Another Quiet Day

Why Buying Kiko Would Be A Waste of 50 000 Dollars

There's a smell of desperation in Web-Land and this time it's a new kind of stink.

Kiko, a beautiful, visually-pleasing online calendar app is up for sale on Ebay (I'm not going to link to the ebay page, those things disappear in no time).

The bid starts at 50 000.

Now, the news of this development has been spread via the bleating of the usual herd of mutton-brains (just look up "Web 2.0 Koolaid Drinkers" in your mental dictionary and you'll find the top ten guilty parties) as well as some of the smart money.

However, Kiko isn't worth a thousand dollars, let alone fifty thousand.

First of all, there is no consideration of fundamentals in the design of there app. Feature-wise, it looks like something designed by engineers (as in "find an existing product and re-implement it").

To design a web app you need to consider the basic patterns of how the user engages with the web.

Then you need to consider the patterns of how the user uses the existing features of whatever application you're trying to create a web-based competitor to.

Pick one fundamental/basic pattern.

Design an app for that pattern.

Do it as well as you can.

Figure out a business model, if you can.

Release.

= The Five Steps of Web App Creation.

In the case of a calendaring service you'd have to break the modern calendaring app into its component parts.

Which, as far as I can tell (if I was paid to design a calendaring app I]d spend more than five minutes on this, of course) are:

An organiser.

Event management, co-ordination and alerts.

To compete in this arena, against Google Calendar and Outlook/watnot, you'd either create a kick-arse, easy-to-use web-based organiser or event manager.

With the right positioning and smart use/offering of apis you could even attract some of the fanatically loyal users of your competitors who'd use your app (do one fundamentally important thing well) to supplement theirs (do many things in one app just because tradition says so).

Although Kiko is relatively beautiful, something that is rare enough these days. Major points scored for that.

Still doesn't make it worth 50 000 dollars, although I do hope that they manage to sell it (how's that for cognitive dissonance?).

Update: Just so I'm clear. There's no way in hell that Kiko as a product can be successful in the web app marketplace without a serious redesign. The effort required is, in my opinion I should stress, substantial enough to render the existing code-base value-less. It'd be more of a hindrance than an asset. I'd hire their graphic designer, though.

Second Update: "Baldur Bjarnason doesn't think Kiko is worth $50 large. Maybe not, but what Web 2.0 company is worth the numbers people toss around?" Kent Newsome

True, I probably should cut the Kiko guys some slack for being both realistic and modest in these times of hype and hyperbole. After all, $50 large is a lot more reasonable than the billion dollar price tag for some of the social networks that has been bandied about recently.

Baldur Bjarnason – 17/8/06