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Not really very insightful. And the don't need virality if your product is good bit really hasn't been proven out. There are many superior products out there

Not really very insightful. And the don't need virality if your product is good bit really hasn't been proven out. There are many superior products out there that have lost to the competition (especially in the social network space) because they never gained enough early traction.

AndrewWarner 18y ago
Mike, I agree that virality can't be dismissed so quickly. Seems if you don't have that, the rest of your marketing has to work much harder.
- smwhreyebelong 18y ago
  I agree with Paul's point. Google's early growth was due to the product being superior and not because it had any sort of virality. I don't recall seeing any Google ads on TV/print/billboards yet soon everyone was talking about googling instead of searching the web.
paul 18y ago
I didn't really say that you "don't need" virality, but that the best kind is a product that people love so much that they want to tell everyone about it (which is a kind of virality). Obviously, the need for virality also differs based on what you are building. For social networks, having your friends there is a big part of what makes it a "good product". For a search engine, that's less important. What bothers me is the focus on virality over actual value creation. The best examples are some of the "zombie" type facebook apps that are pretty much just pure virality.
- unalone 18y ago
  That's an important distinction to make re: virality. There're two kinds: the sort that forces you to spread it to gain functionality, and the sort that spreads because people like talking about it. It's easy to force the one, but very, very difficult to fake the other.
- mikeryan 18y ago
  I agree w/r/t to the facebook apps - I don't think they have any lasting value. And I think any product that completely revolutionizes a domain doesn't need to "go viral" to succeed - ultimately the excellence or game changing experience will cause these apps to succeed, Amazon, and the iPod are two great examples. Google was a success because they created a game changing search product - it was (and still is) vastly better then anything else out there. I think however that while everyone tries to create a game changing product, the vast majority of products are really incremental improvements and in these cases going viral helps. Twitter being a great case in point - really just an iteration somewhere between IM/Email/Blogging - but went viral enough to be important, over some better platforms such as Jaiku.
teej 18y ago
> And the don't need virality if your product is good bit really hasn't been proven out. Great point. He really skipped over Gmail's marketing strategy, which wasn't just being good. Gmail didn't get a lot of attention soley because of something as abstract as "it was good". Gmail combined artificial scarcity (invite only) and an outlandish offering (1 GB space) to spark demand. That is the core of the hype machine that drove the word of mouth. Being good was only a multiplier on that, not the base.

AndrewWarner 18y ago

Mike, I agree that virality can't be dismissed so quickly. Seems if you don't have that, the rest of your marketing has to work much harder.

smwhreyebelong 18y ago
I agree with Paul's point. Google's early growth was due to the product being superior and not because it had any sort of virality. I don't recall seeing any Google ads on TV/print/billboards yet soon everyone was talking about googling instead of searching the web.

paul 18y ago

I didn't really say that you "don't need" virality, but that the best kind is a product that people love so much that they want to tell everyone about it (which is a kind of virality). Obviously, the need for virality also differs based on what you are building. For social networks, having your friends there is a big part of what makes it a "good product". For a search engine, that's less important. What bothers me is the focus on virality over actual value creation. The best examples are some of the "zombie" type facebook apps that are pretty much just pure virality.

unalone 18y ago
That's an important distinction to make re: virality. There're two kinds: the sort that forces you to spread it to gain functionality, and the sort that spreads because people like talking about it. It's easy to force the one, but very, very difficult to fake the other.
mikeryan 18y ago
I agree w/r/t to the facebook apps - I don't think they have any lasting value. And I think any product that completely revolutionizes a domain doesn't need to "go viral" to succeed - ultimately the excellence or game changing experience will cause these apps to succeed, Amazon, and the iPod are two great examples. Google was a success because they created a game changing search product - it was (and still is) vastly better then anything else out there. I think however that while everyone tries to create a game changing product, the vast majority of products are really incremental improvements and in these cases going viral helps. Twitter being a great case in point - really just an iteration somewhere between IM/Email/Blogging - but went viral enough to be important, over some better platforms such as Jaiku.

teej 18y ago

> And the don't need virality if your product is good bit really hasn't been proven out. Great point. He really skipped over Gmail's marketing strategy, which wasn't just being good. Gmail didn't get a lot of attention soley because of something as abstract as "it was good". Gmail combined artificial scarcity (invite only) and an outlandish offering (1 GB space) to spark demand. That is the core of the hype machine that drove the word of mouth. Being good was only a multiplier on that, not the base.