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Posted by Richard Ziade on April 28, 2008, 10:10AMCore Value And The Package It Comes In : What The Record Labels Can Learn From Tony Montana
Core Value & The Packages It Comes In
If I purchase a Playstation Portable, I own it. It is my property. So what motivates me to buy a PSP? Well, to answer that question, we have to consider the core value that is inherent in a PSP. Yes it's really just a physical object but its core value is it's a great little entertainment system.
One could argue that there are other values to be derived from possessing this physical object, e.g. it's a status symbol that boosts my popularity with my friends, but few would dispute that it's inherent value lies in its capabilities as a video game machine, portable movie player and handheld web browser. It's impossible for me to replicate or share that core value with anyone else unless I give up possession of the physical container that houses that core value.
This is all just a long-winded way of saying that the core value of the PSP cannot be decoupled from the physical container that carries it. While this all may seem like metaphysical babble, this inextricable pairing of perceived value and physical representation is what creates business opportunity. Without that lock-in of value, Sony can't slap a price on a PSP and generate money.
Sixty-Eight Glorious Minutes Of Wonderful Core Value
When I purchase a compact disc, I own it. It is my property. I can lend my CD to a friend. When I do so, I no longer enjoy its use. Let's assume for a second that its 1982, and I really can't easily or affordably replicate the music on the CD. So applying the same test as the PSP, why is the CD valuable to me? Is it because it has great cover art? Is it because it's shiny and round? Obviously not. Nearly all of its core value comes from the music encoded on it. Take away the music, and it's pretty much worthless. And so, the physical CD is really just a container. It's no more valuable than the PSP that is never turned on.
Here Come The CD-R's!
Fast forward 20 years, and hand us 50X CD burners, MP3 encoding and 100 blank CD-R's for $12, and the proverbial plot thickens. Today, anyone can easily decouple the music (the core value) from the container (the CD). CD's used to cost $18 or $20 because the ability to extract that core value wasn't there. This barrier to decoupling created an incredible business opportunity. In other words, a large portion of that $18 wasn't derived from packaging or paying artists, it was derived from the tight entanglement that once existed between the music and the physical container that housed the music. It's sort of like a tax that's been artificially slapped on after the fact.
Now that we've untangled things, the opportunity for record labels to tax us is disappearing. So what is that core value really worth? $3? $5? $10? Who knows. We need a reappraisal because the world doesn't need the containers anymore. Or stated differently, that physical artifact which gave record labels a place to slap on a price tag is disintegrating.
What we're witnessing now is the flailing and screaming of an entire industry drowning.
Laws Shmaws
The laws that everyone points to: copyright, "fair use", DMCA and such are hardly worth entertaining because they really amount to feeble attempts to reconcile laws that protect creative works that are indelibly tied to some physical representation (like a painting or sculpture). Nobody's bothered to speak of how to deal with creative works that simply don't need physical objects. Our economy is primarily grounded on the ability to buy and sell goods and services. To date, we lumped in creative works with "goods." Well, we don't need the goods anymore. Now what?
When In Doubt, Load The Shotgun
I'm a premium MP3Tunes customer. MP3Tunes allows me to store my music online so I can access it from anywhere via a web browser, Winamp or iTunes plugin. A few days ago, I received an email from them stating that they were being sued by EMI records for what I guess is copyright infringement. EMI is freaking out because their core value is now flowing over wires. They're trying to somehow apply the container tax when we don't need their containers anymore.
"Say hello to my...(eh, you know the rest)"
It really isn't surprising that record labels are putting up a fight here. It's a very large and slowly dying industry that is going to go down swinging. There's a lot to lose here. Still, the carpet bombing approach is just plain ugly. It reminds me of the closing scene of Scarface, where Al Pacino, surrounded on all sides, decides to go out in a blaze of gunfire. College students, grandmas, storage services, software companies. The whole thing borders on silly. It's sort of like to nut who goes into the mall and just randomly starts shooting.
It would serve the record labels well to replace litigation with dialogue and a broader view of intellectual property. Lawsuits suck. They require time and money. They create stress. They rarely result in a positive outcome. EMI and other labels should put their guns away and start to embrace this inevitable shift.
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 24, 2008, 05:56PMThe Antidote To Big, Obnoxious Web Ads : The Off Switch
Recently, I've noticed that the front page of the New York Times on the web had given way to a more, how should I put it, Times Square sort of feel:
This is an above-the-fold snapshot. As you can see, the ad is grabbing nearly 40% of the available real estate.
The New York Times web presence is, in my opinion, one of the best-designed news sites on the Web...and then these obnoxious ads get slapped across the whole thing. It's a challenge for ad-driven sites like the New York Times. You want to present information in a useful, readable and constructive way, but you also need to pay the bills. When American Express or Apple comes knocking, you don't want to shoo them away. So what to do?
Well, why not let the reader decide? Near the top-right corner is a click that actually hides the ad:
It's an interesting tactic and one I'd never seen before. I wonder if their advertising clients are OK with this or if maybe they paid a little bit less for this functionality to appear. It seems to be universal.
A content-driven destination as successful as nytimes.com will inevitably have to draw a line somewhere because too much advertising undoubtedly detracts from the perceived value, reputation and prestige of a publication. Everyone has visited sites that splatter ads all over, under and in-between their content. They make you feel icky about being there. It's a difficult tension between good design and good revenue opportunities. The New York Times has done a great job so far. The Minimize Ads button further highlights that tension.
Thankfully, the Web in general has gotten better. I still remember the days when balloons or dolphins would come flying across an article I'm reading. It's pretty awful. Thankfully, the market seems to correct itself. Publishers have a better appreciation of finding that balance today. The New York Times is going one step further by empowering the visitor with the ability to put ads away.
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 23, 2008, 11:02AMMicrosoft's Home Field Advantage : Mesh
As technologists, we can't help but pay attention to the walls and obstacles that litter the technology landscape. We think about them. We curse them. We go to great lengths to navigate around them. What we have to be wary of is allowing that landscape, obstacles and all, to forcibly narrow our view of what is or is not possible.
A great example of this is the distinction between what would call a "desktop" or "OS" and the Web. The Web has taken on application-like characteristics, and the desktop is becoming increasingly Web-like. We spend an enormous amount of mental labor thinking about how it's all going to come together. Where's the data? How do we sync it? What about mobile devices? Other devices? Game consoles? And how do we share things? How do we allow people to collaborate? These are all difficult problems that are shaped by the constraints we assume are immovable today.
Microsoft has let loose the PR machine on Live Mesh. The news wires and blogs are just now digesting the news. A glimmer in Ray Ozzie's eye just a couple of years ago, Mesh is unique and ambitious because it's based on a premise that most technologists feared working back from: people neither care about nor are aware of where their digital assets live.
People simply want everything to be everywhere. Their phones. Their media centers. Their laptops. They want everything to simply be incarnations of a single digital identity. They don't care about the "cloud", the syncing puzzles, the challenges of making offline work seamlessly. Mesh is the first initiative I've come across that is working back from that notion.
In essence, if you plug anything into your Mesh, everything is everywhere. The music in your living room will also be on your phone, on your laptop and in your car. This all happens by virtue if being plugged in. Not because you're moving files around on portable drives.
What's really interesting about Mesh is that it isn't just about files. Lying within is a syncing protocol that any application can tap into and enjoy the ability to sync everywhere.
And what of the coming age of utility computing? Here's my take on it: nobody cares about how an application gets to you. We're moving from CD's and DVD's to installable executables to zero-step installs. So what? Yes, we may be headed towards a world of subscription applications, but that's a business model shift, not an end-user experience shift. The real significance for end users is:
- The ability to get rich, compelling applications quickly and with little effort. That's happening today on the Web (Ajax, Flash) and it's going to get better. And...
- The ability to get to your information assets from anywhere with zero effort.
Mesh is attacking the second bullet head on. Its vision sees all these clients and devices - the web, mobile, desktops - as simply nodes of a larger representation. Of course, to tackle such a vision, you need to be able to exert enormous control over the wide array of devices and platforms out there. It's arguable whether anyone else can even consider it. Mozilla is sort of trying this with their lab initiative called Weave but there are certain hard realities that Mozilla and anyone else is going to have to face.
Microsoft is working with what they got. Windows. XBox. Windows Mobile. The list goes on and while they've mentioned support for Macs and such, you've got to believe that this is all about leveraging their position on their current platforms. What's interesting here is that the web and the browser is marginalized within this vision. It places players like Google in an odd position. While Microsoft has tried (and failed) to play on Google's turf in the search engine wars, Mesh hints at a shifting of the playing field. In this vision, Microsoft has home field advantage.
Of course, there's still execution. It takes a lot of guts and a hell of a lot of resources to go after such a grand vision. Microsoft obviously has the resources. There's still a lot to do and prove out before this vision is realized.
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 21, 2008, 02:47PMThe Meaning Of Colors (International Edition)
Related to the last post, here's an interesting summary of the meaning of colors that factors in national customs. Pretty fascinating (though I wonder where they get their information).
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 18, 2008, 08:37AMJournalism, Information Design & The Ability To Mold The Minds Of The Masses Like Big, Heaping Lumps Of Clay
Take a look at this chart from Time's March 31, 2008 issue:
You'll often hear about the importance of journalistic integrity and the importance of objectivity and impartiality when reporting news. The above chart may well convey nothing that can be construed as inaccurate or skewed. Words are words. But alas, the art of marketing, however slyly introduced, is clearly at play.
Some observations:
- The questions are posed such that McCain answers in the negative. They could have easily been rephrased such that the reverse is shown. In the final question, McCain responds with "Maybe" (and yes, to a reader, it is McCain "responding"). "Maybe" can be perceived any number of ways: shady, indecisive, secretive or simply lacking clarity.
- This one's a kicker: in response to the Hedge Funds row, all three candidates are assigned "No's." I'll admit I didn't even notice this until the third or fourth time I glanced at the chart. The visual power of the right-hand column colored in red overwhelms the actual content.
- The No's and Maybe are colored in red while Hillary's and Obama's responses are in a gray-blue. So what do colors mean? Read means: no, stop, angry, hot-tempered, emotional, simmering. Blue means: calm, soothing, stability, wisdom, trust, confidence. Red is hell. Blue is heaven. (There are numerous articles out there on colors and emotions.)
I'm not going to go so far as to say that there is a sinister plot brewing at Time magazine. But the above illustrates just how powerful even the most subtle tweaks on how information is presented can affect not only how we digest information but how we perceive it and digest it. Such tactics are well known and used extensively in marketing and campaign circles, which is OK, because to most the caveat is already in place. "It's just marketing." The above reminds of those in-between advertising links that look like articles when they're really just more ads masked as such. Except with the above, it isn't. It's just Time magazine reporting.
Note: this post isn't meant to convey a preference or bias towards a particular presidential candidate. It's merely put forward to illustrate how information design can be used to shape perceptions.
(I found the above on Last Psychiatrist. He gives his own thoughts on the above as well).
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 14, 2008, 09:42AMFrom Web To Desktop : Respecting The Mental Barrier
In the latest issue of Portfolio magazine, there's an article about the rise and fall of Joost. Joost, backed by CBS, seeks to bring TV-quality programs to the Internet. I myself remember the buzz around Joost about a year ago. I badly wanted a beta invite after hearing the tech blogs praise Joost as the perfect marriage of great content and Internet convenience. When I finally got one, I'll admit I was impressed at first. Eventually, the impetus to load it up at all faded and I uninstalled it.
Recently, Joost has been beset with tougher times. In short, Joost just hasn't caught on and is in danger of fading out as yet another tech venture lesson-learned. The article cites numerous reasons for Joost's hardship: the Internet TV space got suddenly crowded, Joost suffered its own internal growing pains, among other reasons. The one reason that hit me across the head when I re-visited Joost today. After seeing an attractive, content-rich landing page at Joost.com, I was directed to this:
While the install is fairly trivial and requires just a few clicks, the ease-of-use bar has already been set by Youtube, and this user experience doesn't meet it. The problem was nicely summed up by the co-founder of one of Joost's competitors (emphasis mine) :
"The download may seem like a small barrier," says Brad Hunstable, co-founder of user-generated video site Ustream, "but it's a huge mental barrier."
That's right. Joost's content is only available via a downloadable application. You can't watch Joost videos in your web browser. Contrast this with Hulu and you quickly realize that Joost's own user experience strategy proved to be one of its most debilitating barriers. Joost is already onto this. They'll be delivering content via a web browser some time in 2008.
As platforms like Adobe AIR proliferate and as end-user web experiences are delivered to the desktop, there are some key concerns that any product designer or product manager must heed:
- Users equate the browser window as access to the Internet. And just as importantly, the desktop is not the Internet. Most people have no clue about technology or Internet trends. The Internet is "the window to the rest of the world" and my desktop is...not.
- Gauge your value and assess whether people will tolerate the "work" to get to it. This is critically important. If Flash-based click-and-play video were not available on the Internet, Joost would be competing within a completely different competitive milieu. Instead, they're asking users to jump through hoops without the value differentiation that would make it worthwhile. If the series finale of The Sopranos premiered on Joost, I'm guessing a lot of people would've tolerated the experience.
- Do not forego the social power of hyperlinks. Internet-powered desktop applications must support the equivalent convenience of URL locations. Via email or chat, we constantly hand out our exact location on the Internet for others to share. The use case is obvious but worth repeating:
- I find a cool video on Youtube that I know my friend Chris will enjoy.
- I copy the URL out of my browser window.
- I paste the URL in my friend Chris' chat window.
- Within seconds, Chris is watching the same video.
- It's not just "a few more clicks"; it's 500% more clicks. We might as well call this the "Realplayer Lesson." Does anyone remember the epic battle between Windows Media Video and Real? Flash came along and put videos one click away and the battle was over in months. Adobe AIR, for example, does an admirable job of making the install experience much less painful than usual. Still, we have to be wary of these artificial steps that a user is forced to go through.
The prospects of Internet-powered desktop applications is very exciting. Speaking to the second bullet above, I genuinely believe there is a a lot of value to be had with marrying the desktop experience with web applications. Features like offline use, file interactions (uploading, syncing etc.) and notifications would greatly enhance the experience around web applications.
Still, that "mental barrier" mentioned above is a formidable one. If we're to successfully bring new experiences to the desktop we must tread carefully as we deliver the experience that leads to it.
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 9, 2008, 10:02AMSource Of Inspiration : Brooklyn, New York
For most of my life I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. After traveling around a good amount, I can confidently say Brooklyn is an amazing place. It's wildly rich and diverse. It's unique from Manhattan island in that all these cultures and nationalities plant roots in Brooklyn (rather than just pass through as many do in Manhattan).
Brooklyn is the antithesis of everything we've grown to loathe about suburban sprawl and American homogeneity. Like anything or anyone with real character, it's flaws are what make it so unique and memorable. After experiencing the sterility and predictability of Anytown, USA, I've come to really appreciate what Brooklyn is all about. It's in a constant state of transformation and change, all the while retaining it's dizzying kaleidoscope of culture and ethnicity. It is, at its core, a very human place.
The New York Times has a nice write-up and slideshow on Brooklyn Storefronts. It's a new book of photographed Brooklyn storefronts taken by Paul Lacy. From the publisher: Brooklyn’s storefronts are a vibrant canvas that reflects the changing trends and distinct character of this dynamic community.
If you're a designer, artist or just someone interested in how people from just about everywhere live and interact in the same place, do yourself a service and make it out to Brooklyn. It's not only about the Dodgers and Coney Island.
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 8, 2008, 09:23AMRoll Your Own (Google-Style) Map
A List Apart shares a nice recipe for baking your very own open source Ajax-style mapping destination (a la Google Maps). The tutorial nicely walks you through the components and steps to get your own map up and running.
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 2, 2008, 09:51AMArc90 Lab : Subversion Notifier Apple Dashboard Widget
Subversion source control is the tool of choice for many software development shops. It's slick, fairly straight-forward, and free. One of its biggest benefits is that it's so loose, allowing anyone the ability to grab a file and start working on it. Of course, this can cause some snags if two people start modifying the same file.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a little widget that taps you on the shoulder whenever a file you're working on is modified elsewhere by someone else? That's exactly what's been added to the Arc90 Lab today: an Apple Dashboard Widget SVN Notifier. It "monitors working copies and repositories to make sure that it's always clear what's what." If a file is changed, your OSX desktop will show a notification with details of who changed it, when, and any notes they left behind. Sweet!
If you love it (or hate it), be sure to let our very own Chris LoSacco know!
Posted by Richard Ziade on April 1, 2008, 09:16AMFree Icons Download (Awkward URL, good resource)
If icons were crack, I'd be...umm...on crack. And what's better than crack? Free crack. Free Icons Download has some nice, shiny icons as well as some other treats (wallpapers, buttons and the like). Check it out.