Evan WilliamsSource: http://evhead.com/2007/12/how-to-evaluate-new-product-idea.asp

I’ve been thinking about a number of new product ideas lately. In doing so, I’ve been trying to come up with a way more structured way of evaluating them. Here’s a first attempt at defining that. It’s not as clear as I’d like it to be. But perhaps you’ll find it useful.

Tractability

Question: How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0?

Blogger was highly tractable. Twitter was tractable, but sightly less-so because of the SMS component. Google web search had quite low tractability when they launched it. Vista?: About as low as you can get.

Tractability is partially about technical difficulty and much about timing and competition—i.e., How advanced are the other solutions? Building a new blogging tool today is less-tractable, because the bar is higher. Building the very first web search engine was probably pretty easy. Conversely, building the very first airplane was difficult, even though there wasn’t any competition.

In general, if you’re tiny and have few resources, tractability is key, because it means you can build momentum quickly—and momentum is everything for a startup. However, tractability often goes hand and hand with being early in a market, which has its own drawbacks (e.g., obviousness, as we’ll discuss below).

If you’re big and/or have a lot of resources—or not very good at spotting new opportunities, but great at executing—a less-tractable idea may be for you. It may take longer to launch something worthwhile, but once you crack the nut, you have something clearly valuable.

Obviousness

Question: Is it clear why people should use it?

Everything is obvious once its successful. Big wins come when you can spot something before its obvious to everyone else. There are several vectors to this: 1) Is it obvious why people should use it? 2) Is it obvious how to use? 3) Is it an obviously good business?

Number two is more affected by the design of the product than the idea itself. You don’t actually want number three to be true. You want it to be a good business, but not an obviously good business, because than you get more competition. Web search was not an obviously good business before Google demonstrated it. This allowed them to leap-frog the competition that was in it for years, but not taking it very seriously. But, like Google, the business may not be clear until later.

The key question for evaluating an idea is number one: Is it obvious why people should use it? In most cases, obviousness in this regard is inversely proportional to tractability. The cost of Blogger and Twitter’s high tractability was the fact that they were defining a new type of behavior. The number one response to Twitter, still, is Why would anyone do that? Once people try it, they tend to like it. But communicating its benefits is difficult. We’re heartened by the fact that Why would anyone do that? was the default response by the mainstream to blogging for years, as well, and eventually tens of millions of people came around.

On the flip side, if you can build an ad network that makes people more money, a better search engine, or a productivity app that actually does tasks for people—all, less-tractable solutions—it will be highly obvious to people why to use your product.

Sometimes you can come up with ideas that are highly tractable and obvious. For example: Top Friends or HotOrNot. These products were not hard to launch and yet, were immediately appealing (to their target market). What was not obvious, in either case, is that they could also be great businesses. HotOrNot has proven this to be true. And I suspect Slide will, as well.

Deepness

Question: How much value can you ultimately deliver?

The most successful products give benefits quickly (both in the life of a product and a user’s relationship with it), but also lend themselves to continual development of and discovery of additional layers of benefit later on.

Facebook is incredibly deep because it leverages your connections, which touch practically every aspect of your life. Scrabulous, on the other hand—a Facebook app for playing Scrabble—is not very deep. How big is the Scrabble-playing part of your life, and how much can it deliver beyond that?

But most things are deeper than they seem at first glance. Practically any application, once people start using it, can be used as a lever to more activity and benefit delivery. Being smart about what you’re leveraging is key.

When Feedburner first launched, their only feature was the ability to take an RSS feed and spit out multiple versions, depending on the capabilities of the feed reader requesting it. It seemed useful, but hardly something to start a company around, especially because that particular problem would probably go away over time. Or so I thought. What I didn’t get and they did (because Dick and gang is smarter than me) is that they were setting themselves up at a great leverage point—between publishers and their readers—where they could offer an ever-deeper value stack. Soon it was feed stylesheets with one-button subscription, feed stats, feed flare, blog stats, email subscriptions, and, of course, advertising, where they made their money.

While we’re talking about Feedburner, its worth mentioning that their product was also very obvious for their core user-base. There were clear benefits and very little drawbacks. They also had no competition, even though there were tons of companies in the RSS/feed space, because most of the others were battling it out on the reader side.

Other times, you stumble into deepness. When they put up HotOrNot on a whim, Jim and James didn’t know they’d be able to leverage it into a highly profitable dating site. Okay, so HotOrNot’s still not the “deepest” of sites, but it’s deeper than you think.

Wideness

Question: How many people may ultimately use it?

Wideness, like deepness, is a fairly classic market analysis measure. They are usually inversely proportional—do you try to offer the mass-market good or the niche one?

Feedburner is not particularly wide. Their market was those who published RSS feeds (and cared about them). This was in the hundreds of thousands, not a hundred million. Turns out, it didn’t need to be used by a hundred million to be worth a hundred million, so going for wideness is not entirely necessary. But it’s something to look at.

Like deepness, wideness can take you by surprise. The web is getting so damn big, what seem like niche ideas can be very decent businesses. When Ted Rheingold launched Dogster, as a joke, he didn’t know there were enough people out there who would be interested in making their dogs web pages to actually build a business. When we launched Blogger, I thought maybe a few thousand people would use it.

Sometimes, you can find a spot that is both deep and wide. This is where multi-billion-dollar businesses are built: Google, Windows, Ebay. It’s easy to think these kinds of opportunities aren’t laying around anymore—at least not for the little guy. But most people would have said the same before Facebook entered the picture.

Discoverability

Question: How will people learn about your product?

I was going to call this criteria “viralness.” However, there’s a lot of focus on viralness these days, and—while sometimes amazingly effective—it’s not the only way to grow a user-base. And it doesn’t make sense in all cases.

Interesting to note: Google web search is not the least bit viral. Nor is Firefox. Nor it Kayak.

It’s possible to get the word out without being “viral.” One way is organic search traffic. Another is pay-per-click ads (if you can monetize). Another is plain old-fashioned word-of-mouth/blog/press. (Twitter has probably grown more through press and blogs references than any inherent viralness.) There’s also distribution deals and partnerships.

Either way, it’s something to think about up front, as different ideas lend themselves to different discoverability strategies. And some things are more difficult than others to spread. Dating sites, for instance, have not historically been viral, because people weren’t going to invite their friends to—or even talk much about—their personal ads. The sites made up for this by buying lots of ads, which worked because they monetized signups via subscription.

Monetizability

Question: How hard will it be to extract the money?

Far be it for me to say that obvious monetizability is a requirement. I’m generally a believer that if you create value, you can figure out the business. However, all things being equal, an idea with clear buck-making potential is better than one without.

Whether or not something is monetizable is not always clear up-front. It wasn’t clear how Google was going to make money early on. Ebay thought it would sell auction software.

In most cases, if you position yourself close to the spending of money, you can extract some. Or if you offer something that clearly saves or makes people money.

Blogger, I believe, makes money for Google, but it’s not the most monetizable of products. Twitter, I believe, will be more-so, but that’s yet to be seen.

Personally Compelling

Question: Do you really want it to exist in the world?

Last on the list, but probably the first question I ask myself is: How important to me is it that this product exists in the world? If I were evaluating a startup, I’d ask this of the founders. As I wrote in “Ten Rules“:

Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch. Create something you want to exist in the world. Be a user of your own product. Hire people who are users of your product. Make it better based on your own desires.

In theory, you can get around this with lots of user research. (It’s pretty clear neither Slide nor Rockyou’s founders are creating widgets based on their own needs and desires.) But you’re more likely to get it wrong that way. When I’ve gone sideways, it’s when I wasn’t listening to my gut on this issue. Specifically, Blogger and Twitter were personally compelling, while Odeo wasn’t.

However, “personally compelling” doesn’t have to mean only that you want it as a user yourself. Curing cancer or helping the world be more green may be highly personally compelling for other reasons, which I think is just as good. My favorite products are those I really want as a user, but that I also think have some “greater good.”

Charting it Out

To bring it home, here’s a table with my estimates on where different products land by these criteria. Obviously, these are subjective measures, and for some of them, it’s hard to judge in retrospect. (I didn’t inlclude Personally Compelling on the list, because I can’t really speak to the founder’s motivations in most cases.)

Product	Tractability	Obviousness	Deepness	Wideness	Discoverability	Monetizability
Blogger	Very High	Low	High	High	High	Low
Google (web search)	Very Low	Very High	Very High	Very High	Low	Very High
Facebook	High1	High	Very High	High	Very High	High2
Twitter	High	Low	High	High	High	Med
Feedburner	Med	High	High	Med	Med	Med3
HotOrNot	Very High	Very High	Med	Med	Med	High4
Scrabulous	High	Very High	Low	Low	Very High	Low
Ebay	Med	High	Very High	Very High	High	Very High

¹ I don’t actually know what Facebook consisted of in version 1.0. It was actually in what looked like an untractable space (MySpace competitor), but applying the constraint of college-only made the competition non-existent and the usefulness and tractability potentially very high from the start.
² In theory
³ Unsure
⁴ Only in the case of “Meet Me at HotOrNot,” the dating side of the site. The original, rating side probably has low monetizability.

posted by Ev. on Sunday, December 16, 2007

*Taizon-in: This sub-temple is part of the Myoshinji temple complex, one of Kyoto’s last traditional Zen training halls like Daitokuji which means it’s alive and well with the spirit of Zen. They have a short course on sitting meditation and also on traditional tea, calligraphy and flower arrangement. The cost is 7, 500 yen, but I would think this is the one to go to. The garden here is truly stunning. Also the Myoshinji complex is off the main tourist route so you will get a true Zen experience here more importantly learn about Zen & the Arts.

Visit their web page to apply for this course or contact the temple:

http://www.taizoin.com

35 Myoshinji-cho, Hanazono, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto, TEL (075) 463-2855

Genko-an: A beautiful temple located north of Kyoto; Meditation on on 1st and 3nd Sunday from 7:00-9:00; \1,000; Tel: 492-1858. Kennin-ji : 8:00 – 10:00 on 2nd Sunday; Tel: 561-6363.

Kosho-ji: Located in Uji by the Uji River, a Soto sect temple founded by the famous Zen master, Dogen Zenshi, in the 17th century. Meditation held on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of every month, 8:45-10:00; no reservation necessary; Tel: 0774-21-2040.

Mugeko-in : In Shimizu-cho of the Takano area. Meditation every Saturday, 17:00-18:00. Tel: 781-1227.

*Nanzen-ji: on 2nd and 4th Sunday, from 6:00 to 7:00 (April to October) 6:30 to 7:30 (November to March); Tel: 771-0365.

Rinko-in : Sub-temple of Shokoku-ji, located just north of Doshisha University’s Imadegawa campus. Meditation held every Saturday, 16:00-18:00; discussion 18:00-20:00; Tel: 231-3931.

*Ryuzen-an : A sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, located near the sub-temple of Hoshun-in. Meditation Wednesday to Sunday, 7:00-8:30. First-timers are requested to call ahead and attend an orientation session at 6:30 am. You are also requested to dress appropriately (ie: no T-shirts or shorts). Tel: 491-0543.

*Tofuku-ji: One of Kyoto’s largest Zen monasteries, Tofuku-ji is a spectacular place to sink into the Zen space. However, they only offer this opportunity once a month. The session is led by the head of the Tofuku-ji complex, a busy man by any standard, who is well known for his kindness to foreigner and his sharp mind. Tel: 551-0334.

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

Wall Street Journal
September 13, 2007; Page B1
This column is written for mainstream, nontechie users of digital technology. These folks aren’t necessarily novices, and they aren’t afraid of computers. They also aren’t stupid. They simply want their digital products to operate as promised, with as little maintenance and hassle as possible.
So, I have steered away from recommending Linux, the free computer operating system that is the darling of many techies and IT managers, and a challenger to Microsoft’s dominant Windows and Apple’s resurgent Macintosh operating system, OS X. Linux, which runs on the same hardware as Windows, has always required much more technical expertise and a yen for tinkering than average users possess.
Lately, however, I’ve received a steady stream of emails from readers urging me to take a look at a variant of Linux called Ubuntu, which, these folks claimed, is finally polished enough for a mainstream user to handle. My interest increased when Dell began to sell a few computer models preloaded with Ubuntu instead of Windows.
I’ve been testing one of those Dell Ubuntu computers, a laptop called the Inspiron 1420N. I evaluated it strictly from the point of view of an average user, someone who wouldn’t want to enter text commands, hunt the Web for drivers and enabling software, or learn a whole new user interface. I focused on Ubuntu and the software programs that come bundled with it, not on the hardware, which is a pretty typical Dell laptop.
My verdict: Even in the relatively slick Ubuntu variation, Linux is still too rough around the edges for the vast majority of computer users. While Ubuntu looks a lot like Windows or Mac OS X, it is full of little complications and hassles that will quickly frustrate most people who just want to use their computers, not maintain or tweak them.
Before every passionate Linux fan attacks that conclusion, let me note that even the folks who make and sell Ubuntu agree with it. Mark Shuttleworth, the South African-born founder of the Ubuntu project, told me this week that “it would be reasonable to say that this is not ready for the mass market.” And Dell’s Web site for its Ubuntu computers warns that these machines are for “for advanced users and tech enthusiasts.”
So, what do I mean when I say Ubuntu is too rough around the edges for average users? Here are some examples.
There is no control panel for adjusting the way the touch pad works, and I found it so sensitive that I was constantly launching programs and opening windows accidentally by touching the thing. Every time the computer awoke from sleep, the volume control software crashed and had to be reloaded.
When I tried to play common audio and video files, such as MP3 songs, I was told I had to first download special files called codecs that are built into Windows and Mac computers. I was warned that some of these codecs might be “bad” or “ugly.”
To get the computer to recognize my Kodak camera and Apple iPod, I had to reboot it several times. When it did find the iPod, it wasn’t able to synchronize with it. Playing videos was a bad experience, with lots of flickering and freezing. Oh, and there’s no built-in software for playing commercial DVDs.
The Ubuntu-equipped Inspiron 1420N starts at $744, but the configuration that Dell lent me for testing sells for $1,415. The same unit equipped with Windows Vista costs $1,524. The Ubuntu version includes OpenOffice, the free office suite that competes with Microsoft Office. Dell charges an added $149 for Microsoft Office.
Ubuntu and other versions of Linux have several advantages. Unlike Windows and OS X, they’re free. Unlike Mac OS X, they can be run on the least-expensive popular hardware configurations. Unlike Windows, but like the Mac, they are essentially free of viruses and spyware. And unlike Windows and Mac OS X, they are built and constantly improved by a world-wide network of developers, professional and amateur — the so-called open-source concept that produced the excellent Firefox Web browser.
It makes sense that all the best software brains can’t be located in just two places: Redmond, Wash., where Microsoft is based, and Cupertino, Calif., Apple’s base. And plenty of people reading this have had lots of frustrations with the two better-known operating systems, especially Windows, whose latest iteration, Vista, is disappointing in many ways.
But open source is a two-edged sword. While it draws on smart developers from many places, nobody is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product, and open-source developers often have an imperfect feel for how average people use software. A European company called Canonical is the “commercial sponsor” of Ubuntu and provides support. But it’s largely focused on corporate and techie users. Average Ubuntu users are likely to have to wade through online forums, often written in technical language, to get help.
Dell and Canonical tell me there are complex workarounds for some of the problems I encountered, and that built-in improvements are planned for others. But for now, I still advise mainstream, nontechnical users to avoid Linux.
Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Last Updated: Sunday, September 2, 2007 | 11:31 AM ET
CBC Arts

U.S. director Spike Lee has teamed up with the video-streaming company Babelgum to launch an international online film festival to help filmmakers display their work no matter where they live.
“There’s this misconstrued thinking that all talent is in Los Angeles or New York,” the director said at a news conference in Venice on Saturday.
Director Spike Lee, seen here in 2006, says an online festival means that ‘where you live is no longer a hindrance’ to getting noticed as a filmmaker.Director Spike Lee, seen here in 2006, says an online festival means that ‘where you live is no longer a hindrance’ to getting noticed as a filmmaker.
(Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
“Where you live is no longer a hindrance.… Talent isn’t a problem. There’s an abundance of talent. This is an opportunity to showcase your talent.”
Lee, known for hits such as Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X and Inside Man, is attending the Venice Film Festival.
The director said there are no excuses for filmmakers these days, especially with opportunities online.
The 50-year-old director has partnered with Babelgum, an internet company that streams videos for free, and will head the jury of the festival.
Babelgum users will make the first cut, shaving down the entries in each category to 10 each. After that process, which starts in February, the jury will reduce the number to three in each division with Lee making the final selections.
The winners, who will get $20,000 US, will be announced in April.
The festival will have six categories: short films under 20 minutes, documentary, animation, advertising, social and environmental films, and best emerging talent.
Applications are limited to films that have already been screened at other festivals from January 2007 through February 2008. The films can be no longer than 45 minutes.
Filmmakers can start making submissions on Sept. 15 to the Babelgum Online Film Festival by uploading their films on the website.
Babelgum has said it will not accept offensive material, but what that will mean has not been defined. Lee said he expected nudity would be forbidden but admitted that he was unsure what the parameters were.
“What might be offensive to you might not be offensive to me, and vice versa,” Lee said. “Language, I think, is clearer than the visual stuff.”
Organizers say they expect to get 2,000 entries.

Source: Reuters

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUST26750520070903?

Mon Sep 3, 2007 4:53AM EDT

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) – With her dyed-brown long hair and tight designer jeans, Shoko Tendo looks like any other stylish young Japanese woman — until she removes her shirt to reveal the vivid tattoos covering her back and most of her body.

The elaborate dragons, phoenixes and a medieval courtesan with one breast bared and a knife between her teeth are a symbol of Tendo’s childhood as the daughter of a “yakuza” gangster and her youth as a drug-using gang member.

The author of “Yakuza Moon,” a best-selling memoir just out in English, the 39-year-old Tendo says that police efforts to eradicate the gangsters have merely made them harder to track.

“The more the police push, the more the yakuza are simply going underground, making their activities harder to follow than they ever were before,” she told Reuters in a recent interview.

Police say full-fledged membership in yakuza groups fell to 41,500 last year, down from 43,000 in 2005, a decline they attribute to tighter laws against organized crime.

The number of yakuza hangers-on, including thugs and members of motorcycle gangs, who are willing to do their dirty work, though, rose marginally to 43,200.

More shocking for many in Japan, where gun-related crime is rare, were a handful of fatal shootings by yakuza earlier this year, including the killing of the mayor of Nagasaki.

Tendo said the shootings were a result of the legal crackdown on yakuza, which has made it harder for them to ply their traditional trades of prostitution, drugs and bid-rigging.

“They’re being forced into a corner, their humanity taken away,” she said. “All the things they used to do for a living have been made illegal, so life has become very hard.”

SOCIAL DISPARITY

Experts say this is especially true for gangsters in less affluent parts of Japan, a reflection of the same sort of income gaps that increasingly plague the nation as a whole.

“Yakuza need a lot of money, but depending on where they are, business isn’t going so well,” said Nobuo Komiya, a criminology professor at Tokyo’s Rissho University. “So they turn to guns.”

Descended from medieval gamblers and outlaws, yakuza were long portrayed as latter-day samurai, bound by traditions of honor and duty and living extravagant lives.

Tendo’s father, the leader of a gang linked to the Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest yakuza group, led a “classic” yakuza life replete with Italian suits, imported cars and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Raised with strict ideas of honor, she was both spoiled and scolded by the tattooed men who frequented her family home.

But she also faced prejudice and bullying because of her father. In response, she joined a gang, took drugs and become the lover of several gangsters before near-fatal beatings and drug overdoses convinced her to change her life.

Now a writer and mother, Tendo has distanced herself from the yakuza world, which she feels is rapidly losing its traditions.

Being a gang member is not illegal in Japan, and until recently the gangs were known for openness. Their offices even posted signs with their names and membership lists inside.

Gangs cooperated with police, handing over suspects in return for police turning a blind eye to yakuza misdemeanors, but this broke down after organized crime laws were toughened in 1992.

AGEING GANGSTERS

The largest part of yakuza income now comes from pursuits involving stocks, property and finance.

“What we’re going to see from here on is the yakuza becoming more structured, like the U.S. Mafia, and dividing itself between business experts and violence experts,” said Manabu Miyazaki, a writer whose father was also a yakuza.

“As the world becomes more borderless, they’ll need experts who can deal with this too, speaking Chinese and English.”

Like Japan as a whole, gangsters are also ageing, and fewer young people look to organized crime as a career option.

Police figures showed fewer than 20 percent of yakuza were in their 20s in 2005, a trend both Tendo and Miyazaki attributed to young people’s dislike for the tough life involved.

“They think being a yakuza is like joining a company,” Miyazaki said. “There’s a joke about a young man going to a gang office and asking what the salary was, and would he get insurance.”

But while today’s yakuza are eschewing tattoos and amputated fingers — cut off to atone for mistakes — in favor of more mainstream lifestyles, they are unlikely to disappear altogether.

“Fewer people want to become yakuza,” Miyazaki said. “But those who do will be very logical, very scary — and much, much more dangerous.”

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/19/please_dont_stare_at.html

Belgium’s Antwerp Zoo has posted a sign outside the chimp house asking visitors not to stare at the animals. Apparently, continued interaction with humans, through direct eye contact for example, is distracting one particular chimp named Cheeta from bonding with the others. From the Associated Press:
(Zoo spokeswoman Ilse Segers) said that Cheetah’s continued interaction with humans was “delaying the social integration of the animal in the group,” and isolating the ape from the others.

A sign posted on the glass enclosure requests onlookers not to stare at the apes. “Look away when an animal seeks to make contact with you, or take a step back,” said the sign. “Some individuals are more interested with visitors than their own kind.”