Entries categorized as ‘product management’
A few days ago I downloaded Dave’s new app “FlickrFan” … a kind of wired up internet screen saver but designed with Dave’s trademark ‘organic flexibility’.
Context: Ambisonia’s Podcasts is a direct result of Winer’s trademark ‘organic flexibility’. The podcasts use an XML format designed for blogs (defined by Winer). This XML format was then extended (by Winer) to include links to media files. Applications (like Azeurus) can ’subscribe’ to this XML file (called RSS) and then systematically download any media files defined within. The result is an extremely simple distribution system. But it is also designed very simply to allow flexiblity. Add Bittorrent files to the podcast (instead of the media file itself) and you now have an extremely powerful large file/cheap bandwidth distribution system. This is how Ambisonia distributes terabytes of data, at very little cost (well, at shared cost).
So you can see why I downloaded, with excitement, Dave’s latest little adventure, “FlickrFan”. But I think Dave is doing himself a dis-service with his product management. Here’s why:
- I downloaded FlickrFan. The downloaded file, however, was not called FlickrFan.dmg, it was called opml.dmg. What the hell is OPML? (I know exactly what it is but most dont).
- So I opened the dmg and looked at its contents… thinking that the FlickrFan app must be inside. It wasn’t. I could in fact find no evidence of anything anything called FlickrFan inside.
- At this stage I thought that I must have downloaded the wrong package. I have played with Dave’s OPML app before, and eventually gave up on it because the user experience was really frustrating (on windows). I thought I must have downloaded OPML instead of FlickrFan by accident. Ofcourse, in the back of my mind, I knew that FlickrFan must be built on top of OPML, but I thought there is no way that Dave would do that Java /Air thing, where you are forced to install a whole other platform to get an app running.
- So I went to FlickrFan.com to get the proper package. But FlickrFan.com is one of those spam parking sites. At this point, you realise, ok … its just a little side project for Dave. Nothing serious, no money behind it.
- I go back to scripting.com thinking I must have spelt the name wrong. There’s no link to FlickrFan on the front page, I have to go looking through the archives. I didn’t spell it wrong, its a .org site. Hmmm … .org sites typically take more mucking about than .com sites.
- I get the installer again, and realise that yes, I did have the right file to start with … OPML. Its not FlickrFan, its OPML.
- I found the instructions as a link on the FlickrFan.org. The instructions are actually spread over 2 web pages … hmmm … why 2 pages?
From then on, Dave had it all working well. The AP photos came up in startling reality…
But what I dont get is:
- Google already has a product that does slideshows of photos of RSS feeds
- Slickr is a product that turns Flickr RSS into slideshows
- and the screensaver on OSX allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds!
OK, at this point I’m starting to think that this whole FlickrFan thing is really just Dave trying to show people how you can use OPML to do funky things.
I think this is exactly what is needed for OPML… because OPML is a platform and platforms dont win without good products. But I would take it much much further.
Users are not interested in platforms, they are interested in products, or new user experiences… and when you push a platform into people’s faces, they don’t like it. This is why, I believe, AIR applications wont be popular (download the application, then download the platform it runs on … yuck). And end users really dislike Java for the same reason (”urgghh … I have to install Java, do I have the right version?” etc. etc.).
Give users the end product (bury the platform!). The developers will discover that there is a platform under there once the users have ‘exposed’ the product.
This is my recommendation to Dave:
- Hide OPML for the end users. The download should be FlickrFan.dmg.
- The app should be called FlickrFan. This would solve the “what do I do now” problem once the app is installed.
- Dramatically simplify the menu on the OPML app… its confusing as all hell.
- Buy “FlickrFan.com” … or use a different name (maybe too late?). ‘org’ sites are not empowering.
- Logo and simple site design? The FlickrFan.org site is very very forgettable. I dont get excited when I go there, I dont get an impression of how powerful this product is. The site gives the impression that the product is drab and boring. ‘Branding’, they call it.
If a user installs FlickrFan and really likes it, and they recommend it to their friend… they will give that friend the URL of the site. That friend will land on the site to check it out … and at that point I reckon Dave will lose 75% of his audience. Compare flickrFan.org and skype.com.
Categories: product management
The Ambisonic Player Harddrive is purchased online. It costs around the same as most consumer devices in the iPod range … maybe a few hundred dollars.
It is a smallish box… but well designed. It looks like it does something funky.
Once you receive this box, you plug it into your AV receiver via a digital connection (SPDIF or ADAT)…. and you also plug an ethernet connection into it.
It comes with a few excellent surround sound Ambisonic samples. They scroll on the reader … you hit play and WHAMO! there’s the glorious ambisonic surround you were waiting for… so easy.
When you purchased this little box, it told you something about getting 10 free tunes from Ambisonia. You look up the instruction manual, and it says to log into Ambisonia and type in a certain number into a little box on the right hand side (once you have logged in). So you do that.
Bling! … Ambisonia tells you that you have $10 worth of free credits … all you need to do is click on the ‘buy’ icon next to the tunes on the Ambisonia Website, and that tune will get automagically delivered to your Ambisonic Player Harddrive.
So you try it… you click on ‘buy’ …. and Ambisonia says ‘delivering now’. You go back to the little box, and hey presto … it says ‘receiving Colossus by Henry Walmsley’. 5 minutes later, you click play … and there it is.
That tune cost you 30c. Why would you bother downloading it via Bittorrent? This is so much easier.
Categories: product management
I _know_ where ambisonia needs to go (more or less), but I dont have the resources to take it there.
The challenge is not even prioritisation anymore. There is so much work to do that not even prioritisation seems to be helping me advance. Or maybe that is not my problem. Maybe my problem is that I find it very difficult to focus on one small aspect of ambisonia, when there is so much to think about with the bigger picture. Perhaps my concentration has been hyjacked by the bigger picture.
What is the NEXT most important thing to do? Is it:
- Finish the ‘uploader’ to make it easier for people upload? We cant have too little content.
- Redesign the site around the new mantra… for better communication when newcomers land on the site.
- Introduce categories so that people can browse just one style of recording?
- Launch the ‘War of the Worlds’ project where we produce a purchase-only DVD-A remix of this minths best submissions?
- Test production of AC3 (or AAC) to see if this draws the doom9.org crowd more than DTS. The Doom9 crowd are perhaps the largest online surround sound consumers… and they heavily favour AC3.
- Binaural conversion. It is going to be difficult to get a good binaural convertion. Is it worth getting an average binaural conversion out there?
What do you think?
Categories: product management
So far, I have done everything myself. The graphic design, the web design, the interface design, the application programming, the system administration, the support, the marketting, the DSP scripting, the database administration, the product management, the creative directing, the bla bla bla.
That’s my style, I’m a bit of a jack of all trades… and I’ve always asked myself “why get someone else to do it when I could probably do it myself?”. But is this a good strategy?
I’m starting to realise now this strategy results in a large drop in productivity, and a subsequent significant slowing of the development of the site.
I’ve always though that I dont want financial investment / venture capital… because I dont need it (I can do everything off my own back). But I’m starting to realise that attempting to do everything is only slowing down the development of the site.
It is so clear to me right now what are the next steps in developing the site… but it is going to take me 6-10 months to do it myself. If I had an extra 50-100K to play with, I could probably get all that stuff done within a couple of months _and_ have 6 months left over to push the site even further.
The question is, will the value of the site be more than the finances spent in 6 months… compared to what it would be worth without the financing? I dont think that question can be answered without a business model to define ‘real-world’ figures
Categories: Strategic mistakes · product management
There’s a bit of a discussion going on the Ambisonia Yahoo list…. should Ambisonia offer Stereo decodes or not? Might seem like a simple question, but it touches on the heart of what Ambisonia is about … I guess it is a ‘Mission Statement’ defining question.
There are lots of different possible stereo decodes, and one of the empowering things about Ambisonics is that an Ambisonic recording can yield all of them. We could do UHJ, Blumlein fig-8’s at 90, back to back cardioids, ORTF, spaced cardioids etc.
But some contributors are arguing that offering stereo will ‘dilute’ the site a little. I agree. On the other hand, it will expose lots more people to the contens of the site…
Here’s an email I posted on the Ambisonia Yahoo list:
I’d like to keep this discussion going a bit because I think Ambisonia is reaching a point where it it will need a clear definition of what it is about. This whole stereo discussion really nails the identity issue, I think.
Again, I’m thinking out loud …
One of the issues with ‘Surround Sound’ is that it rarely stands on its own. Its never a ‘must have’ its always an ‘optional’, or a ‘nice to have’… there’s always a “you can listen to this (DVD) in stereo if you dont have a surround sound system at home”. etc.
There are no movies which depend on Surround for plot-critical development.
A lot of music is ‘post-produced’ in surround … not ‘produced’ in surround.
And there’s not much material which is _only_ available in surround sound…. exclusively surround.
All this really produces a kind of ‘undermining’ of surround.
A while ago I was having a conversation with Paul D about how a ‘true’ surround composition would be a composition which had a different (higher?) meaning/communication/worth in surround than when cut down to stereo.
For Ambisonia.com to say “here, download it in stereo”, continues this undermining. And that’s bad. Ambisonia could represent that ‘exclusivity’ of surround. “Surround Sound isn’t stereo with a bit behind, its something else altogether”…
But offering stereo also dramatically increases access to the content on the site. And that will pull more people who might then go on and upgrade to a proper surround system.
This is one of those difficult product management questions … reduce the purety of the product, or compromise a bit to pull more people in …
.. and I think answering that question can only be done by defining what Ambisonia is about … what it’s mission statement is.
Categories: mission statement · product management
