Barriers to entry, or better yet, the lack of them, is one of the things I don't like about the web. It makes competition much less about execution and much more about randomness and luck. So I have often wondered if it would make sense for a website to create it's own competition. Actually, I have tried just that.
I am absolutely amazed that there is not a good business aggregator on the web. At least, there is none that I have seen that gives me the blend of information I like. They tend to lean heavily towards tech, even when they are supposed to be about business, or they tend to focus on stocks, which I don't care about. I've almost come to conclude that there is no demand for such a website.
On top of that, these "conversations" that people keep talking about in the blogosphere are hard to follow. Comments get left all over the place and I forget where I have said what and who responded and all that. I have always thought an aggregator site could fix that by allowing people to leave comments at a central place.
So last year we launched Jotzel as a "daily version of the Cotc. Traffic climbed steadily up to about 50 readers a day and then leveled off. I was surprised, but decided to give it some more time. The traffic stayed around 50 visitors. But then Jotzel got to host the CoTC and several hundred visitors came over a few days. Surely some would stay around I thought. The opportunity to comment, vote, create polls, expose your posts to greater traffic… this is what bloggers want right? Obviously not. 50, 50, 50, 50… the traffic stayed the same.
It is for admittedly selfish reasons that I want a site where everyone contributes news and posts that are only business related. I need this kind of site because I spend way too much time and look at way too many RSS feeds trying to find the good stuff. And the business posts that make it to the top of most general aggregators don't strike me as the best stuff. They are overwhelmingly slanted to business perspectives from web programmers and designers. So, I got this bright idea to grow traffic by creating Jotzel's competition.
I talked with Jay and Brian about it, and they thought it was a funny idea and decided to play along. The result, is Commercebucket, which is built on Pligg, an open source software package that seeks to model Digg.
As we were working with the new software, it opened my eyes to some of the problems with Jotzel. The site really lends itself more to original posts instead of links, and submission was complicated. Commercebucket makes it easy, and the link goes straight back to your blog, not to a post on the Commercebucket site. I like it so much more that we decided not to make the two sites compete, but just to kill off Jotzel and do something else with it. (I still like the name and want to keep it, so I am open to ideas) I never got to work on the competition thing, but I still wonder if it would work.
Commercebucket still has some issues. It only looks good in Firefox and IE7. We are working on a broader two column layout. If you poke around you may hit a database snag or two, but in general it works. You don't have to register to vote, but you do need to if you want to submit something. And unlike other aggregators, I would actually encourage you to submit your own stuff when you write something really good. The RSS feeds for the site work. You can choose from published, queued, or all articles.
If you have feedback, send me a note. All we are trying to do is get all the good business stuff in one place.
“Barriers to entry, or better yet, the lack of them, …makes competition much less about execution and much more about randomness and luck?” Hardly…
First, as barriers come down businesses are forced to really execute (many for the first time in their lives). Simply, a lack of barriers allows disappointed customers to defect more easily. That doesn’t happen where the barriers are higher (cable carriers, the DMV, etc.)
Second, there has always been a lot of randomness and luck in superior business results. But again as barriers come down that luck is more shortlived. That should make you happy.
Your problem with business blog aggerators is another kettle of fish.
Laurence,
That’s a good point and I think I should explain my thinking behind it a little more. I didn’t mean to imply that execution doesn’t matter – it certainly does matter. What I was thinking is that the winner among web site battles is often the beneficiary of some tipping point, and that while the tipping point itself is more than just luck, being the first to reach the tipping point has a large luck component.
For instance, the #1 reason that I think Digg was successful is it was the first site to post the Paris Hilton phone hack. The site had a few thousand members, one of them had the inside scoop on the hack and posted it. When people Googled it the next day, it was the first thing that came up. Digg picked up a ton of new readers that could just as easily have gone to one of the other sites if they had the post instead. Long-term, the best site may win, but they have to make it past the initial stages.
The truth is that I don’t care if someone wants to compete with Commercebucket. I wish someone would design a great biz aggregator so I don’t have to mess with it. The problem is that no one has so until then I’ll keep working to build one.
“the winner among web site battles is often the beneficiary of some tipping point, and that while the tipping point itself is more than just luck, being the first to reach the tipping point has a large luck component.”
Spot on and true in businesses beyond the web. That’s why you always have to remember that the “currently” successful may be nothing but lucky (or at least extremely lucky).
Actually, I think I’d propose a different approach. Given the lack of barriers and the rapidly-changing environment for eyeballs on websites, it isn’t entirely clear to me that focusing on the better mouse trap is the right approach.
Given the low costs of development and the (relative) ease of getting a product out, why not just go for a see-what-sticks approach? It certainly isn’t elegant or pretty, but given the payoff structure of the Internet, seems to be a better bet.
I’ve found R/K selection theory is a good way of looking at the internet landscape, tell me if you disagree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory
I recommend cocomment for keeping track of comments you’ve left on other blogs & elsewhere. Comment search is the new blog holy grail & I believe those guys may be the first to crack that code. The value truly is in teh conversation & it needs to be unlocked. I still think your personal networks will end up being the most productive agregators – check out mybloglog’s new relase that links together the community of readers & commenters on your blog.
Best of luck with Commerce Bucket – looks like you’re off to a great start.
Awww…the wizard has come out from behind the curtain! I was looking forward to waiting to see how long it took for people to realize that “Rob” was you. Regardless, I think we’re all looking forward to seeing how CommerceBucket evolves. It’s only been out there for a very short while, but I think we’re already attracting some good contributors.