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Here's my opinion on fads -- you gotta take a risk BEFORE they're ultra-popular and make sure that some of the first apps available for them are yours. Then, a

by psyklic 17y ago

Here's my opinion on fads -- you gotta take a risk BEFORE they're ultra-popular and make sure that some of the first apps available for them are yours. Then, as the apps market becomes more saturated, either: (1) diversify by developing LOTS of apps or by congregating other apps under your brand, or (2) become a freelance developer for that platform, advertising your first-app-to-market experience. If you're a latecomer to the market and didn't take that initial risk, your chances of success don't seem to be great -- the market is saturated, and you don't have the platform experience to attract the highest hourly wages. (And now, getting experience by making apps won't be as profitable since the market is saturated.)

dirtyaura 17y ago
The type of risk that you propose to take has a fundamental issue for startups. As a startup, you can't do anything to make a platform itself ultra-popular. Say, you develop a new hip location-based service for Palm Web OS, but Palm Web OS never passes a few million users. You can do nada about it. But what is worse, during that time, you don't learn much about your own service, because your biggest problem is to get any users for it. When you then decide to port it to more successful platforms, you still don't know what works, what gets people excited about your service etc. In a contrast, on an ultra-popular platform, if your service goes unrecognized, you can do something about it and you can learn from your efforts. You try out different marketing techniques, maybe they don't work, but all the time you are learning and getting feedback of your effors.
- psyklic 17y ago
  I agree, but if you wait until a platform gets to be ultra-popular before developing, the chance of great success is much lower. It's classic risk vs. reward. Apps aren't that difficult to make, so taking early risks on platforms like Facebook (with already a large userbase) and the iPhone (backed by Apple) aren't that bad, even if the platform fails.

by psyklic 17y ago

dirtyaura 17y ago

The type of risk that you propose to take has a fundamental issue for startups. As a startup, you can't do anything to make a platform itself ultra-popular. Say, you develop a new hip location-based service for Palm Web OS, but Palm Web OS never passes a few million users. You can do nada about it. But what is worse, during that time, you don't learn much about your own service, because your biggest problem is to get any users for it. When you then decide to port it to more successful platforms, you still don't know what works, what gets people excited about your service etc. In a contrast, on an ultra-popular platform, if your service goes unrecognized, you can do something about it and you can learn from your efforts. You try out different marketing techniques, maybe they don't work, but all the time you are learning and getting feedback of your effors.

psyklic 17y ago
I agree, but if you wait until a platform gets to be ultra-popular before developing, the chance of great success is much lower. It's classic risk vs. reward. Apps aren't that difficult to make, so taking early risks on platforms like Facebook (with already a large userbase) and the iPhone (backed by Apple) aren't that bad, even if the platform fails.