Friday, September 18, 2009

First Impression Management

It seems like every social networking service is full of bugs today. There seems to be this approach afoot of making changes on the fly without testing. Twitter seems to just throw up new loads willy-nilly to see if they work and pull them down when they don't. Suddenly text will be garbled across the screen, then it goes back to normal.

I'm not sure how I feel about that - coming from a "bullet-proof is the only option" background where we made sure our products were strong before showing them off, it seems very haphazard. Then again, nobody is scheduling surgery or controlling aircraft through twitter (yet) so perhaps you can get away with it. But it does erode the sense of a smooth, elegantly crafted-by-pros brand.

Then again, my service isn't even ready for prime-time, so I should talk. Fail early and fail often is the new mantra, but there is something to be said for making a good first impression as well.

Researchinator is a long way from a first impression, still...

No comments: