There is a paradox that confronts companies big and small. How much is enough?
Build too little functionality, solve too small of a problem, and odds are that no one cares enough about your solution to pay attention to it.
Build too much functionality, and you risk feature bloat, missed deliverables and generally muddy the answer to the questions that are critical to a product's success, "Who is the target customer, What do they hire your product to do and Why?"
Small companies, especially startups, struggle with this one by falling prey to trying to 'boil the ocean' versus defining a narrow, compelling 1.0 purpose.
Big companies gravitate between two extremes: either under-estimating the needs and aspirations of the market or SO TOTALLY overshooting them (delivering a 3.0 vision to a 1.0 market aspiring to a 2.0 solution) that they guarantee failure of the new product.
Imagine a plane taking off and landing in a fixed amount of time and space. That is your product. Do not overbuild the runway. Do not underbuild it either.
For some strange reason, when I am on my iPod touch device, and view a certain music video on YouTube, it is not the same version that I get on my PC. Somewhat oddly, it’s a superior version to its PC counterpart. I am not sure what that means, but it means something. More on that in a bit.
The other day, I was talking with Alex Mostoufi, my friend and business partner at Snapp Networks (my social networking platform company), and he made an interesting point. He equated the changes going on in the technology/media industries right now with a world war brewing.
Namely, that strong industry forces are colliding, seriously disrupting multiple sectors of the market, creating new alignments, breaking old ones, and generally messing up any sense of stasis.
Once upon a time, the media, mobile, pc and internet industries had clear industry demarcation points with independent ecosystems, separate economic models and from a modality perspective, different audiences and audience engagement models.
Then something happened. Formerly impenetrable walls came crashing down. Economic models were redefined. Audience definitions and dimensions were recast. Lots of casualties and collateral damage ensued.
One only has to look at the newspaper and music industries to understand the power of creative destruction at work here. How do you explain to the layman what Craigslist has meant to the newspaper business? It’s the equivalent of what the giant astral impact event was to the dinosaur.
With that as a backdrop, here is a riddle. Why is it that only Apple and Google seem to have figured out how to traverse the entire online universe – i.e., media, mobile, pc and the internet - ‘build a winning hand’ and then play that hand accordingly?
Answer: Everyone else seems to be dealing in the realm of chicken parts whereas these two are dealing fundamentally from the concept of a living, breathing chicken.
But, I would assert that it does not have to be that way. One can map out in a pretty logical fashion well-formed platform constructs down to the level of presentation formats, audience engagement parameters, content distribution policies, and advertising methods, ad units and analytics – and equally important, how to manage them.
At least that was the intent of my post, ‘Best Practices: How to Build an Audience’ in shining a light on the 'WHAT' and 'WHY' of Google, YouTube, Apple (iPod), eBay and Amazon.
And to be clear, the stakes are high. Consider the words of Research In Motion's co-chief executive, Jim Balsillie:
Echoing Vodafone Group chief executive Arun Sarin's words from an earlier keynote, Balsillie said carriers have come to a fork in the road that will see them either become pipes or platforms. They must therefore provide a managed service to users, seamlessly integrating Web services and desktop applications onto handsets. "This is not a concept. This is a reality," he said.
That, my friends, is the fork in the road. To be a (silo’d) pipe or to build a platform and become a service provider. To have a real strategy and then figure out tactically speaking, if the plan is to buy, build, license or to sit on the sidelines (until some pre-ordained moment). Or do nothing and let gravity take its course.
Which brings me back to the song, ‘Voices,’ by Russ Ballard, the aforementioned video with superior quality on my iPod touch to on my PC (actually, a MacBook Pro).
I find Ballard’s lyrics pretty resonant, poetic and philosophical and it's a great video:
In my head the voice is waiting, waiting for me to set it free. I locked it inside my imagination, but I'm the one who's got the combination.
A couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted to have a daily picture in my head of the Golden Gate Bridge and just continue to make San Francisco my home for the long haul.
Check out the video if you are willing to invest five minutes in entertaining and energizing thoughts. It’s a decent snapshot of the future of media, pc, mobile and the internet.
An old piece of media (the song is over a decade old), finding new life online via pc and mobile device, driving a real transaction (I bought the song on iTunes via the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store).
A couple weeks back, I posted on the potential of the iPod touch as a mainstream Wi-Fi platform. My post was triggered by two things. One, is the (hopefully) imminent release of the iPhone SDK (note: with some qualification, the touch is an iPhone without the phone so non-telephony apps should also run on the touch). Two, is my own nascent experiences with the touch as a fanatical Blackberry 7130 user.
First, the bad news. The device can be clunky sometimes. Specifically, crashes of the Safari browser are not uncommon. I have also noted that when attempting to multi thread by listening to music and simultaneously accessing the web, music can skip and applications can become unstable.
Also, the device currently lacks copy and paste functions, which complicates its utility as a serious input device (a core reason I love my Blackberry is that it excels as an input device).
On the networking front, Wi-Fi performance can be erratic, and connecting to seemingly open public Wi-Fi connections is a black art. I still cannot figure out why it works in some locations where a connection is shown and not others. Needless to say, this limits the reliable-ness of the ‘mobile’ moniker.
All of that said, the potential of the touch as a mobile platform is undeniable. Its iPod functionality is stellar. The combination of the Multi-Touch touch screen functionality and the Accelerometer portrait-to-landscape display functions really enhance the user experience.
And while the virtual keyboard pales in comparison to the real thing, it definitely becomes serviceable with practice – if not an asset, then at least less of a liability than I perceived it to be upon initial use.
Many have suggested that the browser experience with mobile Safari is a game changer for the device, and while it is pretty solid and fun to use (a definite weak spot of my Blackberry), as a showcase for the native capabilities of the iPod touch/iPhone, it is just okay.
By contrast, the YouTube application over Wi-Fi is really sweet, and I actually found myself searching for, finding and watching/listening to music videos on YouTube and then buying the song via the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. Very slick.
I have put some thoughts into ‘killer app’ scenarios in my earlier post so I won’t recount them here other than to say that the email application could get a lot better.
In fact, I would argue that email is a potential killer application for the platform as a global in-box. With better information organization and sharing capabilities, and multimedia messaging support, who wouldn’t want to be able to take their email archive with them?
Framed differently, if Apple doesn't seize this one how much do you want to bet that Google does given: 1) How much they already have invested in their multi-platform Gmail application and 2) How sexy Google Maps on the iPhone/iPod touch has proven to be (and competent Google is becoming in the apps arena)?
This is a major storyline to watch for the year ahead; namely, in an industry where the once impenetrable walls between media, mobile, PC and Internet are crashing down, seemingly only two companies – Apple and Google – have figured out how to ‘Think Different’ enough to play the disruptor role across all of these segments.
Given their respective mammoth ambitions, are ‘friends’ Apple/Google destined to become ‘frienemies’ ala Apple/Microsoft (circa 1990), and if so, when?
UPDATE 1: A couple of decent links of the forthcoming SDK are here (PCWeek) and here (Wired).
(Disclaimer: Gawande’s previous book, “Complications,” was one of my favorites, so I am pre-disposed to want to hear what he has to say.)
This book of stories takes place where the practice of medicine occurs – in hospitals; and out in the field treating those wounded in war and fighting against 'preventable' diseases in under-developed countries.
What it prescribes is very tangible and practical, since we all can appreciate how serious it is to be sick enough to have to be hospitalized. Intellectually, we can also appreciate the rigors that must come with carrying the mantle of treating sick people.
But such truths aren’t limited to the field of medicine. What Gawande is providing is a framework for continual improvement in any endeavor that involves risk and responsibility.
He cites three core requirements for success in these realms – diligence, doing right and applying ingenuity, each of which is deceptive in the way the way it combines the ‘DUH’ with the ‘DEPTH.’
Diligence is the simple assertion that it is necessary to give sufficient attention to detail to avoid error and prevail against obstacles. As Atul underscores, ‘diligence is both central to performance and fiendishly hard.’
The second challenge is to do right. This just recognizes the reality of the human element and how it manifests on a bunch of levels.
The third requirement for success is ingenuity—thinking anew. I think that Gawande’s articulation of ingenuity is plenty rich so let me just quote it verbatim:
‘Ingenuity is not a matter of superior intelligence but of character. It demands more than anything a willingness to recognize failure, to not paper over the cracks, and to change. It arises from deliberate, even obsessive reflection on failure and a constant searching for new solutions.’
In Tibetan Buddhism, they talk of things being 'workable,' which is very pragmatic, but at the same time they recognize the role that Crazy Wisdom plays in actually forging the path.
Not intended to be a definitive list. Just trying to make a point.
Google: set out to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Did just that. Figured out how to monetize it and the rest was history.
YouTube: make something that was scarce (online video), ubiquitous, reliable and free. Make it easily searchable. Give it logical spotlighting (e.g., top, favorited by…). Perfect sharing tools to the point that you become the viral favorite.
iPod: put your entire music library on the go. Make it easy to buy individual songs. Instantiate a workflow that is seamless, natural and fun to use. Reward people for loving their music.
eBay: create a predictable online marketplace that has a “national” footprint, scales down to small transactions and scales up to high dollar items.
Amazon: first and foremost, be a great retailer. Deliver product breadth and depth. Be an honest source of product reviews. Live to the credo of being a "safe choice" in online ordering.
Once upon a time, Microsoft was the market maker. They grew the PC market steadily from a tiny hobbyists niche to a PC on every desktop.
The operating systems business fed the applications business, which in turn, fed the server business. Microsoft drove an economy based on a steady upgrade cycle, giving rise to an industry business model defined by a recurring series of high dollar purchases for the end-consumer.
They were fast followers, which is to say that Microsoft’s dominance was less about creating wholly new markets (think: Apple) and more about recognizing newly-forming markets, embracing the market innovation and then wholly integrating it into their strategy.
The analogy that best frames their aggressive pursuit of market dominance was that they were like the football team that was winning 99-0 and still running up the score. Culturally, they played at only one speed, which unquestionably translated to a measure of antipathy towards the company.
Then something interesting happened. As more of the computing experience shifted to the online universe, Microsoft slowly ceased to be the one true market maker.
That is not to diminish their economy, which remains huge. But, the fact of the matter is that new market maker is, after all, Google.
First Google nailed search. Then they successfully launched and faithfully stewarded a self-service ad supported marketplace that has grown them into a hugely profitable $20B market gorilla.
The larger success of this model opened the door to a proliferation of predominantly free online services, like email, news, mapping services and video. And those are just the segments that Google has a strong foothold in.
Facebook and the social networking universe are offspring of the Google economy. So too, is Yelp, Perez Hilton and TechCrunch. Economically-speaking, print publishing is being swallowed by online media. It seems inevitable that the entertainment industry will more formally plug into the Google engine sooner rather than later.
The information-driven economy, of which Google is the market maker, is fundamentally about cultivating and systematically growing user engagement time, and then monetizing that engagement via an ad-supported business model.
It is with this backdrop, one should contemplate a union between Microsoft and Yahoo, and what it does to the competitive balance in the market.
Why you say? For one thing, Microsoft generally subsumes, they don't do synergistic co-existence very well. Plus, they are now large, bureaucratic and slow moving.
By contrast, Yahoo, despite a magnificent footprint of users and services used by users, not to mention content, media and agency relationships, has never seemed to be able to connect the dots for their users. This is a cardinal sin, but organizationally, they are too silo'd to cross that chasm, which is their folly.
Thus, Microsoft plus Yahoo feels like a 1 + 1 equals less than two outcome, doesn't it?
There is a paradox that confronts companies big and small. How much is enough?
