Web 2.0 Product Management: Optimizing Metrics and Viral Growth

As the Web continues to evolve and become more competitive, product managers need to master new skills to achieve success for their products. Product managers have always been responsible for understanding customer needs and the competition, articulating product strategy and requirements, and working with product development to launch great products.

However, with most consumer Web 2.0 products, the traditional lines between marketing and product management have become quite blurred. Both the product and the marketing of the product are delivered on the same web site, if not the same pages, and often cannot be separated. As a result, minor UI design changes can often yield significant improvements in business results.

In addition, Web products increasingly offer product managers more and more data that they should be using to optimize their product (because their competitors are). Finally, many Web 2.0 products have an intrinsic viral nature that, when understood and optimized, can lead to rapid user growth.

This presentation will cover best practices in Web 2.0 Product Management, including web metrics, UI design, and viral user growth.