Comments on: Money Can’t Buy You Love: Why Some Apps Work, Some Don’t

By: Meenu Sarin

Meenu Sarin — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:39:21 +0000

(Happiness and utility) – “It is a quaint notion, as old as the first bazaar, but somehow it got lost in postindustrial over-commercialization.” – Bingo!

Getting into theories – the Kano model which is a theory of product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 80s by Professor Noriaki Kano basically cites 3 categories of customer preferences – Attractive (aka Happiness) and “One dimensional” & “Must be” (aka Utility).

Yep, the buckets remain unchanged but they are sadly buried under “shorter time to market”, “shorter market window”, “technology & design complexities” etc. and of course the good ol’ over commercialization and “hey, I’ll miss the boat” :-)

By: Alan Ralph

Alan Ralph — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:25:49 +0000

Thanks for another thoughtful article, Om. I will be having a look at both Guy Kawasaki’s and Gary Vaynerchuck’s books later on Kindle.

You brought to mind my experience with GetGlue a while ago. I tried it for a few months, but eventually gave up on it because it felt like I was doing a lot of work telling it my likes and dislikes and not really getting anything useful out of it that I couldn’t obtain by other means. One of those being Last.fm, which I’ve been using for years, and which I find invaluable for discovering and purchasing new music. Another service that I find invaluable is Google Reader, for keeping up with not only my favourite sites but also friend’s blogs. That is how I came to this article, by the way – read it on the iPad using Reeder, sent it to Read It Later, then retrieved it on my PC in Firefox. :)

By: kerry ritz

kerry ritz — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:37:06 +0000

I love it when the tech world “discovers” the basics of consumer marketing. Apple does exactly what Chanel has been doing since the 1920′s (yes, it is THAT old)–it sells “Hope” not perfume. Why do consumers pay thousands of dollar for a an Omega watch that has $200 worth of labour and materials? It certainly isn’t about the utility of a watch! In fact, all of the companies you mention exist because they have solved a headache or problem, even if you didn’t know you had one! And, that includes the emotional as much as the tangible. Nothing new–pick up most successful marketing case studies or read presentations from the more insightful marketing professors (in consumer or B2B) and you will find the same thing. So, perhaps basic branding and marketing is alive and well!

By: Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:04:06 +0000

Not too sure about the happiness part but, going by first impression, it’s guaranteed to make people tear their hair trying to figure out what the heck it does. The value proposition in terms of “solve a pain” or “create a gain must be clear”, otherwise, there’s no point in building a product even if the product concept is crystal clear.

By: Rags Srinivasan

Rags Srinivasan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:25:13 +0000

Om
The two reasons you state are the researchers on consumer psychology and marketing research state as Hedonistic and Utilitarian consumption.
What I would like to add are:
1. It is not either -or, there are always components of both in making purchasing decisions. Usually one of the two is the dominant reason, not the only reason. It is fair to say that even a purely utilitarian product has to meet a minimum threshold of hedonistic characteristic and vice versa.
2. The classification and distribution is not uniform across all segments. This varies significantly across different segments – which takes us to what Clayton Christensen described as “what job are we hiring the product for”. So we cannot take a purely hedonistic product and position it as such to all segments.
3. For the same product even for the same customer segment the dominant reason for buying it can switch from utilitarian to hedonistic (and back and forth) due to changes in time, technology etc.

In the successful and no successful products you quote, I still considerable randomness and unpredictability of outcome because the marketers are not taking an active role in positioning the product.

Regards

-rags
http://iterativepath.wordpress.com

By: narainimalik

narainimalik — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 11:39:54 +0000

I realy appreciate.

By: Lorie Ghamy

Lorie Ghamy — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:31:53 +0000

Same way….

I use more Instapaper (an Ubernote) because available on my Windows 7 PC, my iPhone and my iPad…. Instead of Scrapbook, free add-on only available for Firefox…

DropBox killed (for the most usages) my USB keys…. I found FullDrop for my jailbroken iPhone / iPad giving the power of full data exchange beetwen my whole PC Phone world… Instead of just some kinds of files like photo, docs and PDF…

Just for information, i found a free Windows app on SoundForge for printing from everywhere with DropBox. Exemple : i write a text with QuickOffice on my iPad, and i save it in a “PrintBox” directory created in DropBox (if connected to web)…. If my PC and my printer are on at home (or Office), the doc will be print immediatly…

And a nice free service when you want to exchange a text or a web link with any connected device and any friend : pastie.org

When i was young, i remember : Always in the cloud ! Toujours dans les nuages ! In french for dreamers with the head outside school….

By: John Feddersen

John Feddersen — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 12:15:35 +0000

The best, most concise article on why some apps make it and others do not. I am currently developing a mobile app called “Marketfiesta.com”. This app is for buying, selling and negotiating with your social network providing happiness (goodwill) and utility (getting rid of unwanted items for cash). Stay tuned – we are close to first release!

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 08:10:16 +0000

Why can’t companies innovate? I’m tired of this social networking services which all it does is the same thing. Just change the UI and poof… they claim it to be another innovative web application…

By: Fulunski

Fulunski — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 03:24:02 +0000

as I read through the article I was wondering how long it was going to take before Om turned it into a Pro-Apple bit, sure enough about 1/2 way through he dropped the A-bomb.

+1 !!!

do you write articles anymore that dont include your love for Apple? it’s kind of late now & your on the backside of a downward trend.