Method
How a positioning change is recorded
EarlyLore reads how a product describes itself on its public pages, and keeps that text with the page address and the date of the reading. A positioning change is a later confirmed reading that shows different public text. The record holds both readings. A conclusion about the market, the audience, or the reason for the edit stays outside the record.
What counts as the positioning text
The positioning observation uses public text on the product’s own site. Two lines carry most of the weight. The first is the title of the public page. The second is the headline that stays visible on the home page: the line a reader still sees after the page has settled.
A title that only appears inside a rotating carousel, or a title that is typed out and then replaced by animation, stays out of the positioning headline. Those lines move on their own while the offer stays put. EarlyLore keeps the headline that remains. The page title is still stored with the key page, under that page’s own observation date, so the document title and the stable headline can be read as two fields.
When the public page states who the product is for, that audience line is kept as its own quoted observation, with the source and the date. EarlyLore copies the line the page gave. A paraphrase that adds a market the page never named stays out of the field.
What each reading keeps
A positioning reading is useful only when a later reader can open the same page and find the same sentence, or see that the sentence has since moved. The source and the observation date make that check possible.
- Source
- The address of the public page that was read.
- Observation date
- The date of that reading.
- Page title
- The document title of that page, stored with the key page.
- Stable headline
- The headline that stays visible on the home page.
- Audience line
- Who the page says the product is for, when the page says it, in the page’s words.
Key public pages sit beside this text. The types EarlyLore keeps are home, pricing, features, docs, changelog, and blog. Each kept page has a title, an address, and an observation date. A page can be listed because it exists. Listing it does not assert that its message changed.
When a difference becomes a positioning change
One reading describes the page on one date. A positioning change needs a later reading of the same public page that shows a different stable headline or a different positioning text, and a further reading that shows that same difference again. A single disagreeing pass stays unconfirmed. Movement that comes from a carousel, a typed animation, or a first-screen flicker stays unconfirmed as well.
When the later confirmed reading has a line the earlier reading lacked, the earlier side is empty. When a line present earlier is absent later, the later side is empty. Empty is written down with the source and the date of the reading that found the absence.
This page states the method. A confirmed positioning change, once published, carries the earlier public text, the later public text, both observation dates, and the source address. The method is published here without a worked example, because a confirmed public example is not attached to this page.
Pricing, features, revenue, and traffic stay separate
A new headline often arrives in the same week as a new price or a new feature list. EarlyLore still stores them as separate observations. A pricing change is the difference in the price printed on the public pricing page, recorded only after a second read shows the same difference. That method is written on the pricing-change page. A feature change is a public difference in what the product says it does, with its own source and observation date.
Revenue evidence is recorded where the product or its maker has published it, with that source and that date. Where nothing has been published, the record says unpublished and leaves the figure blank. A headline that mentions growth, customers, or revenue does not become a revenue figure. The revenue field still requires the published evidence and its date.
Traffic is a monthly visit estimate from Vaneform. It is kept as traffic. A change in the public headline is not rewritten as a change in visits, and a change in visits is not rewritten as a new position in the market.
Where a conclusion goes
The observed fact is the public text and the date it was read. A conclusion is the next sentence: that the product entered a new market, that it is now aimed at a different buyer, that a price change followed from the new line, or that the edit will help the product succeed. EarlyLore leaves those sentences for the reader.
The record can sit beside a founder’s own note. The note can say what the reader infers. The change entry continues to say what the page showed, when it was read, and where to open it. EarlyLore helps a founder compare an idea with real products, public positioning, and source evidence. It does not promise that an idea will succeed.
How to read the record
Read the latest stable headline and page title to see how the product described itself at the last check. When a confirmed change exists, read the earlier text and the later text with both observation dates, then open the source and look at the live page. Keep the inference in a separate sentence so the observed line can be checked after the page moves again.
The same rule covers a pricing change: public text, source, observation date, and a second reading before the change is confirmed. The two records stay side by side because a founder often needs both, and because merging them would hide which fact was seen.