The phenomenon of unforeseen use cases
October 10th, 2006
Most people create applications with a particular use case in mind. Speaking from my experience, I like to meticulously plan things out by imagining exactly how users will react to and use new features. But, what a lot of people don’t realize is that intended use cases in Web 2.0 may be flipped upside down by your users. In most cases, this is a good thing.
Take the Facebook groups feature, for example. The creators probably thought that users would like to create groups for their clubs, friends, and activity partners. Groups would bring comradery to the web of weak links in a social network. As the developers left the drawing board, they probably had a very clear definition in their heads of how groups would be used.
Imagine their surprise when they found out that the most popular groups in Facebook have become rallying points for raising awareness for heavy hitting world and health issues. In fact, there is a group that has exploded to nearly half a million members in a few days called “For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur.” This all happened organically–Facebook never requested their users to do any of this.
This isn’t only happening at Facebook. Dogster, a social networking site for dogs and dog owners, allowed users to maintain a blog. The blogs were meant to be used by owners to let other owners keep in touch about their experiences with their pets. Instead, the owners are now blogging like they are the dogs themselves! Myspace, with the launch of their music features, exploded with music artists wanting to keep their fans up to date on their latest recordings and events. In both of these cases, the users took the creative tools and expressed themselves in surprising ways.
Many companies have met this phenomenon of unforeseen use cases by leaving their system as open to expression as possible. One of the best examples is Flickr, which allows for many creative uses via tagging, albums, and an easy-to-use open API. They never stand in the way of creative uses of their site–in fact, it’s encouraged.
Social web applications should never restrict users to doing one thing one way. Freedom of expression is paramount, and organic growth rules supreme. Successful companies out their will know how to channel this to their advantage.
Most people create applications with a particular use case in mind. Speaking from my experience, I like to meticulously plan things out by imagining exactly how users will react to and use new features. But, what a lot of people don’t realize is that intended use cases in Web 2.0 may be flipped upside down by your users. In most cases, this is a good thing.
Take the Facebook groups feature, for example. The creators probably thought that users would like to create groups for their clubs, friends, and activity partners. Groups would bring comradery to the web of weak links in a social network. As the developers left the drawing board, they probably had a very clear definition in their heads of how groups would be used.
Imagine their surprise when they found out that the most popular groups in Facebook have become rallying points for raising awareness for heavy hitting world and health issues. In fact, there is a group that has exploded to nearly half a million members in a few days called “For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur.” This all happened organically–Facebook never requested their users to do any of this.
This isn’t only happening at Facebook. Dogster, a social networking site for dogs and dog owners, allowed users to maintain a blog. The blogs were meant to be used by owners to let other owners keep in touch about their experiences with their pets. Instead, the owners are now blogging like they are the dogs themselves! Myspace, with the launch of their music features, exploded with music artists wanting to keep their fans up to date on their latest recordings and events. In both of these cases, the users took the creative tools and expressed themselves in surprising ways.
Many companies have met this phenomenon of unforeseen use cases by leaving their system as open to expression as possible. One of the best examples is Flickr, which allows for many creative uses via tagging, albums, and an easy-to-use open API. They never stand in the way of creative uses of their site–in fact, it’s encouraged.
Social web applications should never restrict users to doing one thing one way. Freedom of expression is paramount, and organic growth rules supreme. Successful companies out their will know how to channel this to their advantage.
