Read Online How to Create the Next Facebook: Seeing Your Startup Through, From Idea to IPO by Tom Taulli - Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Taulli
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central hub. But users, of course, were frustrated and uploaded a constant stream of messages to the tune of “I feel violated” and “You’ve ruined my life.”
What would a typical CEO do if confronted by this same type of situation? Probably back off and kill the new feature. Yet had Zuckerberg done away with News Feed, Facebook would likely not have turned into the megaphenomenon it is today. Zuckerberg knew that users would eventually come to understand the value of News Feed because it was central to the mission of Facebook: to improve users’ ability to connect and share with one another. Within a few weeks of News Feed’s launch, the furor died down and News Feed became a must-have component of Facebook!
There are, of course, risks to the approach Zuckerberg took with News Feed. A classic example is Digg. Founded in 2004, Digg was one of the pioneers in social media and gained instant traction. Over time, Digg was able to create a loyal user base that was interested in ranking the top stories of the day. This would change, though, in 2010, when the company underwent a major site redesign. As was the case with Facebook, users were outraged and began to flee to rivals like Twitter, but Digg remained committed to its new design and would not back down. In the end, the redesign was catastrophic, because it caused Digg’s user base to dwindle quickly.
So why did Digg waste away in the same type of situation in which Facebook thrived? Digg’s problem was that the site’s redesign really did not do much for its core mission. If anything, the redesign was mostly a reaction to emerging sites like Facebook and Twitter. Digg essentially wanted to copy these sites’ popular features, despite the fact that its users were passionately saying that they wanted Digg to be Digg and not some other type of service. Had the site gone back to its original approach or rolled back many of the needless features it added in the redesign, the disaster could have been averted. Loyal users tolerate mistakes, but not if the core focus of the site changes drastically.
Fun Stuff
Some products can be too focused on solving problems and, as a result, lack an element of fun. Fun features—even if they do not enhance your product’s usability—can, in and of themselves, lead to added user engagement. In the case of Facebook, Zuckerberg decided to add one particular feature, known as the poke, purely and simply for fun. Says Zuckerberg, “When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings.” 2
__________
2 Dave Copeland, “Just Try Poking Someone Now,” The Daily Dot, September 20, 2011, www.dailydot.com/news/facebook-poke-hidden/ .
And people have! People use Facebook’s poke function for any number of reasons, whether they are using it to meet new people, to flirt with a friend, or to say hello in a fun and playful way. Regardless of how or why it is used, the poke lends Facebook an added layer of character, frivolity, and approachability, all of which are qualities from which any startup can benefit.
Groupon is another example of a company who has used fun—specifically humor—to set itself apart from its hundreds of competitors. The company sends out daily e-mail messages to encourage users to keep on clicking and buying. Groupon often sends funny offer descriptions, such as the following for a horse ride: “Without horses,” the copywriter notes, “polo shirts would be branded with monkeys and Paul Revere would have been forced to ride on a Segway. Celebrate our hoofed counterparts with today’s Groupon.” 3 Given the wit, skill, and diversity of offer descriptions that find their way into users’ inbox each day, it should come as no surprise that Groupon has more than 400 copywriters on staff, which is more than some of the world’s brand organizations.
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What would a typical CEO do if confronted by this same type of situation? Probably back off and kill the new feature. Yet had Zuckerberg done away with News Feed, Facebook would likely not have turned into the megaphenomenon it is today. Zuckerberg knew that users would eventually come to understand the value of News Feed because it was central to the mission of Facebook: to improve users’ ability to connect and share with one another. Within a few weeks of News Feed’s launch, the furor died down and News Feed became a must-have component of Facebook!
There are, of course, risks to the approach Zuckerberg took with News Feed. A classic example is Digg. Founded in 2004, Digg was one of the pioneers in social media and gained instant traction. Over time, Digg was able to create a loyal user base that was interested in ranking the top stories of the day. This would change, though, in 2010, when the company underwent a major site redesign. As was the case with Facebook, users were outraged and began to flee to rivals like Twitter, but Digg remained committed to its new design and would not back down. In the end, the redesign was catastrophic, because it caused Digg’s user base to dwindle quickly.
So why did Digg waste away in the same type of situation in which Facebook thrived? Digg’s problem was that the site’s redesign really did not do much for its core mission. If anything, the redesign was mostly a reaction to emerging sites like Facebook and Twitter. Digg essentially wanted to copy these sites’ popular features, despite the fact that its users were passionately saying that they wanted Digg to be Digg and not some other type of service. Had the site gone back to its original approach or rolled back many of the needless features it added in the redesign, the disaster could have been averted. Loyal users tolerate mistakes, but not if the core focus of the site changes drastically.
Fun Stuff
Some products can be too focused on solving problems and, as a result, lack an element of fun. Fun features—even if they do not enhance your product’s usability—can, in and of themselves, lead to added user engagement. In the case of Facebook, Zuckerberg decided to add one particular feature, known as the poke, purely and simply for fun. Says Zuckerberg, “When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings.” 2
__________
2 Dave Copeland, “Just Try Poking Someone Now,” The Daily Dot, September 20, 2011, www.dailydot.com/news/facebook-poke-hidden/ .
And people have! People use Facebook’s poke function for any number of reasons, whether they are using it to meet new people, to flirt with a friend, or to say hello in a fun and playful way. Regardless of how or why it is used, the poke lends Facebook an added layer of character, frivolity, and approachability, all of which are qualities from which any startup can benefit.
Groupon is another example of a company who has used fun—specifically humor—to set itself apart from its hundreds of competitors. The company sends out daily e-mail messages to encourage users to keep on clicking and buying. Groupon often sends funny offer descriptions, such as the following for a horse ride: “Without horses,” the copywriter notes, “polo shirts would be branded with monkeys and Paul Revere would have been forced to ride on a Segway. Celebrate our hoofed counterparts with today’s Groupon.” 3 Given the wit, skill, and diversity of offer descriptions that find their way into users’ inbox each day, it should come as no surprise that Groupon has more than 400 copywriters on staff, which is more than some of the world’s brand organizations.
A
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