One of the things I've been thinking about and watching for is how Social Spaces change depending on the size of the community. For example, LinkedIn's news has the comment field at the top (it adds a second one at the bottom once there are three comments). This is fine when you have a small community leaving very few comments. However, if you had a slashdot sized community, this would encourage idiots to post before they read what other's said.
Too often we treat all practices as if the fit all communities, but the fact is size matters. For instance, Joshua's favorite example of the top diggers page, recently removed. What motivated folks at the beginning became a gamed liability once they got big. Much as we are reluctant to change UI's and remove features, there is a reasonable strategy for it....
A nice reminder of the wisdom of "You are not the user" at a product manager's blog: Eating Dog Food?
The real issue is that this is just another symptom of a big problem we have in our industry, but especially here in the valley. We tend to believe that our customers and users are much more like ourselves than they really are.
and even better, a reminder that there ar ea number of people you shouldn't consider your user either
Why Silicon Valley just won't shut up about FriendFeed
Has it ever occurred to Arrington that he is, in the argot of product managers, an "edge case"? Entrepreneurs desperate for coverage, and aware that he never reads email, are trying a new way to reach him -- and Arrington, in his compulsive neophilia, actually tries out the new medium, for a while. He then quickly tires of it, and throws a tantrum. Catering to such a person's whims is no way to run a company.
To that list I add Scoble and your CEO. And no, Steve Jobs is an exception, not the rule.
