My Brain hurts - Wunderman books

As a result, picture messaging failed in 2002/3.
Compare that with the previous great mobile messaging
technology, the SMS text:
• Mobile service providers didn’t advertise SMS, as
they saw it as a competitor to their lucrative voice
calls.
• As a result, text messaging grew organically.
• Young people checked whether their friends had 2G
phones or not, and only sent texts to those who did.
• As compatibility grew in the mid 90s, text messaging
exploded all over Europe, Africa and Asia, with
billions of messages a year being sent by 1996.
• Within a few years, texting was providing a new
revenue stream of 7% of revenue for mobile service
providers.
Picture messaging failed, despite hundreds of millions of
dollars of marketing because it wasn’t ready. Text
messaging succeeded, despite any
marketing, because it was ready.
Technology producers need to think
further about this, making sure their
technology is ready before they set
out to market it.
Before a technology is ready, no
amount of marketing will make it
happen.
Afterwards, not even silence can
stop it.
Networking computers
together can still stump
even the geekiest of
consumers.
So
So make sure your technology works before you market
it:
• Is the home wireless network ready for the mass
consumer market yet? Most routers require a PhD in
computing to set them up.
• Internet telephony is also not quite ready for the
ordinary consumer. Congratulations to Skype, who
are continuing to allow their service to spread virally,
rather than pushing it at an unprepared mass market.
• We’re still waiting for it – the video editing application
for the common man.
When home networks break
down, how do you fix them?
Sites like eBay and
Craigslist are hitting
newspaper classifeds
hard in the US.
In Russia though, lower
computer ownership
means that classified
advertising is still going
strong.
22 WUNDERMAN
MY BRAIN HURTS 23