JF 20 Dec 05

There’s a great lesson here: It’s all about the execution. It’s not about unique, revolutionary ideas, it’s about the execution of the simple, useful, common ideas.

Something as simple as forcing the wrong default on someone can take down a company funded by $13,000,000.

Chris S 20 Dec 05

Sobering…and inspiring, all at once.

Sharaf 20 Dec 05

Scriv’s has a nice post about this as well.

He points out:

Why create another bookmarking service when there are already some qualities ones out there? Well because it only takes you a couple of hours to pop one out and you might be able to make some money off of it so why not go with it.

I agree with Scriv’s if you don’t have a competetive advantage or unique selling point for your web app or product, don’t bother developing something that already exists.

Darrel 20 Dec 05

Interesting take on folders vs. tags.

We’re in the midst of building an internal CMS for our org and are using a folder concept in some areas to organize content for end-users. In our case, this is necessary (as it adds more control than tags) but I’m realizing it might make sense to toss in tags while we’re add it as a second way to organize the content.

Spurl.net (yet another bookmarking tool) does just that, and I rather like it. I like the mental organization of folders, and the ease of filtering via tags.

Jimmiejo 20 Dec 05

There’s still one major problem with most of the sites like blink.com and those featured in the above poll. They’re disgustingly ugly. Aesthetically unpleasing. And they speed away towards function leaving form in the dust. If we were going to throw a few acronymns around, hoping to weed out the overwhelming percentage of ugly web 2.0 sites, we need much more than KISS (keep it simple, stupid). We need CRAP (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity). This is a grade school lesson in the design world and surprisingly so few web ventures and their designers live by this methodology. And it’s a shame. Until these businesses realize that design is just as essential an element of success as the backend, I think we’ll be reading many more of these regretful blog posts.

Michal Migurski 20 Dec 05

Blink, ugly? It couldn’t possibly be any worse than Del.icio.us… yet Del is perceived as the winner here. I don’t think Ari’s understanding of his own service is quite right - a big part of Del’s success had to do with factors outside of Joshua’s control, such as public perception of the service emerging from the underground, public discussion of features on delicious-discuss, a ready environment and auspicious timing. If Ari’s right, Blink had 5x the user base of Del.icio.us at its peak, but they didn’t have the right users - journalists, publishers, tech pundits and VC’s to add the academic pixie dust that made Del.icio.us more than just networked grep.

Vince 20 Dec 05

Good post Matt!

And Jimmiejo, you bring up a very good point - it’s something I’ve also been thinking about for a while. This may be a discussion for another post, but I’d be interested to know if anybody else thinks that the strict adherence to the KISS methodology is at the expense of design? Just how important are aesthetics to the concept of “less?”

Dan Boland 20 Dec 05

On the web, there’s two kinds of ugly: Craigslist ugly, which is good, and Blink ugly, which is bad.

Mike Rundle 20 Dec 05

Dan - Great point. There’s a big difference between ugly and minimal and ugly and convoluted :)

amine 20 Dec 05

It is so weird how small things .. that you don’t think about when developping the product can have this much effect.
Not to say that “Tags” is a small thing but this company has been in business since 1999… and still didn’t get it right.

Jason McMinn 20 Dec 05

Does anyone know how much Yahoo! paid for Del.icio.us?

Dan Boland 20 Dec 05

Jason: I keep hearing in the ballpark of $15-30 million.

sennoma 20 Dec 05

Jason: someone asked Google Answers, and got back a figure of around $30 million. I’m too lazy to link but it shouldn’t be hard to find.

kirkaracha 20 Dec 05

Some of the same things might apply to Backflip.

pwb 20 Dec 05

I look at the Delicious acquisition more of a hefty signing bonus that Yahoo is paying Delicious employees for coming on board. Let’s be honest, there’s not much value in bookmark managing and social bookmarking (whatever that is).

If I were Flickr or Konfabulator, I’d be a little demoralized that Delicious’ cost was in the same ball park.

Ryan Ripley 20 Dec 05

pwb: I don’t understand that mentality. How does the delicious acquisition diminish the accomplishments of others?

Do the Flickr or Konfabulator sellers lose anything? Don’t they still get to keep all of the money they received?

The only demoralization that could occur would be greed based. And in that case, screw ‘em.

Darrel 20 Dec 05

“There’s still one major problem with most of the sites like blink.com and those featured in the above poll. They’re disgustingly ugly.”

Spurl.net is decent, but, really, one doesnt’ actually use these sites too often…they’re mainly using the service. For instance, spurl replaces my bookmarks pane in Firefox.

I think Michal nailed it. A lot of it is just dumb luck…namely getting hyped at the right time: during the epic Yahoo/Google/MS one-upmanship wars of 2005.

Seth 20 Dec 05

I still get puzzled why yahoo bought delicious, and not spurl. Spurl > delicious, in terms of uptime, speed, and features.

MH 20 Dec 05

Maybe I’m thinking of another online bookmarks site, but wasn’t Blink completely scuttled by ads, “partners,” and “rewards programs” years ago?

Someone recommended it to me around 2000, and it wasn’t until a year or two later that I looked at it, and I couldn’t find the bookmarks part for all the junk.

Jimmiejo 20 Dec 05

As mentioned after my first post, Craigslist and Del.icio.us have taken off into the atmosphere of media hype because of their simplicity. But these are rare sites that actually have a concept behind them. And I say this is rare because most sites are either one or the other. Beautifully designed or Conceptually driven. And much like in advertising, an ad without a concept is just art.

But Craigslist and Del.icio.us still have a long way to go before they reach the masses, and I think that will be a result of a design revamp. I myself, can’t stand reading the Word document reminissance of Craigslist’s posts. That site’s layout and appearance is no question, a flashback from the early days of the net. Much like Del.icio.us, Craiglist has taken on the extreme edge of simplicity, which is great for accessability, but when comes to the overall experience, I think they’ll feel the pain in the next couple of years.

pwb 20 Dec 05

I still get puzzled why yahoo bought delicious, and not spurl. Spurl > delicious, in terms of uptime, speed, and features.

That’s easy: Delicious = 10 * Spurl (source: Alexa)

I always thought Delicious was a terrible name. For example, it’s mis-spelled both times in this post.

Jordan 20 Dec 05

pwb: hahahahahaha.

ML 20 Dec 05

I always thought Delicious was a terrible name. For example, it’s mis-spelled both times in this post.

Whoops, copied and pasted the misspelled version from Ari’s site. Fixed now.

Dan Boland 20 Dec 05

Much like Del.icio.us, Craiglist has taken on the extreme edge of simplicity, which is great for accessability, but when comes to the overall experience, I think they’ll feel the pain in the next couple of years.

I don’t know, it hasn’t hurt Google.

Darrel 21 Dec 05

Ryan:

Good post, but realize those criteria were existent in all sorts of online businesses that went belly up as well.

Certainly, having those figured out is a good thing, and will more likely make you succesful, but it’s no guarantee. Often the dumb-like/divine timing is make it or break it element.

murat 25 Feb 06

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