One Memorable Quote, One Good Idea
When I returned from SMX East '09 this week, I asked myself -- what's the one quote I heard that stuck with me?
There were several contenders including CNN.com SEO guru Topher Kohan's "don't ever ask Google to figure something out that you can specify yourself." (General paraphrase there, I wasn't taking notes at the time.)
There was Danny Sullivan's "you guys suck" reference to Google, Yahoo and Bing representatives regarding lack of official press releases. (Although fun, it doesn't provide me much actionable insight.)
But I think my favorite was this gem from Ben Huh, Cheezburger Network CEO:
"Human nature has a tendency to admire complexity, but reward simplicity."
-- Ben Huh, Cheezburger Network CEO
That got me thinking, as new technologies are developed for our sites, are we asking the simple questions like "Does the user get it? Need it? Use it?" I've worked on media sites for going on 10 years, and I've seen my share of bells and whistles, but often they’re deployed with little regard for the user.
In fact, I was present for the mother of all poorly envisioned technologies, the Cue Cat, which served as a shining example of a technology that evoked the trifecta of "huh?" "why?" and "I'll pass."
Because weather is a prominent feature of most broadcast web sites on which I work, it was like a stick in the eye when I saw an entirely different angle on relevant weather coverage that left me asking, “Who doesn’t need that?” It included the required technologies, but only as a means to an end, not as the centerpiece of the offering. It focused on one idea, a simple universal need that rivals toothpaste or toilet paper. The site, listed on Rand Fishkin's review of "single-purpose homepages", immediately struck a chord with me.
UmbrellaToday.com delivers the one piece of weather information I need every day, offers it to me in multiple ways (web, sms, e-mail) and allows me to decide when and how often I get it. Oh, it offers one more very important thing ... nothing else.
So when it comes to the choice between Ben Huh's “admiration of complexity” vs. the “reward of simplicity” ... this concept exemplifies a keen combination that favors the later. And it prompts the knee-slapping question, "Damn, why didn't I think of that?”
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