Innovation in the marketplace

These are some really exciting times. Here we are, coming out from under the rubble of the dot com crash into a new world full of exciting new oppportunities. All of that sunk cost from the turn of the century coupled with some amazing new, light-weight programming languages and cheap gear are making it easier and easier to start something new.

Every kid out there with a blog and a hosted machine is starting something new. Mash-ups are king (queen?!). Build a widget (and its hilarious that people are actually calling them this) that can get put up on MySpace and you’re a shoe in for being the next big thing.

We’re entering an era of instantaneous innovation. Ideas are flowing from blogs, user comments, user feedback, etc … People are throwing ideas up against the wall and some of them are sticking (while of course most of them are complete garbage). What is really interesting is that its not always about being first with the idea. Execution, position in the market and ‘reputation’ in the space are becoming the defining ingredients for success. Let me give you an example.

Meebo launched late last year and it fantastic. The out-of-box user experience was fantastic and it quickly gained momentum. Yes, I’ll say it; Meebo has hit a “tipping point”. Users are flocking there. MeeboMe launched with much fanfare last week. Its a really interesting premise. Embed the MeeboMe flash widget on your web page with the smallest bit of JavaScript and then login with your Meebo account. Voila, now you can not only get instant messages from your visitors but you can message them!! Alright, alright. This sounds like it could be annoying. However, imagine if you tie this to site heuristics. “Hmmm, this user has a full shopping cart but keeps flipping back and forth between this specific digital camera.” No problem, “Excuse me” you say through the MeeboMe interface, “Can I help answer any questions for you on digital cameras?” Wow. That could be cool. Or that could be totally annoying. But that’s not the point.

We’ve seen this before. Anybody heard of Chatango? It is essentially the same thing but its lacking the hook and eyeballs of existing users. This speaks to Guy’s top 10 lies startups say; if its a good idea, 5 other companies are working on it. What Meebo has been able to leverage is the fact that they have thousands of users, users that would be ideal for Chatango. However, since they use Meebo every, single day they end up hearing about MeeboMe and driving its adoption much quicker. The added benefit for Meebo is that MeeboMe is on their network; it doesn’t depend on the “bigs” IM networks.

Alright, so back to my points. Execution, position in the market and ‘reputation’ in the space. Looking at Meebo they have executed brilliantly (albeit with a few hiccups in getting the service out there). They have the perfect position in the market for this sort of application; users that IM all the time. Finally, they have a great ‘reputation’ in the space. I say ‘reputation’ in quotes because it can mean so many different things to so many people. This is best explained with an example.

Digg owns the social news space. Their users are rabid about Digg so much so that when Netscape launched a clone and tried to buy Digg users it it had the effect on Digg like when Coke changed their formula. It drove more people to Digg. Its hard to beat the power of grassroots marketing. Thousands of passionate Digg users out there angry (and complaining) about Netscape doing what they did had an amazing effect on adoption for Digg. Digg has a great ‘reputation’ in their space. They are the thought leaders on it and as such, even though anybody can copy them, they are continuing to grow.

(As a side note, I was having dinner with a friend from college - not a techie - and he asked me, “Have you seen this thing Digg?!”)

So back to Meebo. People love Meebo because they provide a great service and are fantastic at dealing with user feedback. Nothing like really engaging those early adopters to help drive your platform forward. As such, there will be clones, but Meebo will continue to dominate (as long as they don’t do anything evil).

The future of innovation and this crazy Web 2.0 space will manifest itself in true thought leaders that listen to their users and generate that loyalty that will drive their products/services/brands forward.