The Size Phallacy

Yes. Phallic. It is the perfect intro to this post. There is this hypnotic haze that clouds people's minds and you can lift that haze with pure logic. 

We have this view that huge, mega, market leader, invincible in one niche or market as a guarantee of success in other markets or niches. Why do we assume Google or Apple should be able to succeed with Social? Or Microsoft with so many Windows machines and war chest own the mobile screen too? Or Facebook will succeed with Deals or Location Based Services or Commerce?

Take a company and peel back their skin what is their core product/niche they own. Very few own more than one. Almost none own more than 2. In fact it would be an incredibly rare success for a company to pull off more than 2 massive successes. So the chances of what everyone assumes, such as with 700mil accounts Facebook has to succeed in monetizing this group, even in the face of all their failures. Look at Google's failures. Wave. G Phone.etc. Or the fact Microsoft got into mobile years and years ago seeing the future and yet failed to achieve their goals. Apple tried social.

Get that Phallic Mindset out of your head!

It is rare a Company actually can say 'I am so big I can crush you' see Microsoft IE vs Netscape case study. Notice Microsoft can't do that with Mobile. Get out of that mindset. Look for what is BEST IN CLASS and not what is BIGGEST IN CLASS. It is more likely Facebook will never succeed with Deals, Places, better Digital Ad Targeting, Monetization etc. They excel at growing their user base that likes to share some photos and stay in touch with little snippets of worthless information. They rock at that! But what else do they rock at? Not much.

And we all know that it is rare to have a massive dominator (Google Search v Bing)  vs many competitors. But even with search Google sees cracks in their dominance. Microsoft's browser dominance is over. And Facebook is experiencing this too now. Life Cycle is short in Social.

And that is good and ok. If you put all your eggs in Facebook you need to move some out. Look at the big picture. Continuously seek better ways to market, platforms that work, technologies that look promising that will help you achieve your goals.