Simple is Social

Originally posted on March 14, 2013 on jor.dance

“A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.” — John Gall

A few years ago, Facebook did the unthinkable. They took down the titan known as Myspace. Myspace had more features, more brand recognition, and more users. So what was better about Facebook?

Most notably, a simple and well executed product. In a 2011 interview, Sean Parker was asked why Myspace lost and he responded by saying that Myspace “[failed] to execute on product development.” Originally, Facebook was just a set of profile pages, barely linked together. Users could add friends, message them, and build their profile page (newsfeed didn’t launch until 3 years later). The simplicity of the product allowed Mark and the rest of the gang to easily pinpoint flaws and build a community of happy users. Users who understood what they were getting themselves into and the immediate benefits of signing up for the service.

How about Instagram? It allows users to upload edited photos, talk about them, and subscribe to others’ photos.

Twitter? Post 140 character messages to your followers and look at other users’ posts too.

Dribbble? Post and view 400 x 300 images of your design work.

Snapchat? Quickly snap photos and message them to your friends.

Foursquare? Tell people where you are and find out where your friends are.

Pinterest? Post photos, categorize them, and view others’ photos too.

I can go on and on. (I mean, even Myspace started over with a more simple to understand product!)

All of these products started out with only a handful of features for one reason: If your base idea does not catch on with an audience, building features on top of it won’t matter.

Building a solid foundation is what makes or breaks any social network. Until you succeed with that, stop adding features and start tweaking your base idea until it’s just right.