say I'm working on a web app which has features that make it useful as a standalone product (i.e., it doesn't obtain its value from a community element or some sort of integration of user data from external sites). is it a must to have some sort of facebook/twitter/blog/whatever integration at launch to have a shot at success? it's obviously a bit of work to write and manage code hitting various external APIs, so I'd like to avoid it if I don't think it's a useful feature. I just wonder if not having this integration is some sort of sign to user that it's an amateurish product.
I admit I'm a bit biased, because I make very little use of social networking sites, so I'm not sure how to assess the value of these features. I can see potential value in terms of free advertising, e.g. pushing activity updates from my service to a user's twitter stream. but I just don't know how to guess whether anyone would actually use these features.<p>I know the answer is "maybe", but just wanted to get some opinions, or examples/counter-examples.
I think there are plenty of cases where social networking sites are unnecessary, even in a community... for example there isn't a 'post to twitter or fb' on stackoverflow every time you answer a question, the value is in the site its self. However there are many other sites that gain a little something extra by either having the option to authorize a login or share activity through social media (i.e. i think it's cool that pandora tells me that a friend likes an aritst when i'm listening).
Can you tell us a little more about the target market and maybe a little more about what the web app does... saying that it's "web 2.0" is pretty cliche and says absolutely nothing about the actual product.