adoption curve dot net

Being a relatively recent Mac convert, I don’t need much persuading that Apple know a thing or two about making innovative products. But the problem with innovative products is that they don’t stay innovative forever – so if you want to hold your position as an innovator, by definition you need to run to stay still.

But if you’re Apple, it seems that you can get a lot of your product development – or at least the off-the-wall ideas and physical design parts – done by your customers. Just sit back and monitor the speculation on the interweb, catch the better ideas and profit…

It’s unfortunately easy to get a bit carried away when it comes to ‘how blogs will change the world’ – but despite some of the more effusive hyperbole, they’re a means to end rather than an end in themselves.

Here’s a blast of sanity from Doc Searls:

The same is happening with blogs. Lots of people will make money with blogs. But many more will also make money because of blogs. We’re talking about leverage here. Blogs are great levers. But jeez, is money the only measure, or the only point, of anything?

The festive season is upon us, and it’s the time of the year when thoughts turn to lists and predictions. Over at Digital Web magazine, Nick Finck has got a list of the ten things your website should be doing:

• Offering regularly updated information (blogs, CMSs, etc.)
• Increased efficiency in news and information distribution (RSS, ATOM, etc.)
• Alternative methods of information distribution (email newsletters, RSS, del.icio.us, etc.)
• Enhanced notification and announcement systems (pings, email alerts, etc.)
• A place for your site’s users to offer feedback and input (blog comments, forums, etc.)
• Improved performance and code optimization (CSS, XHTML, etc.)
• Multiple ways to access information (multi-faceted navigation, folksonomies, etc.)
• Intelligent system to system communication (XML, SOAP, etc.)
• Collaborative communication and documentation (Wikis, blogs, etc.)
• On-demand support feedback (user-driven FAQs, click-to-chat, etc.)

Clearly not all of these are going to be appropriate to every site and business, but there’s a lot to think about here. Perhaps most significant is that all of the functionality and technology that’s suggested above is interactive – which will have implications for the time and effort that will need to go into maintaining sites. And this in turn will make the differences between proactive organisations even more pronounced – is your site going to remain static while those of your competitors are constantly updated and refined?

The Firefox ad finally made it into the New York Times today, and my name’s in there (in tiny, weeny, really very small type). Which is the first and very likely the only time I’ll find myself in the NYT…