December 7, 2005

The wisdom of the soft launch.

Lately, we've seen all too much of what a disaster it can be to make a big spectacle out of launching a new website with grandiose claims of major innovations and accomplishments that readers can't see on the page. It's refreshing to read a kind note of approval for a graceful soft launch.

2 comments:

D.E. Cloutier said...

ArtsJournal.com is demonstrating world-class PR skills with its approach.

TBMD said...

The PJ folks (I wish them well, even though I don't have the hit count to be an "official" PJM blog) want to take blogging corporate.

That's a different mentality from the figure-it-out as you go blogging perspective.

I think that you can still do the big, splashy, launch party. If you have the product to back it up.

In the IT world, this can only be determined by testing, testing, testing. Comparisons. Reviews. It's not like there aren't a kazillion websites to benchmark against - design, ease of use, attractiveness, match to business goals, etc.

It's probably a bad sign when you can't win a comparison to the HuffPo - Arianna promised lefty looneys, and delivered. HuffPo was well hyped, and hasn't (to my knowledge) generated reams of hand-wringing about not living up to the vision. Or deathpools.

PJ promised a new blogger business model, and hasn't.