Blog . Jiboneus

Ev Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Odeo has posted ten (eleven actually) sensible rules for new web startups. I think the rules really make sense. I’m surely going to take note on it. Here is the cheat sheet, read the blog for more details explanation of the rules.

1. Be Narrow
2. Be Different
3. Be Casual
4. Be Picky
5. Be User-Centric
6. Be Self-Centered
7. Be Greedy
8. Be Tiny
9. Be Agile
10. Be Balanced

I especially like #3 and #5

#3: Be Casual
We’re moving into what I call the era of the “Casual Web” (and casual content creation). This is much bigger than the hobbyist web or the professional web. Why? Because people have lives. And now, people with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the really big home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed, help—people’s everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or identity change. Flickr enables personal publishing among millions of folks who would never consider themselves personal publishers—they’re just sharing pictures with friends and family, a casual activity. Casual games are huge. Skype enables casual conversations.

#5: Be User-Centric
User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board. Better to iterate a hundred times to get the right feature right than to add a hundred more. The point of Ajax is that it can make a site more responsive, not that it’s sexy. Tags can make things easier to find and classify, but maybe not in your application. The point of an API is so developers can add value for users, not to impress the geeks. Don’t get sidetracked by technologies or the blog-worthiness of your next feature. Always focus on the user and all will be well.

So basically keep it simple, different, offer something new but at the same time be casual.

Casual application that just fit in our lives. The last thing we need in our busy live is some application that we have to take some time to understand it to actually make it useful.

I guess it’s all about the users. Functions been program to your web application or service should actually add value to the application, actually making it more useful not just to impress the geeks.

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