Mobile tech: the less friction, the more customer adoption

Bob Russell at MobileRead shares an insightful post on "friction" in the eBook market. The premise actually comes from Michael Hyatt, a book publisher, as he discusses what "friction" is. You could equate the term to a barrier of mass adoption or unnecessary roadblocks towards using a product. For eBooks, the friction lies in lack of available content, varying formats, DRM struggles and more. It simply doesn’t matter that an eBook may cost less or can be carried around easily in a digital format: with too much "friction", the general public won’t adopt the market.

Bob also raises this issue in the UMPC and smartphone markets, citing all of the friction that abounds. We’ve covered much of that here so I won’t rehash. But as I read the article (and the over 180 comments to Bob’s post), the first company that came to mind as a "friction reducer" was Apple. The products are simple to use while providing most of the functionality that most people need. No, the products aren’t perfect, but take a second to compare a MacBook with a notebook PC or the iPhone with a smartphone and think about which has more "friction". Or if you don’t agree with my premise, pick another company and make comparisons to its competitors. I think we’re at a point now where the most functionality isn’t going to win consumers over; less friction will. Thoughts?

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