Kana
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Joined: 10/24/2006
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quote:
After all, a commercial website's PRIMARY function is to make enough money for the owner to sustain, then secondary whatever someone says it is for (ie, connecting people in kink).
See, I think this is backwards. Further, I think its one of, if not the, biggest mistakes businesses make.
Design a good company, fill it with good people dedicated to what they do and I think the money will come.
But the other way, shakes head. That shit doesn't work so well.
Today in the global economy of outsourcing and worldwide competition, there's always another company/website/whatever out there that can provide a similar or the same service. The thing that differentiates is service and customer experience.
Fail those and sooner or later a competitor is going to see an opportunity, build a better mousetrap and strike.
I've watched this happen to tons of sites over the years. Mouse more so.
Both of us remember the usenet days. Then, if I remember the order correctly, there was bondage.com, then alt, then c-me and now FL is all the rage.
Sites come and go.
Usenet got crushed by tech changes.
Bondage and alt decided to start charging and that was all she wrote. Also alt got swarmed by findommes and spammers
C-me had ownership issues and self destructed
Fet is on top now, but they use a crap platform (According to people who know, I'm not claiming to be a net geek here cuz I ain't), have that black backdrop which many users can't stand, don't organize their groups well and have no central clearing station/dashboard showing all groups and recent activity.
Sooner or later, and I think its already happening*, people are going to stray, someone will invent a better experience/format and that will be all she wrote for FL.
If they were smart, they would do what all companies do when they get to the top, adapt, shift, constantly respond to attempt to create the best user advantage, use their clout and weight and cash to invest in resources which will drive to a better user experience that they can further their competitive advantage.
But they haven't. Instead they seem to be resting on their laurels, enjoying top dog status...which is usually a fatal error
Generally speaking, I think that with few exceptions in business, there's always competition and there is usually someone who can do it cheaper or at a higher profit. In the modern world, the thing that differentiates is service. Take care of the people that take care of you. Rule number one in business and life.
Which is sad because usually that's how great companies start. A desire to make money, true, but also a desire to meet a need, to provide a service to make life easier, better, more functional. They hire like-minded people, people on board with the vision and ideal. Because of that, and good business processes/models/etc...they succeed
But at some point of the success cycle, growth plateaus, a market is maxed out. At this point a company has multiple choices, but usually they go one of a few routes. Continue to grow, innovate, enter new markets, introduce new products, invest money to create an even better experience.
Or they can stand still, content to have reached the top, and enjoy the view. This lasts just as long as it takes the next guy to reach the peak and push them off.
But what most companies do, and which is the worst possible move, is start cutting costs to keep profit margins high. Stop expanding, stop investing in new tech (like getting off of Ruby on Rails platform), stop paying those employees regular raises, watch them go elsewhere. All of which is penny wise and pound foolish.
In other words, become a business entity primarily based around making money (Hey-he returned to the initial point. A long roundabout journey comes home)..which is silly because in making those changes, they lose that edge, that service, that cutting edge experience that differentiated them from their competitors and led to them being the Alpha.
Just saying :-)
* I think right now tumblr and KiK are moving towards being the cutting edge...which tumblr corporate doesn't seemed thrilled with...lots of hard stuff, some great sites, widely dispatched, people communicating all over hell and hooking up. It's simultaneously much more personal and far more widely scattered. But there is a huge scene happening there lots of people, especially the older groups, know nothing about.
_____________________________
"One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. "
HST
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