An honest Postmortem for Klipboardz.com(klipboardz.com)
klipboardz.com
An honest Postmortem for Klipboardz.com
http://www.klipboardz.com/klipz/comments/1636
10 comments
Not sure why you're giving up. The fundamental problem with your website is that it has (by now) been done to death. You aren't going to get away from that particular problem with this:
_Its a new site that will allow you to keep all of your day to day information online, so you can access it anywhere._
Just some honest advice here, coz' I'd hate to see somebody spend months and months to do something so unspecific and, well, done-to-death.
Did you notice that news.yc became reasonably popular almost the second that it started? Well, Paul Graham has a built-in audience, and that's how it happened. reddit is popular for a similar reason: Both pg and Joel Spolsky gave it some promotion. So, you know, you can't expect a similar trajectory.
_Its a new site that will allow you to keep all of your day to day information online, so you can access it anywhere._
Just some honest advice here, coz' I'd hate to see somebody spend months and months to do something so unspecific and, well, done-to-death.
Did you notice that news.yc became reasonably popular almost the second that it started? Well, Paul Graham has a built-in audience, and that's how it happened. reddit is popular for a similar reason: Both pg and Joel Spolsky gave it some promotion. So, you know, you can't expect a similar trajectory.
I dunno about that: "Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 hours" became popular within 48 hours after it was published, and I have no built-in audience. I posted it to the Haskell-cafe mailing list, someone else posted it to Reddit, and when I woke up the next morning it was on the front page of both Reddit and Delicious. It's now the top Google result for "haskell scheme" and on the front page of results for "haskell tutorial".
I think the secret to getting widespread publicity is to build something that people want and are eagerly awaiting. I wrote "Write yourself a Scheme..." because I'd seen complaint after complaint about how there were no Haskell tutorials that build a practical project or deal with IO, so I started with some practical IO in the first chapter. When the tutorial appeared, it merely fulfilled a niche that everyone wanted to be filled.
FictionAlley was the same way, though I wasn't around for its birth. Basically, everyone was complaining about how Fanfiction.net sucked and the servers were always down and they eliminated the forums and arbitrarily removed stories. So eventually, some of the leading members of the HP fandom said "Well, let's start our own site then." And since everyone was already dissatisfied with FF.net, it spread easily through word-of-mouth.
I think the secret to getting widespread publicity is to build something that people want and are eagerly awaiting. I wrote "Write yourself a Scheme..." because I'd seen complaint after complaint about how there were no Haskell tutorials that build a practical project or deal with IO, so I started with some practical IO in the first chapter. When the tutorial appeared, it merely fulfilled a niche that everyone wanted to be filled.
FictionAlley was the same way, though I wasn't around for its birth. Basically, everyone was complaining about how Fanfiction.net sucked and the servers were always down and they eliminated the forums and arbitrarily removed stories. So eventually, some of the leading members of the HP fandom said "Well, let's start our own site then." And since everyone was already dissatisfied with FF.net, it spread easily through word-of-mouth.
Two differences:
1. Your example is _extremely_ specific, and so will match up closely with the needs a particular (small) percentage of people. A news aggregator is very general. The whole reddit audience could shift to klipboardz tomorrow with little effect. That "little effect" is actually a bad thing. Little bad effect, but also little good effect.
2. Your example is a document, and not a service. In short: There are many, many more websites that make it to the top of reddit or digg, than there are reddits or diggs.
1. Your example is _extremely_ specific, and so will match up closely with the needs a particular (small) percentage of people. A news aggregator is very general. The whole reddit audience could shift to klipboardz tomorrow with little effect. That "little effect" is actually a bad thing. Little bad effect, but also little good effect.
2. Your example is a document, and not a service. In short: There are many, many more websites that make it to the top of reddit or digg, than there are reddits or diggs.
There are definitely apps out there that let you handle email and calendars but I haven't found anything that just let's you jot down your thoughts and keep them updated. I've been sending myself email notes on gmail for quite awhile but it doesn't really work well. Everything just gets mashed together with your email and you can't go back and edit something so you have a million replys to every message. This app is more like Chandler... except it already works and you'll be able to use it in a few weeks as apposed to 2009.
Maybe there's a whole category of apps to be built like this: they don't make money themselves, but they educate the creators and connect them to things that will make money (he mentioned three new opportunties).
Also, this shows an impressive ability for self-assessment; I'm curious to know whether he thinks we would have done better by quitting and jumping into it with both feet.
Also, this shows an impressive ability for self-assessment; I'm curious to know whether he thinks we would have done better by quitting and jumping into it with both feet.
It really might have helped if I had jumped into it completely but I really just couldn't make that move financially. I'm sure that it would have made a difference though because the need to eat is a great motivator for success.
Idea two sounds like GMail/GCal's got it covered, you're just suggesting a different input mechanism. Not that it wouldn't be a good programming exercise, but... mynameishere has a point.
Your proposed dynamic input mechanism does, however, sound like the right granularity for IM/SMS. As in, an IM/SMS to your service with the contents "contact: Paul Graham [email protected]" updates your address book. "money: 9.48 Quiznos" updates a ledger. "note: news.yc needs UTF-8 meta tag" sends a note. Twitter's taking off; a context-aware Twitter seems like a cool idea.
Just don't give it a name that implies Chester Cheetah should be skateboarding all over your site. Radical.
Your proposed dynamic input mechanism does, however, sound like the right granularity for IM/SMS. As in, an IM/SMS to your service with the contents "contact: Paul Graham [email protected]" updates your address book. "money: 9.48 Quiznos" updates a ledger. "note: news.yc needs UTF-8 meta tag" sends a note. Twitter's taking off; a context-aware Twitter seems like a cool idea.
Just don't give it a name that implies Chester Cheetah should be skateboarding all over your site. Radical.
I think it's possible to succeed in one of two ways:
(1) come up with a radically new idea (e.g., human computation)
(2) apply existing ideas to a specific domain in a novel way
You will probably have a much easier time with (2), particularly as people are already familiar with those ideas (e.g., tagging, social networking, etc.).
(1) come up with a radically new idea (e.g., human computation)
(2) apply existing ideas to a specific domain in a novel way
You will probably have a much easier time with (2), particularly as people are already familiar with those ideas (e.g., tagging, social networking, etc.).
The idea at the end sounds very similar to http://stikkit.com/. How will this be different?
Come to think of it, I wrote a postmortem for FictionAlley a couple years ago that I ought to share...