Fresh Perspectives
Consulting Practice Director
Leigh Marriner leads Cheskin’s business consulting and market opportunity assessment work and has an impressive background in technology, as well as consumer packaged goods. Leigh has worked with a variety of companies including Microsoft, Apple, Kodak, Paramount, zing.com, Maxis, Symantec, Hewlett-Packard, Rand McNally, LucasArts, Children’s Television Workshop, Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, and Prodigy. In addition to her role at Cheskin, Leigh co-taught the Entrepreneurship course in the MBA program at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley during 2002-2003.
23 March 2008
Remember “The Year of the Internet”? It was predicted year after year until it became a joke. But look where we are now. Who could imagine life without the Internet? (I know that’s a little bit of an overstatement, but not much.)
Maybe we are at the beginning of the Year of Technology Simplicity. Or the Year of Technology Where Easy Trumps More Features. Here at Cheskin we’ve been telling our clients for years that consumers and workers want fewer features because technology is too complex and even those consumers who use the technology only access a minority of the features that already exist. And this year we’ve seen some simpler products that became big hits.
The Nintendo Wii expanded the market for video gaming to a whole new group of consumers who never played videogames, leaving most of the traditional videogame world wondering how they missed this opportunity. Hindsight is so useful, but prior to the release of Wii, most pundits predicted that Nintendo was going to continue to lose share because they were planning to introduce a product with inferior chip and graphics technology.
Then there’s the new Flip camcorder which was glowingly reviewed by David Pogue this week in the New York Times. Flip is a stripped down video recorder with a user’s manual one paragraph long which has taken 13 percent share of the camcorder market in the year since its release. I would venture a guess that the Flip hasn’t taken much share from the existing camcorder market but has expanded the market to a whole new group of consumers who would never have bought a camcorder before.
I’ve got a couple free suggestions for technology products I’d love to see simplified. What about a TV/DVR/DVD player set up that let’s the frustrated user in the home access the most basic features with only one remote control (turn on the TV, play a DVD, choose a show to watch). How about an easy way to sort and backup all your photos online, and send selected photos to friends? (A lot of companies are trying, but so far I don’t think anyone has succeeded in making it truly idiot-proof. I have friends who still buy a new memory card when they run out of space.) How about a car navigation system that can find the nearest Peet’s coffee in the direction I am traveling, instead of giving me the stores that are closest to where I am?
If you have a wish list for simpler technology, let me know.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
12 February 2008
In my blog a couple weeks ago, I said that The New York Times reported that “Google disclosed that it received more traffic from iPhones this Christmas than from any other mobile device, despite owning only 2 percent of the smartphone market and less than 1 percent of the overall mobile-phone market.”
Similarly, surveys by Yankee Group, show that only 13 percent of cellphone users in North America use their phones to surf the Web more than once a month, while 70 percent of computer users view Web sites every day.
On most mobile phones, the user experience is a disaster. While many phones have some form of Web access, most are hard to use--just finding a place to type in a Web address can be a challenge. And once you find it, most Web content doesn't look very good on cellphone screens. The iPhone offers a much more compelling user experience.
There is a lot of speculation that at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona opening yesterday, there will be multiple announcements of competitors trying to take on the iPhone. Some will be built on the Android platform from Google, or other open platforms like Zumobi. But the easiest way to produce a breakthrough user experience is with a closed system, as Apple has done with iPod/iTunes and the iPhone, where AT&T gave Apple complete control over the user interface on the iPhone. Although this move was counter to everything else the US mobile operators have done in their attempts to protect their revenue stream, it proved to be a smart move given the momentum of the iPhone and the new users AT&T has picked up. The popularity of hacks to the iPhone allowing it to be used on other mobile networks attests to user desire to have the benefits of the iPhone.
Part of the reason there is broader access to web content on cell phones in Europe and Asia is that their mobile carriers have been willing to share the revenue more equally with 3rd party providers and have not demanded they totally control the user access to the web, the way most US mobile operators have. In China, the world's largest mobile market, more than a third of mobile phone owners, use their handsets to listen to music, more than in Britain or the United States.
Maybe one day the US operators will realize that putting the consumer experience first can actually win them customers. Otherwise they’ll be bypassed by the likes of Google and Android.
Posted in
by Leigh Marriner
12 February 2008
Esther Dyson’s article today on the Coming Ad Revolution talks about new online advertising startups using behavioral targeting to offer targeted ad services keyed to web sites users have visited. This raises the specter of Big Brother watching everything you do, but as Esther says, “The discussion about privacy is changing as users take control over their own online data. While they spread their Web presence, these users are not looking for privacy, but for recognition as individuals.”
The new, younger generation of social networking and blog users doesn’t have the same fears about privacy. Many aren’t worried about putting personal information online. They feel comfortable controlling access to their information by deciding which “friends” they give permission to. If someone they don’t want to interact with starts bothering them, they can cut off access – much more easily than in the physical world where it’s hard to shake someone who has your phone number.
Many over 35ers still think about online privacy in the context of protecting children from predators. But online privacy is a completely different issue for 20-something adults.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner
1 February 2008
The biggest change the iPhone will introduce will not be playing music on your cell phone or looking at photos, but a much greater US consumer use of the Internet from a mobile device. For the first time, consumers can experience a usable connection to the Internet – usable not only in terms of speed (which could still be improved) but also in getting the information you want easily. Apple once again looked at what the user wants to accomplish and then built an end-to-end user experience that was satisfying. As with iPod/iTunes, Apple wasn’t the first to offer a solution – they just built one that was easy and worked. Many SmartPhones have offered Internet access for years, but the interface is clunky, often you can’t find what you’re looking for in a tolerable amount of time, and web pages aren’t formatted for the small screen. Offerings like Yahoo! Go 2.0 have made a good stab at offering certain kinds of information, but are still limited.
The New York Times reported that “Google disclosed that it received more traffic from iPhones this Christmas than from any other mobile device, despite owning only 2 percent of the smartphone market and less than 1 percent of the overall mobile-phone market.”
So we’re finally starting to see the effect a well-designed mobile Internet connection can have in the US. People will be using their phones for activities previously done on their PC.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner
31 January 2008
There is a lot of hype suddenly about touch screens, as a result of the launch of the Apple iPhone. But touch screens have been around for a long time - pressing digital buttons on an information kiosk is nothing new. What really changes the consumer experience is being able to use natural gestures to interact with a computer or mobile device. Although they may sound similar, there is a big difference between the HP TouchSmart PC which allows you to touch a photo and drag it across the screen, and the Microsoft Surface. On the Surface you can gesture through pages of text or graphics, draw on the screen, or turn photos around with your finger. In a similar way, you can change the size of your photo on an iPhone or Surface by moving your fingers apart, a natural movement.
The Tablet PC never really took off, despite the wonderful ability to be able to write or draw on the screen and capture the data. I think the reason is more due to the fact that the laptops were too hot to rest comfortably on your lap, the file sizes were huge, and handwriting wasn’t convertible into editable text, rather than a lack of consumer interest in its functionality.
Whether the Microsoft Surface succeeds as a stand-alone product, I think we will see its functionality incorporated into PCs of the future. It’s far more natural to gesture on a screen than to use a mouse or click pad.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner
3 August 2007
Lenovo has just announced a $199 PC aimed at China's vast but poor rural market. In emerging markets, it’s really a question about whether people will need a PC, as mobile phones pick up more and more ability to access the internet, do banking, get info (e.g. crop prices), etc. In India, the number of PCs connected to the internet are <5% of the number of mobile phones. Some mobile operators are talking about mobile service being free if the user accepts ads, so that makes a mobile phone even more accessible for the poor.
It’s certainly true that people want to give their kids a leg up on school by having a PC. But $199 is still a lot for the rural poor. It will be interesting to see how sales of low-priced PCs go, now and in 2-3 years when the mobile internet connections are more fully developed.
Posted in
by Leigh Marriner
21 July 2007
CNET News.com’s article a couple days ago reminds me of how much we at Cheskin take for granted our insight into teen technology behavior. We’ve been watching teen use of email declining, starting in South Korea some years ago and then spreading eventually to the US. Teens declining use of email doesn’t seem like new news.
The real story is also not a new story. Social networks only work if your friends are using the network – whether that be the landline phone, the cell phone, email, MySpace, Facebook, text messaging or whatever. And teens are fickle and are followers as a characteristic of their lifestage – they’re supposed to be more open to trying new things, be less risk averse, and more connected to what their friends are doing. So fashions tend to move and fade faster with many teens than with other lifestage groups. [This is a generalization - Cheskin has done a teen segmentation which highlights which groups of teens personify this “typical” teen behavior.] And since being part of a social network is so critical for teens, we see rich development in networking behavior. Teen’s core behavior hasn’t changed, just their method.
Teens have moved away from communicating by email, except with their parents, colleges, work, and for shopping, because their friends aren’t checking frequently. An additional appeal of a social networking site like MySpace was that for awhile adults didn’t understand it and weren’t using the site – which made it like a private teen clubhouse. Part of the impetus to move to Facebook was that it was originally limited to college, and then added high school students, as MySpace became more broadly used.
There are certainly disadvantages to using social networking sites versus email – you can’t send attachments, you need to open a profile before sending a message, and some profiles load slowly. But those disadvantages aren’t determinative if Facebook is where your friends are. Facebook recently opened up to hooking in applications, so you can do things like pull in YouTube videos to your profile, which addresses some of the most important teen needs for attachments. And kids will continue to move as the next best thing comes up.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner
30 May 2007
Congratulations to Microsoft for launching this cool new product. It’s an acrylic tabletop with an embedded 30 inch screen. You interact with it through hand gestures. It can recognize small objects such as a digital camera with WiFi and download photos to the table surface, where you can sort them by pushing them around the table with your hands.
It’s been fun to be involved with Microsoft on this innovation effort – brainstorming, understanding the consumer experience, and helping identify market opportunities.
Posted in
Innovation & Design
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
23 April 2007
I’ve been puzzled when I talk with teenagers and they say they’re not going out with someone – although they spend hours at each other’s houses and on the phone, go to the prom together, and stop to see the other one on their way home from the airport when they come back from vacation. But they’re not “going out”.
It’s a fascinating example of the way technology influences how people see themselves and how they perceive the world. We’ve all heard about teens hooking up in casual relationships, but “not going out” has nothing to do with hooking up. It turns out that a teenager is “going out” when they indicate on their Facebook page that they are “in a relationship”, and not before. The baggage that goes along with going out is that you have to officially break up at some point, as opposed to just letting things take their course.
In 6th grade, kids are “going out” if the boy asks the girl if she will go out with him and she says yes. And that is the end of the story. Nothing else required.
Cultural anthropology in our own backyard.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
10 April 2007
Mac sales have picked up since the success of the iPod. But a closer look at the data is interesting. Mac market share fell about 0.2% per year from 1998 to 2003 in the US. The iPod was launched in 2001, but didn’t really take off until 2004. From 2003 to 2006 Mac has gained 0.4% market share each year.
Since the iPod launch, the incremental Mac sales over the 2001 baseline rate have consistently been about 10% of iPod sales. In other words, about 10% of iPod owners who were exposed to the iPod/iTunes user experience liked it enough to transfer that desire for a similar experience into a Mac purchase. Macs still have less than a 5% US market share, but the trend line is climbing a mountain. And with the new Macs that run Vista, a lot of people who bought Windows-based PCs because of work may make a different tradeoff in the future.
Here at Cheskin we know that designing a meaningful customer experience that connects with consumers in an authentic, transparent way generates passionate loyalty. A great experience creates value. And Apple is showing how that value can spread beyond the initial experience into other products associated with the brand.
Although consumers aren’t as brand-loyal as they used to be, since there are so many consumer-to-consumer sources of information on the web, a great experience will lead consumers to at least investigate other products from the same brand or company. In this era of declining efficiency of marketing expenditures, creating a meaningful customer experience has a big payoff.
Posted in
Meaningful Experience
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
26 March 2007
The AMA's Marketing News has a cover story on innovation in the February 1, 2007 issue. This point of view is upheld by what we have discovered in our client work. Line extensions do not lead to real innovation. True innovation means designing a product that delivers significant new value to the customer. And success is first and foremost a function of senior management, not just R&D and Marketing. The culture has to embrace innovation and what comes with it – risk, uncertainty and failure. A few of our observations about successful innovation:
1) Being afraid to fail and not embracing risk stifles innovation. You need to be willing to go in the wrong direction in order to be open to true innovation as opposed to product extensions
2) Stage-gate processes need to be modified to allow true innovation to flourish. You can’t come up with reliable numbers that will pass the stage-gate process early in a true innovation process. Stage-gate processes push products into an existing mold. While it’s important to have some method to make rational go/no go decisions before too much is invested, a company needs to be willing to pursue questionable ideas for some time in order to be able to show potential if it exists. Truly new ideas often look wacky at first.
3) Often truly new ideas come from outside a company, not just from the R&D facility. Companies that manage to avoid an NIH mentality have an advantage.
4) True innovation need not be based just on core product innovation. Starbucks has shown that consumers’ emotional experience can create innovation. Orange Glo showed that a customer’s experience with a cleaning product can create a truly innovative experience, even though the underlying cleaning technology isn’t new. Although the Prius represents new technology, the reason it is so successful is due to emotional considerations – a substantial consumer segment care enough about being (and being seen as) environmentally conscious to make that a primary purchase criterion for their car.
Posted in
Innovation & Design
by Leigh Marriner, 1 comments
20 March 2007
Yesterday’s New York Times had a story by David Carr about Assignment Zero, a new collaboration between Wired magazine and an experimental journalism site at NYU. The idea is to apply to journalism the same open-source model as Linux and Wikipedia. Very interesting, but this has been happening for several years.
The best Katrina photos and videos shown on major TV networks were user-generated. MetroBlogging is a wireless blogging service in 43 worldwide cities that lets bloggers post first-person accounts of news events, like the July 2005 London bombings. There is also an online newspaper in Asia that has been successful using only user-generated content. I believe readers vote on the content and payment is made for the most desired content.
Web 2.0 and user-generated content can edge out old media with the volunteer labor of amateurs who are rewarded by peer acknowledgement and the satisfaction of seeing their work used. Before Web 2.0, group communication was limited to geeks. We’re just beginning to realize how productive the hive can be and how powerful it is when it swarms in a particular direction. Take a couple examples: 1) Mash-ups are allowing people to weave applications together and create information that people want. E.g. Platial lets users create meaningful maps by associating information tags such as restaurant locations. Other mash-ups associate information with photos so you can look for a town in Mexico and see what others have liked there. 2) Social search is becoming a reality in many different blogs and communities that leverage recommendations from like minds. The challenge is finding the right communities, blogs and RSS feeds to target 3) The opinions of a large number of “normal” people can better predict outcomes than experts.
I think the challenge of journalism will become more a matter of editing and selecting the information to present from a wide range of sources, reporters being only one of them. What readers want from a newspaper or information site is intelligently presented sifting of the masses of information out there, coming from an identified point of view.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
15 March 2007
Will Marc Andreessen succeed with Ning, which plans to make it easy for anyone, including adults, to set up their own social networking sites? Is online social networking a function of lifestage or is Gen Y just introducing the other generations to a behavior that many of us will adopt?
Why do teens use MySpace and Facebook so heavily? These have replaced email and even IM to some extent, as teens’ preferred way to communicate with their social group and to find out what’s going on (hot new music, who was at what parties, etc.) For teens, the meaningful experiences delivered by social networking sites are Connection and Knowledge.
Adults may not have the same intense need for Connection with a large social group as teens, but easier access to a social network in an area of particular interest is appealing because it helps us wade through the growing morass of available information. And it helps people connect with people of like interests. Personally, I’d much rather get a San Francisco restaurant recommendation from people who are foodies than from Zagat, which may have started out that way but now publishes the scores from too broad a range of people to be reliable. To take another example, American parents who adopt a Chinese baby would like to share with others trying to raise their daughter in two cultures. Much of this kind of connection now happens on blogs, but I would expect the social networking tools provided by suppliers like Ning will make the experience more enjoyable and easier to navigate.
Adults will gravitate toward social networking sites, to a lesser extent than teens, but still in significant numbers. While the Korean social networking site CyWorld is used by 90% of 24-29 year-olds, it’s also used by 40% of the entire population.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 4 comments
13 March 2007
Teens and young adults are leaders in almost all uses of consumer technology. Looking at the technology behavior of Gen Y (those age 6-26 born between 1980 and 2000), you can tell a lot about what will be mainstream in a few years. The big unknown is which of those behaviors are a function of lifestage (teens and young adults) and which are behaviors that the whole generation will carry with them as they age. Will Gen Y still IM relentlessly when they are 40? Will they use social networking sites? Will their primary use of digital photos be to have fun with an image in the moment as opposed to documenting an occasion the way Boomers do?
Consumer technology companies looking for innovative product and service ideas often ask Cheskin these questions since we have looked at this issue for a number of years across many different product categories. The key to the answer is - what meaningful experience is the consumer seeking? Meaningful experiences are those that evoke our sense of the value and significance of our lives - the types of experiences people value most.
At Cheskin, we listen to the stories that people tell with an ear for the underlying meaningful experience. Gen Y uses IM heavily because social life is the center of most teenagers’ world, they want to be constantly in touch with a whole group, and they use IM to make social plans. IM’s ability to indicate “presence”, or who else is available on the network is key because Gen Y invests heavily in maintaining a robust network of friends.
So is IM behavior only a function of lifestage, since participating in a wide social life doesn’t rank as high on Gen X or Boomer priorities? Certainly Gen Y will IM less as they age (or use whatever technology replaces IM in the future). But they will take this learned behavior into the areas of their life where it meets a similar need – e.g. staying in touch with a work group during a meeting.
We predict that IM use will rise in older age groups as the current Gen Y ages, but teens and young adults will continue to be the heaviest users. We would advise a client to look for ways to tap into the meaningful experience of Connection in those over age 25 to increase IM-type usage.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
7 February 2007
Dropping DRM (digital rights management) protection on music makes a lot of sense, as Steve Jobs is recommending. I saw the same thing happen with copy protection on gaming and edutainment PC software in the 1980s. Consumers found it so burdensome that they invested a lot of energy in getting around the copy protection (read: downloading free MP3 music files) and in breaking the copy protection algorithms (similarly, any high school kid knows how to download music from his friend’s iPod onto his PC). And sales of PC games took off after copy protection was removed.
Consumers hate DRM, and there will be even more of a backlash as time passes and people replace their PCs and find that they’ve already used up all their permissible legal copies and they have now lost all the music they’ve purchased. Or they backup up their collection and then try to download it to a replacement PC and find it isn’t allowed.
More...
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
18 October 2006
The company's chief executive, Nigel Clifford, told delegates that the dawning era of the smart phone represents a shift "as profound as the Internet and PC were in the 1990s." He suggested that the popularity of smart phones in the developed world and the "leapfrog economies" phenomenon in developing countries--in which expensive wired infrastructures are bypassed in favor of wireless--would create a situation where there was a "smart phone in every pocket.
We at Cheskin have been forecasting this seachange for years as a result of our observations about consumer behavior in Asia and Europe, and it's nice to see our predictions coming to pass! In Korea, where mobile broadband is ubiquitous, we hear things like: "My life has changed because of mobile broadband. It's essential to my daily business and my personal life. Even in the office I have instant access to almost any information or service without having to sit at my desk."
Interesting comments on this CNet article.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
19 September 2006
As corporate PC sales have slowed over the past few years, companies have focused more on opportunities to sell to consumers. Witness HP’s refocus on the consumer market and digital photography and Microsoft’s efforts in entertainment digital rights management (DRM) and the new Zune media player. But the playing field is shifting and the established players are in danger of missing a big opportunity because they are tied to their existing way of doing business.
Consumers prefer to bypass the PC altogether whenever possible and convenient. They want to transfer photos directly from their digital cameras to their printer, or send a photo from their camera to a friend’s camera or MySpace site. Although they store music on their hard drive, they prefer to trade playlists directly between MP3 players. For Gen Y, their playlist, like their clothing, is an important way of reflecting their identity and they display playlists on their device, not the PC. Microsoft’s new Zune portable media player is beginning to take advantage of these insights by allowing consumers to download songs directly to the device using WiFi and to beam songs to friends.
Still, the major players are weighted down by their “concrete shoes” which tie them to their existing way of doing business. Instead of assuming consumers will regard the PC as their base for digital entertainment, why not build products for an environment where the PC isn’t central. For example storing photos on the web and sharing and accessing them through a portable device (which has the added advantage of protecting family photos from disk crashes). Or tagging songs from the radio to download directly to the MP3 player, as Sirius is doing. The company that offers an easy ecosystem for digital entertainment which doesn’t involve the PC could be the next iPod-like success story.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner
21 March 2006
Microsoft just announced an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) called Origami, which runs a full version of Windows. It will cost around $500 and is slightly bigger than pocket size. You have to attach a separate keyboard, but it has a touch sensitive screen. Origami is made to surf the net, show movies, read email, sync with Outlook and do most of what you would do on a laptop that doesn’t involve heavy text entry. Origami is getting closer to Bill Gates’ vision of a small inexpensive PC, but it needs 3G wireless access in addition to WiFi and Bluetooth to enable people to stay connected anywhere. Pundits such as Ed Hardy of Brighthand are saying “I just can't see any reason why someone would be willing to pay $500 for a Windows Mobile or Pocket PC device when they could get one running Windows XP or Windows Vista for the same price.”
On the contrary, I think many people will want a smartphone with Windows Mobile 5.0. You won’t always carry your UMPC, but you will always have your phone. And you’ll want to check email, and see your address book and calendar on your phone. It will be interesting to see which devices the market chooses as the options expand – smartphones, laptops, UMPCs, Pocket PC handhelds, iPods, PSPs, portable media or DVD players. I don’t think consumers want one converged device, and just adding functions doesn’t mean success (witness iPod Photo, or Nokia N-Gage). Although consumers can’t reliably tell you whether they would use a device until they actually see it in action and watch what others do with it, in the research we’re doing for our clients we’re beginning to see which way the current is pulling.
Posted in
Consumer Goods Trends
by Leigh Marriner
12 January 2006
We recently had a party and were piping the music from my husband's PC through his new Bose sound system. A friend tried to make a phone call from the room, but was stymied by how to turn down the music. There’s no obvious volume controls if Windows Media Player isn’t open on the desktop. I have several friends who don’t watch DVDs any more unless their kids are home (usually a long shot) because if the home theater was left on some non-standard setting, it’s too hard to figure out how to play the movie.
All this digital entertainment at our fingertips is great, but there is a large segment of the user population that just wants an on/off button, volume up/down key, and a Play Movie key. Some new cell phones have figured this out and come with a Save and Delete key for voicemail so you don’t have to remember which number to push on this system. Where is the iPod approach to the digital living room? Will it be the Google PC? With buttons for Get Email, Get Info, Look at Photos, Play Games, Watch Movie, Watch TV, Listen to Music?
He who has the most features at CES doesn’t necessarily win.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
8 January 2006
Working in the technology business on a daily basis, it’s easy to miss those rare glimpses of how all this technology really changes people’s lives. I have a friend who frequently circumnavigates the globe with several stops in 6 days or less, and has coped by taking sleeping pills. Well, his life has changed judging from the email I got yesterday.
“I am aboard Lufthansa 756 flying 37,000 feet over Karachi, Pakistan on the way to Mumbai, but since you just asked. I logged into our BofA account and found the money just arrived. Good news.
All this courtesy of Connexion by Boeing, a wireless LAN that bounces off a satellite and everything is going through our VPN.
BTW, I am also blasting The Eagles greatest hits through my Bose headphones that are plugged into my Dell which is sucking the tunes down live from the Rhapsody online music service.
This is the ONLY WAY TO FLY. What a world.”
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 1 comments
10 October 2005
Ning: A Bionomic versus Command-and-Control approach to technology development
What is interesting about the new website Ning, from Marc Andreessen's latest company 24 Hour Laundry, is that they are putting out tools to see what develops as consumers use the site. This is similar to what happened with the original SimCity, where players developed their own cities and posted them for other to use. Or currently with Second Life where a real dollar market in the online currency Lindendollars was developed by users. It would be nice to see other developers take a similar approach in some of these areas – throw some things out and let them develop from the bottom up, rather than using a top down planned approach. This seems to be what Google is doing. In these cutting edge areas of technology, I don’t think anyone can foresee what will happen and which will be the “killer apps”.
Ning is described as a free online service for building "social applications." Company executives refer to Ning as a "playground" for creating content, such as photos and reviews, and sharing that information to connect with other people. The Ning site hosts these "social applications" and gives Web developers tools to make it easy for developers to build whatever app they want for any topic, interest, group, language, location or product, without a lot of effort. The first topics include a way to share book reviews, tips on San Francisco Bay Area walking trails and profiles of superheroes.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 4 comments
6 October 2005
IDC just reported that 1 billion IMs are sent every day between 28 million enterprise users. Growth in the enterprise segment is all thanks to IM crossover from consumer use. MSN Messenger and AOL IM have been widely used for years in the home. We’ve seen the same thing happen with digital cameras. Here at Cheskin we now use our personal digital cameras for recording what’s written on the whiteboard after a brainstorming session, or for snapping shots of the culture while we travel abroad and sending video-postcards to our clients, or for posting visual data on a project site using our internal Sharepoint portal. We're seeing it happen in gaming as companies use videogame technology and experience to develop training tools and even in scientific research to simulate how people will actually behave during a viral pandemic (e.g. the recent World Of Warcraft virus).
It’s always important for a tech company to monitor what's going on in the consumer market. Too often consumer technology is relegated to stepsister status and not considered real hardcore technology. The crossover phenomenon is real and can dramatically change the business market.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
5 October 2005
I went into a Verizon store last week to switch my cell phone number over to a different device. My current phone broke and I want to buy the Motorola Razr Q when it comes out in January. So I brought in my old phone as a temporary replacement. I thought it was identical to the simple phones my kids still use, except that mine’s black instead of a cool silver that lights up blue when a call comes in. But Verizon wouldn’t hook it up. Why? The government no longer lets them hook up a phone unless it has GPS. This must be the best kept secret around. If your cell phone is on, the government or law enforcement can track where you’ve been. That’s creepy.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 3 comments
28 September 2005
There have been a flurry of conversations about whether Google is supplanting Windows as a consumer PC platform. Some of the interesting blogs are:
The Web is on an equal footing with Windows for Microsoft now. From Read/WriteWeb.
From OSNews.com. Maybe they are on a collision course, but the scenario, you need to see fleshed out a bit, to believe it would have to specify what is going to happen to revenues. If you're MS planners, you're looking first at OS revenues, which are closely tied to PC shipments. Now, do you believe that Google is going to affect the number of PCs shipped?
THIS MISSES THE RISK THAT CONSUMERS MAY IDENTIFY WITH GOOGLE MORE THAN WINDOWS AND TURN TO GOOGLE FIRST, BRINGING AD REVENUE WITH THEM. IT'S NOT JUST OS SHIPMENTS THAT ARE IMPORTANT. CONSUMERS ARE A HUGE MARKET AND THEY NOW IDENTIFY MORE WITH THE WEB AND THEIR MOBILE DEVICES, THAN WITH THE PC. THAT COULD MAKE GOOGLE THEIR FIRST CHOICE FOR PAID SERVICES AND COULD MAKE A WINDOWS CONNECTION TO MOBILE DEVICES LESS MEANINGFUL.
From Slashdot. I'd wager we have a while to wait before the Web-as-platform paradigm really takes off.
More...
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
27 September 2005
It’s true that the telecos are rapidly cutting prices faced with new competition from cell phones and VoIP. But when I look at my historical Quicken budget for telephone services, I was spending a lot less four years ago. Instead of spending $70/month on a landline phone, I’m now spending $20/month on a landline including all long distance calls, but I’ve added $100+/month for my cell phone, not counting the data services which I’m about to add.
There is cause for hope as competition puts pricing pressure on the mobile operators. Right now, mobile operators charge 3-5 times as much as fixed operators per minute. As dual function mobile VoIP/wireless phones become a reality, travelers will use WiFi connections in airports and hotels to make free or low cost calls over the internet. Phones which can switch seamlessly between the mobile wireless network and VoIP calls on the internet will even allow users on the move to switch the call to the internet when in range of a WiMAX or WiFi site. In addition, the mobile operator’s new 3G wireless networks which offer high-speed internet connection will bring pricing pressure to bear as customers are able to place calls at lower data rates.
So maybe I’ll be back to paying $70/month in a couple years. Not counting the kid’s cell phones.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
12 September 2005
There is an interesting shift afoot in the PC industry. Google wants to bring consumers into its ecosystem as soon as they open their PC, and completely bypass the Windows desktop ecosystem. In this model, the PC and Windows are just a conduit to the web, necessary only to manage the hardware and peripherals, and Google is akin to an internet operating system. Google is following an integrated model offering many services in one place (not unlike what Microsoft did with Office on the PC) so a home PC user can do most of what they want to do from the Google platform. Google uses each of its services to promote its other services – search, mail, blog, social networking, photo management, shopping, TV and movies, etc.
Handling photos is a good example. Consumers are confused over what software to use to save, edit, organize and print their photos. Google offers Picasa for free and positions it as the place to start when downloading digital photos. Then consumers can use Hello to photo-share and chat, or Blogger, or attach a photo to an email. Google may be able to monetize this consumer traffic by passing consumers on to printing sites for a share of revenue, plus they get advertising revenue on their site based on number of eyeballs.
This scenario could end with consumer’s primary emotional attachment and brand identification on the PC being with Google. Will we see a $200 Google PC that accesse the web, supports email and IM, manages photos, schedules and online shopping and integrates with your mobile phone?
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
| Etcetera
| Positioning & Branding
by Leigh Marriner, 2 comments
8 June 2005
Collaboration is an important part of any consulting assignment, but to work effectively at Cheskin, I've had to take this skill to a whole new level. I've had to learn to collaborate remotely with team members scattered in different countries, operating in different time zones, and using different communication tools. I've had to adjust to working with people who are at home, in their car, in a client's lobby or at the zoo with their 3 year old. Usually they have road warrior laptops or web-connected PDAs, but sometimes all they have is a phone.
Collaboration is important here for a number of reasons: Whether we're thousands of miles apart or sitting face-to-face, we know the only way we'll succeed is through the sum of our efforts. Our competition is just too tough for a one man act to beat. Because we know how to collaborate across time and space, we are truly flexible about where people work. This allows us to hire from a much broader and deeper talent pool. The type of creative, intelligent thinkers we desire find us far more attractive when they learn they can work from their home in Las Vegas or Redmond or Mexico. And because we invest in the latest collaboration tools (like Sharepoint TeamServices, MS Live Meeting and Smartphones or Treos, we are exposed to new visions of sharing and communicating, which end up regularly influencing and improving our work processes.
But no matter how strong a company's philosophy and tools are, there's one aspect of collaboration that matters above all else...
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Posted in
Innovation & Design
by Leigh Marriner
27 December 2004
Forget shelling out $.99 per song. Monthly subscription to digital music is easier and it matches the actual behavior of teenagers and young adults, who share songs widely, passing playlists around their circle of friends. And our research shows that many adults who consider music an important part of their life love to discover new music and share it with their friends – and what better way than having unlimited access to a library of 900,00 songs on Napster, Rhapsody, etc.
All that is missing is a company ready to invest in promoting subscriptions to consumers. Yes, consumers fear “losing” all their music if they stop their monthly subscription payments. But there are ways around this – e.g. give subscribers ownership of x songs with a one year subscription. Steve Job’s opposition to subscriptions for iTunes is missing the boat. This is a golden opportunity for someone like Walmart or Sony or Microsoft to jump onboard.
Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner
24 August 2004
Apple offers an option within the DRM (digital rights management) protection in iTunes called "share my music," that lets users make their playlists available to any other computer running iTunes on their local network. By clicking on someone else's shared music within iTunes, users can "stream" the music to their PC, playing it without actually storing it. Since most colleges have fast local area networks, this has become standard procedure at many colleges. In dorms you can click on the network and see 40 or more music libraries. And programs are widely available that use iTunes as a conduit for illicit music downloading.
Once again Apple has created a cool factor around its products by making it easy for users to showcase their personality and taste by posting their personal playlist. So what’s wrong with allowing sharing on local area networks?
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Posted in
Consumer Technology Trends
by Leigh Marriner, 1 comments
26 April 2004
I read LiAnne Yu’s blog on dinner planning in the 50’s with a feeling of recognition and curiosity. I attended a women’s college that has well attended reunions every five years where we get together and talk about the major issues in our lives for that decade. Even though we are a decade or two older than LiAnne, the same issues remain for working women. Most of us try to do superior work at each of our jobs – working professional, mother, wife, daughter, friend, and keeping our physical and emotional selves in shape. We’ve concluded that we need to redefine success as doing a good or good-enough job, rather than an A+ job, at all these things.
When LiAnne writes “intellectually, she's a working woman and shouldn't have to feel responsible for producing a home cooked meal from "scratch" every night, [for visiting in-laws, but] it is, emotionally, an entirely different issue”, I realize many expectations haven’t changed in the past 25 years. But it’s largely up to us to move the goalpost.
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Posted in
Etcetera
by Leigh Marriner, 0 comments
22 March 2004
This weekend I had one of those technology experiences that I want to tell everybody about. Right now I feel the same way about Starbucks as I felt about my teddy bear when I was 6. How could I live without it? Starbucks has just bought more of my consumer goodwill than any company whose products I’ve used all year.
Knowing I can wirelessly connect in any small city enriches my life so much. Instead of grumbling about being separated from my family for yet another day, I could meet a hard deadline and still watch my daughter’s team win the division volleyball championship. I’m so grateful to Starbucks, that even though I know offering wireless high speed internet access was a marketing tool to bring in business and enhance the brand, I feel as if they have just made a selfless contribution to the world. What a marketing coup!
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Posted in
Positioning & Branding
by Leigh Marriner, 1 comments
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