What the evolution of shoes means for web apps

I find Tim’s breakdown of the evolution of shoe design and marketing strangely fascinating. According to Tim, there are three basic ways that the shoe has evolved, and each is still very much relevant today. First, Adidas realized that there was a market for shoe technology that enabled better athletic performance. Then Tinker Hatfield at Nike realized that there was another market for shoes that expressed the personality of superstar athletes, Michael Jordan being the first and greatest example. Tinker says that “Once people … knew that there was some of his personality in every one of his shoes, that worked.” Lastly, the new frontier is consumers designing their own shoes, incorporating their own personalities. The evolution of shoes has direct parallels to many products’ evolutions, from t-shirts to web apps. For instance, is your web app allowing people to completely customize their experience, or is this a “fancy” feature you are ignoring?