Jeremy Toeman’s LIVEdigitally

Short post, just wanted to draw attention to the fact that we’ve put up a “how to pitch us” page.  Why, you may ask?  Well, first of all, we get a lot of pitches, and frankly, many of them have nothing to do with what we blog about.  Enterprise pitches.  TV shows.  Viraga (and viarga and even v i a g a r a).  You get the drift.  So I wanted to help add some focus.

Secondly, I believe it’s the “right thing” for bloggers to do.  I put up a post on my marketing blog implying as such.  It’s not really fair for me to just say “here’s my email” if I don’t tell you what I want to know about.

Lastly, if you’re noticing I wrote “We” above, well, there’s a few new folks joining the team to help write more reviews.  I’ve become a little too entrenched into too many different people/organizations to be able to effectively write reviews much anymore.  Either I know the person/company behind the device or the PR firm (or both), and I feel way too conflicted way too often.  So expect to see some fresh blood showing up in the next few days!

Intro: Mike Arrington was able to get Comcast support via Twitter, I thought I’d do the same (although I am Canadian, I’m no Arrington and I’m not using Twitter).  I’m a subscriber to the NHL Center Ice package, offered via Comcast through iNDEMAND.  The regular season is over (Go Habs!), and now things got messy.

In the program guide, there’s no more information for the Center Ice package at all.  No listings, just baseball.  I googled, found a few scattered suggestions and possible answers.  I then proceeded to try Comcast’s support chat, the agent was polite and tried his/her best, but found nothing.  Eventually told me to call my regional office.  Which I did.

Local agent looked through a variety of things, and sooner or later started surfing the Web looking for more.  Nothing.  Found the Center Ice info page, which is missing all information about the playoffs.  Well, not all the info, just has a page showing where they would be, and nicely refers to them as the 2007 playoffs.

I called iNDEMAND.  The most help I got from them was that (a) there was a confirmed game on Versus, which I already knew, and (b) the channels to find Center Ice were numbers 461-470, which I already knew.  This information came just slightly after I managed to convince them that I was actually a paying subscriber.   Bottom line is at 4pm on Thursday I’m going to have to have my Slingbox ready so I can quickly find the right game and set it to record on my DVR.

First I blame iNDEMAND for not having the right information.  It’s not really Comcast’s fault since their vendor doesn’t have the data.  That said, Comcast shouldn’t do business with vendors who do not have the information needed to support their customers.  If Comcast made it an absolute requirement, I guarantee the iNDEMAND folks would have the answer already, but as it is, there’s little-to-no incentive for them.

As an aside, it’s like when I called Sony for support on my Vaio and they blamed Microsoft and NVIDIA.  They might be right, but nobody exactly forced Sony to use NVIDIA chips.  Then again, the laptop is on its way back from Ed Bott’s place, where he says it’s lightning fast!! Windows may just be re-entering my life (it still does have better keyboard shortcuts)…

Back to the topic at hand - customer service.  Service is as important as any marketing or promotion activity.  With the combination of blogs, Twitters, and Google, it’s impossible for a company’s bad habits to remain in the dark any longer.  Fundamentally I believe if you sell a product, you must support it to the fullest extend possible.  No passing the buck.  Setting the right standards for your organization isn’t hard to do, and in the long term can have a huge payoff.

I posted last night on my marketing blog about how I feel marketeers will need to deal with the conference overlap situation.  As I’ve watched the news unfold, the following is clear:

• DEMO’s schedule was announced first, so Shipley is pointing the finger at Arrington/Calacanis
• TC50’s announcement triggered the onslaught of conversation, which led to Arrington claiming that DEMO should die.
• Shipley has responded, questioning professionalism and more
• Arrington and Calacanis both respond pointing fingers back at Shipley

Prediction one: it will get worse from here from both organizing groups

Prediction two: people will take sides, which will further antagonize the situation

Here’s the ultimate reality: It doesn’t matter whose “fault” this is, and there’s no point in trying to determine who was trying to screw the other one over. This is a LOSE-LOSE proposition.  NOBODY benefits.  Startup entrepreneurs will not get nearly the impact from attending EITHER conference this way.  Bloggers, press, and media will not get to see half the companies they’d like to see.  The first week of September will be just noise, no signal.

My recommendation is the groups GET ON THE PHONE with each other, and find a solution.  I doubt this will happen, as it’s probably too late to deal with the financial consequences, and there’s probably so much bad blood already that nobody will get off their perches.

In some industries competition is a very good and healthy thing.  PCs are probably going to get better because of the recent success of the Mac.  This is good.  When it comes to conferences that have similar offerings to a limited marketplace, this type of competition is plainly unhealthy.

Chris, Mike, Jason - you are intelligent, respected thought leaders in our community.  Please go take the steps needed to help the industry make smart decisions about what to do this September.

Made ya look.

Seriously, the tri-annual Under the Radar event is one of my few conference favorites. I like it because:

• It’s local (ok, technically the peninsula is not really local, but I’ll cut them a break).
• It’s highly unlikely that there will be any form of “witch-burning” during an interview.
• Companies’ demos/pitches are short and sweet, and (typically) well-rehearsed. There’s nothing less fun than watching an exec fumble through a PPT that they haven’t practiced (again, there are in fact many things that are much less fun, but I have no metaphors in me right now).
• The events are focused. This month’s is about Web Apps, so I can pretty well assume what topics will be covered (as opposed to, say, CES, which I also like, but where software, phones, gadgets, and car stereos all converge).
• I’m moderating for half the day (the morning, for those of you who are curious).
• For demonstrating companies, it doesn’t break the bank just to show up. Same deal for attendees.
• Quite impressive batch of attendees includes lots of VCs, decision-makers, and press.
• Two of Stage Two’s clients (kwiry and DeviceVM) are presenting. If you have not checked both out yet, you really should. - cool stuff.
• I can get ya $100 off! What’s not to like?

Hope to see some of you there!

A year ago at this time I was mocking anyone my age who was texting. Today, virtually all of my peers use it on a more-than-daily basis. In fact, when I was moderating the recent Under the Radar Mobility event, I polled the (heavily biased) audience on their text use. Over 95% of hands went up when asked if they text, and the same amount stayed up when asked if they text for business-oriented purposes. Texting: not just for 15-year-old high school kids anymore.

I’ve tried a lot of mobile services, honestly I don’t like many of them. I’m not into lifecasting and I don’t need a morning horoscope, so the only extensibility I’ve done with my phone (Samsung uch740 - love it) is downloading a few games. Tetris is still the champ, and Transformers was a disappointment. When a friend of mine asked me to get involved with kwiry, my first step was to give a bit of a personal litmus test to their service. I liked it from the first time I tried it, and am pleased to see them launch today (official press releases are here and here).

Mid-post disclosure: Stage Two Consulting is doing marketing consulting for kwiry.

As you can read from other reviews (Engadget Mobile, VentureBeat, Geek.com, mocoNews, MobileCrunch, bub.blicio.us, GoMo News, The Unwired) kwiry is a service that lets you use your cell phone (no fancy iPhone needed) to text reminders to yourself. Once you’ve texted something, it’s waiting for me back at my computer in my email or saved online at kwiry.com, along with instant search results and some sharing/social networking features. If you are wondering when that’s useful, think about all the times you are out and about and don’t have a computer with you - odds are good you have your cell phone!

Enough of ‘the pitch’ - I’ve been using kwiry personally ever since meeting Ron Feldman and his team. It’s useful to me because unfortunately I’ve become ridiculously forgetful in recent years (which I, in a moment of irony, blame entirely on my cell phone). I also like the fact that it follow my normal lifestyle. I am used to texting, and I’m used to being online and checking out my various sites and feeds. With kwiry I don’t have to change any of that, and to me, that’s a big win for adopting any new service, product, or technology.

In case you missed it, Apple announced they were discontinuing one iPhone and dropping the price on the second by 33%, all a mere 68 days after launch. Steve Jobs, the absolute master at generating hype, frenzy, and fandom in the consumer technology industry, dismissed this as “that’s technology.” Apparently a few people disagree (three highlights here here and here). I am one of these people.

In “the old days” all the way back in the 80s and even 90s, most consumer electronics products were cycled about once per year. Much like the auto industry, you knew full well if you bought a 100W Sony receiver with Dolby surround, the next year you’d see a 110W Sony receiver with Dolby Digital. That’s technology.

Jump ahead to today. Most consumer electronics devices still get cycled about once a year-ish, and the updates happen at different, but predictable times of the year. Flat panel displays tend to come out over the course of the Summer and early Fall, etc. Computers and mobile phones, on the other hand, are cycled fairly continuously, but again, predictable patterns exist, both in timing and pricing.

In the past two weeks, I now have two examples of companies (Apple now, Canon previously) ignoring any patterns, and simply “walk all over” their existing customers in the sake of bringing new things to market or dropping prices. These are the kinds of habits that create a chink in the armor of customer loyalty. And these chinks are exactly the moments that create opportunities for competitors.

So my advice to these manufacturers, and any others, is to think very carefully about your existing customers and how they will perceive your glorious news. If you bought an iPod nano last Xmas, you probably aren’t too upset about a new one - it’s been a while. If you bought one last month, my hunch is you are pissed. You might not do anything about it today, but the next time you are looking into buying a product, the competition might just have a chance to attract your attention.

I’m not advocating 3-month leaks on new products with pricing and tech specs revealed far too soon. I get that you have inventory that needs sell-off. But establish some patterns, we’ll learn and follow them. New iPod once a year? Great, no problem. iPhone discount just before the Holidays? Makes sense, we’re expecting it. Need to rush a new model to market to stay competitive? Excellent - set up an upgrade program for anyone who has made a purchase in the past 30 days.

The bottom line is easy: treat your existing customers with the respect and gratitude they deserve - they are the ones most responsible for delivering you your next batch of customers.

UPDATE: To the masses, Steve just did another wunderboy move with fresh kool-aid.  Still not drinkable where I come from, but something is better than nothing, right?

Back in my Sling days, one of the greatest fears I had in doing my job was watching or reading interviews with the CEO, Blake Krikorian. See, Blake’s one of those guys that is really fun to talk to, on just about any topic (other than when you screw up and miss a deadline or build a goofy feature into your product, of course), and really loves engaging with whomever he’s talking with. He’s also a super-enthusiastic guy when it comes to Sling Media - which is apparent in any video you may watch with him in it (even if he’s in a Japanese restroom).

So why was this a “fear”? Well, we we’d never be 100% sure as to what exactly Blake would talk about on any given interview. So we knew it would be good, and we knew it would be fun, but we never quite knew what would come out of it. At the end of the day, it’s clearly a “high class problem” as a friend of mine says - because the results were always good ones. Here’s Blake on Om’s Revision3 show.

One of the reasons Sling is so well-liked as a company is that Blake promotes a very open, friendly communication style. Sure the company has plans and initiatives that can’t always be disclosed in advance, but the general tone and demeanor is welcoming, inviting, and open.

These same principles are driving our marketing efforts for Bug Labs. Peter Semmelhack, the CEO, is keenly interested in not just having open source technology, but in what I am calling open marketing.  Next week I’ll be in the NY office for a couple of days, and even though we are a ways away from launching the product, we’ve blocked off an evening to have a few beverages with anyone who wants to come by (I’ve even made a Facebook event). No RSVP list needed, no exclusive invite for the tech-elite or media. Whether it’s a curious engineering student (of age, of course!) or someone with a vision of some amazing gadget, we want to meet them, and just chat.

Some of my favorite blogs to read are from company CEOs, ranging from Jonathan Schwartz to Steve Jobs. My advice to any company, whether small startup to huge megakeiretsu, is to have some form of open, transparent communication. You don’t have to reveal every single little plan or secret strategy, but being “out there” and “real” will help your company through good times and bad.

As both of my frequent readers know, I’m completely fed up and frustrated with Sony, and because they are such a closed, unapproachable company, it massively amplifies my frustrations. If the company had more of a “face”, I’m sure I’d still be annoyed, but in a less loathsome manner.

We are in a very interesting transition time when it comes to marketing technology products, and I firmly believe openness and transparency are essential.

There are times in life where work feels closer to a hobby than “a job” - doubly so when a company you work with makes products that tie in to people’s hobbies. As (apparently) more than a few of my colleagues know, I’ve been working with “some cool gadgety startup” since the Winter, and now I can finally talk a little bit about them. The company is called Bug Labs, and it is producing an open-source hardware and software platform for building, well, gadgets. And not just gadgets like the conventional ones we think of and see every time we walk into a Best Buy, more like the gadgets that couldn’t possibly make it to a retail store shelf.

I’ve spent about 10 years designing, building, and marketing “convergence” devices. I’ve helped companies big and small attempt to bring them to market, and I’ve watched others try to do the same. With the exception of the Slingbox, all performed poorly on the market. But the reason for this is mostly due to the definition of market success. In 2000 or 2002 or even 2006, the “digital home” market was a small one (and in many ways still is today). So when I built a device with a Pioneer or an HP, and it sells by the thousands or tens of thousands, it’s a failure. These types of companies spend no less than six figures (and typically seven) on product development, and it’s typically much more than that (not even including marketing budgets).

Bug Labs’ platform, on the other hand, enables anyone to configure a device for a niche market, whether its 1, 1000, or 10,000, and be a market success. The company is effectively disintermediating the entire consumer electronics design, manufacturing, and retail process. By taking down these massive barriers to entry, an engineer (or entrepreneur) can purchase hardware from Bug Labs, build software for it, and create a new market for the configuration of their choosing.

Peter Semmelhack, the company’s founder and CEO, blogged today calling the product “Legos meets Web services & APIs”, a phrase I think is very appropriate. Most hardware kits contain pieces as low level as transistors, chips, and resistors (oh my!) which even with drivers and SDKs still require a lot of knowledge to work with. If you think about a Lego block, it’s a basic module that you inherently know how to use. This is the right analogy for Bug modules, they are pieces that make sense to any programmer. I’d say I’m a well-below average coder, but can still hack well enough to hook up Facebook and Wordpress for example. With the Bug platform, I probably couldn’t make the best gadget, but at least I’d be able to give it a shot. That’s the hobby I enjoy.

Last night’s dinner with Peter, Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Ryan Block, and Jerry Michalski was the first time we had the chance to talk openly about the company. It wasn’t “the launch” and there’s no “official press release” available. Instead, there’s a conversation, and a blog post with an early greeting (yes Zoli & Henry, we will have product info out soon). One of the key goals of the company is to embrace numerous communities, including open source, digital divide, and online technologists. While we’ll do some traditional marketing activities such as a press tour, you’ll also see us on college campuses, at XYZ-Camps, and doing other very “accessible” and inclusive activities.

I’ll be handling the outreach for the company, and while we still have a way to go until the Web site and products are available, I encourage anyone interested in being involved to get in touch, either here through a comment, by email, or even by IM. Looking forward to the next steps!

Update: wanted to share some of the thoughts from some of the individual VCs whose firms invested in Bug Labs (Brad Feld, Bijan Sabet, and Fred Wilson)

Just read a wonderful post on how to pick conferences to attend and what you should do when you get there. I’m going to add my $0.02, but change the tack toward how to decide when you should take your team of 3-30 to a conference. In my personal opinion (which is redundant to say since this is my blog), most startups participate in conferences prematurely. To be clear, by “participate” I mean take an active, notable role - speak, sponsor, demo, etc.

I’m going to make the statement here that this probably won’t apply if you are uber-famous or have raised a billion dollars to foolishly sell groceries online 5 years prematurely. My recommendations are based on “the average startup” and probably relate more to consumer-focused ventures, I am not much of an enterprise services kind of guy.

“Early Development” aka “I have a dream”: If you are in this super-early phase of a company, the only things you want to do with a conference is attend, learn&listen, and network. Unless you are a “known entity” in your respective tech community, or unless you are trying to pull some uber-stealth-buzz-marketing move (proceed with caution), there’s virtually nothing to gain by being a sponsor or panelist. A good stealthy company should be trying to fly under the radar as much as possible.

“Basic Demo” aka “Stealth Mode”: OK, the engineers (or possibly just you) made something work, it’s a good proof of concept but probably pretty ugly. Your friends think it’s a sure thing, the next Google in fact. My advice to you - stay stealthy right now. Most of your friends won’t tell you the haircut isn’t so great, but you should probably let it grow in a little before getting out in front of too many strangers.

“Need Funding” aka “Wookin Pa Nub”: Let’s assume that by looking for funding you’ve got a nice demo (or powerpoint) and you are comfortable with some press happening should the occasion arise. At this stage, I’d definitely pick out conferences that have decent VC attendance (easy tip: look for ones with VCs as sponsors) and try to get on a panel. I’d consider doing a Demo/Under The Radar/TC20-style event, but probably recommend avoiding spending too much (anything over 5 figures) as you’re effectively rolling the dice on an extreme crapshoot.

“Launching Soon” aka “Tummy Full O Butterflies”: So now you’re in some kind of private beta test, almost ready to show the world. People, this is your time to shine. Get out there, and get the buzz going. Again, I’d caution against spending too much money, but I’d probably have people in your team tracking all of Scoble’s favorite events and sending one or more to as many as possible. Get your message out there.

“Launch” aka “Launch”: Now is where my advice will take a bit of a controversial turn. I’m going to have to divide you up into different companies based on the interestingness of your company. This is tricky, since everyone likes to think they have a super-duper interesting company. Unfortunately, this is not true, and the more sober, koolaid-free look at yourself you can make, the better you’ll do (in general).

• Extremely Interesting: You sure? Okay then - my advice to you - do not launch at a conference unless it is either the D: All Things Digital event or a mega-trade-show like CES or NAB. Why? You have so little to gain, and so much to lose. If you are super-interesting, then all you are doing is creating an environment at which you are more likely to fail than succeed. Demoing in 6 minutes in front of a wide group instead of taking 20 minutes one-on-one just doesn’t compare. And if you really are that interesting, all you need is someone with a half-decent rolodex and good interpersonal skills to set up all the meetings you can use. Everybody wants a hot story, why shoot all your ammo at once when you can spread it out at your leisure?
• Somewhat Interesting: This is, realistically, most companies. If you’ve got something decent-to-good, but not over-the-top wow, and not a snoozefest, then I’d recommend leveraging an event that has a lot of press congregated together. The caveat is this: you run the risk of using up all your marketing karma in one shot, and missing the mark a little. A bad demo or someone else there with a killer story, and you are instantly below the fold on Techmeme. Proceed, but like you would in any good war, do as much recon as you can beforehand!
• Not-so-interesting: First of all, my applause for being humble enough to read this. There’s plenty of great startups with great technology that just aren’t all that exciting, but still viable to become profitable or get acquired. My basic advice to you is to avoid any show-and-tell scenarios, and get on as many panels as you can. You want to create perception of knowledge and expertise, but don’t want some random group of “judges” who don’t quite get it barking at you for having a yawner demo.

“Post-Launch” aka “We’re out there, and we’re loving it!”: At this point, there’s no clear-cut answer. I tend to focus on analyzing attendee and press lists, and seeing how an event fills a gap in my current programs. Also, there’s a certain amount of a pulse you want to keep going - staying visible and keeping momentum up is important. That said, try not to be that company that attends, sponsors, and demos at every single event in a season - a little good judgment is not only cheaper, but more impactful. It shows you put a little thought behind the money, not just money behind the money.

Hope this is helpful!

Saw this headline “The iPhone Made People Switch To AT&T” then read this article “About 25 percent of iPhone buyers are ’switchers’ to AT&T“. Here’s a quote:

“We find these numbers impressive, showing that a fair amount of customers are willing to pay high early cancellation fees (~$125-$200) to get out of their existing service contracts for an iPhone,” analyst Shaw Wu wrote in the report.

Now, Mr Wu’s job is to get people to buy Apple shares until it hits the price target he’s set ($165). That is what he is paid to do. So writing a comment like that probably makes sense, again, given his job.

Let’s establish a couple of baselines here, shall we?

1. Most people who bought an iPhone in week one were unlikely to have “saved up for it” or put it on layaway. A $500 phone is bought by those with enough financial resources to make it a non-decision.
2. Most people who bought it in week one had to have it. Whether they are “early adopters” or just wanted to be part of the moment in history (and it most certainly was one), it was an entirely deliberate act.

If you accept those truths, then is saying “oh, and about 25% had to spend an extra $200″ a big deal? No, it is not. In fact, it’s fairly obvious. To this segment, the act of switching carriers was no bigger than the batch of people who did it to get the first Razr.

This is NOT indicative of the masses, and Mr Wu’s claim of how he “expects iPhone to bring smart phone technology into the mainstream” is another piece of manipulation I find frustrating. There are over 100 MILLION smartphones in use today.

It’s fairly clear to just about everyone right now that the iPhone is exciting, and is a great sign of the power of Apple’s brand as well as what happens when you make good products - people want them. For those who’ve misread my previous posts, I absolutely agree it’s an impressive device, just not the one I want (although my terrible experience with my Sony Vaio VGN-SZ460N is certainly making me open to buying a Macbook these days).

I’ll make two predictions about the iPhone market moving forward:

ONE: If the current rate of switching carriers by breaking contract is 25%, it’ll be less than half of that by the end of the year. People may switch out of contract, but I think the massive wave of this part is done.

TWO: Everybody falls into one of these three categories:

1. Owns an Iphone
2. Doesn’t own one, but has already decided they will buy one, are just waiting for some trigger factor (money, end of contract, seeing a friend use it, etc)
3. Doesn’t own one, but has already decided they will not buy one, for whatever reasons.

I don’t think anyone else is really on the fence anymore, and I doubt that a lot of people who have already decided against it will switch. I was wrong about my iPhone-eBay predictions, we’ll see how I do this time!

I recently had a lengthy discussion with my Rabbi talking digital media and more specifically on content piracy. One area we focused on was about people’s awareness of right and wrong, and their tendency to do wrong, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Many have conjectured that consumers would stop “stealing music” if there were “better systems” in place to buy it and use it legally. At this point, I think it’s fair to say the systems are there, and they aren’t really working.

First, to stop a counterpoint in its tracks - I know iTunes sells a bunch of music to a lot of people. Even Steve Jobs himself stated that Apple estimates about 3% of music (max) on iPods is purchased, leaving 97% ripped or copied/downloaded. When I did a music survey several months ago, over 60% of the people who completed it acknowledged a peer-to-peer download within the past 30 days. Let me repeat: 2 out of 3 people are actively illegally downloading content.

Over the past month I’ve randomly been asking friends and strangers the following questions:

• Do you download music that you don’t pay for?
• Is that wrong?
• Would you walk into a Best Buy and walk out with a CD without paying for it?

In almost every case, the answers are, predictably, YES, NO, and NO. Interestingly, there’s no reason to ask people if shoplifting a CD is “wrong” - they know the answer to that one. More importantly is the focus of the second question and the corresponding response. People today, in general, do not believe the act of downloading or copying music files is wrong.

Marc Cuban has some excellent thoughts on the future content, including this one (source):

Can the music industry be saved ? Yep. It would be so easy its scary. Make music available anywhere and everywhere.

In my eyes, this isn’t nearly enough.  If people don’t think of it as wrong, then the problem the music industry faces is deeper than availability, access, DRM, synching, devices, mobility, PCs, iPods, or anything of the sort.  The problem is morality can’t be spun.  Morality is exceptionally hard to market.

Consider the cases where the RIAA has prosecuted college students (and others) for peer-to-peer sharing.  Without fail, bloggers and even mainstream media tend to leap to the defense of the sharer, rarely to the side of the RIAA.  Deep in the hearts and minds of modern technology culture, there is a belief that sharing music files isn’t wrong.

My suggestion to the industry at-large is two-fold:

1. Publishers/Labels: Enjoy sales why they last, but intensely build out ad-supported models.  Figure it out, and do it soon.  There should be plenty of money to keep publishers and producers in business.  Also, while you are at it, stop throwing money at sensationalist acts that are only good for a track or two - it is a model that has led to the problems you face today.  Focus on spreading your promotional and development budgets much wider across many genres and acts.
2. Artists: Continue to focus on the live shows.  It’s fairly accepted that that’s how you make most of your money anyway, so work on deals that heavily emphasize your touring and live revenue.  Also, figure out how to do live streaming for micropayments, and enable a revenue source from a fan base you can’t otherwise touch.

I could probably come up with another dozen or so models that would work, from unlimited subscription plans to “donation” options.  At the end of the day, when they say “if you can’t beat em, join em” it’s time to realize that there is a massive groundswell of people who do not, cannot, and will not accept the concept that music sharing is wrong.  No number of lawsuits or failed DRM experiments is going to change that, nor cleverly phrased advertisements at bus stations.

Headline: “AT&T and Apple Announce Simple, Affordable Service Plans for iPhone”

So maybe I’m missing something, but I would think anyone who has a budget for a $599 cell phone probably isn’t so price-sensitive about their service plans. Although I guess all the kids who’ve saved their allowances for it might find it an incentive. I see this type of stuff all the time with my consulting work. Companies who have a great product/technology/service, but don’t seem to focus on the key messaging to actually sell the product/technology/service. I always look to TiVo’s early marketing campaigns as my pseudo-case study.

TiVo launched in 1999 with a huge marketing campaign (rumored above $50 million - huge for a startup!), focused almost exclusively around one key message: pause live TV. I still remember the first time I saw the ads (TV ones too), which, as a TiVo owner, confused the heck out of me. Here’s the thing - it turns out nobody really cares about pausing live TV, it doesn’t make much sense to a non-TiVo person, and even then it’s just a fringe benefit. There are two features that I think TiVo could’ve worked with and gotten much better results:

1. Instant Replay - “Miss that shot? TiVo puts you in charge of the Instant Replay!”
2. Season Pass - “No need to manage piles of blank tapes, TiVo’s Season Pass records all of your favorite shows, no hassle required.”

Overall, the iPhone marketing team has done quite a good job. Then again, the iMicrowave, iLunchbox, and iCeramicPotterySet would probably generate just as much buzz too. I just like to keep my eyes out for when companies misalign their target market, their key benefits and value proposition, and their messaging…