March 2010
5 posts
2 tags
Big bold omission
It’s now common wisdom among smart web entrepreneurs that you should launch a new product with a minimal set of features so you can get it live quickly and start learning what people want.
Of course I live by this philosophy (look at everything we launched at Sawhorse). But I think it overlooks a concept I’ve seen several startups use to great success: a big bold feature omission. A...
1 tag
Real Trust Web
Everyone’s been talking about the “real-time web” for quite some time, but it’s easy to focus on speed while forgetting real-time is dependent on trust.
When things move faster, trust matters more. If you’re in the heat of battle, you don’t have time to question your commander the way you might second guess your boss during peace time — you just need to...
1 tag
Did you get her pseudonym?
Many dudes in their 20s don’t ask for ladies’ phone numbers anyone. They just ask (knowingly) “Are you on Facebook?”, then send a Facebook message, friend request, or poke. This cheapens the exchange because there’s nothing special to give, nothing to receive. “I got her name” is no “I got her number”.
It turns out the teens have this figured...
“It worries me that this Toyota thing worries us so much.”
– Robert Wright
1 tag
Less than 1% of New York Times readers are True...
A new study from Barracuda Labs points out that “Only 21 percent of Twitter users are actual True Twitter Users”. This set off a wave of media attention about how few Twitter users are active. One of the criteria of being a True User for the study is that the user’s posted over 10 pieces of content.
I’ve used this same criterion to analyze the True Userbase of the New York...