Minimum Viable Personality
avc.com
avc.com
I guess the point is to be memorable to at least a small group of people, rather than correct and bland and forgotten by all.
This blog post reads closer to something that I expect to see on a joke or casual chat forum than something I expect to see on a VC's blog.
Having said that, I also think the message is spot-on. In particular, I thought the advice under "How not be boring" was clear, simple, and compelling.
Another of Fred's posts a few days also had spot-on advice relevant to the HN community. It never made it to the front page: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3025690
This one being so much more successful illustrates one of three things: (1) the personality helped or (2) people think the content in this post is more interesting than that one was or (3) pg fixed the problem that makes it harder for items to reach the front page if they're submitted too early in the morning Pacific time.
In other words, if this were the personality of the blog (or, say, if Zed Shaw's online personality were the personality of the blog), online readers would have a different impression of Fred Wilson the VC.
This one being so much more successful
Only if the sole purpose of the blog was to get attention and create discussion as to the writing style of the blog.
That being said, I thought it was a thoughtful read with good points, and absolutely hilarious. I've spread it to 5 of my start-up friends who would get the Transformers reference already.
People love personality in products, like the MailChimp helping you along when creating your email newsletter, or w00ts hilarious product descriptions. Wufoo even does this by having a t-rex be the log in button and a title tag that says "RARRR!"
Apparently people really enjoy T-Rex's
His company doesn't have a trendy name, he doesn't really have a gimmick (other than being a clear and prolific and useful writer, which is not a gimmick), but he's reasonably celebrated.
In the context of this "don't just be useful, have personality" idea, what's his personality? It must exist, because the following that he's built points to it, but I can't identify it directly, sort of like a marketer who you've heard great things about but don't know where. (Obligatory xkcd comic link to be posted by someone else.)
Note: I'm not saying he has no personality, just that I can't point out what makes it come to the forefront, because it's subtle. I love the guy, but don't know why I love his site so much more than, say, jwz's. Maybe it's the implied profitability of his software business, versus the "I sell beer because I hate computers" message?
He makes things that explicitly help developers, whether its a bug tracking system, or a Q&A board for devs. In one column he says that a small software company or startup manager's job is to provide the illusion that developing software is all there is to do (all that matters).
Joel always brings in metaphors or stories from worlds outside development (only sometimes funny). Many stories still go back to the Army, or his first job at the bread factory, but the recurring stories make you feel like you know him, you know his past, his experience at Microsoft. You know his whole personality through his vast writing, and it's all masked in "clear and prolific and useful" writing.
You feel like he's an expert, because you didn't notice that he's always injecting personality, where, an example from AVC's comments is Mailchimp, who makes their entire brand about a single chimp.
It will be hard for Fog Creek to keep their brand after Joel leaves, but it won't be hard for Mailchimp
In an old essay on software specs [1] he states: one of the easiest ways to be funny is to be specific when it's not called for
I've noticed that he does this a lot. All the time. Sometimes too much, like in hginit.com, which I did not find that amusing. But most of the time he is spot on.
[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000033.html
It would probably be more readable with the ALL CAPS, but then it would lose its humor.
Universal Principles of Design calls it the uncanny valley: http://books.google.com/books?id=zXAx9_Y8GiEC&lpg=PA243&...
Making something that people care about is a goal, not a strategy.
But how does one launch a product with a personality? As a developer, not a designer, I'm at a loss...
I basically try to avoid squashing the personality. Just by not thinking like a PHB, or a corporate manager, I seem to avoid being bland. And I try to have fun as I'm developing something.
Also, its better to be personal than impersonal (contrary to what I was taught about writing essays).
Sell by saying who you are, not what you do.
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Copy-That-Sells-Revolutionary/dp/0...
woot.com is a great example of how to sell through persionality, and not by being a sales person, which doesn't seem to work as well on the net.