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Web 2.0 and the necessity of failure

Fred Oliveira on September 9, 2006

There are new web applications and services being launched every day around the world. Most of these products expect an audience (a real one) to sustain themselves and stay afloat - but the problem with Web 2.0, is that it’s probably a little ahead of time, as the rest of the world doesn’t “get it” yet.

Blogs like Mike’s Techcrunch, Richard’s Readwrite/Web and the rest of the guys over at the Web 2.0 Workgroup report on the latest products and trends, but isn’t their audience restricted in itself? Are web application developers expecting a number of users that just doesn’t exist? Read on.

On failure and natural selection

Web 2.0 has made it extremely easy to launch products. It isn’t hard to bootstrap development costs, so people with ideas pursue their ambitions of getting them out there. This is creating an atmosphere of innovation dilution (you’ve read it here first) where key forward-thinking ideas don’t get the attention they need (or deserve) amidst all others.

The question of whether this is a bubble has been asked many times before, and I keep thinking and saying we’re not a bubble in the financial sense, but definitely are in one on the wow sense. And the theory is when the bubble bursts and the novelty fades, many of the products launching now will fade away with it.

Now, even though I love web applications and love it when people decide to pursue their intentions of launching new ones, I believe we do need more failure happening in order to learn with the experience and truly innovate.

Clarifications

Despite the fact that we may indeed need failure to learn with our mistakes and create the path for a new wave of innovation, we still need new products. We still need people to try their best, and make compelling solutions to everyday problems.

I guess what I mean by all of this is that we should all keep innovating, but we (as in, the mass of people doing new things with the web) shouldn’t be afraid to call something a failure and move on. And we do need to create new things and avoid the me-too’s we’ve been seeing lately. Lets fail more in order to learn faster and create more and better web applications.


Comments on this post

Stowe Boyd

I am all for this (see this post). I recommend that we all set aside the third thursday of every month to highlight the failed apps out there.

(And Fred, if you’d like a thread on your blog, can’t you turn on trackbacks?)

Fred

Hey Stowe, they should be on, actually. I’ll investigate. Thanks for letting me know.

Fred Oliveira: "Vi är i en wowbubbla!" [Det handlar om fibrer, Fleecelabs]

[...] Är vi i en bubbla? Ja, men inte i finansiell mening. Vi är i en wowbubbla. Det skriver Fred Oliveira på Webreakstuff. [...]

Hashim

I think first we have to agree on what failure means.

Failure to make money? Failure to gain an audience? I don’t agree with either of those factors being measures for failure.

Look at Del.icio.us and how it has spread the idea of tagging. Del.icio.us doesn’t make money, and it’s not popular in the grand scheme of the web. However, it’s cheap to maintain, and has survived for that very reason.

Some of these “failing” Web 2.0 sites are building the infrastructure for some of the sites who will eventually succeed. Why ask them to disappear?

Paul

For me, I think Failure to make money and Failure to serve a purpose are the two main reasons why web2.0 companies fail. It’s really tough to find the right balance for it.

On one hand you want users to try out your software, and talk about it, hopefully pay for it too. On the other, you have the bills to pay. Even if you have a great tool that serve your users, if you are not able to find this balance, the company will still fail.

If your software fail to serve its users, probably you won’t have the problem as mentioned earlier.

knowologist

I agree with your points, mainly the natural selection. Just like on everything else, we can take almost for sure that the
Darwin’s principle will lead the web to give users only what’s interesting - the survival of the fittest.

Web2.0 it’s about evolving too - all that beta thing - so, not only those who fail but, those who evolve will help the web to survive the bubble’s burst and be a better world for us, users.

knowologist

btw, i forget to say that i digged your article. :)

http://digg.com/tech_news/Web_2_0_and_the_necessity_of_failure

Mario

Isn’t it the the ‘normal’ daily user who makes someting a failure or not in terms of numbers and use? You can be a tech crunch guy or girl however mostly seeing things from a complete different point of view as just the ‘normal’ customer out there on the net. And that’s where I see the biggest problem as most of the new developments are related to audience numbers and dollars only. Other side is indeed to ask what is failure? Failure could indeed paves the way for better for new people jumping in and improving old ideas which in the first place turned to be out as failure. Failure for you would maybe a huge succes for me. How do you want to set your standard to say something is a failure? Protopage is a failure in my opinion, however it could be a big success for someone else, user or owner. Where do you draw the line? I could find a web 2.0 solution targeted to a group of 10 people only… still it could be a huge success even making millions of dollars with it but complete worse less and a failure to you… Just let it go, you would find a natural regulation, sites come and go, sites come ago and it all depends on so many factors to make it a success or not. Another one… Flickr is to me a failure after all, after a longer time of using it basically for myself, and you know why??? My mum, my sister even a lots of friends here in Indonesia just can’t figure out how to use it. Log in procedure is really a fxxxxx up thing and once logged on it takes a Guru to find your way around. So after being so content with Flickr myself in the first place, other users made it a failure for me. I just can’t get them on to see my Bali Paradise pictures.Have a look yourself, thousands of profiles there not being updated for months!

Steve E

There will always be a number of sites or services which will be seen as failures due to their inability to secure funding or make an income. There will always be a number of sites or services which will be seen as a failure due to their inability to pull in large user volumes. However the ones that will fail and disappear are the badly thought out sites and services that are really just a gratuitous use of technology and after the hype has died they will fade away.
Nobody should be afraid of falling into the first two cases. Everyone should avoid falling into the third!

Blair

Just figured I should like the following article from John Battelle’s Searchblog

Failure to Fail: http://battellemedia.com/archives/002825.php

Blair

“… should LINK the …”

Sorry.

CrunchNotes » The Real Story About TechCrush

[...] Sept 9: Fred Olivera says we need to announce failures when they happen. [...]

engtech

I agree wholeheartedly. As a matter of fact, I’m going to link to you in that post.

Web Too.Many: The Real Social Software Faceoff « //engtech

[...] The Internet is in a web2.0 bubble. If it isn’t a financial bubble (dotBomb) it is at least a “wow” bubble and an “atmosphere of innovation dilution”. Selling your company on e-bay seems to be a viable business plan. Don’t bother getting excited about every single new web2.0 application. They’ll be gone in three years. The ones that are already massively popular are here to stay if they don’t screw it up, but everyone else jumping on the bandwagon is screwed unless [...]

Webreakstuff » O bubble, where art thou?

[...] I’m linking to his post because of two things. Firstly because I respect Mike’s opinion and he’s in a privileged position to assert whether we’re in a downward or upward slope. Second, because he talks about something I’ve thought and written about in the past, in a post called “Web 2.0 and the necessity of failure” - failure in a time of innovation. [...]

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