Posts Tagged ‘trends’

4
Jul

The Power of Communities

   Posted by: Adam   in Internet, Marketing/Strategy, Technology trends

Note: I’m starting with games but this post is for all software developers.

In Gaming Software Development

Many computer games these days have online communities associated with them.  These most often take the form of forums with players exchanging advice, secrets, data, and braggadocio.  They also serve as a central communication point both from the game developer to the consumers as well as between the consumers.  Such communities can be seen as a hub-and-spoke model since a handful of the sites become the central connector for myriad smaller and more specialized sites.

Some communities are more actively fostered than others.  A software developer does not create the community separately from the software itself; it is on this step that many developers fail.  The software needs to be designed in such a way to generate a community.  For an example, I turn to  Lionhead Studios which developed Black & White and a sequel.

The original Black & White was widely hailed and developed a strong user community.  The developers allowed the game to use third-party content such as unofficial patches, additional maps, etc.  This significantly extended the life of the game which may have been a deciding factor for Lionhead not to include such support in the sequel.

Black & White 2 has been criticized since gameplay is limited to a single campaign and there is no way for players to add further content.  Once you have finished the official sequence of seven games, you must begin again.  This reduced the replay value for most consumers.

Economically speaking, there are circumstances in which this may be beneficial to the software developer.  If they had a similar game in the pipeline, consumers may have been left wanting more and may have chosen to purchase the next game quickly.  However, as it turned out, Lionhead did not have a similar game to launch.  Since players could neither expand on the existing game nor purchase a “next-gen” title, Lionhead’s decision ended up tarnishing their brand-name.

Where is Lionhead now? They’ve been bought out by Microsoft.

Applicability to Other Software

Developers of other categories of software will need to learn from the gaming software industry.  The power and the danger of software communities is increasingly important.  What do such communities offer?

  1. Extend Product Generation Life - This may be a good selling point during the initial software sale (1.0) but there is a risk that it will slow sales of an non-generation upgrade (a 1.5 version).
  2. Misuse - Opening up a line of software to the development community may result in security or functionality compromise (i.e. identity theft or other hacking.)
  3. Competitors - Opening up the code enough for developers to understand also means that your competitors will be able to understand it.  If they can understand it, they can emulate it.  Additionally, members of your own development community may decide to develop a mod or addon that becomes more desirable than your own core product.  Of course, this may turn into a new hiring pipeline as you can identify the most skilled and driven community members and hire them.

This is a scary prospect for many software developers.  But it is also a great opportunity for them.  These communities can serve as belwethers, letting you know how your next generation product must change in order to remain competitive.  Communities can quickly identify problems and, if given access, develop mods to fix flaws.  They also have the ability to adapt to niches.

Imagine, if you will, your software as an electric drill.  A drill has many uses each requiring a different drillbit or tip.  What we are talking about is concentrating your efforts on the core functionality of the product - the motor.  Your community can develop the myriad drillbits for you, if you give them the ability.  This avoids the costs of developing a hundred different drillbits each for a handful of users.

The development costs of customizing your software for different uses can be very high, particularly if the target markets are small and specialized.  By letting your community do your work for you, you are reducing costs and you are increasing the number of potential customers.  A market you wouldn’t have otherwise entered (small user base, high customization costs) can now be served by the combination of your drill and someone else’s drillbit.

The real future of software development is in communities.  Software developers first need to:

  1. Examine their markets and decide what level of community access is right for their product.
  2. They then need to follow this up by developing software products that are engineered to be community-accessible at their chosen level.
  3. Finally, they need to create, nurture, support, and then free their communities.

Bottom line: communities are not developed after products.  They are developed by products.

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9
Jun

Cultural Divides in Technology

   Posted by: Adam   in Marketing/Strategy, Technology trends

“Japan has long been famous for its advanced cellphones with sci-fi features like location tracking, mobile credit card payment and live TV. These handsets have been the envy of consumers in the United States, where cell technology has trailed an estimated five years or more.” - Wired

With the announcement of the new iPhone, Apple has once again set the technology news world buzzing with talk.  Some claim that the new iPhone will kill older smartphone companies while others claim it will generate interest in the whole segment and encourage people to switch from basic cellphones to Web-enabled ones.  One thing seems pretty clear; Apple is going to lead the charge.

The biggest markets for cellphones are in Europe, Asia, and North America; the iPhone is currently competing in the U.S. and in select Western European markets.  The planned expansion includes Australia, and more significantly, Japan.  This will mark the iPhone’s first major effort in a market dominated by a culture not derived from Western Europe.

Over the past 50 years it has become clear that most consumer goods and services need to be designed and marketed in ways distinct to each culture.  Various thinkers have tried to peg the exact number of cultures at anywhere from three to more than sixty based on an even wider range of variables.  It would be a disservice to try to cover them all here but a start can be made by reading up on Geert Hofstede.  For the record, his work concentrates on five cultural dimensions that affect organizational culture and, unfortunately, his school of thought often views national boundaries as cultural ones.

However, in the technology world, it is often assumed that the same attributes are desirable across all cultures.  For instance, companies assume that we all want ease-of-use, that we desire to share where we are and what we are doing with our friends, and that we want seamless connectivity throughout all the environments we inhabit throughout the day.

Most of you are thinking, “Sounds like a good assumption.”  However, do you really want eight-year olds using the same forums as you? Do you want your friends to always know exactly where you are? Do you ever want to be unavailable and unreachable by your coworkers or boss?  There’s also the deeply-entrenched concept that others are basically like us and want the same things we do.

The technology industry should spend time trying to understand if users really are such a homogeneous group or if there is a need for more tailoring, customizing, or segmenting.  The Wired article quoted above (yes, I was going to get to it) points out just one of the cultural gaps that inhibits technology adoption rates.

According to the article, Japanese cellphone buyers are more interested in the number of features included on a phone than whether or not those features are well-executed, easily-accessible, or even useful on a daily basis.  The iPhone’s real claim to fame is the ease-of-use; a variety of technologies and user interface design elements contribute to making it easier to write e-mails, use map directions, send text message, and browse the web.  Conversely, the article’s author notes, “Japan is a culture of spec sheets” and the iPhone’s core message will likely fall on deaf ears.

Someone at Apple must have figured this out, right?  So how will Apple differentiate the iPhone from other product offerings in Japan?  Simply being easier to use isn’t going to work though perhaps the Apple brand will attract consumers.  One nugget of data-driven gold hidden at the bottom of the article is that:

“A survey conducted by Japan Railways showed that just more than half of those polled were interested in buying the iPhone, but that less than one-fifth really knew what the iPhone was.”

Wow. I’m glad I’m not in charge of rolling out the iPhone in Japan in a month.

Technology companies, even those outside the cellphone industry, should be watching carefully to see how Apple builds awareness, how they market the iPhone, and what they do if the initial buy-rate is low.  Technological culture, like organizational culture, has many flavors and the industry would do well to take the potential divides into consideration.  One problem is that, unlike organizational culture, little research has been done on different technological cultures.

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