There has been a flurry of interesting consumer products that have made a name for themselves in 2009: Foursquare, Gowalla, Plancast, Dropbox, to name a few.  What I have found particularly interesting about these products, is they are (1) changing user behavior and (2) generating offline conversations.

Changing User Behavior

When you walk into a restaurant now, it’s natural to ‘check-in’ on Foursquare OR Gowalla.  If you have used Dropbox, they are changing the way people collaborate and share documents.  Prior to Dropbox, you might have emailed yourself the docs that you have created.

In my opinion, most consumer media sites built by startup companies fail because they can’t figure out how to change behavior.  It is a difficult problem that I, as a founder, am trying to solve for.

So here’s how we’re looking at it (advice given by one of our advisors).  Ask yourself:

• What problem are you solving for?
• What behavior change are you trying to make?
• If you’re a consumer app/site, what single action do you want people to take?

Foursquare is check-in.  Gowalla is check-in. Plancast is sharing what you’re planning to do. Twitter is sharing “What’s happening”?  Get people to do that one action.  Be maniacally focused on getting it right.  If you can’t get people to do that one action you want them to do, that you came up with, try something else.

Generating offline conversation

Once you figure out how to change user behavior, you need to get people talking about your app, not online, but offline (ie in the real world).

It’s always amazing to see which apps on the iPhone emerge and create attention.  I’m not talking about the IMDB app, or Facebook app, where there is an iconic brand who has created the app, I’m talking about the “Joe-Shmo” app that you’ve never heard of that is killing it in the app store.  Obviously getting featured on the app store helps, but the apps that are really delivering value are the ones where you find yourself talking about the app offline.

Scenario #1: No one is using the app except you

Guy: [walking into the restaurant with friends. Opens up Foursquare]

Friend of Guy: What are you doing?

Guy: I’m checking in to Foursquare.

Friend of Guy: What’s Foursquare? (and so forth)

Scenario #2: Your friends are using the app already

Jack: Sweet, I just a new badge.

Jill: What badge did you just get?

Jack: Super User.  How many badges do you have?

Jill: Just 2.

In scenario #1, because of word-of-mouth, the app will most likely get another install.  In scenario #2, you’ll get more usage from friends because the product they created has generated a little bit of competition.  As a result, for both Jack and Jill, usage will increase.

So the question is - what user behavior change and offline conversation are you trying to create?