking about with sharing with "everyone except for parents". The problem that the deck illustrates is that the breakdown isn't just Parents and Everyone else. Each person has 4-6 different groups, each with its own level of appropriate or relevant content. The trick is designing to account for each.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  I think the trick is to leave a path open for a person to discover that their personal social Venn diagrams are this complex. There should be several stages. At each stage, a user discovers some pain (I wish I could leave my parents out of this) and then discovers an easy solution. (Ah ha! I can use this "parent" tag and then it prompts me so I can choose to not let my parents see this.) The user is pleased, until they discover their next pain. (I don't always want all of my friends to know about...) The end result is that you've solved the user's pain several times over, and so they love your product.