marketing

I'm not posting much this week because (a) I've been working hard on personal projects so I'm tired, (b) I've been working hard on Scripps projects so I'm tired, and (c) well, I'm just tired.

Since Jack Lail brought it up first, now I'll mention the Evansville la

Scott Karp has been on a roll for a few months now.

Here's the rub with so-called Web 2.0 product development, in my eyes:

Most people who develop Internet products and services these days still do so based on their personal assumptions about what potential customers want.

Ask anyone with online experience who the standardbearers of Web 2.0 innovation are, and you'll hear, more often than not, one name: 37signals. It's the company that designed streamlined Web productivity services such as Basecamp, Backpack and Writeboard.

I like these guys, from what I know of them. The 37signals principals just plain build and launch stuff, believing others will be interested in it because they are. They proudly proclaim the simplicity and focus of their methods, and I admit the lack of distractions -- from market research, corporate stakeholders, downstream customers and such -- sounds refreshing.

No market research? Jason Fried says it himself: "research isn't our thing."

That's where I struggle. I wish I could be so confident that I know what customers want based on what I want. Much of what makes product development successful anywhere -- especially online -- is the right mix of two things:

• Instincts for understanding customer wants. Yes, I said wants. Forget about needs. Any true human need (I mean the basics such as shelter and health) that could reasonably be met by an Internet service probably already has been. Almost all product development I see these days aims at wants, many trivial.
• Almost religious reverence for learning from trial and error, and adapting while it's feasible. If you aim a product at a want, and find out you missed, adjusting your aim becomes more expensive as time passes.

I also believe well-conceived customer research hones those instincts up front, and keeps some trials from becoming errors. To me, customer development (aka research) leads to product development, which may or may not lead to business development. The business flows if the product actually satisfies the customer wants identified in research, and then only if the research revealed wants profound enough that their satisfaction is worth enough to enough people.

I haven't seen much from media and local search industry commentators, so I'm wondering if word got out very far: Gannett is buying Pl

I'm planning to write an essay for this journal and the e-newsletter, and I need your help.