The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that's how long it's going to take, guys. (via)
Most importantly: ignore every other source of “feedback” — competitors, reviewers, two-bit commentators, whatever. If what these other sources have to say matters, you’ll hear it from your market directly. If you don’t, what the other sources say is irrelevant. (via)
The analogy probably breaks down quickly, but the same basic idea applies to business software. Time after time I see developers delivering Cadillacs when Civics would have been acceptable. The business has no idea what the difference in cost is between a Civic and a Cadillac so, as any ignorant customer does, they smile, thank you, and walk away worrying that they got screwed. (via)
(#)“Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision for the web was all about universal access; and the technologies involved – such as HTTP and HTML – were designed to be platform and device agnostic; it shouldn’t matter what kind of technology you use to access the web.”