I believe keeping an eye on the competition is a good idea. Keeping track of competition makes you aware of what is the new normal; it helps one to gauge current trends. If your product experience deviates from the prevailing standards, it might be time for a re-think. When a behemoth does something well regularly, … Continue reading On Competition
Tag: product
Thoughts on Product and Feature Development
The post is a listicle on product and feature development in no particular order. There are three rules for creating a successful product. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.1 If the success of your product depends on changing a deeply ingrained habit, it is going to be challenging. Your product should be attractive enough … Continue reading Thoughts on Product and Feature Development
“Intentionally” Leaky Abstractions
Software abstractions that developers create should leak enough to let non-developers design the right product experience. Eons back in internet history, Joel Spolsky wrote a post on leaky abstractions. The gist of the writing is that even though we create software abstractions to make life easy, they somehow unintentionally leak through. With technology getting a … Continue reading “Intentionally” Leaky Abstractions
New feature efficacy
You have an established product, and you introduce a radically new/different feature. You are enthusiastic, but the metrics show users are hardly using the feature. There could be two reasons:1. Users do not see a value.2. Could be resistance to newness. It is essential to zero in on the above to decide whether to put … Continue reading New feature efficacy
Consumer tech
I was reading this article about a startup that is launching satellites for imaging the earth. A line from the article stuck with me, the startup is leveraging technology developed for consumer devices like laptops and mobile phones in their satellites. This is a reversal from the olden days where technology that was developed for … Continue reading Consumer tech
Future is in the photos
I was going through the VC interaction posted by Everpix guys. If you go through the letters, you see this repeated a lot, "You guys are in a crowded space which the biggies(Facebook, Dropbox, Google, Apple, etc) are after". Everpix is/was a service to store and organize photos. Why is this such a hot space? … Continue reading Future is in the photos
Path of least resistance
I fractured my leg and Pavitra wanted to send the x-ray to my brother in law who is a doctor. He insisted on her not e-mailing but sending it through WhatsApp. I do not use WhatsApp because I do not have a smartphone(sic, sic) but almost all of my friends are on WhatsApp these days. … Continue reading Path of least resistance
API
Whenever I hear about the government upgrading some utility website, I die a bit inside. I am strongly of the opinion that the government has no business to be in the business of building end user utility websites. A government should act as an enabler, not as a provider. How does this apply to utility … Continue reading API
In search of that unique idea?
Why google when there was lycos?Why myspace when there was friendster?Why facebook when there was myspace?Why wordpress when there was blogger?Why tumblr when there was wordpress?Why posterous when there was tumblr?Why instagram when there was facebook?Why twitter when there was facebook?Why etsy when there was ebay?Why pandodaily when there was techcrunch?Why stripe when there was … Continue reading In search of that unique idea?
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