Posts tagged “product strategy”

Integrating a bad product into a good one doesn't make the bad product good, it just ruins the good one. Microsoft, Yahoo, RealNetworks, and Apple all learned this. If Google bakes Google+ notifications into Chrome instead of fixing the actual product, users will just abandon Chrome.

Social processors combine social networks with crowd processors to deliver recommendations based solely on your actual social circle. Since you're like your friends (that's why they're your friends), this eliminates false positives. The key: build on existing social graphs rather than creating new ones, and crack interoperability to win big.

I've been thinking hard about where social networks are headed. No single network will "win" -- people have multiple social circles, so they'll always maintain multiple networks. The real unsolved problems are partitioning: selective data portability, unified messaging, identity verification, and filtering connections by actual relevance. Interoperability is the next big thing.

Google Music Trends has the same problem as LaunchCast: it's all aggregate stats with nothing personal for the user. Last.fm succeeds because it gives people personalized charts and recommendations. Without a personal hook, why would anyone sign up, other than to give Google more of their data?