A while back Jeff Jarvis made a post on Pandora, a music service that uses song classification to select and stream songs to its users. The topic of the post was the new iPhone application that the service offers and its relative success at that point in time.
I'd wanted to respond at the time but other issues seemed more pressing.
But the point is important in my opinion so I'm dusting off this old, half-written post to make it. Here's a quote from the original Jeff Jarvis post (which was posted almost a month ago at this point)...
TechCrunch says that Pandora is the killer app of the iPhone and I ag-ree. It’s the fourth most popular free app (behind obvious choices: Apple’s remote, AIM, and weather). It’s adding a new listener every two seconds. That’s the killer stat that raises the key question:
How could others use apps like this to grow?
Two things here. First, this isn't an attack on Pandora. I love Pandora, I use it regularly, I love having it on my iPhone, and I'm actually listening to it right now.
That said, "a new listener every two seconds" is a good example of phrasing something to make it sound impressive. Apple claims to have sold around 7 million or so of the first generation iPhones (who got the iPhone app upgrade for free). Plus you have about half a million consumers buying the 3g version in the first 3 days. That puts the total iPhone market at about 7.5 Million available buyers. Pandora, a free program that leads to a free service, is claiming about 46,000 new users per day which means about .5% of the available market and that's at launch. Those numbers will plummet after the initial rush for Apps.
Again, I don't mean to lessen the accomplishment of Pandora. Its a great product and it deserves success. My point is only to draw attention to the excessive hype given to some products by the Web 2.0 crowd. This is an important point. Here's why (again from Mr. Jarvis' post)...
How could others use apps like this to grow? Simply putting content up — a la the New York Times fine but not revolutionary app — is not enough.
I think winning apps for mobile will be, like Pandora, completely personal; my Pandora is nothing like yours. They will feel live and constantly connected — I can satisfy as much musical restlessness as I can imagine without having to download.
and...
I believe some apps will have link to the real world: leave a review about where you are right now (I’ll write more about this annotation later soon). Some winners will be two-way; I’ll be connected with a live world at other edges of the cloud.
Now the whole "just add Web 2.0" mentality is more than I have time to address here but what I want people to notice is the pattern.
Ignore Facts > Brand what you like a success regardless of whether it actually is > take the traits you like about that product and give them credit for its supposed success > Suggest/Demand every product implement those features.
The dirty little secret of Web 2.0 is that most of the flagship products aren't that successful. At least not in the areas that we gauge success (number of users, profits, etc...). Yet even after being around for years they are still trumpeted by many bloggers as the way of the future.
This isn't a statement on the merits of any of the programs/sites themselves its just an example of how the supporters of Web 2.0 have no criteria other than personal preference by which they judge success. Yet they refer to these companies as successful and then encourage others to follow that lead. But often times that lead isn't a path to creating a profitable business.
It's something to seriously consider when you're starting a company and trying to decide how much of your resources you'll devote to so-called "social features"