Comments on: The Toy Stories … Aibo and Furby http://gigaom.com/2006/02/03/the-toy-stories-aibo-and-furby/ Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:35:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: alex chan http://gigaom.com/2006/02/03/the-toy-stories-aibo-and-furby/#comment-114076 Fri, 10 Feb 2006 00:13:37 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/02/03/the-toy-stories-aibo-and-furby/#comment-114076 re: Jesse Kopelman’s question – I think there is a third factor – the refiner. T

he inventor can come up with real good idea ( in this case – a strong “fun” factor ) , the creator can assemble / wield / join / glue material to create a physical product. But it will take an engineering discipline ( mostly from an engineer but not limited to ) to keep refining the process to make the product a feasible product ( acceptable cost of manufacturing in relations to the potential revenue, real life performance, durability ). To make it a success you need all three ( I believe if you have a really good product you do not need much marketing – maybe just a little, but it should sell itself )

]]> By: Caleb Chung http://gigaom.com/2006/02/03/the-toy-stories-aibo-and-furby/#comment-114075 Mon, 06 Feb 2006 22:17:59 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/02/03/the-toy-stories-aibo-and-furby/#comment-114075 After the Toy Fair in February ’97, Dave Hampton and I decided to collaborate on a project. We had known each other at Mattel and had both been independent developers for many years. We worked through the summer and fall of ’97 and finally took Furby to Tiger with the help of Richard Levy. At the end of the day, we were the co-inventors of Furby. I focused on the creature design and mechanical and Dave focused on the electronics and programming.

]]> By: Jesse Kopelman http://gigaom.com/2006/02/03/the-toy-stories-aibo-and-furby/#comment-114074 Fri, 03 Feb 2006 23:48:00 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/02/03/the-toy-stories-aibo-and-furby/#comment-114074 My engineer’s perspective on this is that inventor does not equal creator. The inventor comes up with a working idea, the creator is the guy who has to take that idea and turn into a product. Maybe, this is the case here?

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