99.99% of 'insert new product here' is Useless.

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99.99% of 'insert new product here' is Useless.

We hear this all the time – 99.99% of Twitter, Seesmic, Facebook, you name the product of the day, is Useless. Well the truth is: They are right...

But then again, another truth: 99.99% of Everything is Useless.

Let’s take books. I love books, I have lots of books, I enjoy reading books. We’re a long way from really virtualising the experience of reading a book – know how to do it, but don’t have the technology yet. Books are here for a while.

Now let’s walk into a bookstore. One of my favourites sits on University Ave, Palo Alto – I’ve been there lots of times. Upstairs they have thousands upon thousands of books. And they have big sections on the stuff I really like – computing, music, SF, travel... I walk around and read bits and pieces and try to find what I need or would be entertaining. Based on past experience there is more than a 50% chance that I will walk out with nothing.

Nothing, from all those thousands of books? And remember all those books took months or even years to write, had to be PUBLISHED – with all that entails in terms of quality control and costs, manufacture and transport. Yet on many occasions, I could not find one that was useful to me at that moment in time. 99.99% of Everything is Useless. But there is enough to be useful to enough people to make the whole thing work.

It is the same with music, with television – how many times, with hundreds of channels is there nothing worth watching?

Compare that to blogs, Twitter, all the others – no quality control, no editors, no-one saying what can and can’t be published, anyone can do it – that’s the greatest strength. Of course, it is inevitable that the average quality would suffer.

But there is enough to be useful to enough people to make the whole thing work.

No-one would dream of judging all books by just sampling a few random copies – you have to be told where to start by an enthusiastic, but realistic guide.

So don’t write off the new products from first impressions or over-zealous advocates. Many will fail, but some will change your lives.

Another test from email

Ahhh. Union Square.

Dave

Test blog from a phone

It worked!

This is my 3rd blog site...

The first one disappeared off the face of the earth - a lesson learnt there - never trust your data to one 3rd party.

The second one (started 2004) was just rants, another lesson learnt.

Maybe this one will be better.

Yes it will.