I used to work for the hard disk manufacturer Quantum Corp many years ago. The folks at Quantum were always obsessed with the mechanics of the drive; the rotation speed, data density per platter and error rate. These are all wonderful things to have in a quality disk drive and when you are selling primarily to computer makers like Dell and Apple I suppose it makes good marketing sense. I always wanted Quantum to do a consumer campaign that centered around what I knew what was truly important, the data that lived on those drives. Much like the Intel inside campaign, this would be an effort to get consumers to specify Quantum for their hard drive. Consumers buy based on emotion and what they are emotionally connected to is their data.

I also love that this ad does not talk about features and specs, but focuses on the utility of Google+ and the automatic upload feature. This is a very Apple thing to do by the way. Look carefully at any Apple and you will see a greater emphasis on the utility than specs and features. This is one of the great secrets of Apple’s marketing, they understand people care a lot more about what a particular product can do for them than they do about specs. Other companies can try to compete on specs, but they never tell or show you how their product can change your life.

We are back and will be on a weekly schedule. The show will also have a loose format consisting of social media news, a tip and a tool. I always want the audience to come away with something tangible and useful they can use right away.

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When I saw the headline, “Barnes and Noble offers 30 free e-books to switch to Nook” I thought, oh yeah, now we’re talking. When you are competing with the industry leader who has a stronghold on the market, you need to do something pretty dramatic if you’re going to get a leg up. Giving 30 free e-books to switchers would have been just the kind of bold, ballsy move that could have changed the tide, at least a little. Alas, it turns out Barnes and Noble isn’t that gutsy after all and this promotion isn’t going to do a damn thing. The 30 free books, you see, are chosen by Barnes and Noble and span a wide variety of titles from cooking to history to fiction. Great, you gave me 30 books, of which if I am lucky I might be  interested in one or two. They claim it’s a $300 value. Some value.

You see, the real problem is if I already have an Amazon Kindle, I have all my books already stored there. I don’t have access to them on the Nook and this creates a nice lock in for Amazon. Now if you allow me to take 30 of my favorite titles over, and make it even better, the rest of my titles for a nice discount price, you will be able to generate switchers. What would this cost Barnes and Noble? Plenty to be sure but what’s the value of a new lifelong customer? This game is hardball and either you step up and play or you’re going to be out of the game soon.

The same thing can be seen in the tablet wars. Apple is the dominant player with the iPad. Competition is coming now from various Android tablets and most recently HP. But the HP tablet starts at $500 and many of the Android tablets are close to the same price point. That’s the same price as the iPad and like it or not, those tablets are just not as good as the iPad yet. Price being equal, people are going to choose the iPad. If these alternative tablets are going to make any headway, someone is going to have to through down a price like $300. This is not about profit or loss at his point, when you are trailing a dominant player like Apple, you’ve got to grab market share anyway you can.

Topics include:

New Android tablets debut at CES

The new Apple Macbook Air and what it means for the future of mobile computing

The coming flood of Internet connected devices or cloud based computing

App stores in the connected world. Apple vs Google

What do businesses need to do to capitalize on all that’s been discussed on todays show

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Gone are the days of large, powerful laptops designed to handle the work of a desktop on the road. Trends are moving toward smaller, lighter devices driven more from the power of the Net. As notebook computers eventually started to outsell desktop machines, I think we will see these smaller devices, call them NetBooks or tablets or what have you start to outsell typical notebooks. With this, I believe we will also see a resurgence of desktop machines as people give up trying to use one machine for home and mobile use. I have already made this move, as I gave up my laptop for an iMac at home and a small pc based netbook when mobile. Of course I still also have my smart phone when I want complete pocketability.

Apple had no entry in the super small and light portable and the iPad doesn’t quite substitute yet for one. The new MacBook Air fits the bill perfectly. The original Air was maligned with problems and never took off but I think this new model will see much more popularity. As with everything Apple, it’s a bit overpriced but drop dead beautiful and elegant. I think the real legacy of Steve Jobs will be the way he singularly blends cutting edge technology and art. Seth Godin always talks about making products remarkable. It’s an important lesson for all business and Apple gets an A+

The latest and perhaps most shocking example is the story of Giorgio Galante, an AT&T customer who wrote emails to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson in part to complain about several aspects of his AT&T experience. After the second email in as many weeks, Giorgio received a phone call from AT&T’s “Executive Response Team” thanking him for his feedback and at the same time warning Giorgio if he continued to email the CEO he would be served with a cease and disist letter. Threatening your customer with legal action because he tries to communicate with an officer of the company is so shockingly dumb I am at a loss for words. Is that what they teach you at B School?

It’s not the first time, however, AT&T has acted in such a way. As they were being barraged by complaints about the poor network service AT&T said it was the customers who were using too much data and they would have to look into doing something about that. Yes, our service stinks and it’s your fault mr. customer, so I will have to find a way to penalize you for that. And in fact, AT&T has now found that way, this week announcing dramatic changes to their data plans for smart phones like the iPhone. Unlimited access is gone and customers now much choose between two data plans, both with data limits and charges for going over the limits.

How does AT&T get away with this nonsense? Because they have the iPhone, the most popular cell phone in the world and you cannot buy it from anyone else. Apple may have signed a pact with the devil on this one and like it or not, there is some blowback that Apple suffers from all this as well.

I believe something needs to change drastically in the mobile world. We can no longer allow companies to sign us up for long term (2 year) contracts and then treat us so poorly. Since all the mobile companies seem to be in league with each other on most of these egregious practices, it’s going to take some kind of government action to step in and fight for the American consumer.

In the end, I don’t know what AT&T is thinking on this one. Is Giorgio Galante a pest? Unnecessarily filling up an important CEO’s email with trivial complaints? I don’t care if he is a nusense . He’s a customer, he has a right to be a nusense. He deserves to be treated with respect. He deserves an answer to his questions, not a threat of legal action.

I learn so much from watching my kids work with technology. I learn about the future. Having kids is like living with your own personal crystal ball. I also learn a great deal about user interface and ease of use in tech products. My daughter, when she was just nine, picked up my iPhone and knew just what to do with it, no instruction needed. That’s when I knew it was a most amazingly built device. I think every technology company should have kids employed in their labs to do their user testing. If the 5 year old can master it, you’re ready to ship.

Tyler Gray realized the same thing and put it further to test with his iPad and his 5 year old son Cash. I’ve included the video in this post, and here also is a link to the original Fast Company article.

There are indications now that Amazon may try to make a new Kindle with color and multi-touch technology, bringing it much closer to an iPad. I think it’s very dangerous for Amazon to rush headlong into a competition with Apple on their own turf. Maybe the smart play is to remain the dominant player in black and white e-ink technology and let Apple have the rest. Amazon’s strength has always been traditional black and white books, not magazines or comics. Here’s an even smarter play, make a full iPad version of the Kindle reader. Amazon needs to remember their focus, they are a bookstore not a hardware manufacturer. By making a great Kindle reader for the iPad, they stand to sell more books from their online bookstore, even possibly cutting into Apple’s store.

2010 will be THE year of the tablet computer as Sony has also said they want to enter this market. No doubt there will be others. 2010 could also be THE year traditional publishing makes the turn to digital distribution. People have been predicting the death of traditional publishing for years now. These new tablet machines go a long way to bringing that prediction to pass.

Part of the problem with the iPhone is that it is a GSM technology phone, so it will not currently work with Verizon or Sprint. Apple would have to develop a new handset altogether. If the new generation iPhone is LTE, however, this would open up a world of possibilities as it would be technologically compatible with most vendors. I think at this point we may see the ending of the long standing exclusive arrangement with Apple and AT&T. And if Apple ships the phone before AT&T can roll out it’s LTE network, AT&T stands to loose a great deal of customers. AT&T has been running at least a year behind Verizon technologically for the past several years, so I see a dark future for AT&T. AT&T’s customer satisfaction has also been plummeting lately due to their inability to handle the iPhone as it is today.

Bottom line: Apple and its’s customers stand to be big winners and AT&T stands to be a big looser unless AT&T can latch onto another phone that knocks the iPhone out of the box.

What does it mean for your business? All this new video is going to drive more people to YouTube to watch. It will solidify YouTube’s dominance in the online video world. If you are doing any kind of video for your company and you do not have a YouTube channel yet, you are passing up a massive opportunity. You simply cannot afford not to be on YouTube. You should also be watching and monitoring YouYube for videos about your company or your industry. What are people saying, what are they thinking? This is the best market research/customer opinion lab you have ever had. You may not like all the content, but you had better pay attention and be ready to respond and engage.

What kind of opportunities are you giving your customers, your raving fans to share their videos? Maybe you should share the best YouTube videos on your main website. What other ways can you encourage people to create good video content about your company? These are the kinds of things you should be brainstorming with your social media consultant. Don’t have one? You might want to give me a call, I’m happy to help.