Oh good, I don't like being gentle.
First of all, I totally disagree with #1. That's my knee-jerk reaction, so I'll come back to that one later.
I think another common variable between all these sites is that they are innovative, and they filled a gap where one once existed.
Google, for example, made it simple to do what you wanted to do -- search. You goto the homepage, and it's easy to do just that. Not like Yahoo, where there's far too many links and ads. That's the only reason I ever started using Google, was because it was clean, quick and simplified.
Amazon and ebay have both given in, in my mind, to the greed that comes with success -- by expanding into areas they shouldn't, and instead of keeping things simple, they add all these "features" while raising prices and making it harder to get around than it once was.
I think the early Amazon.com was awesome, because it was easy to find stuff too. They were big before they had all the interactive "features" they have now, so I don't agree with your argument that the reason they are successful is because of all the stuff customers can do besides shop. Amazon simply made it easy to shop with a large selection, focused on a single venture (books, at first), and did a dang good bang-up job. I think the way they simplified the associates program helped them a lot as well.
I haven't used ebay in a while ... not since they started using banner ads, which really ticked me off, especially after reading articles about how they were sitting on millons of cash. They got greedy, so I stopped using it. But, like Google, they filled a void, and were first-to-market, so that's why I think they were successful. They are still plagued by problems though. Their customer service sucks. They don't list their company phone numbers (again, last I checked), and they kept adding fees to do simple listings. I think they sold out a lot like Amazon by taking what was really simple, intuitive, and worked fine with ads and attempts at driving the market.
LiveJournal, I think, is great because of its innovation as well. Its easy to use, figure out, create an account, there's 3rd party clients to connect, etc. And it's free. That scores points with me. And they haven't started selling ad space, thank goodness.
The thing is, with #5 -- specificity -- I think a lot of times they start off that way focusing on one thing, and that's great ...but when they become wildly popular, they place ads everywhere, and it drives me bonkers. I'm sure they could cut their bandwidth bills alone in more than half if they stopped putting 8 graphical ads on one page (google is smart to do text only -- those don't bother me in the least). I really wish Amazon would have stuck to what started them off and made them big -- books, and then just movies and videos. I'm not going to buy a Segway from them. Or a toaster oven. Actually, Amazon is about the only one out of the list that I think has really expanded to the point of bloat. The others seem to still be pretty much okay (ebay's "progress" is questionable though).
Ok, I reread point #1, and it makes sense now -- youre saying they _are_ successful because they don't have to maintain their own content. How does about.com fit in this picture then? I'd assume theyre pretty popular (assuming that only because I've used them before, and their range of topics seems pretty extensive).
I, for one, am looking for content. Admittedly, I'm very bitter how the Internet of yore has been crushed by capitalism, and how it's impossible to find content these days. Here's my take on a few of the services:
On Google, I search for 'Flight of the Navigator', one of my favorite movies, and I'm _hard pressed_ to find any geuine content. Let's see... the 65th link is the first one that does not link to: a store, a forum, a cybersquatting search page (or whatever you call it), or a movie review. And even then it's not a real fan page that just talks about the movie, the production, etc.. Just two lines about movie mistakes. http://www.moviemistakes.com/film.php?filmid=490
Amazon is pretty good. Flight of the Navigator DVD comes up on the first search results page, even though it's not yet released, they still have it catalogued. No content here, but I like the service -- that they will notify me by email when it does come out. I'll admit that's cool. Still, I can do without the boot on top of apparel and accessories (who buys underwear online, anyway?) the ugly gold box on the top right (which I opened once, and my "specials" were for kitchenware ... way to track my consumer interests there, amazon!) and the magazines on the left which are usually the latest half-naked woman on some magazine I'd never read anyway.
Anyway, my rants aside, I think the things that make sites successful are thus:
- original content
- original idea
- user friendly
- provides unique services / fills a void
- simplicity
- first to market
- stays with its original goal, little deviance aside from improvements, not expansions
and of most importance - displays properly in Mozilla.
Steve
Daniel Crookston wrote:
Hey gang, I wrote an article about how to make a good (popular) web site, and was hoping some of you might read it and give me some feedback about it. Here's a link:
http://www.hyperion-data.net/agoodsite.html
Don't be gentle. I want to hear if it's the dumbest thing ever, if I've missed something totally obvious, if I'm totally wrong on points three and five, whatever. Thanks, Dan
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