inquiringeyes

Compulsively Impulsive 1.2

Seven years back I wrote something about impulse buying. The discourse hovered around apparel, fashion accessories, nick knacks, chocolates, confectionary items and frozen desserts. Those were the days when impulse buying was conditioned by shopper’s physical presence in the market. Impulse to buy used to strike when we were window-shopping, or when we were just walking down the street, saw a candy store and felt like munching something sweet  - for no particular reason.

 

Fast-forward to 2010. After waiting for almost 2 years, I think I can now write this. Today there are enough iPhones around me (+ there are others – Google, RIM, LG etc – all is trying to ‘App-Enable’ their devices). The app economy is real. But there is something more than the cute games and smart productivity tools that the App Economy has created. I call it Impulse 1.2. The App World has single handedly personalized & digitized our purchase impulse like nothing else had before it.

If the success of eBay’s mobile application is any indicator then personalized and digitized impulse has already reached unimaginable heights. Earlier this year someone bought a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder for $139,000!  If this example sounds like an extreme think about al the apps that are being bought on impulse. I know people who have bought almost $100 worth of apps in a year out of which not more than 10% are used actively. Sounds very similar to the many unused shoes in a woman’s cabinet!

 

Smart phones are doing to e commerce what SMS did to phone calls -Personalization, Spontaneity and Intimacy. If ecommerce helped people to shop from home, mobile commerce is helping people shop at the speed of thought (and feelings), from wherever they are. The collapsing of the time barrier between the desire to buy and the booting of a computer has lead to browsing & buying from the comforts of your couch. The time elapsed between knowing that the cushion behind your back is not comfortable or the flower vase on the table in front needs to change, and actually buying these has really shrunk. After reading about HiFi for many years ago, I finally begin to see it.

Market watches estimate that the global mobile e commerce business which was worth about $18 billion in 2009, would grow explosively and reach $ 119 billion in 2015. The statistic does not surprise at all. Our emotions are fickle; expect mobile commerce to ride our flickering feelings like no other business has ever done in the past.

How can you turn that into an application?

While going through a recent edition of Businessweek, I came across a story on how publishing houses are trying to put up a front to counter the rising dominance of Amazon ( Trying to avert a digital horror story ). There is a mention of how people are interested in paying for a variation on the standard book viz. a single chapter or a searchable database. As a result some of the publishers are now considering bringing out iPhone applications for some of their books. 

This is very fascinating. First books transitioned into their paper free avatar –the eBooks and now they are going one step further – into applications.

 

There is a mention of a book called “What to drink with what you eat” which the publishers are now trying to turn into an app that is like a ‘virtual sommelier cum food critique’, featuring food and wine pairings and tutorials and flavour balancing.

This signifies a shift in the way publishing houses think and has impact on the way information would be packaged in the future. The example of a book turning into an application shows how knowledge is being turned into applied knowledge. It seems that just the way there has always been a market for knowledge from books, the market for the application of knowledge from that book will become bigger and bigger in the future. Being able to use the things that we read in a book - when we are in a meeting, or having lunch or when we are traveling, offers a big opportunity for books to expand their relevance and impact. 

 

‘The application mind set’, as I call it, can potentially turn almost every idea, every bit of information into a byte-sized tool that is always on tap. Thanks to effective miniaturization of technology - the future of knowledge and information will go more and more down the application path.

“What can be the iPhone application for this idea?” is a question, that can help us unlock the potential of any good idea that crosses our mind in the future. 

Divergence 2 (Concluding)

The scenario of Divergence that I talked about in the last post is probable, however its probability hinges on some basic consumer factors. There could be more but I would start by outlining three: 

1.     What percentage of the total users would like to have separate portable devices for functionalities like taking pictures, navigation, music, games etc?

2.     Within this group, what percentage of people would like to upload, download pictures instantly after capture, or play music and games online and on the go?

3.     And finally how many people from the second group would be prepared to pay for wireless connectivity services that enable these activities?

Conventional logic would perhaps make us believe that such consumers might be very few. However I believe that adoption of such new gadgets and services might not follow a linear course as we saw above. A lot hinges on the form and experience factor of these new gadgets and these wireless services. (Future surprises us all the time – it was difficult to imagine that people would always want to carry all the music that they liked. But as we saw with the success Apple iPod – they did, and even paid a premium for it!)

The other set of questions that these gadgets and services raise are to do with operational factors like industry standards and interface. What would be the application software in these devices so as to be able to interface with the Internet? Which operating system would they use?

I remember reading Everyware, by Adam Greenfield, last year. Greenfield offers a sneak peak into the questions that ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) would raise in the future. The book looks at the ecosystem of the wirelessly interconnected devices of the future. Greenfield goes on to talk about the importance of finding common standard for all these things to be able to interface effectively. AT&T’s pursuit that I discussed in the last post would l make this need even more immediate.

What might be exciting to visualize is that if this is going to happen in the future, what would happen then. In other words what could be the social impact of these technology developments and how could it potentially impact our behaviour in the time to come?

Questions from our future are heading our way fast!

Divergence

(It has been a long break (again). I guess too much of work at work is not the best thing for a Blog. Hope to be more regular from here on..)

Digital camera, game consoles, e books readers, GPS devices etc, are all familiar gadgets of everyday use.

Now imagine all these devices having the ability to hook up to the Internet on their own.

• I mean the camera does not need to wait to be near a computer to transfer pictures nor does it need to be attached to a mobile phone to share
• The mobile game console can surf the net in wide area - wirelessly
• The GPS device does not need to be attached to a mobile phone to get its quadrants right
• The specialized e book reader (largely like the Kindle of today) hooks up to the Internet on its own, wirelessly.

If AT&T were to have its way – we could soon see a mobile service provider selling subsidized cameras, GPS devices, E-Book Readers, hand held video game devices and more (BusinessWeek July 2009). The motivation for a company like AT&T is quite simple more the number of wireless connections, greater the usage and thus higher the revenues.

So what’s the big deal? Two I think:

1. “‘Master Gadget’ Never Really Came (the wait is forever?)”

This indicates that the device approach to the definition of convergence (one device does it all) is not coming out to be true. Somewhere corporations have realized, that it is not worthwhile to wait for that ‘one device’ that people would start using as their master gadget (i.e. make calls, surf web, take pictures, read books, listen to music, get directions, play games, etc etc)

Why has it not come? Well, it is debatable.

Corporations would prefer to say that majority of consumers are not ready to switch to and pay for that one device.

Consumers would say – there is no worthy device that can deliver satisfactorily on even half of the desired functions well.

I guess iPhone or iPod Touch, are examples of devices that have managed to come close to the desired multi-functionality

2. “The real war for standards (operating system etc) is perhaps about to begin”

Which OS version and Internet browser would these many different devices (made by manufacturers spread across the world from Tokyo & Seoul to Shenzhen in China, use? Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari or Opera? Netbooks going the Android or UNIX way or Nokia building Symbian as the Mobile OS standard etc are not the real news. The real news would perhaps be who among Microsoft, Nokia, Google etc ends up holding the majority of the Operating system and Application software sky.

I would follow-up on some of the thoughts here, in the next post..

Your MP3 player is ringing & my gaming device is downloading your song!

I have always believed that the iPhone is just another iPod that makes calls and can surf the web. This perhaps is one of the reasons why the iPod sales have been slowing down, ever since the iPhone was launched in 2007.

In November of 2008, almost a year and a half after the iPhone came to the market came the latest version of Nintendo’s hugely successful handheld gaming device - Nintendo DSi. Unlike the earlier DS versions, Nintendo DSi is not a revolution, however it does have something that I believe is revolutionary (although lack of robustness might prevent us from acknowledging it yet).

Other than additions like a camera that you can play around with, the DSi is WiFi enabled.

To me, this is the point of departure. If I were to look at this development in the context of Wii’s plan to stream content for its users to their consoles, then the DSi is following a very similar path. To me it seems that through both of its products, Nintendo is trying to enter the content & applications space – rather than just selling hardware, which it has done so far. This transition is similar to what makes iPhone and iPod sexier than many viz. the presence of iTunes and the Apple App Store.

However this transition acquires greater meaning when we look at the next question that it raises. “How many devices will I carry when DSi’s WiFi function stabilizes?” or “What all would I want to carry, when games on the iPhone start matching the sophistication of titles on DSi?”

This question about convergence keeps haunting me. Would it really be one device? If I were to look back (and I hope I am not looking back too early) I do not see it happening:

1. Mobile phones have failed to become notebooks – and thus we have Netbooks filling shopping shelves!

2. Notebooks could never become elegantly mobile – thus came Netbooks!

3. The TV could never become the PC and the PC could never become the TV!

Also, click here to read about the new roles that the TV is about to play, beyond entertainment!

The above three are interesting because the MP3 (iPod) player did become the mobile phone (iPhone). So – is it about consumers not being ready for one product or most of the companies not being able to come up with a compelling design and function that can motivate them to buy ‘that one device’? I suspect it is the latter. 

Where was I going? What was I doing?

Does it occur to us that every time we log on to the Internet – more often than not -we end up spending more time than we originally planned? More so at home, given that the proverbial ‘cyber café clock’ is not there to haunt us!

Over-running our planned Internet time is linked with aimless clicking from one page to another. WILF or ‘What Was I Looking For’ is the expression used to describe this phenomenon. WILF happens mainly due to the hyperlink-to-hyperlink clicking that we engage in. Reading about something, clicking on a link that has more to tell about the same and so on - the chain can be endless.

Once we are on to the chain we can easily lose track not just of time but also what is that we were originally looking for – thus ‘what was I looking for..” This chain starts with the random surfing that begins during the time that the browser window is loading the web-mail page, or the time between clicking on an attachment icon and the opening of the file and many more similar in-between moments. These are moments in which we engage in ‘checking out the other stuff’! As a result after about ‘2 hrs of what we would describe as ‘checking email’ and ‘surfing’ –what we have actually done is just about read 4 mails, deleted 15 spam mails and a lot of ‘random clicking.’ Many young college-goers actually suffer from such net addiction.

However this post is not about WILF. This post is about the potential impact of location aware mobile devices, on our movement in the everyday physical space. This post is about the possibilities that would emerge when our location aware mobile devices would start interacting with user generated soft maps (soft map = city map layered with information about personal preferences viz. my favourite pub, the quietest street, the best pizza, ‘my crush lives here’, get your camera & click the sunset from this point, the best park for the morning jog etc.)

When people would walk around while being constantly told, by the location aware mobile device sitting in their pocket, about the best that they could do in the place that they were in – wouldn’t they be prompted in a way that is similar to the way an interesting hyperlink prompts people on a web page?

Of course a lot of this prompting can be switched off – perhaps almost in the same way that we block unwanted pop ups on websites. However location prompts could be harder to resist for they would not just be linked with our physical location (and thus much more relevant) but also sensitive to our preferences that our mobile device would be much more aware of.

For want of a better example – Amazon’s customized home page is the closest web equivalent of an irresistible prompt of the location sensitive future.

I am curious to know the social impact of this consumer technology that is headed our way – soon!

Imagine young people wandering around the city, moving around district while staring into their mobile devices just to get to that place that their friend has tagged as ‘the place’ for the best local street snack, only to get distracted after a while by another tag that points at a spot which is best place to click the city from an elevation and then discovering a bargain on hand painted T-Shirts – that is two blocks away.. and then running into a GPS driven treasure hunt game organized by a bunch of local skateboarders who are looking for a partner..and at after a few hours of all this the person is left wondering where was I going, what was I doing?

This or That

In this game or in that moment?

This picture that I have chosen to share is perhaps extreme. People tend to be less ‘gadget oriented’ when they are in an intimate situation with their partner. This is especially true for girls. However by showing this extreme gadget fixation, I want to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that everyday – knowingly or unknowingly – all of us are trying to balance the two worlds that we belong to.

If I were to take this picture as a reference – I would say that one of these worlds is represented by the game on this girls’ PSP and the other world is represented by the man who is accompanying her at this moment.

Beyond this picture – the two worlds are usually represented in more ways viz. the song on my MP3 player over the sounds of the place that I am in or the text message I am typing or reading and the call that I am making or taking and the people around me at that moment, or the file my laptop and the quality of ambience in the café where I am sitting.

Knowingly or unknowingly we are switching between two worlds more often than we realize. And more often - than we realize – we perhaps are choosing one over the other.

The more communication, entertainment & work we carry with us, the less communication, entertainment and work we want from our immediate environment. There, of course, could be an exception to this – if the communication, entertainment and work that we carry with us are location sensitive.

However – up until that happens, we would continue to be influenced more by what we carry with us and less by what is around us.

The way we keep it, is what it is..

While traveling through central China, I observed these two unexpected ways of ‘parking’ mobile phones on at work.Watch the waitress here and her phone which is sitting in the apron pocket.

Also look at the durable store sales girl – who has her phone in a wrist band on her left hand.

Perhaps none of these two ‘mobile hangars’ are new. May be all of them have been around for a while.

I am trying to visualize a parallel, with other things that we would be comfortable to sport this way? The answer to this question can shed some light on how a person relates to the device. For example the restaurant girl in the apron could well have some peanuts as snacks in her pocket – it was not for that mobile phone. Does this mean that mobile usage for her is a proxy for snack or snacking? Is it for those in between moments when one wants a quick break and then get back? Perhaps it is.

For the sales girl at the durable store – the wrist band could well be a way to keep some money or an expensive jewelry article that she cannot wear at work, and does not want to leave in her shoulder bag which she brings to work. Does this mean that for her the device is an expensive item that needs to be protected and yet carried around? Perhaps yes.

I do not have a picture to show but if you go to any Indians wedding – the chances are that you’ll see parents of the bride or the groom carrying a small hand bag to keep the small but expensive gifts given by the attendees. It is a small rectangular bag with multiple zippers, usually made of leather or Rexene.

It is amazing to observed how people find various ways of intuitively organizing their things around them – intuitive orderliness if you like. This intuitive orderliness says a lot about how things fit into people’s lives – fascinating!

Big Phone-Small Phone : Pocket Phone-Jacket Phone

Last week I met this young man (26). As we started talking, he passionately described how he used his mobile phone and how many phones he had actually bought ever since he started using them about eight years back. As I discovered - even now he had at least three handsets and he used them interchangeably. This got me thinking as to what could be those occasions that he actually changed one of his phones for another.

What surprised me was the reason that he described for switching between his BlackBerry and the smaller Samsung or the Nokia phone that he had. He explained how the Blackberry was out of bounds for him during summers. He thought it was too big to be carried gracefully during the summers because during summers one wears clothes with fewer pockets to carry a big phone. The sight of a large phone bulging from the pocket of his jeans was not his idea of carrying a gadget. However he found it easy to carry the same BlackBerry during winters for the jackets that he wore, offered enough pockets to hide the phone. Given that was not using his BlackBerry to check office mails (surprising again!), it was not completely unthinkable to watch someone let go of his BlackBerry one whole season!

It is surprising to observe how people organize their mobile devices around their needs and in their own special ways.

Digital Hunter Gatherer

We started as hunters who hunted when they were hungry. Then we started gathering the stuff, farming, rearing animals. And then we discovered this whole magical possibility of making stuff beyond fire – so, in came pots and baskets and so many other things.
Most of these things that we made were for ourselves. Then started barter and then finally we started exchanging goods for currency.

All this continued to happen up until that one day when the Gong of Industrialization sounded and was heard far and wide.
In came place of work, specialization on the assembly line, working shifts, time cards, punch cards, swipe cards and time sheets (we still do many of these regularly). And, many others which were aimed to triggering accountability. To give an answer to the question “What time did you come in today?” (“Why?”) “What did you do today?” (“Why?”).
While we were busy putting hours against people and appropriating money accordingly – we also started carrying devices of ‘superlative productivity’ viz. the Lap Top and the Pocket PC (or Smart phone). Now the work started roaming with us, at home, in the bus, on a plane – and many times (unfortunately) even while driving.
A steady movement from “home = work” to home and office as two separate entities and now finally office everywhere.
As we carry our work everywhere, as the knowledge worker makes physical space increasingly irrelevant, I am left wondering - how long we would continue to entertain the legacy of time keeping. With lines blurring all around us – it is increasingly theoretical to compartmentalize time for work and time for other stuff.

On a slightly philosophical note - the hunter gatherer era made us work any time, anywhere and even overtime - just to keep our bellies full, ironically the digital hunter gatherers seem to do just that, as they make or take that call or send/receive that mail just after lunch and dinner and breakfast too - all the time with their bellies full!