15 October 2009
MySpace decline teaches the power of hindsight
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Market Research
Try to make your initial launch as close to what people need as possible by conducting real life experiments with real life potential users from your target market.
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Live Analysis
Do not launch your website until you have the resources of a full-time analyst from day 1. A newly-launched website is always a ‘test version', therefore your initial customer-base will be your new testers.
If they communicate issues to you, you will be able to enact on them easily. But generally, they won't... they will just stop using. You need to be proactive. Therefore you need an analyst or analysts on staff sifting through your statistics to find out when people are exiting or encountering problems.
This analyst will communicate his/her findings to you, and you will need to enact on possible solutions in your early days. A company that has done this successfully is Twitter, who constantly revises features based on careful analysis.
Some companies with loyal user-bases tend to leak news of potential upgrades to their users, and judges if they should proceed with their ideas based on the backlash - positive or negative.
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Go Open
Make your source code open, allowing for developers to plug in components that will make your website more interesting.
Facebook has evolved a great deal since launch due to its developer community developing all sorts of plug in applications that has meant users can spend days on end on Facebook without getting bored.
Going Open would need to be done with an effective structure of judging potential applications to eliminate any counter-productive development, however it is one way of increasing the value of your website - by making a platform for developers to implement ideas that you may not have otherwise come up with.