“We wanted to be the Bose of the digital world,” Cullen said. But in order to do that, the Sonos crew had to figure out how to make a product that was easy to use and could deliver a sound quality that audiophiles and those listening to MP3s would appreciate (as an aside for digital music junkies, Cullen says he stores his audio files as 320 kbps MP3 files). Improvement is ongoing, with the latest advancements being the way it built its S5 boombox-style device. Sonos, not longer content to shuttle bits around the home network through a proprietary wireless system, designed a new speaker for the S5 that digitally controls the output from the different parts of the speaker.
An advantage of this is that the S5 sounds the way most consumers prefer their speakers to sound (at least according to the gurus at Lucas Arts who vetted the sound quality for Sonos) and that the speaker profile can be changed via a DSP programmer tweaking the settings. Expect those advances to be seen in future Sonos products. Cullen also notes that the home audio market is the focus today, but people listen to music in other places, such as in their cars or via headphones — an area Sonos will one day explore. As it does, it’s staying focused on providing the best sound for digital music and continuing to refine the way it builds its products in the service of that goal.
Lesson#2: Consider Usability Before You Build
It took the guys at Sonos a few months to build their first prototype, and at the end, they were left with a product only a geek could love. Realizing this, they sought help from a usability expert, who told them they didn’t need a usability expert until much later in their process. What they needed was an industrial designer who could get in early and help them build the hardware and software with an eye toward the consumer. The team eventually hired Meiko Mieko Kusano, a designer for Phillips, who told them, “Usability is in the bones of the product, not the skin.” Cullen still credits that mentality with Sonos’ success.
“Most consumer electronics companies build out hardware and then add software to update it and change their designs every 18 months. We turned that on its head, building hardware that will last and software that we can update whenever we need to in order to improve the experience.” Cullen credits that shift to Kusano, and offers up Sonos’ Zone Player products as an example. “You should be able to stream music over that for the next 15 years.”
Lesson#3: Don’t Be Afraid to Cannibalize Yourself
That long-term vision for the hardware is part of the success of the Sonos platform, but the other is the philosophy the company has about working with partners and even introducing new products to expand its base. When it launched, a Sonos system could run a user about $99 for a wireless router, another $350 to $500 or so for something that picks up that signal and connects to speakers in one room (each room would need another of these), and a special controller for about $350 to drive the system. But in 2008, Sonos released a free app for the iPod that mimicked the functionality of the controller and thus brought down the cost of the system. Sales surged. The loss in controller revenue was more than offset by sales of the new system, Cullen said.
It now has a free app for the iPad, and as mentioned earlier, Cullen says support for other platforms will come. But last year, Sonos introduced a much more disruptive product: its S5 boombox. For $400, the S5 has speakers and allows someone to create a Sonos network with the addition of a Zone Bridge for $99. The launch of that product has changed the profile for Sonos, moving it out of the specialty market and into the mainstream. At the time of this writing, items No. 3 and No. 6 on Best Buy’s Top 10 bestselling wireless and streaming audio products were S5s. However, Sonos’ S5 cracked the top 100 of Amazon’s Bestsellers in Home Audio & Theater Products list at No. 73, behind rivals Logitech and Bose. But Cullen says the fear of cannibalizing sales of its more expensive gear hasn’t been realized; instead people buy an S5, then tend to add more onto their networks.
Lesson #4: A True Platform Doesn’t Pick Winners
As a platform, Sonos plans to release a breadth of hardware and software to ensure a better digital music experience, but it also extends that to partnerships it signs with music providers. Sonos currently supports Spotify in the U.K. and Scandinavia, and that partnership alone has enabled it to boost sales of its system in those countries by a non trivial amount. In the U.S., a partnership with Pandora has had a smaller but still noticeable affect on sales as well. Cullen said Spotify and other some partners have offered to pay Sonos for providing access to their content to Sonos users, but Sonos doesn’t play that game. “We don’t take revenue from people,” Cullen said. “We don’t want any incentives to guide our behavior rather than the user choosing what they want to listen to. We don’t want to be picking winners and losers.”
So far, Sonos’ strategy is working. The company has now raised $65 million,and while Cullen wouldn’t discuss IPO plans, he says the company has been approached by buyers. However, the $15 billion home audio market beckons, and Sonos believes it has learned how to play the game well and can take the disruption provided by digital music and home networks to give the industry giants a run for their money.
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With The Social Network sweeping the awards at last night’s Golden Globes, it’s time to brace for yet more mainstream attention — as if any were needed — for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. As director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin polish their trophies and prepare themselves for possible Oscar-winning speeches, it’s easy to imagine executives at the company’s Palo Alto offices shaking their fists in fury.
Facebook has certainly had its troubles with the film in the past, and for good reason. There are plenty of well-documented arguments justifying Zuckerberg anger about the movie. It’s not exactly flattering. It paints him as something between arrogant and autistic. It suggests he’d sell his friends out for a buck. And it misrepresents his love life quite drastically for dramatic effect.
But Zuckerberg, despite the funds at his disposal, has essentially done nothing to shut it down. Why? Because he understands that the publicity generated by the movie ultimately makes him — and therefore Facebook — look more interesting than reality.
After I watched the film with some friends, we talked about it. Some admired the way the film managed to deliver a fairly accurate on-screen representation of programming — because, let’s face it, making coding look sexy is about as hard a task as you can imagine. Other friends thought it immature and demeaning to technologists.
Personally, I found the film a little boring. But I did emerge with an image of Zuckerberg that was, if not positive then certainly more powerful than it had been. The pseudo-Zuckerberg portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg might not be somebody I’d want to hang out with, but he was probably going to take over the world.
On screen, he is smart, rapacious and intimidatingly clever. He might clash with his friends, but he is willing to do whatever it took to turn Facebook into a success story. He is driven, analytical and apparently destined for success. I would lay money on the fact that investors at Goldman Sachs saw the movie and thought admiringly of this cutthroat young man who was motivated by a chance of glory.
In real life, of course, there’s plenty to be said for Zuckerberg’s leadership: he’s focused and determined, and has played it smart almost every step of the way. He might get caught asking for forgiveness rather than permission, he might have more than a few lawsuits on his hands, and might be redrawing popular concepts of privacy — but he’s found success almost every time he’s turned the corner. And whatever you think of Facebook’s $50 billion valuation, it certainly makes his regular decisions to keep hold of the company look like genius.
However, as an individual, he remains largely in the shadows. Even as Facebook has moved out of college dorms and into mainstream life, he kept fairly quiet. The odd awkward interview at SXSW or sweaty appearance at All Things Digital aside, he’s restricted his public persona.
But The Social Network has changed all that, and Zuckerberg has used the opportunity, whether it’s making a headline-grabbing appearance on Oprah, a confident keynote at the Web 2.0 Summit or racking up millions more users and big investors.
In the end, it’s this approach that has surprised me most about Zuckerberg, and demonstrated that he is even more clever than he is usually given credit for.
It’s unusual for somebody who clearly loves to be in control to hand his public image over to Hollywood, but Zuckerberg appears to have recognized that in the space of two hours, The Social Network does more to bring him alive than any public appearance could ever manage. Myth, in cases like this, is often more important than fact — and by giving the myth room to breathe, Zuckerberg proves he’s not just a business mind, but also a master of public relations. After all, he can let the Hollywood version of himself hog the spotlight while he laughs all the way to the bank.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):
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Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/
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