When I started Gistcaster in 2009, all I knew I wanted to build was a social media site that allowed people to exchange gist. I was building it in the mold of Twitter, and my plan to render Twitter useless was by building loads and loads of cool features.
I figured out my ideal pitch was “Gistcaster is just like Twitter, but on steroids!”
Of course, the whole thing came down crashing. It takes more than features to win in a game like this. People do not signup to use your app because you have a cool feature they cannot find anywhere else. When we download your app or open up your website or turn up at your cinema house or shop, we are there not necessarily because of the features.
We turn up because of the experience you are promising.
Therefore, do not design and stick up a million features. For your next social app, do not just head over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine and the rest, write out a bunch of features they have that is lame and then build yours based on that. Probably would not work. It is about the experience you are promising and not the individual features.
It is about been able to define the mission and vision of your project and allowing that to guide you into things to do and things to stay away from. That is the core, the soul of your project and it is very very important.
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Watching The World
- Looks like Facebook is ready to take on Medium and Twitter with the redesign of their Facebook Notes feature.
