Don’t Sell Me Features
May 27th, 2008[ Software Development ]
Leah Culver from pownce was at Mesh08. Her software pownce is obviously compared to twitter in practically every conversation. As she openly admitted, it’s great for pownce. Most articles published about twitter inevitably mention pownce.
She also made a point of saying several times how much more you can do with pownce. Disclosure time, I’ve never used pownce so I’m talkin out my #s$, however, I have used twitter and I think I get the two. Here’s my take, if you’re competing with something like twitter, you will never sell me on a competing product by adding more features. The one reason I think twitter has any value at all is it’s lack of the features pownce is pimping. Not to mention twitter’s about the people using it. If twitter allowed longer posts, files, music, images, etc, I’d run for the hills.
Flip this around. I met the guys behind spreed at mesh08 (I can’t find a link, will post later). Spreed enforces speed reading and effective reading comprehension practices by only presenting a few words to you at a time. You can’t drift by looking ahead or pause and stare at one word for a minute.
What’s my point? Well let’s say spreed’s app was the first online reader ever built. At some point someone would build a competitor named sprounce. They’d listen to what users are asking for and add some features to compete. They’d give their users ‘more control’. “Let’s allow our users to see ALL the words in an article. They can then choose the speed they read and how much or little to comprehend”.
In this light, spreed is actually reducing the control their users have. Like riding a single speed bike, a lack of control can actually be a freeing experience. So while I’m on the fence about twitter as having any real use, please don’t sell me twitterPlusMore because the only thing it’s got going for it is the freedom it’s lack of features brings us all. I need more features in twitter about as much as I need more gears on my bike.