If I were to come up with Twitter idea

Question

I was thinking - What would've happened if I were to come up with the twitter idea - that let's make a bloggin website for very short blogs.

What will be the reaction of my friends? I think they would say - "its a crazy idea, not worth pursuing". (Incidentally many of us still don't understand twitter)

Even if I created the website, would it be successful? I think not, coz it needs a solid backing of marketing guys who can do good PR for you.

Why did sites like facebook and basecamphq become to popular? Is it because of features and benefits that a concept provides? Or is it good benefits + someone good in selling.

I guess what I am asking is - can a developer with a fantastic idea can become successful in todays world? If not, what are the other essential ingredients?

Answer 1

Google spread by word of mouth and little marketing, so it's definitely still possible.

Answer 2

I have noticed that the simpler ideas seem to achieve acceptance more readily. Google is the simplest of simple ideas on its surface. Facebook is supplanting MySpace because Facebook is perceived as cleaner and simpler, IMHO.

As programmers we tend to complicate things because we understand the underpinning technology. Mainstream users could care less about this, and we programmers always forget that. It is critical to achieve a realistic user perspective; what makes sense to us almost never makes sense to the average user.

A question was posted recently on StackOverflow to the effect of: "Have all the good business ideas already been taken?" The accepted answer was, "Find an idea that someone else is already doing, and make it better." StackOverflow is the perfect example of this. Sites like this have existed for years, but StackOverflow has arguably achieved wider acceptance because they do it better. And look at how simple and minimalist their web page is.

Answer 3

I think it all comes down to statistics.

You think twitter, facebook, youtube or even google come up as very succesful bussiness due to marketing, or a great idea or whatever.

The fact is it came up from all the above plus a great deal of luck. For example, take this site, stackoverflow... it is of course a great success in terms of visits, at least in its niche although I don't really know how well it is doing in terms of revenue. There've being tons and tons of sites like this before and most of them just sunked so you haven't heard about them.

So what's the difference? I think is a combination of several things, in this case, basically the relative fame of Jeff Adwood and Joel Spolsky, combined with hard work and a lot of luck. Basically you know about it because it succeded so every possible explanation you think of cames AFTER the success and is therefore invalid.

It's very, very difficult to study the market before selling the product, in fact is usually better to just try to steal the market from another company by doing a better product.

By the way, in my opinion a fantastic idea is nothing. I fantastic idea needs a fantastic implementation which is what takes works and work is what can screw a great idea... there are great products and promising ideas, there are no fantastic ideas. So a developer might become succesful if, basically, he works hard (very hard), makes a fantastic product and have a lot of luck.

Answer 4

Yes, you can still succeed with a fantastic idea, but "copy twitter" isn't a fantastic idea. It was a fantastic idea in 2005, now it's a poor rehash of something that's already been done.