Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Vertical search space

"The ads revenue arbitrage in just letting consumers discover content via search is dead" Really?

Coming up with a vertical search engine on Flash Games has been on my mind since some days. I am convinced that there is a real need for such a search engine. Getting users there favorite game, w/o going through multiple portals.

until I read this:

http://www.alootechie.com/?q=content/lessons-learnt-failures-gamecurry-youcharades-gamewokcom-alok-kejriwal

The site launched in mid 2008 and we promoted the service extensively using our own network, etc.

The concept was a massive failure. Nobody seemed to return after using the site once and there was no viral traffic being built up. The worst part was that a service intended to help consumers was being spurned so badly. Much later we figured out that kids don’t search for games on search sites – they like to ‘stumble upon’ them.

We failed at this project but learnt an important lesson all entrepreneurs must imbibe –

Even before you create an amazing solution, ask your consumers if they even want it? Your consumers will not use something made ‘easy’ if they never had a problem in the first place!


Something I need to remember when I start my Version 1.0 product.

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