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Comment by noahc | Hacker News Reader

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noahc·

It's hard to know what will disrupt them. But, it seems there is a formula.

1. Pick a niche (college kids)

2. Build what they want

3. Let it trickle down (high school) or up (grandma) or out (businesses) to gain mass.

So while we can't pick the winner, we know what the winner is going to do.

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While that approach obviously worked for Facebook, I think this is one of those areas where it's hard to pin down a "formula" that will work in every case without eventually having it be proven wrong in a big way. In this case, for example, it is conceivable (although maybe unlikely) that another major player such as Google or Facebook could disrupt Twitter by starting big. In other words, rather than targeting a niche until they gain mass, they could somehow leverage their existing mass to get ahead.

It may be possible but that approach usually fails. Most of the time disruptions grow organically.

It is interesting that you point that out. I had typed that out and then deleted it. Basically, Google is starting backwards with gmail being used by everyone and then trying to build what a particular niche wants.

I think the problem here is that when you start big and work backwards it's hard to build exactly what a particular niche wants. For example, starting backwards you never would have built the perfect tool for bands (myspace) or college kids (facebook) because you want it to have mass appeal.

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