Shopping in your Store

Short story on the evolution of libraries and stores

Before the 1800s, books were kept in libraries and bookstores, the librarian (and owner, usually the same person) would more or less know what books they have, and where they were.

As more and more books were kept in one place, you couldn’t rely on their memory. So the Dewey Decimal Classification was established so that librarians could organize their books, and customers walk in and have an easier time finding books by following conventions.

These conventions are heavily biased, because of the nature of the libraries they were created for. For example, Christianity holds 70 classes (#220-#289) in the system, while all Indian religions hold one (#294).

Amazon, eBay came along, and now Continue reading Shopping in your Store

Using Facebook’s Success Strategy

Did Facebook succeed because of exclusivity?

I don’t think so.

Facebook succeeded because of density.


Density for achieving Network Effect

And density is an important concept for products looking to achieve a the network effect.

Density in the sense that there are a lot of people, near each other, Continue reading Using Facebook’s Success Strategy