This post is going to have that awkward ‘haven’t blogged in a while’ feel about it. A bit like a one-night stand after 3 months celibacy.
I discovered fflick a few days ago. It aggregates people’s twitter-film-reviews, surfacing your friends’ ones – and does it very well. The best part is that these ‘reviews’ happen anyway, naturally. So no new behaviour is expected of you. You might know that I tend to appreciate that kind of thing. The people behind fflick sum it up beautifully in this headline on the about page:
You’re already a member – that is one powerful proposition. Boom! (as Sam would say)
If you’re the sort of person that “lives and breathes the web” or other such things, then the idea of aggregating existing behaviours in this way will barely cause you to shrug your shoulders. But for anyone tainted by the heavy brush of the marketing world, this should really be a slap in the face for you.
Many people in the marketing world are still controlled by the culture of ‘creation’ rather than the culture of enabling and aggregating. Personally, I think that using what is already happening is incredibly powerful. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes in recent months, from an Economist article about ‘re-using’ data:
‘Understanding’ turns out to be overrated.
The point – to contextualise that quote – is that for things like Fflick, it’s not necessary for the creators to understand the nuances of the data, simply that the data exists. Re-channeling existing data is one of the smartest things you can do to create value with practically zero barriers to entry for users. Simply give them a better way of benefiting from what they already enjoy.
This is very much about your mindset. Are you doing things that enable you to say “Hey, join our thing” or “Hey, you’re already a member”?
