scott wrote:
>> People are often telling me that M$ spends millions on consumer 
>> research. But I have to ask... what escaped nutcase *wanted* Microsoft 
>> Bob? The annoying paperclip? The animated Find dog? That window that 
>> pops up every... single... time... you log into a Windows XP box for 
>> the first time? (Do I *look* like I want to take the God damned tour 
>> of XP?!) The incessent "there are unused icons on your desktop" whinging?
> 
> I guess that's why they spent millions on consumer research and didn't 
> just ask an IT professional :-)

You're seriously suggesting that some people *want* this crap?!

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>> I guess that's why they spent millions on consumer research and didn't 
>> just ask an IT professional :-)
>
> You're seriously suggesting that some people *want* this crap?!

I'm suggesting that you should broaden your mind a bit, and realise that not 
everyone is a technical IT person who just wants to use their computer as a 
tool to get stuff done as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Have you 
ever worked in an office with lots of really non-technical people?  They 
don't care about efficiency or if Explorer takes 2 seconds or 1 second to 
open, they care about "cute" and "fun", and they'll have the cat office 
assistant selected, a crazy screen saver, a mouse pointer that wobbles like 
a jelly, a thing that plays a tune at 16:00 every day, a horrendous 
background to explorer windows, all just because it's fun.

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>> You're seriously suggesting that some people *want* this crap?!
> 
> I'm suggesting that you should broaden your mind a bit, and realise that 
> not everyone is a technical IT person who just wants to use their 
> computer as a tool to get stuff done as quickly and efficiently as 
> possible.  Have you ever worked in an office with lots of really 
> non-technical people?  They don't care about efficiency or if Explorer 
> takes 2 seconds or 1 second to open, they care about "cute" and "fun", 
> and they'll have the cat office assistant selected, a crazy screen 
> saver, a mouse pointer that wobbles like a jelly, a thing that plays a 
> tune at 16:00 every day, a horrendous background to explorer windows, 
> all just because it's fun.

OK. So remind me... who is it that wanted to be constantly nagged about 
the unused desktop icons? Who was it that thinks getting their PC 
infected with malware was a good idea?

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> OK. So remind me... who is it that wanted to be constantly nagged about 
> the unused desktop icons?

People who had lots of desktop icons and didn't know which ones were unused?

> Who was it that thinks getting their PC infected with malware was a good 
> idea?

Nobody?

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On 07/10/09 02:11, scott wrote:
> A lot of the time people know that there might be cheaper alternatives
> out there, but they just can't be bothered to research it, or don't know
> how to. You could spend your whole life finding the cheapest of
> everything you want to buy, but then you'd have no time left to enjoy
> all the money you saved :-)

	Yes - so why did they pick Vonage?

-- 
"Class, please! If you don't learn Roman numerals, you'll never know the 
dates certain motion pictures were copyrighted." -- Mrs. Krabappel in 
The Simpsons.


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

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On 07/10/09 02:46, Chambers wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> That doesn't sound like either features or benefits selling. The
>> lesson I'm learning with this is "marketing sells".
>
> Sure, it's benefits. Ford didn't tell people they should get a car
> because it had X features; he told them they should get a car because of
> how it would improve their quality of life.

	I know, but I suspect people bought it because Ford marketed better. 
That they emphasized benefits over features may have played a role, but 
I'm willing to bet any company that markets the features well will outdo 
mediocre marketing of benefits.

	Good marketing works. Content of said marketing is not really that 
important.

> I've actually used Vonage; their prices are quite competitive. In fact,
> I *tried* to research others, and I wasn't able to come up with anybody
> who had better prices.

	When I got my VoIP line (4-5 years ago), there were lots of companies 
out there. And Vonage was probably the most expensive. They also were 
reputed to have the worst quality, because they had more customers they 
could handle (something I'm sure they have fixed). Even then, everyone 
was flocking to them.

	Look at ViaTalk. With their offer (which they almost always have had 
for the last few years), you'll effectively be paying less than $8/month 
for the first two years. Vonage has little that Viatalk doesn't (last 
time I checked).

	After the first two years, you pay double, which is still only 63% of 
what you have to pay for Vonage.

> Maybe the other companies need to work on their advertising.

	Precisely. It's not because of promoting either features or benefits. 
It's simply due to forming brand recognition. Good marketing.


-- 
"Class, please! If you don't learn Roman numerals, you'll never know the 
dates certain motion pictures were copyrighted." -- Mrs. Krabappel in 
The Simpsons.


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

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Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom_no_underscores> wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> > Chambers wrote:
> >> partly because Sony focused on technical points, ie features, whereas 
> >> MS actually focused on the entire user experience (ironic, isn't it?). 
> > 
> > What's ironic about it? Sony has always focussed on features and MS has 
> > always focussed on the user experience. That's why technical people 
> > don't like MS products.

> Not ironic that they focused on it, but ironic that they got it so right.

  Not as right as Nintendo, though, as Wii is selling almost as much as
Xbox 360 and PS3 combined...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     I know, but I suspect people bought it because Ford marketed better. 
> That they emphasized benefits over features may have played a role, but 
> I'm willing to bet any company that markets the features well will outdo 
> mediocre marketing of benefits.

The problem is, people don't *care* about features (outside of a core 
group that likes bragging rights, of course).  Features don't sell, and 
they don't convince.  *Benefits* do.  Nodoby really cares what clock 
rate a CPU runs at, they care how fast the processor is (the clock rate 
is an indicator, of course, so they still pay attention to it, but a 
fast chip with a slow clock still sells better than a slow chip with a 
fast clock).

That Ford marketed better than his competition is undisputed.  But a 
large part of what he did wasn't just selling Ford cars, but selling 
cars in general.

>     Good marketing works. Content of said marketing is not really that 
> important.

Ahem... good marketing works *because* of its content, doesn't it? ;)

>     Look at ViaTalk. With their offer (which they almost always have had 
> for the last few years), you'll effectively be paying less than $8/month 
> for the first two years. Vonage has little that Viatalk doesn't (last 
> time I checked).
> 
>     After the first two years, you pay double, which is still only 63% 
> of what you have to pay for Vonage.
> 
>> Maybe the other companies need to work on their advertising.
> 
>     Precisely. It's not because of promoting either features or 
> benefits. It's simply due to forming brand recognition. Good marketing.

Not just brand name recognition; I was literally unable to find a 
competitor that could match Vonage's prices when I shopped around.

-- 
Chambers

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Invisible wrote:
> People are often telling me that M$ spends millions on consumer 
> research. But I have to ask... what escaped nutcase *wanted* Microsoft 
> Bob? The annoying paperclip? The animated Find dog?

Just because they do the research doesn't mean they always get it right.

 > Who wanted a word processor that constantly crashes?

You seem to be the only person with this problem.

> Which 
> people thought it was funny if a power cut results in permanent data 
> loss and possible an unusable PC?

Never had that problem, unless the hardware failed.

> Seriously... WTF? Who in their right mind thinks M$ provides a good user 
> experience? M$ is legendary for the *bad* experience they provide! It's 
> certainly NOT just technical people who dislike their products...

Uh, no. Sorry.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Invisible wrote:
> OK. So remind me... who is it that wanted to be constantly nagged about 
> the unused desktop icons? 

You get offered once, and you click the box that says "stop asking."  It's 
only nagging if you can't read.

> Who was it that thinks getting their PC 
> infected with malware was a good idea?

Bugs aren't designed in.

People think getting some small number infected with malware is preferable 
to spending 30x as much for the software.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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