What makes a service/site suceed

Social Media
1

I was thinking today while at work, what makes sites like Groupon, Facebook, Kijiji, so successful, when dozens of existing competitors were already establishing themselves.

I am not looking for a case by case study here, it’s obvious that Facebook beat myspace for a plethora of specific reasons (downtime, cluttered design, slow, excessive ad banners, etc). Craiglist looks nasty and Groupon (well it’s relatively new and I haven’t put much thought into comparing to other apples).

I am curious to hear a general opinion on this subject matter. Marketing plays a huge role, but how or why did Groupon begin garnering attention from local media outlets? I remember hearing about Google way back in 2000ish on TechTV or something similar. I made the switch from Yahoo/MSN and never looked back.

Obviously very sucessful projects reach a critical mass at which point they seem to really explode onto the pop culture scene (movies, commercials, etc).

On second thought, give me any feedback you can, even if it’s technically related, like the faults of MySpace VS FB, Craigslist VS Kijiji, etc,

Cheers,
Alex

2

When Facebook arrived, no one knows that it will create a big impact, even Mark Zuckerberg didn’t expect that his baby FB is a treasure. The creative people behind FB is the real key!

3

you can often see the same phenomenon with concepts that are copied from other countries. E.g. Groupon clones … mycitydeal survived in the end because they had most money and acted the fastest.

4
  1. It’s exclusive when starting up. People always want to be included in something that’s exclusive.
  2. It’s actually useful or fun in some way.
  3. It’s easy to use.
5

Find a small audience with very specific needs and wants, satisfy them, get them hooked and turn them into evangelists who spread the word and build the following.

1 Like
6

Not really. Most successful sites have entered an exponential growth phase long before they have had any substantial marketing expenditure. They have either had an original,fresh and well executed idea, or have ‘hipmunked’ the opposition.

7

One of Facebook’s appeals when it truly became popular was that it was miles better than its main competitor at the time MySpace.

8

Its not just about the money and speed, if you just copy the samething then you will just be another clone. But if you manage to add an unique element to an otherwise normal market then you will have fun.

Just look at this site (http://www.chocomize.com/), you can order chocolade like on so many other sites. However, this sites lets you customize the ingredients of you chocolade bar. You can really create some great stuff, which makes it stand out more.

Just having a more unique approach to an otherwise common idea can be enough for it so succeed :slight_smile:

9

Ya, and not to mention the speed difference between the sites.

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How so? There were a bunch of similar sites at the time. Can you really say that the ‘creative people’ made it popular? How?

Right time and right place is what made Facebook popular, as far as I can tell. And that movie was fiction.

11

@PCSpectra

In my opinion it has much to do with timing and execution.

I like to use an example of somebody who wants to sell fridges online. If I were to design a website to sell fridges on the internet, would my idea my the reason it’s a success? Hardly!

It’s not just the idea, but it’s execution, as well as the timing to enter such a market.

If I wanted to create my own Facebook now and call it “lifeprint”, would it be a hit. Again hardly! Copying and doing what your neighbor does would not give you the impression needed to go anywhere. Facebook even though in my opinion is successful, I feel it’s loosing that niche market it once had, it’s now become much bigger than anybody could have hope, but at the same time this open the doors for competitors and markets.

Now consider building an online community website specifically designed for a specific group (e.g. builders, architects etc.), do you think it would be more successful that a copycat Facebook site? Well probably. Being specific is what it’s all about. Facebook did not start off to the mass public, if you remember correctly it was targeted at individual educational establishments at a time. This narrowing down allowed it to get to were it is today.

Also I would like to add it’s not a single factor that accounts for a websites success but a collection of factors.

I feel it would be wrong to focus on Facebook, yes it’s the most popular site on the internet, but it’s wrong to base my whole argument on just a single success story.

Let’s take Google:

Was there better designed website out there? Yes, Was is easy to use?, Very much so (execution), What accounted for it’s success? It’s algorithm (timing and execution) Why was it successful? Other search engines were that bad, trust me on this one, they were terrible. I remember using sites like excite and altavista.

At the time of Google, it’s main competitor was Yahoo who offered dozens of services. Once Google came into light the only thing it did was web searches, and it did it well. As one company becomes broad in it’s scope it often looses sight of other things, Yahoo is a clear example of this.

12

Thats a really good topic to talk about !! man its hard to take ur site to upper level nd get more and more visitor on ur site but on the other side there are so many social sites from where u can get so many visitors but again i will say its hard to maintain ur site on the top list !!

13

Good services makes any business success. In my opinion about the raise of facebook is, for the last few years we all are stick with orkut, myspace etc … These websites are only for social networking, making friends, chating etc etc… Facebook successes in business because, their users can promote their links, business anything through it. The freedom for creating Facebook apps is the one another advantage of facebook.

14

I couldn’t agree more. It seems like we are making facebook the example here so I would like to do the same. Timing is everything that is right. Being able to see the need and address that need is perfect. Facebook was able to integrate both concepts when they made their site attractive to not just high school kids and college buddies but to the general public-including the “professionals”. They literally made it available and attractive to everyone, not just a specific group of people. Some other already existing social sites like myspace and friendster at that time were just too obnoxious. They didn’t get much attention from older and more mature population. Facebook saw that and they took advantage of it.

15

They provided a very good service to the users and marketed their products very well. When facebook launched at the first time. no one noticed about this. But when they updated facebook with many good user attractive features, users gradually moved from Orkut to facebook.

16

who stood behind Myspace? maybe big team but without one famous leader…

As for FB, Zuckerberg made his name with FB, I think the most important success factor about it is his unshaken enthusiasm and passion, that is the main driving force… that makes FB more personal in comprehension, with “human” face.

17

Good service, patience, dedication and MONEY will surely make your site successful!

Invest high so that you’ll be determined to work and work in order to get back what you have invested. Don’t give up.

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A really good idea, a decent target market, correct timing and a way to attract your target market to your site!

19

Tell that to Zappos, Yahoo, etc.
Zuckerberg is just a Cinderella story - he did well for himself, but had he not been in the right place at the right time he’d be unknown.

20

I think that Facebook succeeded because they are the first to launch a social site which you can interact with families and friends and play online games at the same time. So gamers and chatters came filing up…