I'm not to speak about good and bad business models. I have my own feelings about a project's end. I'm more wondering about what makes an application great. Once on Ted a guy told that he was in a hotel's elevator. There were buttons - you suppose - for the floors - but not. They were tracks. So during the process you could listen to some music. That's brilliant. It's a typical no money creative think that makes your product remarkable. Then I found Tumblr (I know it's soo old, but I found it now). Check this screen:
You have a given set of options to post. Seems obvious, yeah, but what it does in real, it makes your choice a lot easier. You want to post only a video? There you are. Just a link? You're welcome. 
So what it does it let's you to do your blogging much more productive.
Instagram. I guess it's one of the greatest apps of 2010. How can a such a simple a photosharing app be so great even without a public feed? Because it's simple, it's well done and it has a well defined purpose: doing nice effects. Nobody knew it.
The common thing is they have a seemingly small feature that makes the service better. Like a postcard that has a sticker on it. Or you know the dumb free newspaper with Garfield on the last page.
My question? How many existing product can be improved by this kind of speciality? Can I make a pong game more popular than the original? Like ... with cool sound effects?
I have tons of ideas, but first, what do you think?
Instagram is a good example. Why is it so successful, when there is Flickr app in the AppStore? With the largest photo sharing backend of the world! Okay, the effects. Is it so important to transform your photos? I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the simplicity and the well defined purpose is the key. However, the idea of rethinking and improving (and/or simplifying) existing products is interesting.