Accidental discovery

It is one thing to develop a "Web 2.0" application. It is quite another to develop it so that it becomes self-sustaining through community adoption. As I pursued this line of thought I got to thinking about Web 2.0 applications and the comparison to the state of play inside many organizations.

Search and user generated content have been two factors that have transformed the Web and created a situation where there is now a stark contrast between the consumer and enterprise space. AOL and other internet companies may be in a different situation to the vast majority of major corporations simply because of the focus on delivering solutions for the Web. Consumer frustration is rising because capabilities that are increasingly taken for granted at home are out of reach, if not actively blocked, when at work.

In many corporations it is easier to find information on the Web than it is to find information inside the company. No wonder startups have the agility and resources to compete against established competitors.

Anyway, I digress. In many corporations the problem of "Intended Discovery" is still being grappled with. By this I mean providing the tools and services to allow employees to find documents that comprise the institutional knowledgebase. At the same time I believe the Web has evolved beyond Intended Discovery to "Accidental Discovery". The ability to uncover associations and inferences across the entire web is enabling consumers to achieve a new level of knowledge. This in turn leads to new insights and understanding.

Why is this relevant? I believe it is simply this: As developers create new web-based applications and services it is important to create hooks that enable Accidental Discovery. These hooks help to entice users back to a service. As an example, look at Twitter. Twitter has become a compulsive service for many. It is described by some as the 140 character blog. I believe that a component in the success of twitter was their public timeline. This feature is an avenue to accidental discovery for twitter users. It can cause new twitter feeds to be subscribed to. This fuels more use of the service.

Laser focus and the virtuous accident

As new applications are developed, the focus may be on providing laser-like accuracy of search, allowing people to get to what they want faster. This is understandable, but if we want to fuel the growth of a service we must allow for the virtuous accident of slightly off topic results. We need to allow our users to experience accidental discoveries that may take them in a new direction in the use of the services we build.

What are your thoughts on Accidental Discovery? Can you think of other great examples beyond Twitter's public timeline? Create an accidental discovery right here, by contributing a comment below with an example that you have found.