Tuesday, May 27, 2008

• Xanga and Taco Bell

  Over the past year or two Xanga has added a ton of new features such as photo, video and audio hosting, pulse, Xanga tv, themes, messaging, etc. Many of these changes were embraced by the Xanga community while some were shunned. Eventually, Xanga even got rid of some of their newer features such as "nudges" and "boost" (anyone remember the newspaper?). Other features such as "networks" haven't seemed to have taken off quite yet, at least from my perspective, and I'm guessing the same may happen to them. So this leaves some people wondering, why create new features if some of them are flops? Isn't the constant addition of new features alienating those who appreciate Xanga's simplicity?

  But I think that introducing new features is a good idea. Why not keep the ones that work and ditch the ones that don't? One corporation that seems to take this philosophy to the extreme is Taco Bell...
  

  

  For example, a few days ago I went there for lunch and noticed they have a new "Get Your Grub On" value menu. A few weeks before that they were advertising their new gordita supreme and before that it was the  chicken quesadillas. The list goes on. Yet in a few years many of these new menu items will probably not even be available. In fact, I counted twenty-five discontinued menu items, including "the cheesarito" and "the bell beefer". Apparently these items never really took off, so Taco Bell took them off the menu. Yet some of their additions stuck and are successes to this day, such as the 7 layer burrito, the chalupa, the tostada and the mexican pizza. 
  

  In conclusion I think that introducing new features is usually a good idea. If the feature is a success Xanga can add it to its ever growing "menu". If the feature isn't a success we can let Xanga know and hopefully it will simply go the way of "the cheesarito" and "the bell beefer". Which reminds me, I'm hungry!
  

  • 11:34 AM
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