Categories
product strategy

Blockchain is bigger than you think

Blockchain is looking like a seriously transformative technology – maybe as big an idea as http or bittorrent. 
 

Here’s a great primer. It looks techy, but is very readable.

 

Sample wow quote, “Companies like Ebay, Facebook and Uber are very valuable because they benefit tremendously from the network effects that come from keeping all user information in centralized in private silos and taking a cut of all the transactions. Decentralized protocols on top of the blockchain have the potential to undo every single part of the stacks that make these services valuable to consumers and investors. They can do this by, for example, creating common, decentralized data sets to which any one can plug into, and enabling peer to peer transactions powered by Bitcoin.”

 

Categories
disruption fragile ideas social strategy

Is marketing ruining social media

Nice iconoclasm from John Willshire

Fracking The Social Web – 2014 from John V Willshire
Categories
mobile strategy

Mobile is eating the world

Some eye-popping slides here

Via Ben Evans

2013 05 BEA – ’Mobile is eating the World’ from Benedict Evans
Categories
clear thinking ideas staying relevant strategy

Steve Jobs on what gives startups their greatest advantage

…and the world changes and keeps evolving. And new potential arises, but these people who are settled in don’t see it.

Steve Jobs Interview Computer World from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.

Categories
getting it wrong management staying relevant strategy

Snapped – How Flickr lost its looks

There are some sobering lessons in this excellent Gizmodo article, How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet.

Extracts that stood out for me:

  • It is a case study of what can go wrong when a nimble, innovative startup gets gobbled up by a behemoth that doesn’t share its values.
  • Even early on, there were signs that the transplant—which had seemed so successful at first—was going to fail. That the DNA didn’t match
  • All Yahoo cared about was the database its users had built and tagged. It didn’t care about the community that had created it or (more importantly) continuing to grow that community by introducing new features
  • Because Flickr wasn’t as profitable as some of the other bigger properties, like Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Sports, it wasn’t given the resources that were dedicated to other products.
  • As a result of being resource-starved, Flickr quit planting the anchors it needed to climb ever higher. It missed the boat on local, on real time, on mobile, and even ultimately on social—the field it pioneered
  • Yahoo needed to leverage this thing that it had just bought. The first step in that is to create a unified login. That’s great for Yahoo, but it didn’t do anything for Flickr, and it certainly didn’t do anything for Flickr’s (extremely vocal) users.
  • If you want to see where it completely fucked up, turn on your phone and launch the Flickr app. Oh, what’s that, you don’t have one? Exactly
Categories
get famous likeability mobile product shareability strategy talkability

Why Instagram works

There are many photo editing apps and many offer some kind of sharing.

Yet Instagram (see my previous post) is way ahead of the pack in popularity and buzz. This fantastic article goes into why. My favourite aspect is about how it deliberately limits its functionality. you can only load one image at a time. Imagine how natural it would seem to add many at once. But that would detract from the product’s simplicity and delight.

Design is finished not when there’s nothing left to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away.

Categories
advertising authenticity branding clear thinking design disruption invention likeability mobile monetisation pr product productivity staying relevant strategy surprise talkability

Thank you Steve

Categories
advertising likeability strategy

Motorhead at half speed

All great ads have a clear insight and planning idea behind them. This french ad for Kronenbourg 1664 is all about slowing down with a beer, and the Motorhead execution is lovely.

I bet Grolsch wish they’d thought of it.

via Dangerous Minds

Categories
clear thinking strategy

Ever noticed how hard it is to be unpleasant on Facebook?

There’s no Dislike button, it’s tricky to block people and there’s no option to Reject event invites (you can only Ignore them). It’s all terribly inoffensive.

And that’s a key reason for Facebook’s incredible success.

The internet can be a horrible place. People shoot off unfair blog posts, thumb down your comments on YouTube and have you ever read the article comments on the Daily Mail website. Or even worse, the Guardian!?!

Facebook offers a Disnified version of the internet for people. Everything is OK and you won’t get bruised. It’s like going back to the playground, but this time there are no bullies. Everyone has to wear a name tag and play nice.

We’re all vulnerable and we all have egos. Zuckerberg is either a genius or he’s stumbled on a genius idea.

Please Like this post.


Categories
authenticity design product strategy

Ten principles of good design

This list of Dieter Rams design principles is eternal. I expect that the work of Apple’s Jonathan Ive would stand up well to this test. Picture the iMac/iPod/iPhone as you read down it.

I’m reminded of that wonderful aphorism about design being complete not when there’s nothing left to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away.

Vitsœ’s designer, Dieter Rams. Photograph by Abisag Tüllmann

Categories
disruption product staying relevant strategy

No, the iPad will not save magazines

The iPad is a gorgeous media consumption device. It’s desirable, it’s selling like hotcakes and buying apps is easy. Print media owners shackled by declining sales can be forgiven for willing it to their saviour.

It won’t be.

As the paltry sales of GQ’s iPad app indicate, simply having an app isn’t enough. The dirty truth is that no-one ever wanted a magazine. Just as Coke sells happiness rather than fizzy drinks, what people actually get from mags are:

  1. Signalling. What magazine you hold up on the train carriage, or have on your coffee table sends a message about how you see yourself – be it Viz, the Economist or Wallpaper
  2. Passing the time. Mags work great to wile away train journeys and lazy bath-times
  3. Special interest Whether you love cars, photography, cycling or houseboats, there’s a mag for you.
  4. Sense of belonging People like feeling part of a community and sharing tips.

Magazines have delivered on these benefits very well for decades. The challenge is that digital does all of these better, or changes them:

  1. No-one knows what you’re reading. It’s the device itself that says something about you. iPad v Kindle, and iPhone v Android is the new Mods v Rockers.
  2. You’re never alone with a mobile. Yes you can read magazine-like articles and look at professional photos, but you’re more likely to listen to music, watch episodes of Glee, email your friends or check-in at a foursquare location.
  3. Niche interests are hyper-served by digital. I’m not just interested in digital photography, I want to read in-depth articles on not only Canon lenses, but that particular lens, and those particular types of shots
  4. Sense of community has of course been owned by the massive, real-time, rich media interactions of social media. I want to know now what people think of that Cameroon goal.

That all said, magazines will not die. Print has winning attributes of portability, ever-lasting battery life and brings a simple, tactile pleasure. However, it will of course change. There will be fewer titles and producing them will become a leaner, tougher, much less pleasant game. Print dollars really will be replaced by digital cents. Get over it.

My counsel is:

  • Think brand and not product. Top Gear is the shining example of a media brand that has transcended its format and is thus less vulnerable to channel shift.
  • Embrace failure. There are no certainties in this era of disruption. Things will not settle down, and it is delusional to ‘wait and see’. No-one has a right to survive. The only viable strategy is to keep testing and keep learning.
Categories
disruption get famous invention likeability product staying relevant strategy viral

The social web just got go-faster stripes

When it’s easy even for non-techies like me to add social plug-ins to websites, we better get ready for an explosion of ‘Like’ buttons, activity streams and friend recommendations all over the web.

Google must be thinking very hard tonight.

Categories
branding product strategy

I don’t want Starbucks to sort my car rental

I don’t want Coke to sell me a toaster. And I don’t want Google to be my social platform.

Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you can win at anything

Google is about making digital information accessible, facebook is my social network

Categories
advertising strategy

Where is my mind?

Most holiday advertising gets no more sophisticated than showing sun-soaked beaches with a cocktail in near focus.

Which is why it’s nice to see The Body Holiday. Their proposition is crystal clear and seems to tap into a genuine consumer insight.

Categories
disruption pr strategy

Champions of search neutrality – how Google might win the PR war against Murdoch

Rumours abound that Murdoch and Microsoft might team up to make Bing the only place where News International content can be found in search.

As a stick to wield at Google, it’s pretty much the only one Rupert has. And as they trail by miles in search share, Microsoft won’t miss an opportunity to team up and gain an edge either.

It must be tempting for Google in turn to consider exclusive deals with Murdoch’s competitors.

But what do consumers want? Imagine a world where you have to know “I can find this kind of content on Google but that on Bing, or that on Google but not on Bing”. It’d be awful. Like having to dial 118 118 for these phone numbers, but 118 247 for those phone numbers.

We want everything in one place.

I wonder whether Google would open up a PR front championing “search neutrality“? i.e. position themselves as wanting to bring you the whole web and de-position others as wanting to fence it off.

Categories
branding disruption Misc strategy

Will people pay for content? Wrong question

Far better to ask – will they pay for my brand?

Are you thinking hard enough about what you really provide to them – rationally and emotionally?

Is it really only news you sell, or is it reassurance? Or a signal for other people of your status? Is your magazine selling entertainment – or is it a way to pass the time? Or feel connected? Or feel good about yourself?

How can you take these underlying values and translate them into other product forms (guide books, insurance services etc)

I’ve previously written about my view that people will pay for content if you make it easy. But if they won’t pay for your brand, you really are in trouble