Don’t forget to be ubiquitous

I’ve been waiting for something amazing to drop out of the Web 2.0 space. Since I have nothing but time lately, I’ve been beta testing anything I can get at. Hell, I even test drove Mister Wong dot com (Welcome, Dude!)

Wong didn’t do it for me. Spock (the people search engine) got closer. Pownce (don’t call it a twitter killer) may be there.

But regardless of the how tight the UE is, all of these apps have a huge usage gap for the early crowd. Once you set up your account and invite all your friends (6 at a time,) you really can’t do much until the app spreads out and hooks in.

Take Pownce. Here I am, a 33-year-old bloke with little to do. I can share my $1.29 DRM-free Interpol tracks. I just don’t have anyone to share them with.

It’s only a matter of time ’til Pownce hooks in. Garrick will change his mind. But not until it gains this ubiquitous thing everybody seems to be talking about (and decent RSS support - WTF?) Twitter found it’s ubiquity during SXSW (coincidentally, I think that’s also about the time Garrick changed his mind on Twitter.)

Ubiquity is what keeps Digg ahead of Digg clones. It’s what allowed me to tweet Kai’s birth weight rather than having to call my mother (my story, that’s how I’m telling it.) Ubiquity is what makes a social app social.

Developers forget that sometimes. Just look for the “I could have built it cheaper” comments sucking on to TechCrunch product reviews.

Until ubiquity goes open-source and freely-available, your attention to detail and others’ attention to you will continue to be the deciding factors in the success of your app. You can’t fake the former or the later.

Okay, break! Go friend me at Pownce. I’m still waiting to be amazed. (Need an invite? Leave a comment.)