http://www.cheskin.com/blog/perspectives/ en-us http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000995.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2008-03-23T20:14:15-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000992.html 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... Leigh Marriner 2008-02-12T18:29:04-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000991.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2008-02-12T18:19:42-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000989.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2008-02-01T08:56:53-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000988.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2008-01-31T16:24:01-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000960.html 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.... Leigh Marriner 2007-08-03T14:35:39-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000957.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2007-07-21T22:40:57-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000948.html 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... Innovation & Design Leigh Marriner 2007-05-30T10:04:59-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000942.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2007-04-23T16:52:12-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000939.html 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... Meaningful Experience Leigh Marriner 2007-04-10T20:10:40-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000926.html 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... Innovation & Design Leigh Marriner 2007-03-26T10:44:10-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000913.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2007-03-20T12:52:50-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000904.html 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?... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2007-03-15T17:24:37-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000900.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2007-03-13T16:44:05-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000873.html 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... Consumer Technology Trends Leigh Marriner 2007-02-07T08:49:39-08:00