I wrote on Tangler about Tara's post about onramps.
Then I watched Twitter go.......
And go.....
And go....
I love Twitter. Sometimes.
Sometimes I hate it.
Looking down my small list of friends, I started to think about what it was that made the difference and I came up with two ideas.
1. Twitter Junkies.
People like Frank Arrigo who can Twitter that they are going to do something, that they are doing it and that they just finished doing it. It's too much for me. I want highlights. People like Frank when they find something they love are going to latch on and love it regardless of what onramps you give them.
"Frank, to twitter you'll need to write your 140 characters in sanscrit adn then post them to Zambia and then do the 'turn-spin-clap' dance."
"Sure, no problem, I've done three already!"
Franks not a problem. You love him. He's your champion. And providing you've got 'volume' control so that follow the Arrigo Show without having a meltdown, then that's all good.
And that's the first lesson of balance. Provide a thousand subtly different ways for people to enjoy your application (colours, flavours, onramps, offramps, API's, mashups, personalisation, etc, etc) but provide the Particls equivalent for your product to let users control how they get the joy and love out of the experience.
Frank wants the volume turned up to 10 (preferably 11) all day, every day.
Tara and Chris want the volume at about 8 most of the time but they have peaks and troughs.
Me? I want 7 when I want it and 2 when I don't.
2. Convenience Twitterers.
I blog more because Flickr make it so easy to be so pretty. (I'm doing it right now!)
Some people Twitter so much because it's so easy. By far the most Twitters come from people with the desktop app. Do they have the app because they Twitter so much, or do they Twitter so much because they have the app? Probably both, one after another.
However, and this might be controversial, but I think that makes it too easy. Well, OK, it's too easy for me. I'd love to permanently follow all my friends, including those with Twitterific, but only if they gave me the highlights and just the highlights.
So I don't want to know which section Frank is in Disneyland, just that he's in Disneyland.
I don't want to know when Chris is going to the gym, but I want to know when he's being interviewed by NYTimes (about Twitter).
This is (my attempt at) lesson two. Don't give people features just cause they ask for them. If Twitter was to satisfy me they'd have to put in a feature where people 'Star' their twitters so that they were highlights. Then I'd say "Stars only please'.
But this could well break the magical joy that makes Twitter so great for so many people.
Knowing the difference is what makes a good product stay good and it mainly comes down to people, vision and values.
And it's really hard.
Anyway, Tangler's launching today which should be fun so I'd better get back to watching how good our balance is right now.
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