louisgray.com - Latest Comments in Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Jan Ole Peek — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:40:38 -0000

Completely agree with you. It's one thing not to implement a feature, but to build it, let people use it, and then yank it away is pretty lame, and I'm glad to see you write about it and calling them out!

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

VlogHog — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:24:08 -0000

I see nothing wrong with a company recommending how best to use their product. But leave it that.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Christine Perkett — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:14:52 -0000

Great post. Companies need to listen more; isn't that the essence of social media anyway?

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

John Andrews — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:13:59 -0000

Well said Mr. Gray. Never over-think things for your customers, they'll figure out what works best for them and vote with their actions.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

David Esrati — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:22:58 -0000

But that's the key- all these are services/tools- that you don't own- they do.
As long as you are going to "donate" your content to them- be wary.
The simple answer is to take ownership of your own online persona- post on a site you own- don't be a digital sharecropper.
There is no free lunch.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

marcus5s — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:09:32 -0000

did you know, normal people that have a life besides there PC call twitter just "SMS".

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

charlieanzman — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:31:52 -0000

Man Louis ... You started a comment Meme! While I share your sentiments, I think the key to all of this is outright simplicity and ease of adoption (and, of course, who has 'the buzz'). I too am anxiously awaiting the new GUI from Friendfeed. As an early participant, even I haven't found the time to set up groups etc., and miss some of the previously active people (a lot). Both Facebook (in it's newly revised format) and Twitter will continue to see growth due to the simplicity of adoption in people's daily routines. I hope Friendfeed is looking that way! The flexibility and potential of THAT platform is unstoppable because you can me it just about anything you want and have great and interesting dialog at the same time.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Laura — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:29:35 -0000

That is exactly what I got out of this post, Louis (plus, I agree with the post - well said)!

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Kim Landwehr — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:34:00 -0000

Any company has the right to develop and control their product they way they want, (its their product), but just because they have the right doesn't mean its the right thing to do.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

John E. Bredehoft — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 10:59:00 -0000

Mona, Jesse, I stand corrected re Facebook's API. I should read more. :)

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

marshal sandler — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:41:20 -0000

Lose site of your customers and you will wind up like General Motors sleeping next to Custer-Facbook Twitter are all attempting to monetize before they plan the direction of their product-Many of these applications were developed by people educated in Technology not Liberal Arts there fore they can communicate with machines not people-they must go back to nature and listen to the BOW WOW not consume Bits and Bytes with their Latte and they need a course in Semantic's and General Semantics -Mitch I don't know you but comments made in anger are childish-why would this article well written evoke your anger HUH ! Calm down write your comments out in long hand then add them you will become a great Worsmith-vulgate language is only to be written in the men's room above the Urinal HEH

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Rob Williams — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:39:52 -0000

I'm not a fan of autofollow for my personal account. I don't mind if Twitter turns off autofollow from their side. As I understand they will allow some services to still use it (like SocialToo), right? What I didn't like was how Twitter made that assumption. I agree with you, when I read the "disingenuous" part I was surprised.

However, I have one Twitter account that is more of an RSS feed on a niche. I interact with that account sometimes, but mostly it's used for announcements. But there are a couple hundred who want those announcements. I decided for that account I would autofollow because they show some interest in that niche. However, when I engage using that account, it's when I filter it by a # tag. So really, I'm autofollowing many people, but only want to know when they use the niche # tag. Plus in this situation, they can now DM me if they need to.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Jesse Stay — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:24:00 -0000

Mona, I'd love to - I just can't afford it right now and I can't expect to achieve funding in this economy. Robert's neighborhood would be a perfect location for my family (except the schools, so I hear).

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Mona — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:22:00 -0000

I think you belong there too, Jesse. Why don't you move next door to Robert? LOL

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Jesse Stay — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:22:00 -0000

Mona, it's things like this that really make me wish I lived in the Valley. I think I could really be building relationships with these folks by attending their parties, press conferences, going to lunch/dinner, etc. Not something I could be doing virtually.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Jesse Stay — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:13:00 -0000

Mona, I'm still debating wether to make a fuss out of that. Facebook is giving preference to one author over another, allowing them to promote to all developers without allowing other authors the opportunity. I want to be able to do a guest post about my book to their entire list of developers. :-)

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Mo Kargas — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:12:00 -0000

@Robert Agreed, it's amazing what a concrete understanding (and a bit of foresight) into the industry can reap. Plenty of missed opportunities, but not in FB's case, they're onto it.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Mona — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:12:00 -0000

The book you were plugging on the dev forum. I LOVED THAT PLUG HAHA

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Jesse Stay — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:11:00 -0000

John, Facebook has a superior third-party interface, much more extensive than Twitter's, as does MySpace. I wrote the book on it. :-)

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Richard A. — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:09:00 -0000

Facebook and myspace both have mobile versions but they like to handle everything themselves.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Mona — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:05:00 -0000

One company that woke up: Nintendo.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Robert Scoble — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:03:00 -0000

Mo: yeah, or what about Xerox? They invented this whole industry and didn't see the importance of what they had done. They had TOTAL transparency into what was going on and STILL couldn't "get it."

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Mo Kargas — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:02:00 -0000

@Robert: Definitely one of the single biggest mistakes Atari made.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Robert Scoble — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:01:00 -0000

Jesse: that's the rub. You've gotta be transparent to get anything done. You'll need hosting partners. Investment partners. PR partners. Etc etc. That requires telling people what you're up to. This is where luck comes in. Remember, Wozniak offered his personal computer to HP and Atari and they turned him down. They didn't think it was important enough of a market.

Re: Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

Mona — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:01:00 -0000

But at this point, why even waste time? Sure new users may pop up, but a lot of people will be weary of fake accounts, brushing it off as "Oh man, not another Myspacer heading out this way." Smartest decision Zuckerberg ever made - doing it backwards.