A teenager listens to his iPod Nano in a subway station. A man next to him is listening to a podcast on his iPod. Across from them is someone else downloading songs to his mobile phone. It’s official, multimedia is an active part of our lives.
Tech companies are jumping on the multimedia band wagon in droves. The evidence is clear: Mobile phones can browse the web, play mp3s, videos, and take photos. iPods have extended themselves to include Podcasting, a brilliant tool that has increased marketing for the product rapidly. Televisions now have SD card slots for slideshows of pictures from digital cameras.
Gaming has been seeing a rapid transformation into the multimedia era as well. Both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are (or in PS3’s case, will be) online, and boast a slew of multimedia features. Now gamers can connect to devices via USB port on their consoles. This opens the door to many possibilities such as photo sharing, downloading mp3s, and more. The online component of the systems give gamers the ability to download movie trailers, game demos, desktop themes, and more.
What does this all mean? It means that to be competitive and successful in the electronics industry, you will need more than just power as your selling point. Devices now have more features than you can shake a stick at. They have become the new swiss army knives. When marketing a device, ask yourself this: Does our device support any kind of connectivity? Having PC connectivity is one thing, but can it connect to other devices, such as an iPod or PSP, as well? People like it when their devices talk to each other. It opens the door to more possibilities and gives them a sense of freedom. Online connectivity has been more prevalent in devices and paves the path to more marketing opportunities as well.
The bar for the tech industry has been raised, and it will take a lot more than just processing power, mega pixels, and storage capacity to win people over. People expect more from their tech toys now. Can your product deliver?
