Success and Copycats - Why It Just Doesn’t Work
It seems like every time that a product or service hits it big - like the iPod, MySpace, or Craig’s List, hundreds of other companies or individuals try to copy the idea. Most of the time copycat products never do as well as the original did. Yet, even when the copycat product improves on the idea, it still doesn’t seem to catch on in the same way that the original did.
How does this happen? Well the reasons for copycatting are obvious enough. If something is successful, then people want in on the money and the success. Then, the obvious thing that people do is take the original product and make it better and cheaper. Conventional wisdom says that this should work. However, it doesn’t work and a whole generation or two of so-called “iPod killers” has proved this. You can’t just slap on new features and unseat the iPod or MySpace or Craig’s List. It just won’t work!
Shouldn’t it work? No. It shouldn’t. People don’t think in terms of features. People think in terms of value, whether they realize it or not. For example, let’s look at the iPod. The iPod came out as probably the first really usable mp3 player. Sure, at the time there were CD-based mp3 players and maybe a hard drive based mp3 player or two, but none were nearly as usable. To this day most mp3 players still haven’t caught up to the iPod in terms of usability and that’s just one aspect of the iPod’s value. Then there’s the iTunes integration and the iTunes music store. iTunes wasn’t the first to have a music store, but it was the first to do it right and that’s why it’s a success. Between greed and sheer stupidity, no other company has yet to match the elegant simplicity of the iTunes music store matched with the iPod.
Now, there is the whole mess of would be MySpace and Craig’s List killers being talked about this year. Seemingly every company wants to take on one or both companies. It’s not just the big players either. In the last year I’ve heard a half dozen pitches from entrepreneur friends of mine for some spin-off idea of Craig’s List. College textbooks, garage sale listings, apartment listings, etc… Every one is generally some form of local paid listing site and every one is incredibly unoriginal.
It’s not to say that an unoriginal idea is a bad idea. In fact, an unoriginal idea done right can turn out great, but let’s be very honest. MySpace is really just the successor to Geocities, the late 90’s fad of having personal web pages, and the gaping hole left by mp3.com going bust. Blogs have taken over and MySpace’s blend of music marketing and photos of hot chicks seems to have won the spot at the top. They won’t be on top forever. In a few years something will take its place. However, to Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, The BBC, and every other would-be MySpace usurper I say this: The successor to MySpace will NOT be a MySpace clone. It will be an evolution of or a revoltuion against MySpace. It will look and feel different and it won’t make a huge impact for probably 3 years. If you want to be the next big thing, start working on something innovative and interesting that fills in the gaps that MySpace’s brand of social networking obviously has.
