Developing that killer instinct

August 22, 2006

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If its one thing that the male-dominated developer world has, it is the pride to claim that they are going to develop the next KILLER.

We’re going to build the next iPod killer.
We’re going to develop the next MS Office killer.
We’re going to develop the Treo killer.

Aren’t you just sick of that? When the iPod became successful, was it because it killed something? No, don’t think so. It just made listening to music easier and much cooler.

The cellphone killed the pager because it was a proof on concept that being able to call someone back is much better than having a one way conversation over a text message that appeared on a one-line screen.

Those revolutions don’t happen every year though. So if you want to kill the iPod, or the Treo, or the next great office suite, I suggest you build something that will cause the POINT to tip.

What I’m trying to say is, you should not kill products, you should incite consumer revolutions.

Thoughts and Musings

Comments

4 responses to “Developing that killer instinct”

August 23, 2006

jangelo

Nah. The killer app doesn’t have to kill something.
August 23, 2006

Jayvee

then they should just call it “a great app that does cool things” 🙂
August 23, 2006

jangelo

Well, eventually the only things that ‘killer’ apps will kill are its users–we’d be so addicted to these apps that they’ll bring us closer to death each time we use them.

Or we’ll probably die from withdrawal the moment the app goes offline.
August 24, 2006

Rico

I think the cellphone “killed” the pager not because it allows calls (pagers arrived after mobiles), but because SMS provided a cheap two-way version of paging.

And I don’t think we’ll die from withdrawal; we’ll just find something more cool to obssess over. 🙂