A while back I wrote a post about how Twitter had created an optimal relational field, fertile soil upon which others might grow vertical communities by adding a bit more structure.
By promoting an intuitive fairness, clarity in relationship dynamics and balance between control and freedom, it has managed to get the next phase of global connectedness just about right.
Since then, I have indeed observed not only the broad Twitter community continue to grow rapidly but the velocity of new communities sprouting on this field accelerate.
Now I would like to take a moment to focus on the other side of this equation and to discuss how these new communities might want to position themselves at least initially. If you are building social applications atop Twitter this might serve as some guidance…
Keep first iteration extremely simple and flexible. This trumps more features by a long shot.
Twitter is becoming huge by keeping their platform simple and flexible and the fierce loyalty of the community even in the face of the fail whale is a testament to this fact.
And, while many social media experts continue to flaw Twitter for not adding this bell or that whistle, new users keep showing up and old users keep coming back.
The people get it.
They have come to rightly adore and crave this simplicity so you can add features later once you have a viral product.
People are social and they want to connect on a field that provides structure but not too much structure, freedom but not chaos and clear and fair relational rules.
Define crisply a narrow service or vertical and do little more than make that one thing awesome and you will thrive by unobtrusively fostering communication and connection to your user’s delight.