Steve Jobs Helps BlogClout Find Focus

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Steve Jobs on Focus:

“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

“I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don’t put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market’s going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won’t really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn’t have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn’t have seen it coming.”

(This is a long post… but you deserve an explanation on what is up with BlogClout…)A 

Not posting consistently is the biggest mistake a blogger can make.A  Because when you don’t post consistently, most people don’t complain.A  They just leave.A  And to get these people, you have to work harder than before.

So then why am I not posting consistently over here at BlogClout?A  It has to do with Steve Jobs’s advice.A  Let me explain the whole situation to you:

1.

This blog was started to pre-launch a new blog application.A  I was working on an application similar to “BlogRush” where you could exchange links to blog posts by other bloggers.A  But internal tests showed that the click through rate for the application was dismal.

So I and my team started working on how to improve the click through rate.A  We were testing a feature where the links shown on your blog would be “relevant” - our logarithm would match the title of your page with blog post titles.A  And show only those blog posts that matched well with your page title.

We were also testing on making the post links integrate well with each and every blog.A  Instead of coming out with a widget, we intended to replace the “Related Posts” feature that many blogs have.

But while we were working on these features, John Reese went ahead and came out with BlogRush.A  (It was just one of those things… 2 people on 2 different ends of the world working on a similar idea… and he beat me to it.)

Its my opinion that there is no place for a second BlogRush.A  And so the BlogClout application was scrapped.

2.

After the launch of a competing application, we scrapped the launch of our BlogClout application.A  But I kept this blog going on for some time (and the response was pretty good).A  The problem was… all the initial motivation was gone.

And better projects attracted my attention.

I needed to focus on those other projects (especially one other project that shows great potential and I think will help more people than I could ever help with BlogClout).A  And so I gave very little time to BlogClout.

3.

Good news: The project I’ve been working on since the past few months is about to be launched in the next couple of weeks time.

4.

So what will happen to BlogClout?

After the launch of the other project, I should have some more free time.A  And I plan to pick things up with BlogClout.A  And share some very new cool ideas that I’ve tested that I know no one else is talking about.

But this time, I plan to do things well.A  I plan to bring on another blogger to write for BlogClout.A  So that you’ll have a wider base of ideas.A  And you’ll never be left in a lurch if my attention goes to some other project in the future too.

Action Summary:

If you run a blog and always wanted to share your blogging successes and failures, contact me.A  I am looking for one or two co-bloggers for BlogClout.A  (Its a paid position.)

If you liked this post, buy me a beer. (Suggested: $3 a beer or $7.5 for a pitcher)

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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Misc on 07 Mar 2008

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