InfluxInsights succinctly breaks down five reasons why YouTube and Flickr are resonating with folks. Each of these five reasons played a major role in not just the success of high-tech businesses like YouTube and Flickr, but also in two high-touch businesses I’m very familiar with -- Whole Foods and Starbucks. In fact, I wish I could go back and add this list to my TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE book.
5 Reasons Why YouTube and Flickr are Successful
1| Do Something Better: Find a way or a better way …
2 |Believe in What You Do: Success is a by-product of doing good.
3 | Community is Everything: Listen to your community.
4 | Be Soulful: Even if you sell, like Flickr, don't sell your soul.
5 | Be Authentic: The lack of corporate polish adds to the feeling that there are real people behind the idea.
Mucho kudos to Mark Ramsey (hear2.0) for the heads up.
"In fact, I wish I could go back and add this list to my TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE book"
You will. For the second edition. I'm adding things for my 2nd edition.
Don't be stupid like me. Start taking notes now.
Posted by: Chuck Nyren | August 17, 2006 at 11:41 AM
Oy. SBUX stopped being soulful in the 90s. C'mon. They're coasting on rep now. Yes, they did previously undercapitalized coffee farmers huge goodness, but they're no longer the model to aim for. And lack of corporate polish... you guys blind?
Really. Stop already with bestowing sainthood on the mermaid. They had their time. It's downhill from here. Besides, if they concentrated on coffee and less on milkshakes, health insurance costs would go down and we'd make a step toward solving teen obesity.
Posted by: RichW | August 17, 2006 at 01:56 PM
Rich … sounds like you are reading a lot in-between the lines here. And your tangential riff placing some blame on Starbucks for America’s obesity epidemic seems out-of-place in this thread.
I will stand by my assertion above that SBUX has become the successful company it is today because they have, in some ways, followed the five business building blocks outlined in the InfluxInsights blog posting. Had they not followed those points, 40,000,000 of us wouldn’t visit SBUX each month. Dig?
Admittedly, I am pro-SBUX in many of my postings about the company that has meant so much to me as a person and as a marketer. However, I have also been quick to point the finger at SBUX for deviating from their comfortable home of coffee -- read see all my rants on their music and movies ventures.
Rich, I wish you and Aldo Coffee all the best in taking coffee to the next level. Show us all how coffee should be done.
johnmoore
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | August 17, 2006 at 09:00 PM
This is an excellent post. I would add only one item to the fantastic list of five reasons why You Tube and Flickr, and previously, Google and eBay. The founders of these great new companies didn't wait for permission to succeed. They had a bias for action. They recognized a need and they addressed it. Opportunity knocked. They answered.
Regarding the importance VCs investing in these upstarts, the writer makes an excellent point. Large established companies are constrained by their hierarchies and paradigms and are incapable of such breakneck innovation.
Posted by: Troy Worman | August 18, 2006 at 12:01 AM
John, those of us who were at Starbucks in the '90s know that it exemplifies the five points made by the post at influxinsights. But that is an aside--I don't believe any business that ignores these five reasons for success can maximize its potential, and both of us polished that business model while employed at a coffee company.
Posted by: Lewis Green | August 18, 2006 at 08:37 AM
Can someone define 'successful' for me? Sure, I am one of the millions of visitors but neither site has gotten a dime from me and neither have their advertisers. At least Whole Foods sells me something - but how does YouTube and Flickr make money in the short and long-term? Please help me understand!
Posted by: patmcgraw | August 21, 2006 at 12:32 PM
Success can be defined in making meaning more than making money. Just depends on how one defines 'success' in whatever context is being discussed.
With Yahoo! paying gobs of money for Flickr, that's one way to define its 'success.' With YouTube altering the game on how many of us see and share video online, that's another way to define 'success.'
Sure, neither Fickr or YouTube has a business model that makes money but they both have a model that makes meaning.
(Credit to Guy Kawasaki for all the "making meaning" chatter.)
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | August 21, 2006 at 01:24 PM