52 Bicycles

Met Josh Porter at BahCamp. Fascinating conversation talking about Tufte, Nielsen’s new book, usability more generally, and our observations on software entrepreneurship.  Checked out his blog, which is many colors of insightful. In particular were his pair of articles detailing seven reasons each ”Why Web Apps Fail:”

The first seven:

1. Focus on Social instead of personal
2. They solve too many problems - or try to
3. They’re about something other than [making] the user happy
4. They sell it the wrong way
5. Not in it for the long haul
6. They show too much of what is going on, and get gamed
7. They don’t have an underlying business strategy of improving people’s lives

The additional seven:

1. They’re never built
2. They’re modeling an offline activity incompletely
3. They’re ahead of the curve
4. They don’t plan for change
5. They don’t charge money
6. They have no barrier to entry… at all
7. They don’t think holistically

My observations:

1. The bolded five are definitely killers (the other nine are bad too)
2. This list is by no means limited to “web” apps or services, but are largely exensible to both software and media properties more generally
3. This list aligns the needs of the product with that of the business - and I suggest that misalignment between the two can be the biggest killer of all.
4. Josh is a smart guy who I hope to meet again

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