Jared Spool on copying Amazon:
For a lot of products, such as alarm clocks, you’re only going to write a review if you have a negative experience. How does Amazon get people to write reviews? Most people don’t leave reviews. About 0.7% of people who buy something leave a review. But because Amazon has such a huge amount of customers, that equates to quite a lot. So the next time someone says, we should have reviews; that works really well for Amazon, you can respond with sure, we should have customers too; that works really well for Amazon.
It’s easy to build a product that copies other products, or run a business that mimics how another company does business. But do you add features just because the other product or company does it, or because you have customers that would use and love that feature?
The new feature may be good—it might be even be awesome—but having customers is good, too. Does your product or business attract and hold on to passionate customers?
(Via Adactio: Journal—Revealing Design Treasures from The Amazon.)
The Sensible Leader 