Why Some Technology Companies Just Don't Get It

In technology marketing there is the very useful concept of Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late adopters etc.

The idea being that a new product will at first be tried out by a small number of very technically literate people who always like to have "the latest thing" and then there is a gap in need before the early adopters move to the early majority (the mass market who would like to use the product to solve problems). This gap has been referred to as a Chasm[1], due to the number of products from both small and large companies which never make it to the mass market and fail

The thought for the day is quite simple and it is this:
Your first customers for a product want to think about the product. The market as a whole doesn't want to think about the product.

Just consider the success of Google:

The first users of Google were very excited about how clever the search facilities were and wanted to understand PageRank(TM) and how it worked

However, most people use Google because they want the information and don't want to think about how it works.

Consider the failure of most high-end mobile products:

Although the first users think the product is great and are quite happy with installing little programs on their phones, the mass market just doesn't want to have to learn something new which isn't going to obviously help their lives, whether that something new is how to install the software or whether that something new is how to use it and whether they need to worry about being ripped off.

Liam argues that technology companies main problem is not that their technology is not absolutely outstanding, but that their products require thinking about and the mass market doesn't want to think... Just a thought.

Possible areas where standard productisation may cause problems and where clever, minimum-think solutions could solve them:

• Current convergence products - convergence seems to currently mean finding and then learning to use another product on top of the ones you already have
• Digitizing Television Channels - Following this argument to its logical conclusion, part of the reason people enjoy television is because it gives you a very good excuse not to think for a long period of time. Channel hopping is OK, but if people are crying out for really interactive play lists in television media then why haven't the majority of people sorted proper playlists for their ipods?
• Mobile phone programs - Until an easy, generic way of getting new programs onto phones the only programs which will work in a big way are one of:
  
• massively time saving so people cry out to have them added and bother to learn
  
• already installed on your phone and sold through manufacturers
• aimed entirely at the early-adopter market
  

Interesting Reading:

[1] Crossing The Chasm, Geoffrey A Moore (Amazon) - This book is highly recommended to technology based businesses with limited marketing experience. Of course you could learn this the hard way, but for about a tenner and a weekend's reading you too will be able to absorb.

[2] Also worth considering - Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy (Amazon) which is a very engaging and easy read. If you have no current experience of advertising at all, this is the ideal introduction. The down side is that it does not include any online techniques, so some have argued that it is becoming dated

[3] An article in The Register on the 30th May 2006, appears to back this point up:

Irish mobile operator O2 released results of its survey which it claims shows that "complexity turns business users off technology" and that many companies surveyed found technology "too confusing".