Tech Kindred

My work life revolves around creating great products.  Many software companies think about product development only in terms of features, markets, and price. I’m amazed that some companies actually create products without an opinion, without a point of view, without a stake in the ground.  They slap a bunch of features together, name it, and expect people to buy it because it addresses their pain. The product may not solve any user pain, but as long as it has a convincing story, the companies are content.  Instead of delivering value, they rely only on marketing glitz, market power, or aggressive sales tactics to hawk their wares.

However, successful product companies go beyond that.  They want to delight their users.  They want to create something that has a perspective beyond what potential buyers would say in a focus group.  Theses companies create an emotional connection with their users.  That connection buys companies a lot in terms of loyalty, even when they screw up.

My loyalty for Firefox started when I downloaded the first public release before 1.0.   Not only was it substantially faster and more lightweight feeling than IE, the little things were there.  I loved the tabs… I loved the extensibility.  And it had those features without the annoying ads that Opera put in the free version.  That engendered loyalty kept me using it throughout the last few years; even when the memory leak on Windows was awful; and even when I switched from Windows to OS X.

But, all good things come to an end.   The feeling that I had – that Firefox somehow resonated with me – is gone.  The latest build of Firefox crashes so much on Leopard it’s totally unusable for me.  I think my Firefox hates me, and loyalty can’t transcend such severe disdain. However, at the end of the day, my loyalty hasn’t shifted very far – I’m using Camino.