Product Bugle 12/8: Summer special 1
Nothing too taxing this week. A few product related snippets and links from around the place for you to graze on while either enjoying or hiding from the heat.
After a couple of ‘essay rich’ weeks I’m taking it easy this week - with just a few pointers to things you might find interesting during these hot and lazy August days. While reading, you might want to have this on in the background.
Android vs Apple: no Summer of Love here.
Well, this is interesting…Android trying to shame Apple into switching to the RCS messaging standard. Full story over at Techcrunch. Interesting to see where this one will land. But given being in the ‘blue bubble world’ is a big reason to be with Apple - why would they change? Out of the kindness of their own hearts? Because it’s the right thing to do? Hey - how long have we had to wait for a decent repair or battery replacement solution?
What type of PM are you?
In what feels like the Product equivalent of one of those Cosmo quizzes (younger readers might need some help with this reference). Are you: 1. The Academic 2. The Dreamer 3. The Detailed 4. The Artisan 5. The Energy. A bit of summer lightness from Aakash Gupta, which really needs to be turned into an interactive quiz.
Buying digital land is the ‘dumbest shit ever’
According to Mark Cuban speaking to Altcoin (reported in Fortune).
And values of virtual property seem to be down (along with values of everything else except useful stuff like food and fuel) according to Fortune.
At their peak on Nov. 21, 2021, the volume of land sales across some of the biggest metaverse platforms like the Sandbox, Decentraland, and Voxels was more than $60 million. As of Aug. 6 the volume of sales among the top five metaverse platforms was just over $150,000, according to WeMet, which tracks digital land sales. The average sale price for a plot of digital land has also decreased 81% to $5,930 as of last week compared to $32,191 on Nov. 21, 2021, according to WeMeta.
Also - some metaverse boosterism here; and for balance, some scepticism here.
Pearson’s NFT ‘plans’
So Pearson announces some results and the CEO, Andy Bird, starts talking about how NFTs are going to allow them to have a slice of the secondary market, which got lots of coverage.
“In the analogue world, a Pearson textbook was resold up to seven times, and we would only participate in the first sale….technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item as it goes through its life”.
Or as Input Magazine describes it:
Pearson plans NFT textbooks for resale profit extortion
Because what else is the blockchain for if not making money in a spectacularly underhanded fashion?
Well 1. my teeny brain can’t quite work out how that will work; 2. It might be better to think first how this could be beneficial to students; and 3. They don’t seem to have a solution yet - as a ‘spokesman’ had to explain/ back-pedal to Business Insider
"At this point, Pearson doesn't have specific plans related to this technology," a Pearson spokesperson told Insider. "However, we are certainly interested in how it can make learning better for students and bring more value for other stakeholders."
Spotify dabbles with ticketing
Reported by MusicAlly- interesting to see where this goes; although I’m more interested to see where they end up with Audiobooks, which they trumpeted in June.
Also from Spotify - they’re redone their home screen - splitting between Music and Podcasts and Shows (so I assume Audiobooks will be the next one).; and the ability to choose between Shuffle and Play is now a premium feature.
On Amazon’s writing style
A couple of bits about the world of writing at Amazon. First this from Nathan Baugh, which isn’t strictly accurate when it comes to doc structure (there’s lots of different structures depending on the specific purpose of the doc: a PR FAQ for a product is very different to a Quarterly Business Review). It is however, spot-on the specifics of the writing style. Repeat after me: No Weasel Words!*
And Charlotte Woffindin (the Amazon Doc Ninja!) has covered the doc review meeting - which is as much a part of the system as the document itself. I love this description..
The discussion is usually lively and challenging, yet respectful. The purpose of this review is to build on the initial idea, to shape a future vision that will excite the customer.
Oh yes - I remember plenty of' ‘Lively and challenging discussions’. I might come back to this in future weeks as cloning the Amazon system is almost certainly doomed to fail in most organisations; but understanding the intent and then adapting it has huge potential.
A/B Testing isn’t always the answer
This is a great little discussion on LinkedIn about a personal favourite topic of mine: where A/B tests are useful - and not so much. The split is really between big (test everything) and small (just get big quick) companies - but the truth I think is more about when you have to make a big bet (what I have called strategic priorities) you don’t have time time to build multiple variants or just focus on very controlled optimisations.
The last of my summer reads..
I’m finally getting round to The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen, which builds on his experience at Uber and life as a VC at A16Z to get under the skin of Network effects - and how to use them to grow your product. Still in the early stages, but a fascinatingly thorough coverage a topic that all too often just gets reduced to a buzzword.
As always - for the lazy among you, there’s a set of great book notes here.
Sad, to admit, I know - but I’m looking forward to Product Operations - Melissa Perri’s next book, done with Denise Tilles. The perfect Christmas present!!
In September I’ll be coming back to this..
I put this out there way back in June - when the sub numbers on this newsletter were about 30% of where they are now. I still like it as a framework, so will be coming back to it bit by bit in a series of mini-essays through September. I’m going to focus a lot on what ‘great’ looks like in each box - vs just ‘good enough’.
It wouldn’t be summer without..
In case you missed it at the top…
And who can resist..
Totally unrelated, but good to know
Domino’s didn’t work out in Italy…there is justice.
The world Excel championships have been televised!