Stribe to be Instantly More Social

stribe-logo Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Kamel Zeroual, CEO of Stribe — Gold prize winner at Le Web ‘09. We covered topics ranging from this Paris-based startup’s origins to where it is going and how it is planning to get there.

00_stribe_homepage

Some Background

The Stribe product is a freemium online service, seeking to provide the capability to instantly create a social network on any website, confronted by a diverse array of competition from the likes of Ning, Facebook, and Meebo. And, it all began shortly after the 20 Kilometers of Paris race where the Stribe team…

“… noticed that all the people were checking their time two days after the race without being able to share, discuss, and experience the benefits of the online relationship. At that time, we (the Stribe team) were sure that all websites held the (unrealized) potential for being a social network.”

02_stribe_panelFrom this Stribe was born, seeking to provide the average online user…

“…more social features, getting more relevant content from any stribed website…”

… the website owner…

“…a plug-and-play service for interaction tools and getting in touch in other websites on the same topic…”

… as well as the application developer…

“…ability to create specific features, to suit their needs, such as casual games, special surveys, and so on. And an API will soon be available.”

Startup, Growth & Revenue

Stribe’s current strategy goes beyond its freemium business model to monetization, driven by virtual goods, casual gaming, advertising, and the crafting of viral mechanisms to drive the product’s growth.

01_stribe_manageIn speaking to the realization of the long-term vision, and where Stribe would like to be in 3 years, Kamel provided the wonderfully framed insight that only a startup founder can — by responding (with a big grin)…

“Well, could you ask me this question in a couple of months?”

“Running a start-up means being able to listen, discover the pain of your customers and users. We are a lean startup … very agile … making the best moves as fast as we can.”

And, as far as tips for the aspiring entrepreneur seeking to follow in the footsteps of Stribe, and other exciting startups like them, Kamel has the following advice…

“While it’s my first company … I’ve learned many things in a couple years. My advice is to focus on customers and market feedback … to figure out the perfect value proposition, price, and service.”

All Wrapped Up

Stribe provides a broad suite of features and functionality that touches the many cornerstones of Modular Innovation, from the Shareability of content to Interoperability with Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail, facilitating relationships amongst and between websites and the users that frequent them.

Check them out — and share your thoughts, advice and experiences in the comments below.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

brainmates Interview with The Product Guy

image Two weeks ago I was interviewed by Janey Wong over at brainmates for their brainrants blog. We touched on some really good Product Management topics in which I think you would be interested.

So, here it is, reblogged straight from Australia…


By day (and most nights) Jeremy is a zealous, hard-working Product Management Consultant in New York City. His work primarily supports start-ups and new businesses launch awesome products but on the side he is an avid Product Management blogger, and once a month he organizes and facilitates The Product Group Meetup. We’ve had the pleasure of digging deeper into his world of Product Management.

whole-head---LSJeremy, what attracted you to specialising in Product Management?

The main reason I got involved with product management, and the reason why I remain in the field, are one and the same. Namely, I enjoy the challenge of bringing together the key pieces and people needed for successfully guiding the development of a product by focusing everyone on the common goal and seeing ideas coalesce.

Tell us about being a Product Management consultant.

A strong product management consultant plays the key role in creating and educating. Coming in as a consultant brings with it some advantages, such as a less emotional, larger picture perspective that can be leveraged in honing the optimal direction for the products and teams. I often spend a good deal of time as a product and project coordinator – facilitating communication, and clarifying ownership and overall responsibility roles. Most important, when I work with a client, is to not only keep everyone focused on the ultimate goal – a successful product, but also to leave them with the tools necessary to continue on the path long after our engagement has ended. Both consulting and full-time Product Management positions have their different rewards. As a Product Management consultant I get to work with a very diverse set of products, people, and organizations solving rewarding product management challenges. In a full-time role, you get to be in the product process for the long-haul crafting, shaping, and adapting the product, experience and strategies as conditions evolve.

What challenges do you face as a Product Management consultant?

The role of a product management consultant brings with it many challenges. First of all, it is imperative that, as an outsider, you have the skills for leading without the need for explicit authority. You need to be able to demonstrate your authority and expertise through the exercise of your leadership and product management (technology, strategy, analytics, user experience, business) skills, not by steamrolling over anyone. In some cases, you are in the center of disagreements between stakeholders, so you also need to be skilled in managing relationships and handling conflict without destroying the integrity of the team — I strive to leave the organization not just with a killer product, but also with a team cohesion stronger for having worked with me.

The second greatest challenge is simply staying up to speed on the latest in “products.” I work across a broad array of verticals with greatly varying needs and skill sets required to accomplish the tasks. I spend almost half of all my time studying, meeting with interesting people across all sorts of industries, following blogs, and absorbing just as much information as I can, from technology and design to venture capital and business development — and everything in between.

What qualities do you think make an excellent Product Manager?

An excellent Product Manager is going to have…

  1. Strong technical skills coupled with business savvy,
  2. The ability to quickly establish credibility and lead with no authority,
  3. Communication skills (e.g. be able to speak different ‘languages’) that allow for the effective exchange of ideas between all organization groups (sales, marketing, technology, engineering) and personality types that come with them, this also includes writing skills and the creation of clear and concise PRD’s, etc.
  4. An eye for details – in this, I find Product Managers with an established UX background to be particularly strong
  5. Analytical mind, with a sound ROI-focus, and
  6. Love of all products & their consumers.

Continuing from that last bullet point, an excellent Product Manager is one who is unable to look at a product without thinking about how he/she would improve it or what that business model is or could be, or the people, ideas, and materials that when into that product to bring it to where it is today.

In your opinion, what does the future of Product Management look like? Do you see any trends?

I do see many promising trends in Product Management. Chief among them I find is the increased appreciation of analytics and innovating along those lines; including integrating with real-time social media to make better, more pro-active decisions that feed greater product and consumer insight.

Many organizations have a growing appreciation for collaboration and product and consumer relationships. They are focusing more Product Management efforts and seeking greater innovation along those lines. This is a topic I often discuss on The Product Guy; I am seeing the Product Manager as key facilitator in moving their products along this route to the next big evolutionary wave of Modular Innovation.

There are increasing numbers of startups employing Product Managers with roles increasingly visible and important. It is becoming more common for a Product Manager to be part of the founding team, or amongst the first few hires. I hope that the trends I see continue to persist and accelerate – and that I may be able to facilitate the broader integration of good Product Management within all flavors of organization.

Jeremy, thanks for giving us your insight on being a Product Management Consultant and the delicate but significant role it has in every organization. As a heads up to our readers, Jeremy will be a guest blogger for an exciting new series of articles on Modular Innovation. We look forward to hearing more from him on this topic.

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EXCLUSIVE: The Product Guy "Up in the Air"

hollywood-airplaneIt was a rainy day in November. A day not unfamiliar to many business travelers. But, this day was different, the destination was not the goal. It was the journey imagethat was to hold center stage, bathed in a moving bicoastal spotlight, through an immersive marketing engagement with both social, as well as other, media.

 

"to know me is to fly with me" (Ryan Bingham, Up in the Air)

 

Recently, I had the unique opportunity to look at various cross-promoted products by way of film and social media and speak with many of the people behind them when I, as a VIP Guest, was…

And, out of this very awesome bicoastal adventure, I found many lessons that can benefit all in the marketing and promotion of their own products, in both online and offline worlds.

It started like this…

Saturday, November 14
3:50 PM, The Terminal
This airline terminal, of American Airlines, has now filled with many different types of people, from such industries as movie, journalism, technology, business, etc., all contributing to the pervasive spirit of reserved elation and excitement – as networking and introductions ensued, in wait for a nice, bubbly party.

DSC05664 DSC05665 DSC05666 DSC05667 DSC05669 DSC05671

4:10 PM, Taxiing Begins
… for our scheduled 4 PM flight as I scour underneath rows of seats looking for the elusively scattered, power plug. Being sure to, like in the "Up in the Air" movie premiere we are about to be party to, not overlook these quirks that many the frequent traveler grows to not loath, but rather welcome as numbering among those endearing qualities that cement one’s affections for another, or makes that quirky place, even one as transient as air travel, the experience, altogether, your home.

It is this sentiment that the movie seeks to capture, and does so superbly. It is this experience, and many more, the traveler’s experience, that resulted in American Airlines’ substantial involvement in this project.

 

4:21 PM, Lift-off
It starts off a rainy day as the journey begins, flying into the thick of clouds. The darkness brought about soon, rapidly disappears as the plane emerges into the dusty blue sky, with hints of setting sun. The sounds, the dull roar of peace settling over the cabin as the festivities, the reason for this journey, are about to begin.

 DSC05672 DSC05674 DSC05675

Here, everyone is a stranger, much like typical business travel with which we are all most familiar. Although, in this case, invited by either American Airlines or Paramount.

DSC05680 DSC05682 DSC05684 DSC05685 DSC05686 DSC05687

DSC05689

And, it ended like this…

7:29 PM, Touch-down
… 11 minutes ahead of schedule!

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Sunday, November 15
4:45 AM (next day), Breakfast @ Hilton
… consisting of a turkey sandwich and a venti white mocha.

6:03 AM, Return
I began my journey back to NYC, the final leg of this adventure, by heading back to the airport in preparation for my un-delayed, non-VIP, Economy class flight.

IMAG0014

First Class Experience

… from my vantage point in Economy class on this AA Charter flight. American Airlines’ social media program is still somewhat new, making for a great study subject. I started out by sitting down with American Airlines’ Billy Sanez, Director of Corporate Communications and Advertising & Promotions, and Chris Vary, Social Media Director, to begin my look into the inner workings and sharable lessons of this event.

On Social Media Strategy

American Airlines (AA) identifies two basic social media types that they seek to reach out to…

  • the very engaged / engaging individual, and
  • the reader / listener.

In the process of attracting these individuals, they ‘follow a lot of people,’ …

  • targeting following customers, as well as what they follow,
  • cultivating friendships with communities that are friends with their passengers.

Billy refers to all this as "family building." By doing so, they see themselves as creating a community of engaged people. Their social media goal is in building a community consisting of people "with real voices and opinions" who "talk about it (AA), enjoy it (AA), tell us (AA) how to fix it (AA)."

On the "Up in the Air" Movie and Premiere

Among American Airlines’ considerations for getting involved in this project were they…

  • felt the story was "real," and the people of AA, and in-turn, their customers, could easily relate to the story, travel quirks and all, and
  • saw the overall project as a great way to show off their product, what they do — that they can take "him" (Ryan Bingham, the main character in the movie and on the broader stage, the generic traveler) there.

On Pitfalls to Avoid & Advice

Some great advice Billy Sanez had for others seeking to launch a social media initiative boiled down to commitment.

Launching a social media initiative should be done because it is good for business, meets the needs of the business and product, not because it is cool, not because everyone else is doing it, not because you feel like you have to do it.

For American Airlines, the social media initiative is a great way for them to reach out to target audiences across a diverse array of channels that the various social media participants represented, everything from business and entrepreneurial, to fashion and consumer electronics.

When launching a social media initiative the company "must commit to it." You are setting yourself up for failure if you do not approach the social media initiative as a long-term strategy — much more than a brief initiative for a single event.

Being committed to a social media initiative is more than planning for the long-term, but also making sure to have the proper and sufficient resources behind it. For example, having enough resources to monitor all the content out there that pertains to your product, can be seen as a good start.

Lessons from 20,000 Ft

This successful move premiere was driven by a very effective social media campaign and all-encompassing event. Some takeaways that everyone with a product can learn from this strategy are:

Smart

  • Create an immersive product experience.

Most effective about this first ever movie premiere in the air was the totally immersive experience that they, American Airlines and Paramount Pictures, sought to envelope everyone in, simultaneously reaching out to and leveraging diverse social media communities. I became the main character in the movie, I was Ryan Bingham (George Clooney)!

Immersing the user, or event participants, in the product experience makes more relevant the product’s characteristics, its benefits, its purpose for existing, while founding a strong and lasting emotional connection.

  • Leverage diverse social media communities.

The organizations behind this event did not limit themselves to movie and celebrity outlets. They reached out to key community participants and buzz makers across a variety of industries, a variety of market influences. In addition to myself, some of the other opinion makers at the event were…

LA28

image Sherri Smith
Specializing in Consumer Electronics, Video Games
From Black Web 2.0

image Samantha Ewers
Specializing in Fashion, Beauty, Entertainment
From I’m Not Obsessed!

image Tom Limongello
Specializing in Mobile, Advertising, Business
From The Upper Westside Journal

image Alex Billington
Specializing in Movies, Hollywood
From First Showing

By not limiting themselves to only the generic movie channels, American Airlines and Paramount were able to reach out to a much broader audience, generate more buzz across more spheres of influence. Anywhere there were individuals primed for either or all products being promoted, American Airlines and Paramount Pictures, increased their chances of reaching them.

Should Do

The products of American Airlines and Paramount Pictures where excellently showcased and thoroughly enjoyed by all at this premiere in the air. Some steps that can be taken to further build upon these successes are…

…as to the event…

  • Have a pre-flight get together to introduce key players, American Airlines and Paramount responsible for assembling this trip, and those who will be available throughout the course of the event, as well as their VIP guests, and consider even allowing for a brief group Q&A to get the reporting and social media juices flowing.
  • DSC05730One of the parts of this trip that everyone was talking about, and I was particularly looking forward to, was the live in-flight concert by Sad Brad. Disappointingly, while I could clearly see Brad, hearing the concert on the plane proved impossible for all but those sitting right next to him. But, this quirk of air travel, and of trying something new, and something that should definitely be attempted again, provided a good learning experience — such as testing out the more technically challenging components of the trip beforehand. It would have been great to have been able to listen to the concert by plugging our goodie bagged Bose QC 15 headphones into the The Product Guy with Goodie Bagentertainment system.
  • An often overlooked aspect of scheduling social media events is the "down time" for the participants to engage their social media audiences, work on their article writing, etc. For this event it would have been very helpful to have had built-in down time at the hotel, the night of the event, as well as the day after for writing and posting, before sending everyone on their way home — exhausted from the travel, thereby delaying the desired product buzz building.

…as to the target audiences…

  • While I had access to Wi-Fi on my flight back from LAX to JFK, I did not have access to power. And, without access to power I would not be able to avail myself of the Wi-Fi or get much work done on my bicoastal flight, like working on this article. For both the event and the audiences being targeted by the event’s products, the biggest ‘Should Do’ relates to access to power. Prior to takeoff on the first leg of the trip, I was able to secure power, but only after crawling around on my hands and knees looking for the seemingly, randomly placed power outlet (my assigned seat, as well as its row, did not have an outlet). If you are targeting business travelers, social media types (the creators as well as the readers) your perks need to consist of more than Wi-Fi, but must include power at EVERY seat, not scattered throughout.
  • Providing free Wi-Fi is essential, and was successfully accomplished. Beyond the necessity of easy access to power for such devices as laptops and cell phones, essential on a non-stop bicoastal adventure, it is worth considering, to encourage people to engage their audiences better by…
    • advising people to spread out their coverage over days / weeks, leveraging various familiar mediums (e.g. text and pictures) and their respective services (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.) to further support the buzz building, and
    • depending on budget and other capabilities, provide devices that encourage posting, twitter devices, Internet enabled digital cameras already connected to the plane’s Wi-Fi, etc.; because the more effort your remove from the process, the broader and more sustained will be the coverage received.

Supporting

DSC05742Of all the perks and quirks surrounding this adventure, of all the planning and preparation done on all sides, at the end of the day, it came down to the core, the support, the backbone that made everything run smoothly, with which I was most impressed. I do a great deal of traveling for my consulting and have had many an unpleasant and apathetic encounter with customer support. On both this trip, as well as my standard Economy class flight back to NYC, as well as when I had to call the 800# to make last minute travel changes, the customer support, the flight attendants, were entirely and consistently helpful and attentive from one coast to the other, and back again.

No matter what your product is, no matter how cool the immediate event is, always remember that it is the support infrastructure that your clients, your product’s users, often most frequently interact with, that sets the tone for the overall product experience, leaves a lasting, influential impression, that will have a direct impact on current and future opinions is the customer support.

Your social media endeavors and product events pale in relation to having a sound support infrastructure, cheerful, accessible, helpful individuals, like American Airlines’ Jenny Harrington, there to help your product’s consumers throughout their product experience. Every product needs at least one Jenny Harrington.

 

"warm reminders that I am home" (Ryan Bingham, Up in the Air)

 

Fly, Fly Again

I turn down requested product reviews on this blog all of the time, but this one, universally unique, had me at ‘movie premiere on an airplane’. My advice to other companies looking to replicate much of what was done here …

be immersive,
encourage social media engagement, and
foster emotional ties between the product and those participating

… in your product campaigns and announcements and you will be able to have similar, repeatable successes as was done at the "Up in the Air" movie premiere with American Airlines and Paramount Pictures as we flew from JFK to LAX.

Also, I’d love to know how the lessons from this experience have benefited you and your product, or changed the way you are thinking about your next marketing / promotional endeavors. Leave a comment, email me, tweet me.

Enjoy & Share!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

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Notches’ Niche – the Whole Universe

notches-logo-114 Corey Henderson, co-founder of Notches, identifies the long term goal of Notches as being “to give users the confidence that the reviews they find on a site powered by Notches present the whole universe of opinions on anything.” Recently, I met up with Corey Henderson and Tim Marman, co-founders of Notches, to learn more about their ideas and to discuss the company’s unique vision, as well as where they see themselves within the growing universe of next generation, Internet products.

More about Notches

notches-founders Notches is a platform for reviews — with the grand goal of being to eventually encompass all reviews of everything.  Notches is striving to aggregate all the reviews of everything out there, to make it easy for users to obtain and compare reviews for an item, as well as to be secure that they are looking at the entire, relevant, normalized universe of opinions for that particular product.

Unlike PowerReviews and BazaarVoice, Notches

  1. Brings all of the reviews for a given product together, into a centralized platform, to be analyzed, normalized, and summarized,
  2. Further prunes the cross-site review set to prevent gaming of the results,
  3. Eliminates (or de-emphasizes) reviews that have become old,

… while providing an API that allows any person, or company, to obtain and/or contribute to an open and accessible review platform.

Corey further explains,

“Ultimately this is about making sure online users get quality reviews on anything they are researching, from products, services, restaurants, movies, music, anything. By providing a single system for everyone to use, we can be confident that you’ll be getting as close to a complete picture of what thing is best…”

Challenging Notches

There are many challenges Notches is and will be facing as their platform evolves and matures, such as…

  • Assessing and maintaining reviewer reputation,
  • Eliminating “nonsense” reviews,
  • Squashing spammers,
  • And constantly evolving and improving the various platform algorithms (e.g. normalization).

One critical challenge that should not go unmentioned, central to all successful businesses, is the revenue model. Currently, Notches plans to drive revenue through “affiliate programs where companies like Expedia or Amazon pay (Notches) for referrals” along with “advertising, that will be included on some of (Notches’) mini-sites.”

More Notches

To help demonstrate many of the capabilities of the Notches platform, Corey and Tim have released two, fun mini-apps. Both of these demo products are built with the same Notches API that is available to today’s developers. So, if you are a developer, dive in, and please share what you create with Notches.

On Facebook, you will find Notches’ product that allows users to read and write reviews, as well as request reviews from other Facebook friends.

notches-facebook

For Twitter, Notches has created another product that enables the obtaining and posting of reviews — especially handy when you are on the road and want some quick feedback for a particular restaurant.

notches-twitter

The Twitter app, while not currently the best for consumer reviews via Twitter, again provides a simple introduction to both the Notches consumer features and developer API capabilities.

Expanding Universe

Notches is moving quickly in their “primary mission to work with a wide variety of partners, building tools, apps and communities around reviews” to further “showcase different aspects of (their) platform.”

Soon, from Notches, you can expect to see…

  • a widget to connect Notches to reviews on blogs,
  • new showcase applications within the vacation and travel market spaces,
  • various collaborations with microrevie.ws, hobby sites, and college portals,

… and much more.

Continuing Modular Innovation

The Modular Innovation trend seen within many of the cutting edge, next generation products, services, and platforms is often described via the instructive categories of…

  • Sharable,
  • Flexible,
  • Interoperable,
  • Portable, and
  • Utilizable (or Convenient).

As a matter of fact, in talking more about the origins of Notches, Corey is eager to point out…

“The original thinking, that has since become Notches, came way back when web services were first introduced as a concept. We saw that best of breed services, loosely coupled, would become the model of development in the future.”

… and “Notches is simply aspiring to be the best of breed review service” in the realm of Modular Innovation and the next major evolution of the Internet.

So, where in the spectrum of Modular Innovation does Notches currently reside?

Central to Notches is Interoperability, both with other technologies as well as empowering other individuals to connect to Notches via their API. Notches leverages best of breed services and standards, from the hReview microformat to Rapleaf‘s API.

Implicit to the Notches platform are the broader characteristics of Sharability and Portability. Due to the centralizing nature of the aggregation qualities of Notches, everyone has access to all of the normalized versions of the submitted reviews, from every Internet-capable device, courtesy of the Notches API.

The Flexibility of Notches is primarily at the Interoperability level of the product, accessible via the API. However, more Flexibility in terms of “making sure that users can control the reviews they write” (Portability and Sharability) are still being worked on and understood to be “fundamental” components.

For the reasons already outlined above, the showcase products and collaborations that Notches is producing, each in their own right, are a Modular Innovation simultaneously making Notches’ platform more Utilizable as well as Convenient to experience from various alternate services and products (including mobile devices).

Notches makes a very good showing within all of the core categories that make up Modular Innovation, especially Interoperability; which bodes well as Notches strives to build a successful, self-sustaining product with the supporting “community delivering incredible user-centered tools and reviews.”

Watching Notches

The origin of the company’s name comes from the basic premise that one item is always a notch above or below another — there is no tieing when it comes to Notches.

It is in this competitive spirit that Notches is attacking its market, its niche, potentially even paving the way for more business entrants within the microformat space, and creating a world within which “users should not have to look at multiple review sites anymore.”

Just as exciting as it is to observe a new company entering the growing wave of Modular Innovation, it will also be interesting to watch Notches as they grow and advance.

Go and try out Notches today (here and here) & enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

00_logo …So echoed Darrell Silver, one of the four co-founders of CommandShift3, as he explained one of the guiding mantras of CommandShift3.com and with whom I had the great pleasure of being able to sit down and speak with recently at his cool downtown digs. We discussed a range of topics, from the ideas and processes that led to the CommandShift3 web site to what features its community of users can expect to see as the product evolves.

CommandShift3 had 1mm page views within the first month after launching. A large factor in achieving this number most definitely comes from their keen attention to the User eXperience.

How did CommandShift3 zero in on such a rockin’ User eXperience?

Darrell best described their product experience design process as…

“iterating through to simplicity”

When the CommandShift3 group approached designing the User eXperience, simplicity was always in the forefront of their thinking. Every decision revolved around this guiding rule, from the potential use of tabs to where and if to use AJAX.

The Screenshot

One of the early challenges faced, one that can almost be a metaphor for the iterate-to-simplicity process, was with respect to the display of the websites that participate in the voting.

How do you size the screenshots correctly?
How do you present the most necessary information at each stage? What is that necessary information?

Through iterating on this problem, they were able to zero in on the solution that you see today. You can observe that the screenshot starts at the largest allowable (and necessary) size, with minimal labeling. The first screenshot presented, has already been reduced slightly in size to accommodate space and address the need for simplicity — presenting just the information necessary to make a voting decision.

01_side_by_side

Occasionally, to make a voting decision more detail may be needed and is achievable by way of the zoom button.

02_zoom

As the screenshot progresses through the process, clearly less information is needed. The image goes from big to smaller to smaller.

03_bottom

Everything Simpler

Darrell is quick to point out that, while the iterate-to-simplicity process may be most evident in the screenshots, it was universally applied to every aspect of what they did. In this sense, you can see many of the creative influences of CommandShift3 on other sites that they feel epitomize a professional simplicity and/or found ways to present just the most necessary information, such as…

Darrell and the rest of CommandShift3 understood that they were designing for the design community — and this audience always notices every last detail.

Some more of those details…

  • URLs. They needed to be short, simple and bookmark-able.
  • Colors. They understood that the CommandShift3 audience would instantly spot if a color was slightly off or if there was some other mismatch.

“Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.” the philosophy expressed by Darrell Silver in my interview and shared by the other founders (Erin Sparling, Lee Semel, and Amit Gupta) that led them all down a path – of creating a cool product with an awesome (and, in some cases, addictive) User eXperience.

Quick Fact:
Do you know what was the initial inspiration for CommandShift3.com? (click here to find out)

On the Competition…

Another part of CommandShift3′s success was that they were able to identify a completely unserved need within the designer community and come up with a very fun and entirely unique product.

04_homepage

More recently, some competition has been emerging. The most notable competition comes from Technorati founder, David Sifry in the form of OKorKO.com. You can read more about it here.

05_okorko

Obviously, by just comparing the homepages of CommandShift3 and OKorKO, CommandShift3 remains in a league of its own.

Despite my attempts at getting Darrell to dive into a compare and contrast session or spark a more spirited debate about CommandShift3′s competition, Darrel, flattered, began and concluded his assessment of the competitive landscape when he, with a smile, said, “they have a great idea.”

Time for Making Money!

Nope, and not at all, explains Darrell. CommandShift3 never had any kind aspirations for the level of success that they are currently experiencing — their goal, their singular goal, was, and remains, to serve the under-served design community and provide them with an interactive, online product and community that is both fun and useful. Basically, all they currently appear to care about is not money, but staying focused on the near-term and building a “community that opens up communication channels and lowers the barrier to great design.”

Coming Soon…

Darrel points out that CommandShift3 is all about serving the community. They are a “small team doing something that the Internet allows. That is what gives them the ability to do what they want to do and what other people want them to do.” CommandShift3 won’t “win by locking people in,” but by “being focused and responding to the audience; and being the audience.”

As far as Modular Innovations and data portability, Darrell made it very clear that what mattered first and foremost was SERVING (his emphasis) a community. Evolving within an environment of Modular Innovation and allowing for all sorts of data portability are seen to be very much inline with their community “service.” It was made clear that, as aspects of the site are tweaked and CommandShift3 evolves, people can rest assured that they will be able to own and control the content that they create and contribute to the community at-large. And, as Darrell succinctly put it, “we will absolutely — how could you not be open to letting people keep their data and make it more modular — you are SERVING a community.”

Some of the new features (and tweaks) CommandShift3 will be serving and you can expect to see soon are…

  • Flagging and ranking favorite sites
  • Browsing your “battle” history
  • Looking at what other people like (or don’t like)
  • Observing how popularity of a website changes as the design of that site changes
  • Tweaking some of the language on the site details page to be less confusing. Don’t worry, they are on it.
  • …and a lot more cool stuff.

Printing Screens

CommandShift3, the team that has given new, and social, life to the Print-Screen ‘button’, has truly identified an, until now, unheeded call for a strong, interactive community for all designers and their fans. They have created a product that is fun to experience, interact with, and share through, as well as great for research or exploration, or even testing out new concepts on a large audience.

I had a great time speaking with Darrell Silver and (we all — the fans of CommandShift3) look forward to the many great things coming soon from CommandShift3.

Enjoy & if you haven’t already done so… go and check out CommandShift3.com! & Have Fun!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy