On usability, adoption rates and deadpool for Web 2.0 services
There's been a number of posts on the net about the fate of RawSugar since we announced that RawSugar stopped its R&D operations. See for example these blog entries:
- RawSugar crashes, sells assets
- RawSugar in deadpool
- RawSugar runs outof Energy
- Tagging Site Raw Sugar Tanks, Put Assets Up for Sale
- Poor marketing (weak focus on blogs, no differentiation with delicious, poor communication, poor positioning, etc.) - 5 mentions
- Poor UI design (colors, homepage, coolness, overall usability) - 5 mentions.
- Simply a victim of the bubble - 4 mentions
- No business plan (nor revenue plan) - 2 mentions
- Poor innovation - 1 mention.
- Ofer Ben-Shachar (Founder/CEO) stubbornness :) - 1 mention.
As RawSugar's former VP Engineering, I find this very interesting to see what people really think about this. The first conclusion I draw is that the technology was not to blame, indeed, as I write this blog, RawSugar's investors are negotiating with several potential buyers of the technology. So I believe that the RawSugar tag-search technology will find a new home and that's a good thing.
However, what stroke me most on the comments of people above is that I don't believe any of these is responsible for RawSugar poor adoption levels. When I look around at other services I see all these points in successful services. See for example:
- Did Youtube have a business plan?
- Did Delicious havea good UI design (starting from the hard to remember domain name)?
- Is gmail a model of usability? Maybe yes, but only after you get it.
- Was Craig's list done with a great marketing strategy in mind?
- Where is the innovation in myspace?
No, I don't think these are the real reasons for RawSugar underperformance. I don't think you need a business plan, a great UI design, a solid marketing plan and a huge innovation to make a winning Web 2.0 service. I am not saying it hurts but I don't think these are necessary nor sufficient criteria.
I have my own explanation but I won't share it on my blog right now, maybe in a later post. What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Frank