Was this meant to be funny or demonstrate a lot of personality? (as in: you will endure all this rough English because the message is so important). I am probably not getting the humor but I found it an obnoxious read. All this to tell you "Don't be boring - do something different"? I could imagine a much better article on that topic.
This was the most helpful article I found on HN this week. Not joking either, I'm mucking about with product design for which this was spot on. And it was performed (I find no better word) with personality.
I think Spolsky does this best, even though I can't quite pin down how.<p>His company doesn't have a trendy name, he doesn't really have a gimmick (other than being a clear and prolific and useful writer, which is not a gimmick), but he's reasonably celebrated.<p>In the context of this "don't just be useful, have personality" idea, what's his personality? It must exist, because the following that he's built points to it, but I can't identify it directly, sort of like a marketer who you've heard great things about but don't know where. (Obligatory xkcd comic link to be posted by someone else.)<p>Note: I'm not saying he has no personality, just that I can't point out what makes it come to the forefront, because it's subtle. I love the guy, but don't know why I love his site so much more than, say, jwz's. Maybe it's the implied profitability of his software business, versus the "I sell beer because I hate computers" message?
People like a degree of anthropomorphism in, well, anything. But when designing things with personality, keep in mind that there's, what I call, a valley of creepiness which happens when you add too much realism. E.g. it's probably okay to have a coffee-machine that kind of looks like an animal, but it's not okay to have that coffee-machine defecate perfectly realistic pieces of shit on your carpet.<p>Universal Principles of Design calls it the uncanny valley: <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zXAx9_Y8GiEC&lpg=PA243&ots=1iPwewHla8&dq=universal%20principles%20of%20design&pg=PA243#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow">http://books.google.com/books?id=zXAx9_Y8GiEC&lpg=PA243&...</a>
I like the occasional "common sense" article as much as the next guy, but this was a little bit too obvious, vague, and uninformative. Make a product that is interesting that has meaning and people like. Wow, really? Wait, I've got a better strategy, that is even more straight to the point: Make money, get rich.<p>Making something that people care about is a goal, not a strategy.
I cannot begin to express how much this made me think. In preparation for my own launch coming up, I'm looking at it and wondering why I've spent so much time of Minimum Viable Product when the personality just won't cut it. The guys at Hipmunk posted something to this affect a while ago, but it didn't have the weight of this.<p>But how does one launch a product with a personality? As a developer, not a designer, I'm at a loss...
Totally love this article! Your company and your product have to BE ABOUT SOMETHING!!! Why should people care about you as opposed to the hundred of apps that launch everyday? You have to represent an idea. You have to represent possibilities.
This reminds me of this TED talk : <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...</a><p>Sell by saying who you are, not what you do.
"webcopy that sells" speaks about a lot of this, and other ideas on how to communicate to users.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Web-Copy-That-Sells-Revolutionary/dp/0814413048" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Web-Copy-That-Sells-Revolutionary/dp/0...</a><p>woot.com is a great example of how to sell through persionality, and not by being a sales person, which doesn't seem to work as well on the net.
How does this apply to Google search, Yahoo, Facebook, Dell, Asus, Intel, StackOverflow, Hacker News, Google News, YouTube, Kingston Memoriy, Seagate, Cisco, Verizon Superpages, C|Net, Twitter, FourSquare?