Comments on: No More Big Launches, Please

By: Chrome OS: Why now? Mischief and Communication

Chrome OS: Why now? Mischief and Communication — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:06:00 +0000

[...] 1. Google is announcing Chrome OS now because it wants to stop developers from using good-enough technology it has developed and instead to wait for better technology. A blog post on the Google blog is far more effective than any Big Campaign to call people on their little Google phones, or whatever the cognoscenti use now. (iPhones? Like I would know.) (See also, No More Big Launches, Please.) [...]

By: Wolfram Alpha so far, or, the Big Launch #fail risk

Wolfram Alpha so far, or, the Big Launch #fail risk — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:54:20 +0000

[...] was a Large Launch. Like I said recently, big launches don’t confront me any more. But Wolfram Alpha did quite well, with broad media coverage. The risk is that when everybody (who [...]

By: OTOH - What Big Launches Do Well

OTOH - What Big Launches Do Well — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:58:43 +0000

[...] noted recently that Big Launches are No Man’s Friend. On the other hand, though, the next day I got a taste of why they still happen and developed a [...]

By: Whit Andrews

Whit Andrews — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:16:24 +0000

Thanks for reading, guys. Esteban, you’re right — those Big Things I mentioned weren’t big when they started. Nor was Yahoo. Nor was Lycos. Nor was Alta Vista.

Hmmm.

By: Rob Robinson

Rob Robinson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:42:50 +0000

Great Post Whit – I agree with you – but the “Hype Launches” were so cool – but ultimately logic trumps emotion in business – at least in the long run.

By: Esteban Kolsky

Esteban Kolsky — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:59:30 +0000

Whit,

I cannot believe you missed the launch of Constellation. I was there, and I thought that we had just hit another mother lode for the internet age. It was magic… oh wait, that was the announcement of something else Microsoft was doing that year. I cannot recall,. they all ran pretty close to each other back then.

You make one good point but I take exception to one part of your post. You say that MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter had no launch. True, but they were not conceived as products for mass consumption. If I remember my history correctly, MyScape came about from several musicians who wanted to share their music legally and easily. Facebook was made for incoming students to know the old ones. Twitter was made — well, because it was cool to send SMS to several friends at the same time instead of one by one.

They all grew out of their original ideas driven by the people’s demand for such systems as they exist today. That was not the case for Constellation – or for Wave.

Wave, and Bing by extension, is about grown-up companies announcing their vision for the future. We have to have a party when someone announces how they are going to change the world — we always had and we always did.

I credit Google in their launch for coming up with a toolset for developers to create something more powerful out of the status quo. If you remember, they announced the other new “stuff” (wheel and contextual search) without much fanfare about a week or two earlier. This was an introduction to a new way to work for developers. Like you said, at least there was no truck.

Microsoft…. well, you have been around this teacup as long as I have. Microsoft always makes nice. When you try to figure out what the noise is about, they put the men behind the curtain, setup the mirrors and smoke machine, and get ready for the “release”.

You got something very right though. The launch is not the event, the eventual release of something useful is the event. Ask Netscape how the launch schedule is going… or should I say Oracle (ok, not yet – soon).