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.


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                        >>>>>>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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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> given the significantly cheaper alternatives.

Me!  Because I had starsunmumble before that, paid them for a year of 
service, and had them go bankrupt out from under me two months later.

There's actually quality issues here, too.  Plus, arguing about which 
individual item is cheapest only works for commodity products. Products with 
a network effect are, by definition, those where the quality is affected by 
how many people use it.

-- 
   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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On 07/10/09 10:07, Chambers wrote:
> 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

	The thing is, people don't care about either. They just want a *good* 
car. For many people, a good car is not about either - it's about what 
they think the world thinks is a good car.

>> Good marketing works. Content of said marketing is not really that
>> important.
>
> Ahem... good marketing works *because* of its content, doesn't it? ;)

	Not necessarily. Vonage has the market not because of the content of 
their ads, but because of the amount of ads and the places they advertised.

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

	I can assure you that since _I_ got VoIP 4-5 years ago, there have 
*always* been similar providers who charged less than Vonage.

	But this whole line of argument wasn't my point. Most of the people I 
know who got Vonage got it because they wanted something reliable, and 
assumed that the cheaper competitors have poor experience, etc. Yet, 
perhaps unlike you, they didn't do a single bit of research to see if 
their assumptions had validity.

-- 
BASIC isn't; C stands for Confusing...


                     /\  /\               /\  /
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                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

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On 07/10/09 11:30, Darren New wrote:
> Me! Because I had starsunmumble before that, paid them for a year of
> service, and had them go bankrupt out from under me two months later.
>
> There's actually quality issues here, too. Plus, arguing about which
> individual item is cheapest only works for commodity products. Products
> with a network effect are, by definition, those where the quality is
> affected by how many people use it.

	Yes, but I wasn't saying price should be the only factor. When I signed 
up, Vonage was known to have poor quality. Yet people still flocked to 
it in those days.

-- 
BASIC isn't; C stands for Confusing...


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

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Warp escreveu:
>   Somehow it seems that Nintendo has understood some basic truth about
> computing: It's not processing power that sells. Consider this:
> 
>   Xbox 360: Triple-core CPU at 3.2 GHz, 512 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 30 million.
> 
>   PS3: A 3.2 GHz Cell microprocessor, which consists of one PowerPC-based
> core and six SPE cores, 256 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 22 million.
> 
>   Nintendo Wii: A single-core CPU at 729 MHz, 88 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 50 million.
> 
> 
>   PlayStation Portable: 333 MHz CPU, 32 MB of RAM (plus 2 MB of GPU RAM).
>   Units sold: 50 million.
> 
>   Nintendo DS: A 67 MHz main CPU and a 33 MHz coprocessor, 4 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 100 million.

Nintendo has been about 2 generations out of the spotlights with the N64 
and GC.  They realized they couldn't compete hardware-wise and took the 
easy route with a gamble:  let's repackage a slightly beefed-up Gamecube 
hardware under new plastic plus a new motion sensing controller and 
launch it with a truly silly name, silly games and try to appeal to a 
new, familiar public rather than hardcore gamers.  Oh, and let's also 
make it the cheaper of the consoles, so that we profit a lot from our 
cheap, obsolete hardware while the competitors struggle with their 
expensive new anti-social machines for geeks.

Guess what?  The gamble worked out!  The competitors seemingly didn't 
see both an economic turmoil coming, nor the fact that running HD games 
on a conventional CRT TV wouldn't be worth the trouble so that apart 
from the expensive console you also need expensive HDTVs, nor the fact 
that a broad new public to videogames are ok with silly old 8-bit 
gameplay under N64-level graphics as long as it's fun and silly enough 
to play with friends and parents.  Wheee!!!

> NES: 1985 (1986 in Canada)
> SNES: 1991
> N64: 1996
> GameCube: 2001
> Wii: 2006
> 
>   Do we see a pattern here?-)

6 years is the typical useful life cycle of a console.  Useful in that, 
different from PC games, console developers benefit from many optimized 
techniques evolved through time and actually extract every last bit of 
power from the hardware -- some of the best games and swann songs for 
the console come that late.

BTW, I left Nintendo behind after FAIL 64 and its lack of variety in 
worthy games.  It's ok when people are ok with just Wii Sports, Wii 
Sports Resort, Wii Aqua Sports, Wii Beach Sports, Mario, Mario 2, New 
Mario Wii etc.  Not for me.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis escreveu:
> Warp escreveu:
>>   Somehow it seems that Nintendo has understood some basic truth about
>> computing: It's not processing power that sells. Consider this:
>>
>>   Xbox 360: Triple-core CPU at 3.2 GHz, 512 MB of RAM.
>>   Units sold: 30 million.
>>
>>   PS3: A 3.2 GHz Cell microprocessor, which consists of one PowerPC-based
>> core and six SPE cores, 256 MB of RAM.
>>   Units sold: 22 million.
>>
>>   Nintendo Wii: A single-core CPU at 729 MHz, 88 MB of RAM.
>>   Units sold: 50 million.
>>
>>
>>   PlayStation Portable: 333 MHz CPU, 32 MB of RAM (plus 2 MB of GPU RAM).
>>   Units sold: 50 million.
>>
>>   Nintendo DS: A 67 MHz main CPU and a 33 MHz coprocessor, 4 MB of RAM.
>>   Units sold: 100 million.
> 
> Nintendo has been about 2 generations out of the spotlights with the N64 
> and GC.  They realized they couldn't compete hardware-wise and took the 
> easy route with a gamble:  let's repackage a slightly beefed-up Gamecube 
> hardware under new plastic plus a new motion sensing controller and 
> launch it with a truly silly name, silly games and try to appeal to a 
> new, familiar public rather than hardcore gamers.  Oh, and let's also 
> make it the cheaper of the consoles, so that we profit a lot from our 
> cheap, obsolete hardware while the competitors struggle with their 
> expensive new anti-social machines for geeks.
> 
> Guess what?  The gamble worked out!  The competitors seemingly didn't 
> see both an economic turmoil coming, nor the fact that running HD games 
> on a conventional CRT TV wouldn't be worth the trouble so that apart 
> from the expensive console you also need expensive HDTVs, nor the fact 
> that a broad new public to videogames are ok with silly old 8-bit 
> gameplay under N64-level graphics as long as it's fun and silly enough 
> to play with friends and parents.  Wheee!!!
> 
>> NES: 1985 (1986 in Canada)
>> SNES: 1991
>> N64: 1996
>> GameCube: 2001
>> Wii: 2006
>>
>>   Do we see a pattern here?-)
> 
> 6 years is the typical useful life cycle of a console.  Useful in that, 
> different from PC games, console developers benefit from many optimized 
> techniques evolved through time and actually extract every last bit of 
> power from the hardware -- some of the best games and swann songs for 
> the console come that late.
> 
> BTW, I left Nintendo behind after FAIL 64 and its lack of variety in 
> worthy games.  It's ok when people are ok with just Wii Sports, Wii 
> Sports Resort, Wii Aqua Sports, Wii Beach Sports, Mario, Mario 2, New 
> Mario Wii etc.  Not for me.

I also have to say part of the success for the Nintendo brand again is 
the same reason for its demise during 2 generations:  its loyal fans 
during the NES and SNES grew older during the N64 and GC, had to get a 
work, house, marriage and are now back to gaming, thanks to their kids. 
  And they go to the store and see the brand for their childhood 
colored-tinted memories and go for it, without looking back.  They 
mostly complete ignore the Playstation generation anyway and, thus, 
16-bit, raw gameplay without sophisticated storylines and presentation 
is a non-issue.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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