I was recently introduced to SoundCloud, specifically, through the music of NathanQ
Now, while listening to the interesting dance beats of NathanQ, I also noticed the UI of the site.
In doing so, I realised it was a nice implementation of some of the ideas that I had been involved with while working on a project for one of my clients.
The soundcloud implementation was much simpler and lower function than our attempts and in thinking about it, I realised that it satisfied the requirements very cleanly. A bit like how twitter and facebook are both in the same space, but are trying to satisfy different levels of result.
To me(being older) I feel that twitter is more successful, at least in part because it IS simpler, and it could be that there is a lesson here. If you can’t get all of your ideas just right, step back, pick one aspect and try to satisfy that one aspect simply and cleanly.
Something to ponder.