Facebook, Path and Notportunities

I feel sorry for Path. After all, we've all done it - said to ourselves, "The thing I dont like about Facebook is.." We do it all the time, because frankly there is so much not to like!

But the danger starts when you say "Let's build something that is a like Facebook but includes THIS great feature..." You get a lot of money behind you and you build it.

That is what sadly happened with Path. Launched in 2010 with $2.5M of first round funding from Shawn Fanning, Ashton Kutcher and others, it lays all your activity out in a vertical path, to give the sense of life as a journey. Oh, it has other distinctives too, such as allowing a maximum of 50 friends, to emphasis the value of real friends, whose currency Facebook has devalued so evidently. But that isn't really a killer idea, and anyway Facebook has groups which can do much the same.

Of course people liked Path. But unfortunately so did Facebook! Enter Timeline, a flattering imitation. Suddenly the strategic opportunity is gone. Because it was never an opportunity at all, just the illusion of one (- a "notportunity"?).

There a lesson here. If you see a limitation in a mega-site like Facebook you have to ask yourself how fundamental a flaw it really is. No strategic idea that based around a design flaw is really a business opportunity. If your improved version succeeds, and people like it, it will soon fail because the big boy will imitate it. And all you will have left for your millions is the kudos of being the people who got Facebook to introduce Timeline... Be wary!

Any other examples of notportunities out there?

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