I was in Beijing on Saturday. Flickr was in fact inaccessible. Right now, China is undergoing Olympics Madness. Particularly in Beijing, they have stores dedicated to Olympics schwag with T-shirts, toys, pencils, bags, you name it. There are posters, TV advertisements and billboards plastering the entire country. China is racing to get ready for the impending event. The week before I arrived, they installed small ratings boxes at immigration, with four lit buttons showing faces ranging from smiling to frowning that you can choose from after the official stamps your passport to rate your experience. We already know the Chinese government takes a rather narrow view on freedom of speech, and in the middle of what might be their biggest P.R. effort in history, they're going to spare no effort to clamp down on negative press--especially when it touches on the heart of Beijing.
Apple, manufacturer of the most popular mp3 player ever made, with over 60% market share, develops a device which delivers the sales-proven features of an 8GB ipod Nano, adds widescreen video and image support, sales-proven features such as email, chat, a calendar, a fully-functional web browser, and numerous UI bells and whistles like a touch screen with smooth scrolling and zoom. Then, to ensure familiar performance for their current customers and reliable compatibility with their other hardware and software offerings, they build it around the OSX platform--one of the top two home-consumer operating systems on the market. To top it off, they integrate a quad-band GSM cell phone that will run on most international networks. Then, to ensure their desired 1% market share, they partner with one of the largest cellular service providers in the US, pricing the device at a point comparable with other bleeding-edge smartphones. An early survey shows that 1.16% of consumers (21 out of 1800) have paid over $400 for a phone. No mention of how many of these consumers also own ipods. Days after its introduction, Cingular reports being flooded with calls about the phone.
This is an uncertain market?
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I was in Beijing on Saturday. Flickr was in fact inaccessible. Right now, China is undergoing Olympics Madness. Particularly in Beijing, they have stores dedicated to Olympics schwag with T-shirts, toys, pencils, bags, you name it. There are posters, TV advertisements and billboards plastering the entire country. China is racing to get ready for the impending event. The week before I arrived, they installed small ratings boxes at immigration, with four lit buttons showing faces ranging from smiling to frowning that you can choose from after the official stamps your passport to rate your experience. We already know the Chinese government takes a rather narrow view on freedom of speech, and in the middle of what might be their biggest P.R. effort in history, they're going to spare no effort to clamp down on negative press--especially when it touches on the heart of Beijing.
Apple, manufacturer of the most popular mp3 player ever made, with over 60% market share, develops a device which delivers the sales-proven features of an 8GB ipod Nano, adds widescreen video and image support, sales-proven features such as email, chat, a calendar, a fully-functional web browser, and numerous UI bells and whistles like a touch screen with smooth scrolling and zoom. Then, to ensure familiar performance for their current customers and reliable compatibility with their other hardware and software offerings, they build it around the OSX platform--one of the top two home-consumer operating systems on the market. To top it off, they integrate a quad-band GSM cell phone that will run on most international networks. Then, to ensure their desired 1% market share, they partner with one of the largest cellular service providers in the US, pricing the device at a point comparable with other bleeding-edge smartphones. An early survey shows that 1.16% of consumers (21 out of 1800) have paid over $400 for a phone. No mention of how many of these consumers also own ipods. Days after its introduction, Cingular reports being flooded with calls about the phone. This is an uncertain market?