It’s the USER stupid!

 

Once again we are caught in a flurry of new software and web services that are all about “what you can do”, not “what they can do”.  When will they learn?  When we brought Quicken to market (yes, many years ago), there were 44 financial management products already on the market.  Why add just another one to the fray?  Well, Quicken was the first of those products that was built from listening to the target customer first, understanding their pain, and offering a solution that was not about “if you are willing to do the work, here is what you can get”.  It was built for the user who is not interested in “doing the work”, that is the whole purpose of automation!!

It is no different with web services — what we call “blogging” and “social networking” today is really about a universal need and desire to stay in touch with those you care about.  Oh yes, for the few (Mr. Scoble), it is about a platform for expressing oneself and gaining notoriety, but nobody is going to make it in the long run with tools for Mr Scoble and friends.  It is about the unwashed masses, the 50 million in the U.S., hundreds of millions internationally, that are not going to spend time trying to maintain a website (no matter how easy Vista tries to make it).  They just want to keep up with each other, and want it to come easily, automatically, and ideally, as an unintended consequence of their actions today. 

My wife knows nothing about social networking.  She does not see the web as anything but a utility — email, maps, information, commerce — it has nothing to do with “cool”, and everything to do with “life”.  She downloads photos for printing, pure utility.  She reads email, because it is an essential function for life today.  She is on the internet at least 5 hours a week.  That is 5 hours interacting with a BROWSER, 5 hours of opportunity.   Who is going to “fill in the blanks” for her? 

Oh yes, she desires what Web 2.0 could do for her — but that’s the whole point, will it “do it for her?”

Not today.