My CEO, George Colony lists out a few products and services that have ‘disappeared’ due to technology in his latest blog post. He lists out encyclopedias, classifies, records, actors and even trans-continental flights. He asks what could disappear next. I’ll throw out some hypothetical situations that could cause some of the following dissipate:
Support for products could be transplanted by peer to peer support tools like GetSatisfaction where passionate customers self-support each other bypassing corporations “Outside” Sales teams could be replaced by Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) s where customers define what they want, companies respond. Printed photos/photo centers, at least in the eyes of Generation Y are already falling by the wayside Physical printed maps are already being replaced by digital GPS systems in many cars Restaurant review companies like Fodors and Zagat, instead replaced by peer review sites like Yelp. Digital book readers, like the Kindle, although still in early generations could replace distribution of printed books Keyboard and mice, what a slow and archaic way of input, which needs to evolve from voice/eye recognition Movie Theaters can go away as home entertainment systems get bigger screens in HD, with great audio at lower costs. Coupled with streaming data, HD movies can be piped directly into the home Gasoline powered cars Leave a comment with your prediction –or refute mine
Thanks to Carter Lusher who spurred on this discussion.
@Jeremiah
– I’m not so sure about the GetSatisfaction wave. I agree that most products should have a community effort to support and build a conversation about the product. However, I doubt it will truly supplant traditional customer service. First, the risk of the community not providing the necessary level of support will be too great for most corporations to bear. Second, some things (like RMAs) need to be handled by a company representative.
Record labels will either go away or fundamentally change. Among their most powerful advantages were controlling distribution, production and promotion. With the cost to record/produce an album or a song in your bedroom on your computer going down (and fidelity going up), and a distribution and promotion tools like the MySpace, iTunes, etc, those traditional advantages become much less powerful.
Jeremiah-
generally yes, working musicians make more money from tours and merchandise than from CD/album sales. But even the lure of a deal with one of the major labels has faded significantly. I was told by some friends that they had no desire to sign with a major label– they made more money selling 100k units with an “indie” label than if they had sold 500k units with a major. They also made more money on tours & merch by staying with the indie label. The only way you make more money with a major label is if you have a monster hit.
I think the major labels have a major opportunity to redefine what they do and how they do it. What if the album/CD/MP3 was seen as a way to promote the tour & merch, rather than seen as a profit center? Could they make up for the lost potential revenue? lots of other questions & opportunities, but I think that’s one they’re pretty stuck on.
1. GetSatisfaction, is just a twist on Consumer Research, in one form or another, that has been, and will be, eternal.
2. You kill companies by letting customers decide your future, you have to supply that want, you have to translate needs into wants and desires. And you have to know what they want before they do or your competitors. Reading minds before anyone else gets there, is key. And people don’t know what they want until you SHOW it to them.
3. Digital Printed Photo/Scan Centers are booming (the ones at Wally World are always packed), and anything GenY is still way too early to call.
4. GPS will compliment maps, anyone using GPS knows they have their limits, and gasp, fail to work at times. Maps won’t die.
5. Peer review sites are never as well-written as the professional review sites, and you get 5,000 opinions, with the pro’s they sum it up and make it sing. Nope, people will still goto the experts for serious travel.
6. They have been predicting the death of paper for how long now? I have a Sony Reader 505 and love it to death, it won’t replace paper ever, too many limitations. This is another one of those ‘compliment’ not replace type of technologies. Whole lotta good, if people drop the alarmist, “it will kill off this old technology” rhetoric.
7. Mouse and Keyboards are not slow or archaic, and eye/voice tech has yet to even be functional, and in fact, much worse, as majority of the user-interface research shows, James H. Leatherby and Randy Pausch in a study for the University of Virginia showed “…that when MacDraw was augmented with voice input, task completion time was reduced by 21%.” Maybe someday, but with macro and keyboard shortcuts, and multiple button mice, eye/voice tech has a ways to go.
8. The death of Hollywood. This again? First it was VHS tapes, then DVDs, then Tivo and PVRs and now HD tech, Well, movies are social and escapist, and no big HD screen will ever replace that. This is a standard boilerplate argument, people will stop going to movies because [insert reason here]. Gas prices, home theater, cost of popcorn, whatever. But Hollywood’s had a record year, blockbuster city, tech can’t ever replace the social, And in fact, I offer the opposite view, HD tech will HELP Hollywood, sending in more who weren’t first-showing viewers, and plus, people will buy more CONTENT for their HD screens. So they win regardless, if you control both distributional ends.
9. There is way way too much infrastructure of gasoline for it just to disappear, alternative fuel tech is not yet feasible or mass-marketable, and even when it is, it’s only a secondary choice. The problem is not one of tech, it’s one of supply. Anyone saying gasoline will die, is speaking from a political view and not a market rational one.
When an “alternative” technology, is margins of levels better, and priced the same or below, and has the right amount of infrastructure support, and is backwards compatible, things can change.
Reducing our dependence on “foreign” energy, is a political statement, not a market-driven one. If less “foreign” you must increase the local production, at a similar cost, governments and markets must allow for such flexibility, neither of which we currently have.
Movie theaters aren’t going away; at least not until the home goes 3D. See Dreamworks recent announcement of going 100% 3D for all future production.
In response to one comment; Cd’s haven’t replaced vinyl either. They did temporarily, but the new digital media comes with most new vinyl record purchase now. also, Audiophiles and cheap production keep this genre alive and well. I believe vinyl sales actually went up last year.
New to the blog and just saw this post. Nice discussion, I submit these two:
Paper coupons: Have you guys seen IKEA mobile? You just text a number, get a reply and they scan it and print a coupon right there. Pretty clunky UX for now but the idea of getting coupons right as you enter the store seems pretty compelling. Next step would be get then at specific sections of the store as well as time based.
The second is a bit more controversial:
Analyst Firms: Seems to me that if A-list bloggers like Scobble would spen more time at client sites in addition to vendors, they would provide a lot of the value of the traditional analyst. One cavat, much less likely they would get quoted in MSM and that is an important part of the analyst equation.
I do admit that both would take a whole lot of time to happen and is a different timeline than such transformations like vinyl to CD to MP3.
Any way keep up the good work on the blog.
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