Has anyone else noticed recent launches do not seem to have created the buzz they might have once before? Is it possible that the web has come down with a bad case of “launch fatigue”?
At one time all you had to do was get a few well-placed mentions and you could ride the rollercoaster of IPO all the way to the bank. Now it seems much-boosted web2.0 launches, even with big money backing and brown paper envelopes well deployed in all the right bloggers pockets, do not seem to have made anything near the usual impact.
Take Sphere for instance. Have you even heard of it? Techcrunch have given them air-time, Time.com are in bed with them in a significant way, supposedly it makes up where Technorati leaves off.
If that is the case, why is nobody I know using it? Have you done any Sphere searches?
Actually do try it out, it’s not bad. I don’t mean to single out Sphere as I am sure they are doing good work. Just it seems good work, a bribed blogger or two and venture capital are not enough now.
This might hint at a larger issue that the web now is truly resisting the “broadcast” approach. Superbowl ads are just not the ticket now for launching a web service. We have talked many times before about word of mouth being the best form of advertising, and permission marketing being the most effective way of informing your customers while retaining loyalty. Perhaps we are seeing the evidence of this now.
There is little chance that we have gotten everything right but I am glad our launches were done the way we did them. Building an audience, working out what they need then trying your best to give it them, while tweaking as you go. Seems the right approach to me. At least this way we succeed or fail on what we do rather than what people are saying about us
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4 thoughts on “Permission to Launch”
Sorry, here it is
How about a link to this sphere site? I did a search for sphere on google, and the top ten results don’t seem to be like what you speak of here.
I see two reasons:
1) We are too close to the ‘event horizon’ of launches, so it has to be really big to make us sit up and notice (TechCrunch is to blame for that – you can only read so many reviews of new services before you want to throw up).
2) We’re simply tired of the Web 2.0 buzz – and are looking for something that actually works. In that sense web 2.0 might have become mainstream, now that we don’t judge a business by its web 2.0-ness but by what it can do for us.
Take your pick.
Sphere could take off, but it needs more time to mature. So does the new blog search platform by Ask. Like any other business, they will gain traction and then suddenly, like Google and Technorati and Del.icio.us, they’ll be everywhere.
All these launches happening here and there, all those mashups … yes, I am tired of checking all the latest buzz.
Real impact for real people is hard to reach today. The best example was the traffic tsunami you have been writing about yesterday. This was a real useful lesson about what real people are really interested in.
Haven’t we heard the basic rule all the times? It’s very simple: Content rules.
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