Opine Consulting » Trends

What the home entertainment industry that never was can teach us about Google and Facebook

Simon Kirby — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:44:01 +0000

In March 1876, the New York Times trumpeted the birth of the home entertainment industry. It would be powered by the telephone. It (mostly) never happened:

“By means of this remarkable instrument, a man can have the Italian opera, the Federal Congress, and his favorite preacher laid on his own house.” (New York Times, 22nd March 1876, see here)

Facebook overtakes Google, the social web wins

Almost exactly 134 years later (13th March 2010 to be precise) Facebook became the most visited website in the USA, pulling in more visitors than Google. Last week’s data from Hitwise (an online competitive intelligence agency) shows a quiet, creeping discontinuity:

The graph says that once we used the web mostly for information; now we’re primarily social users. So what does that have to do with the New York Times and its prediction of telephone-based home entertainment?

What disruptive technology is really for

It takes twenty years to work out what any disruptive new technology is for. Disruptive technology has a lifecycle. It’s invented. A thousand flowers bloom as entrepreneurs and visionaries vie to make their fortunes. Some businesses fail. Others succeed. After twenty years or so the dust clears on a new consensus about what that particular technology was for.

The year 1881 was a good one for French inventor Clément Ader. At the Paris International Electrical Exhibition, he demonstrated how his théâtrophone system would open up the vast opportunity of a French home entertainment system based on a stereo telephone line.

He wasn’t the only person thinking that way. In 1893 Telefon Hírmondó was launched by a colleague of Alexander Bell to 60 subscribers. It’s opening message declared:

“We greet the inhabitants of Budapest. We greet them in an unusual way from which telephone broadcasting all over the world will start its victorious journey.”

By 1907, its subscriber base was 15,000 and it only stopped broadcasting with the Second World War.

Just as we eventually found out what the telephone is really for, last week’s Hitwise data shows that we’re discovering what the web is mostly for. If the web really is primarily social, that has big implications for online proposition development.

Things we may need to do more of include:

Design based on the needs of communities, not just individuals.
Emphasising social functionality as much as content and transactions.
Building content that can travel on social networks, rather than driving traffic to your own site.

Fat is a capitalist issue

Simon Kirby — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:03:16 +0000

In the rich world, we’re unlikely to solve our obesity epidemic any time soon. Weight gain will change the financial arithmetic of many products and services. At least one major European airline has wrestled publicly with policies described as a “fat tax” by some newspapers in January 2010 (see here).

Wise companies will develop product and service innovation that meet the physical, social and identity needs of overweight consumers. They’ll do so not only for profit, but also because it’s the right thing to do.

Bigger, faster, more

In the UK breast reduction surgery for men was the fastest growing procedure in 2009, up 80%, see here. Ninety-three million Americans are obese, a number that will climb to 120 million within five years. In England, nearly a quarter of adults is obese (see NHS statistics here).

To really understand the trend, watch the obesity map below:

The unstoppable momentum of size

Obesity is hardwired into society, socially reinforced and maintained by the physical infrastructure of our cities. Consider the following:

Society is “obesogenic” in the sense that people are addicted to fast food and sedentary lifestyles promoted by television and cars.
Our physical infrastructure locks in these patterns. Urban sprawl and zoned planning force people into more car use and less walking.
Obesity is social. Having an obese spouse raises the risk of becoming obese by 37%. Having an obese friend increases the risk by 137% (See here for data).
95% to 98% of diets fail over five years (see here).

A few billion spent on government health promotion is not going to reverse all this. Instead, obesity will become simply a part of “normal”.

Size acceptance

Lisa Marie Garbo (a descendent of Greta) is the queen of size acceptance in California. Her nightclub, Club Bounce (see here) invites patrons to petition President Obama for overweight rights and anti-hate legislation. Last year, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) celebrated its fortieth birthday. NAAFA says “our thin obsessed society believes that fat people are at fault for their size and it is politically correct to stigmatize and ridicule them.”

Embrace customer need, don’t punish it

Obesity will change the financial arithmetic of annuities, life assurance and medical cover. Transport services will bear extra costs of carriage space and fuel. Other products and services will innovate to adapt to society’s changing weight and shape.

CasualMale is a good example of niche innovation. With over 500 clothing and fashion retail outlets worldwide, its brand is focussed on “big and tall men” and its clothes feature comfort innovations like neck, waist and jacket “relaxers”.

In contrast, moves to “tax” overweight customers are very likely to meet with public backlash. We think history will judge these measures to be punitive and discriminatory.

Instead, the size acceptance movement and the huge growth of obesity will drive demand for products and service innovations that are attuned to the physical, social and psychological needs of big customers.

In financial services, this could mean new, innovative underwriting models and annuity benefits written for the specific needs and risks of obese customers. Or it could mean niche branding that empathises with and celebrates obese customers.

Above all, remember that in the UK, this “niche” is a quarter of adults and growing fast.

How to time product launches perfectly

Simon Kirby — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:59:25 +0000

Here’s a contrasting tale of two Apple products that struck me recently. Wired Magazine carried a story about Apple’s 1983 design for an ‘iTablet’ here. Twenty-seven years later and the iPad is finally launched. In 1989, Apple did start developing the Apple Newton, an early personal digital assistant. Despite brilliant, breakthrough functionality, the Newton was canned in 1998, following a prolonged commercial flop.

Premature genius and the art of timing

The change curve in product development

Premature genius is one of the most overlooked challenges of product development. To visualise the problem, think of a change curve. Launch too early and no amount of marketing and development spend will get you to take off. Launch too late and you may not catch up with competitors.

There’s an important nuance in the story about the Apple Newton. It may have seemed like a failure. But, an ex-Apple staffer tells me that there’s a direct line of sight between the technical and human lessons which Apple learned on the Newton and the huge success of iPod and iPhone. No Newton, no iPod, no iPhone.

Three key disciplines for perfect launch timing

New product development needs to be framed in the present and future. There are three key disciplines for achieving that:

Trend analysis. Create private foresight out of public knowledge by identifying precisely what trends affect your product idea and understanding exactly where you are on the change curve.
Invest in corporate memory of rejected ideas and failed products. Put in place structured PRINCE2 style lessons learned documentation. Put old concepts on ice and review them regularly.
Identify the modular“components” of innovation be it an insight into customer needs, a process or technology. An entire concept may not have worked, but many of its building blocks could be entirely sound.