Amazon succeeds because their strategy catches the psychological fundamentals that drive consumer behavior, not short-term infatuation with bells and whistles. When the iPad came out, many sounded the death knell for the Kindle. You have to admit, the iPad was, and still is, pretty slick, and on first appearance, Kindle's future looked bleak. Nick Bilton's NY Times post "Third-Generation Kindle Is Top Seller" talks about how Amazon was able to stay in the game. From my perspective, Amazon succeeds because they understand the psychological shift taking place in our technology-rich environment. It's not about the tools, it's about what we want to do with the tools. Amazon understands that, ultimately, it's about user experience and meaning. As I wrote in a recent post (15 Techno-Cultural Trends for 2011), we will increasingly see a shift in focus from the thrill of owning cool technology to the goals of using it. Amazon is positioning itself to catch the … [Read more...]
Augmented Reality on the Big(ger) Screen
iPad 4.0? I'm ready now! Gary Hayes sent me the link to his video on YouTube illustrating the augmented reality (AR) experience would be on an iPad-sized screen. It is a great video; it really captures a sense of the potential of AR across a gamut of applications. After you check out the video, go to Gary's website and read the blog entry "Where Industry and Academia Fear to Tread – StoryLabs Launch" on the need for storytelling in effective message construction and delivery--and the conundrum of finding someone who knows how to speak "transmedia." As someone who teaches digital storytelling and emerging technologies, it was exciting to see his take on it. The world is no longer linear. Well, it never was, but before it moved slow enough so our inability to see it wasn't such a problem. Now, it is. And we have to learn to be nonlinear, multidimensional storytellers. To do this, we need to become nonlinear thinkers. This isn't just about storytelling. … [Read more...]
