Comments on: Are you Building an Everyday App? (the LinkedIn problem)

By: This Week in Search for 8/13/09 | Home Business | Drop Shipping | Wholesale | Network Marketing

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:24:24 +0000

[...] Is your site used every day? LinkedIn does not incentivize daily visits from members, but they aren’t not alone. Many companies who do not have applications which are used daily have business models dependent on every day usage. Sadly, paraphrased versions of the closing remarks can be applied to many companies, not just LinkedIn — "Until they can make their users better at what they do, it won’t be an every day app." [...]

By: Feature Development in Action: Broadcast Stream Messages - Bokardo

Feature Development in Action: Broadcast Stream Messages - Bokardo — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:20:48 +0000

[...] of the workday, leaving it open in a browser window or using the desktop app (for many it is an everyday app), there are several times during the day that they step away from their computer. They go to lunch. [...]

By: Rick Glaser

Rick Glaser — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:03:55 +0000

Great post Joshua. I really never got involved in LinkedIn and can understand why that site is not used everyday. It is also interesting to note that Google is most likely a site that is used on a daily basis in all of those countries.

By: Blazing Bumblebee

Blazing Bumblebee — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:38:19 +0000

I have to agree with John Pratt, having set up a linkedin profile and added the few people I know, I now don’t really know what to do with it.

Perhaps I could join a few groups or something but I already feel like I’m in enough through other social networking sites.

By: Are you building an application that people use every day or do you just think you are? | dv8-designs

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:48:35 +0000

[...] you are? Jun.12, 2009 in Feed News, Uncategorized Joshua Porter has an excellent post titled Are you building an everyday app? (the LinkedIn problem) where he [...]

By: dl

dl — Sat, 16 May 2009 11:41:24 +0000

Josh – another great post. and I don’t say that to too many. There is a math that a lot of social media experts like to say they “get”…and they don’t. I clearly have to say you get important parts of it like Shirky, McCracken, Jenkins and Lilly.

By: John Eckman

John Eckman — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:25:45 +0000

Rewind a few years and replace “Everyday app” with “Destination site.”

In the portal (and vortal – remember that term?) heyday, people thought every site they were building would become a destination site – but the reality was that simply wasn’t possible for many of those sites.

I think it largely comes back to thinking about the value your app offers from a user’s point of view – what it offers them first, and then secondarily what it offers you as the sponsoring/creating company.

By: Sushi

Sushi — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:43:14 +0000

If you put it this way it kinda makes sense. Apart from work I spend time only on couple sites. Sure I use rss reader for a lot more but it doesn’t count as “visiting”.

By: Vivek

Vivek — Sun, 10 May 2009 10:08:17 +0000

Linked in is too damn closed. Let them open up their APIs just like Facebook and let developers do their magic and come out with cool apps. Right now they are holding it too close to their chest.

By: Don Li

Don Li — Sun, 10 May 2009 05:20:21 +0000

Alex Mather,

You have some excellent points. Would like to have a private conversation on the subject if you don’t mind. donli at knowledgenotebook dot com

Thanks.

By: Jay Cuthrell

Jay Cuthrell — Sun, 10 May 2009 03:13:36 +0000

Regarding Linkedin Answers — that’s already the everyday application if they do 5 things and get out of this mode of being the alternative to experts-exchange, etc… instead they should be bold and forget the models of glorified phpBB and similar ilk

Okay, the 5 things (these will likely be a mix of code and people i.e. greater OPEX loading for the service)

1) improve screening and response to Q feedback (cesspool avoidance)

2) derive a metric for activity, scoring, and mandated rating to participate (tragedy of commons avoidance)

3) highlight a Q&A of the day that is -not- from a luminary or person of interest (generate a lottery mentality)

4) delete with extreme prejudice anything remotely resembling a non-Question (stop all the “please join my group” spams)

5) rework the interface for reading and scanning through questions with user acceptance testing with the heavyweight answer folks tempered with paid newbies (stop the proliferation of assuming what they have is working well — i.e. definition of a legacy system)

HT: I got here via Louis Gray’s FriendFeed

By: Bill Sempf

Bill Sempf — Sun, 10 May 2009 00:13:08 +0000

Don’t confuse the needs of free and for pay sites. Netflix and Freshbooks are “every coupla day sites” but they are subscription supported so they don’t care. Twitter and facebook are free, so they do.

Linkedin is a little both. How does it fit, then? Interesting, those that pay probably DO use it every day (recruiters and salespeople). The free people don’t (I sure don’t). How does that work? Needs more analysis from that angle.

I love the post though. Keep thinking on it – you are adding value to the web!

By: Hair Milk

Hair Milk — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:06:54 +0000

LinkedIn is definitely not a site I use everyday and I think it’s a great move that Hoffman has decided to take a strategic approach to the company.

I’ve been making more professional connections via Twitter, and I’m sure that wasn’t one of their primary goals when starting.

By: Tom Summit

Tom Summit — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:58:25 +0000

sorry, I actually didn’t make a point in that comment.
Point is they are probably spending dev time on the area that produces the most revenue, paying customers-which are corporate and third party recruiters.
For the majority of users, LI may only be interested that you keep your employment information up to date (yearly or every few years is ok) therefore the site is not designed to be an everyday app for most people.

By: Tom Summit

Tom Summit — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:43:41 +0000

LI has a lot of everyday users-headhunters. I use it everyday, all day.
Typical users are the product of LI They have a whole division writing recruiting applications that the casual users are not aware of.
As Tim Howland recently posted, LI feels like a game preserve.