Dr Michael Bull, a British sociologist, specialises in studying
people’s listening habits as they’re on the move. So he used to be into
Walkmans and now is known as "Professor iPod". His basic theme (if you
can summarise a man’s work in a sentence) is that people like iPods (or
Walkmans) because it allows them to feel in control of their
environment and to cut themselves off from what’s happening in the
world around them.
If you envisage the average commuter journey in London, New York or Tokyo, you can see that this might be reasonable.
But his recent survey of 1,000 iPod users has concluded that they "hate their cell phones" and because of that
As entertainment and gaming companies - to say nothing of direct
advertisers - brainstorm ways to connect with millions of potential
customers on their mobile technology, Bull says it will be a tough sell
Hmm. All generalisation are wrong, including this one.
While the relative handful of iPod users (in comparison to mobile
users) may relish the opportunity to create their own oasis from time
to time, this doesn’t mean that no one wants games on their phone, for instance.
Indeed, even if every iPod user eschewed mobile gaming, it wouldn’t
dent the mobile gaming industry, as there’s just not enough of them, by
comparison.
Equally, I know from my own work that some people love to receive
mobile commercially based conversations (aka mobile marketing) - if you
get it right, people text back their thanks. Sure, this new form of
marketing is more difficult than the old interruptive sort and people
are becoming more adept at screening ads out of their lives. But to
write off a whole industry because some iPod users say they’d prefer
not to have their mobile interrupt them, seems to be a little over the
top.
Anyway, the iPod is going the way of the digital camera soon. While
there will be a chunk of the market who want their own cultural fashion
icon, the vast majority will be listening to music on one device only -
and that’s never going to be the iPod.
The area of academia I would find interesting is if there’s any
relationship between happiness/success and unhappiness/inadequacy
depending on the mix of music you carry around in your iPod. Music is a
powerful mood influencer, so do Leonard Cohen fans have a bleaker view
on life than say, Busted fans?
I think we should be told.
Story source: Personal Tech Pipeline.
I’m not sure I understand your argument. Is it “Generalizations are bad?” or “Ipod is going the way of the digital camera”? Neither of these has much weight in my opinion.
However, I do think this is a very important point and I’m not sure which side I’m on but I feel there is much more to this debate.
Most people don’t carry cameras with them so hooking one up to a phone didn’t suffer any comparison problems with real cameras. Sure camera phones are ‘worse’ than real ones, “what’s your point” …..?
With music it is much different. For better or worse, we DO have lots of people with MP3 players and they use them ALOT. There is a standard of comparison.
The key issues I see on this ‘convergence’ issue is ease of use and for lack of a better word, ‘hardware’.
It is very important to control your music player easily and quickly and there is a strong possibility that a phone/ipod will be too complex. This isn’t impossible of course. Let’s just say the market hasn’t been the most brilliant at this so I should be forgiven a little cynisism.
As to hardware, there is the clear advantage of having to carry one thing not two. However, having 2 batteries has a HUGE advantage as you can run your mp3 player dry and still call home. A combined player puts the ‘power management burden’ on to the user which could get ugly.
Of course the ultimate problem is that the phone companies are going to insist that you don’t use itunes music store and buy everything from them. This is just boneheaded business practice and will clearly distroy any hybred concept.
This is too bad as I think there is a lot to be learned from making the ipod/phone a vialble product. It certainly isn’t impossible, there is just a long string of dead products that show this isn’t a slam dunk by any stretch of the imagination….
Scott
Well, I’m not sure exactly what your point is either
I’m suggesting that yes, the iPod/ MP3 player will be incorporated into the mobile phone for the majority of people. Though some will retain separate MP3 players, just as some people carry around digital cameras everywhere.
Sure, memory size and battery life are issues, but ones that are being solved pretty quickly.
My secondary point is to suggest that Dr Bulls’ claims that no one wants mobile games or mobile marketing based on the findings of research into iPods is a little spurious - actually he’s probably been misquoted in the article anyway. The research only covered iPods, which is a small percentage of the MP3 market anyway. And the MP3 market is dwarfed by the mobile phone market.
It’s like interviewing some people in an Amish community and concluding there’s no demand for TV.
He also seems to be saying that iPod owners are very desirable people for advertisers (are they?) and marketing is in trouble as iPod owners are screening out ads. While this is true, it’s actually a symptom of a much wider marketing phenomenon - many people are screening out ads and it’s got little to do with iPods at all.
Russell
i work within the mobile industry and manage a large carphone warehouse store…with regards to mobiles as music players i think there an excellent proposition…anytime we sell a contract handset, we get asked…”does it have an mp3 player”…there are certainly enough mobiles out there that produce decent playback. see the k750i/w800i/6630/6680…the idea i believe is convergence…clearly this fella doesn’t really have an idea, and as mobile technology gets more and more sophisticated, he’ll look back on his rather dumb statements and wish he hadn’t said it…mark my words…