Hulu Plus? About Time!

by Brian Guenther

As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of Hulu. Besides Netflix’s Instant Streaming service, Hulu is the best means of viewing high-quality, professionally-produced video online. It is my default way of keeping up with multiple shows that I don’t have time to watch live. It is also a great way to see the latest movie trailers and amuse yourself with comedy clips that don’t involve Star Wars, baby brothers biting each other, or cats jumping around. With the introduction of Hulu Plus, the online video service is positioning itself for a whole new era of growth and profitability.

The main reason for this will be the new distribution channels Hulu is opening up: mobile phones, game consoles and the iPad. Users of those devices crave high-quality video, especially with the lack of support for Flash on Apple devices. As an iPad owner, I was seriously disappointed with my inability to access Hulu. Well, that will be corrected soon enough. Hulu is opening the floodgates to a horde of new, mobile users. By my back of the envelope count, the Apple ecosystem has the potential to serve up an audience of over 60 million. Xboxes and Playstations represent another 80 million or so. The Wii gets left out because, lets face it, the novelty has worn off and it sucks these days. By virtue of these new audiences alone, Hulu can expect to capture millions of new users. The price point isn’t so high as to dissuade the notoriously willing-to-pay Apple users from forking over $10/month, and gamers have proven willing to fork over cash for entertainment.

Sure, there will be a horde of people who will complain about paying for ad-supported video. Well, those people can scream all they want. They are the most likely people to use pirated video sites like Yidio to catch up on otherwise unavailable shows like True Blood and Big Bang Theory. They don’t want to spend money on anything online. The networks shouldn’t cater to this group. They will complain a lot, make a ton of noise, and go back to torrenting tomorrow. There are enough people online these days that Hulu can move to a paid-model coupled with advertising and succeed, as long as they restrict the number of ads to something reasonable. The new Plus service will take some content away from the free version of the site, which will have a negative impact in the short term. However, I believe people’s expectations will reset and they’ll offset the decline in viewership with the gains they’ll seen from the new distribution channels.

The other advantage to this new model is it will persuade more content owners to sign over assets to Hulu, as the monetization scheme is stronger and there will be more cash to share. The more content Hulu has, the better the Plus offering will be for consumers, creating a virtuous cycle. Using Hulu Plus with Netflix may allow people to view a large proportion of current and recent shows for the low price of around $20/month. Who needs cable anymore, especially when it costs as much as it does these days? I’m seriously considering ditching cable entirely in my next home set-up, in favor of Hulu and Netflix. Sure, I’ll have to figure something out for football games and the like, but then I’ll have a perfectly good excuse to go to the bar.  If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to get ESPN3 on my Xbox with a simple Cable Internet subscription.

What’s next for Hulu? I’m not really sure. When I wrote about them last year, the mobile device hadn’t matured as fully for video as it has today and the iPad hadn’t even been introduced. Now, it seems as if mobile content and applications are key. Well, Hulu has entered the mobile market with Plus. Perhaps now they’ll move into live event broadcasts. I’d be in favor of that and it would really round out their content offering. They did broadcast a Dave Matthews Band concert last year, which I heard was a success. Original content is also a possibility, though I don’t see them succeeding with high-quality fare like Showtime has introduced. They’ve experimented with original content with their Dream series. I haven’t heard anything about the success or failure of this experiment, though it seems like a good way to lock in a loyal customer base like the premium stations have done. I guess we’ll see - I wouldn’t be surprised if Hulu went both directions in the near-term. Either way, it’ll be exciting to see how the market evolves in response to their ambitious new service.

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Nike Soccer App Showcases Potential for Education Technology

by Brian Guenther

Nike’s latest soccer-oriented application, Nike Football+ Team Edition, came out for iPad just in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Curious to see what Nike had come up with, I immediately downloaded and have been impressed by its simplicity and usefulness.I also think it is an excellent showcase of the potential for technology to be incorporated into education, especially outside the classroom.

Like previous Nike apps released for the iPhone, this version showcases videos of soccer drills featuring various star athletes, with each drill divided into a specific attribute category like speed, control, and accuracy. The user can then combine a set of drills into a custom exercise program. After mastering these basic drills, users can then step up to more advanced training. Rounding out the app’s functionality is a team management page where players can be listed by position, with spaces for drill results to track their progress.

After using it and showing it to friends of mine who actually still play soccer, we were all intrigued. It is a flashy, well-designed app that takes on a couple of challenges: soccer drilling, performance benchmarking, and results tracking. It contains a curated set of high-quality videos created specifically for the app. It is an awesome tool for any soccer coach. Using an iPad, these drills can be taken to the soccer pitch and demonstrated to players, with all results captured in real-time. Even better, players with an iPad can download it for free and train individually.

What Nike Football+ lacks is a mature set of coaching tools. It’s coaching functions are simple and can’t contain as much data as a spreadsheet.If I were a coach, I’d want visualization tools to discover trends, capabilities to track results for every drill over time, and a way to monitor actual game results. However, Nike never set out to create the definitive soccer coaching app, so I can forgive their oversights.

Ultimately, Nike Football+ is a proof of concept in the education world, demonstrating an innovative combination of mobile computing, video, and data capture. Imagine the type of application that could be created by dedicated publishers like Pearson or McGraw-Hill. They could create apps dedicated to specific topics, with modular content including podcasts, videos, music, and imagery to accommodate lesson plans. They could create tools for teachers or professors to mix-and-match content to create their own applications. Students could access this content online or through iPad-like devices. Technology would enable students to automatically open up assigned reading (or viewing), take randomized questions (goodbye homework sharing), and submit essays (no more dogs eating homework). Teachers would know who was lazy and didn’t complete their reading, identify students having difficulty early, and create dashboards for overzealous helicopter parents. It’s a clear win-win for everybody, except perhaps the professors who write textbooks and the stores that sell that at absurd prices.

It is an exciting vision and I sincerely believe the days of the textbook are numbered. It will be some time before this becomes affordable, and we’ll have to figure out standards and interoperability, but it will come eventually. For now, bold and adventurous institutions can give students iPads and play around with what is available on it. From what I’ve seen, we’re not quite there yet, though we’re closer now than when the Kindle DX was widely-believed to be the solution.

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Tools and Services to Help You Live a Better Life

by Brian Guenther

As someone that both loves technology and has spent considerable time consulting for healthcare companies, the prospect of whichever buzz word you chose to use - Digital Health / e-Health / Health 2.0 - is very exciting. I am talking about the use of web applications, mobile devices, and other gadgets to record, monitor, and analyze personal health information. Not only are these tools  efficient and effective ways of collecting health data, but they enable consumers to capture and access their information in new ways.

Generally speaking, there are a few major categories of consumer-oriented digital health tools: web-enabled gadgets, mobile applications, online services, and electronic health platforms. Some of the entrants into these categories are fairly new (e.g., the Fitbit) whereas others have been around for years (e.g., Weight Watchers Online). But whatever their age or level of maturity, they represent a new era for consumer health, where we now have the tools to take the ephemeral concept of fitness and record it, track it, and monitor it. In this post I will profile some of the cool gadgets and services I’ve come across.

Gadgets for Tracking Your Activity-Level and Health

The first device I observed in this space was the Nike+, a sensor that could be worn in a shoe or on a wristband that paired with an iPod to track runs. The data from the sensor could be uploaded to a special website created by Nike for runners that serves as a social network and personal data repository. When it first launched it seemed like just another nifty gadget, but it has been tremendously successful, attracting over a million runners and recording millions of miles run on top of billions of calories consumed. Following on this innovation, many new entries have come upon the digital health scene, including the Fitbit, Philips DirectLife, Wakemate, and  Withings Scale. While pedometers have been around for some time, the Fitbit and DirectLife bring some nifty web-enabled features that do much more than any normal pedometer.

The Fitbit records your level of activity (e.g., steps taken, calories burned, distance traveled), measures the quality of your sleep (e.g., time to go to sleep, times awakened, etc.) and automatically transmits this information to a website via a base station / charger. You can use the website to view this data, see trends, or even enter calorie consumption information to get an idea of your overall nutritional intake.

The DirectLife fulfills a similar need, tracking level of activity and uploading it to a personal website. Where it differs from the Fitbit is that is has a feedback display which can be used to determine if you have met your activity goals for the day, and also in how the data it records is used. Philips actually provides a coaching service where your progress is tracked by professionals and they provide advice and guidance on how to adjust your goals.

The Wakemate is a dedicated sleep monitor coupled with an iPhone application.With a special wristband, it records your sleep patterns and uploads it to a website for analysis, informing you of how well you slept and providing data that can be used to do a more thorough analysis. You can also use the gadget to determine the optimal point within a 20-minute window for you to be awakened, ensuring that you will feel better rested in the morning.

The Withings Scale is a well-designed and Internet-connected scale that automatically records your weight, BMI, and level of lean mass vs. fat. This data is sent to a website where it (of course) can be monitored and tracked over time. This saves you from the inconvenience of doing the tracking yourself in a spreadsheet, and allows you to quickly spot patterns in your weight.

Mobile Health and Fitness Applications

What happens when you combine mobility and robust applications? Why, you have the ability to create convenient and highly functional fitness services. Which is what has been done with applications such as Men’s Health and iFitness (though there are dozens more like them). These applications allow you to fulfill your weight management or fitness objectives while on the move, making it easier to accurately record activity and diet information, while also enabling you to view historical information or get tips of workouts. Let’s take a look at the apps themselves to see how they’re designed.

Men’s Health, an interesting play by the magazine of the same type, offers information on specific exercises as well as workouts which are designed to meet different objectives, all illustrated by some nice photography. You can record your repetitions, monitor your rest periods, and export your results via email. This is a very focused application without a lot of distracting features.

iFitness is a very similar application, offering exercises, routines (e.g., workouts), and logging. However, it also allows you to create your own workout program, making it easier to follow a set routine and track progress. In addition to these features, it also has a weight monitor, BMI calculator, and body measurements log. These capabilities allow you to gain a fuller perspective of your level of fitness and changes over time.

I briefly tested these services on my iPhone and found that it is easy to use them. However, you have to be fairly dedicated to incorporate this technology into your routine. It isn’t easy to consistently keep track of your information, especially on the small screen of a mobile device.

Online Services for Logging Data and Monitoring Progress

Another type of service that has emerged over the last few years is online logging and monitoring of health, exercise, and nutrition data. Sites like Weightwatchers, DailyBurn, and The Daily Plate offer users the ability to keep track of just how much they have exercised or eaten in a given day, and also allow you to record key health measurements like weight or BMI. This is usually done by looking up a specific food or exercise, notating how much of it you indulged in, and then clicking a Save button. Just like that, you have captured another page in your health diary.

These tools allow you to capture your net calorie intake, the nutrients you consume, and the sources of your energy (e.g., fat, protein, carbohydrates). Some of these services will let you know if you’re exceeding certain thresholds with your food choices, such as too much sodium. You can easily pull up some analysis on your habits and trend it with your weight to see how effective or ineffective your efforts have been. You can even benefit just by actively monitoring your habits, which forces you to consider your choices and do the math on your diet.

These services also feature meal ideas, recipes, workout videos, and community features. For people struggling to become healthy, they can find almost everything they’ll need through these services, as long as they are comfortable with the digital format. Even in this day and age, a lot of people still prefer trainers and dieticians to help them make the right choices. However, with these tools, everything is quantifiable and its easy to tell if you’re getting results. Do you get the same accountability from your hired fitness help?

Like the mobile applications I discussed, it still takes effort to use these services. You have to be consistent to reap the full benefits. It helps if you can put yourself on a regular regimen, as this saves considerable time when entering data. Some online services have actually started integrating with personal health devices to help reduce the burden of recording information online. As these services mature and technology advances, I hope this kind of data tracking will be automatic and invisible to consumers.

Online Platforms for Consolidating and Sharing Your Information

The heavy-weights of desktop and Internet computing have tried to tackle some of the healthcare system’s problems by launching two online platforms: Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault. These platforms are actually very similar offerings, serving as online portals where you can consolidate your personal health information. You can build your personal health profile, extend it to your family, and share it with physicians. Both platforms have a number of partners that provide information or web applications on top of your data. Google’s partners include CVS Caremark, the Cleveland Clinic, Medco, and Quest Diagnostics. Microsoft has partnered up with organizations such as Aetna, the Mayo Clinic, Planned Parenthood and many others. Web applications leverage these platforms to provide customized content, assess health risks, and monitor health, among other functions.

Other companies have developed platforms to address health from a different angle by targeting employers. Services in this space include Virgin’s HealthMiles, Limeade, and RedBrick Health. These services are directed towards employers, who in some countries like the U.S.  pay the majority of health insurance costs. The employers provide access to the service to employees and incenticize them to use them by sponsoring competitions or offering additional benefits and compensation. The services record employee data, provide dashboards for the employees and employers, and help manage rewards. With the help of these services, employees are given the tools to achieve better health and rewarded for the gains they make.

Finally, there is one more service I’d like to profile here: PatientsLikeMe. PatientsLikeMe is an online platform for collecting real-life patient data and outcomes. From a consumer standpoint, it is a support community where you can create a health profile, find others who have conditions or experiences similar to yours, and share knowledge. It is meant to help people cope with their condition, seek advice, or help others by providing relevant information. The founders created the site after an experience with ALS. It is a very different type of platform from the others I’ve profiled, as it helps people in a completely different way. To cover their costs, PatientsLikeMe provides anonymized data to partners and grants access to the community for medical research.

Wait, there’s more

Innovation in health care has also created some more unusual services and gadgets, including Bedpost and the Autom robot health mentor. Bedpost is a tracking site for sexual activity, a sex diary of sorts. While the site  is still in beta and doesn’t list the tangible benefits of the service, I’d imagine it can be useful from a health perspective. It is a facet of people’s lives that can be indicative of health problems. The Autom, on the other hand, is similar to a nutrition and exercise log, in robot form. It captures this information and allows users to see a summary. As a tangible and cute object, it is supposed to engage users on a deeper level than health journals. I’m kind of doubtful as to how successful it’ll be, but nice try.

Conclusion

This is simply a tour of the tools and services that are out there, and more are popping up every day. They seek to address everything from obesity to diabetes, using wireless sensors, online applications, and other fancy widgets. Corporate behemoths like Google and Microsoft have entered the market along with small start-ups. Health care is an area that is ripe for innovation and I can only wonder what will come next. Judging from the finalists of the 2010 Wharton Business Plan Competition, where 6 out of 8 entries were health care related, I won’t have to wait long for more interesting ideas to emerge.

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28 days later… the iPad has turned people into zombies

by Brian Guenther

I’m a sucker for titles - it has actually been more than 28 days since I purchased the most sublime gadget of them all, the iPad. Much to my disappointment, one of the few things the iPad doesn’t do is transform into a zombie. It may have started the zombie apocalypse though, as it seems to have liquidated the brains of legions of bloggers and gadget-heads.  I say that because unlike their wild musings, I still find myself owning and using a television, laptop, desktop, Xbox, and iPhone. The iPad hasn’t magically revolutionized my life. This article is to take another look at the iPad after an extended period of use, and see how it has impacted an individual with a variety of computing needs.

My Original Assessment…

Was largely correct. In case you missed it, click here for my initial impressions of the iPad. My basic everyday usage of the iPad is as a content-consumption device. I use the iPad to check up on email, go through my RSS feed, sync up on Twitter, (occasionally) log into Facebook, and watch ABC or Netflix videos. This is mainly because the iPad is so fast at what it does, whereas my laptop quickly gets bogged down by all the web pages I open up simultaneously. I also like to do these kinds of things around the house at all times, which means my laptop isn’t necessarily near me when I want to do these things.

In terms of reading books, magazines, and PDFs, it has mostly taken over the role of the Kindle and the physical counterparts of these electronic files. I was surprised at first, but the convenience and long battery life won me over. I have actually lent my Kindle to a roommate and don’t miss it at all, but this might have to do with the fact that I’ve temporarily stopped traveling regularly. I’m still using the Kindle app almost exclusively, and use GoodReader and Zinio for PDFs and magazines respectively.

I’ve also found myself using the iPad for some light entertainment. I sometimes play a Craps application when I’m bored and have a minute. When I want some mobile music and don’t have a better option, I throw on the Pandora app and bump up the volume to maximum. This was very convenient during a backyard barbecue (barely in range of my WiFi network). I should also note that when outdoors, the iPad frequently overheats and shutdowns down temporarily. I haven’t seen this get a lot of attention, but it makes me believe that in hotter climates, the iPad will be strictly limited to indoors use cases.

What I still don’t use the iPad for is any form of work. Frankly, anyone who tries to convince you it is good for this is lying. The virtual keyboard is still awkward, and if you’re going to link it with a bluetooth keyboard, you’ve pretty much defeated yourself. It has a number of advantages over a laptop on a flight, but once you get off the plane and go to work, you’re still going to need a real laptop. I also still have my doubts over how good it’ll be in a classroom, but I’ll suspend judgment until I’m able to try it out myself when I go to graduate school in the fall.

As I discussed in my previous post on the iPad, it is severely constricted by its reliance on iTunes. A number of apps have emerged to circumvent the demonic iTunes, a clear indication that Apple screwed up. I’ve mostly come to terms with this particular limitation of the iPad, but I’d be much more unhappy if I was traveling every week. It would be a real hassle to convert file formats and upload files regularly.

Long-term impact

The legacy of the iPad remains to be seen. It appears to be a commercial success, even though I’ve only seen one other iPad out in the wild. The blogosphere is still all aflutter over the iPad and its implications. Other computer manufacturers are playing catch-up, including Microsoft and Google. Multi-touch is emerging in more and more places. It has led to many a journalist or blogger to speculate about the death of this or that. I think this is all so much hype, resulting either from over-exuberance or a desire to capture more traffic by throwing around hot subjects.

I feel that its true impact is on people’s expectations. The iPad introduced instant-on and absurd battery life, setting a new bar in mobile computing. I can’t think of a better example of how a computer should function. Granted, the iPad does hiccup every now and then, but never in a catastrophic manner. Using an iPad is quite the experience. I no longer actively regret buying my iPad, but I know that I could live without it quite easily.

Extra: Application Spotlight

Here are the primary applications I use on the iPad:

  • Netflix: this is the killer app on the iPad, as it allows you to stream video. It works perfectly and is so convenient.
  • GoodReader: the first app I came across that worked around iTunes and allowed me to put my document library on the iPad. It is a great app for a business user.
  • Kindle: my default e-reading app, it syncs with my iPhone and Kindle. iBooks only has one feature I want - a notification on the bottom of the screen telling you how many pages are left in a chapter.
  • Evernote: slick access to my web-based notepad.
  • WeatherBug: the best weather app on the iPad by far. Very cool radar map.

There are other apps, but those are the ones I use regularly. I’ve stayed away from many of the premium iPad apps because they are too expensive or have a free substitute. I haven’t seen much new in the iPad store worth downloading, leading me to believe it isn’t the focus of developers just yet.

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Final Fantasy XIII and the Future of the Role Playing Game

by Brian Guenther

Final Fantasy II and III were among my favorite video games as a kid, leading me to faithfully purchase and play each of the subsequent entries in the series. I recently wrapped up the most recent game in the franchise, Final Fantasy XIII and just wanted to share my reaction to the game and make some recommendations for future RPGs. There is much to learn from FFXIII and other RPGs that have been released recently.

Controversy

Most critics had very mixed feelings about the design of FFXIII, often complaining about how linear it was and that it didn’t open up until after 20 hours of gameplay. They also bemoaned the lack of towns, mini-games, and other hallmarks of the series. I monitored Twitter for “normal” people’s reactions to the game to see what other people thought. For the most part, people didn’t mind FFXIII’s design. Only a small minority were vocal in their disappointment of the game’s tight linearity.

After completing the game, I can say that those who suggest that the game opens up are actually mistaken.  The gamer is given the opportunity to grind and take on monster slaying tasks, but there are no real detours. You’re always guided to the next monster and there is no story development until you get back on the main path. No new cities to explore, no side-plots, nothing really of interest. For some, this was a major disappointment. In my experience, you need a degree of linearity in a story-driven game, or you risk the player getting lost and losing interest. This was my issue with Fallout 3, which I never finished.

I ultimately didn’t mind the linear nature of the game. It had a compelling story, rich interactions between the main characters, and beautiful cut scenes. The battle system is one of the best in the series and a great improvement over FFXII. At the end, I felt satisfied with the game. What was missing though was a sense of accomplishment. The game lost its challenge towards the end, as the bosses ceased being challenging. And because of the linear nature of the game, I didn’t feel as if I had very much responsibility for the victory.

The real problem with FFXIII is not in the linear design though. The real problem is that while the main characters have depth, the game’s world itself lacks depth. Without cities to explore, people to meet, and substantial side-plots, the game felt hollow by the end, as I just marched from fight to fight to the end. In previous Final Fantasies, you met different people, cultures, and took part on different types of quests. Not so in FFXIII. There wasn’t even a primary villains to fixate on, no Kefkas or Sephiroths. I didn’t empathize with the motivations of the enemies in the game, and oftentimes they were just standing around doing nothing. It felt like a contrived video game setting at points. It lacked the brilliance of previous entries, most notably FFIII and FFVII where you traversed rich worlds, met fascinating characters, and beheld memorable sights.

The Future of Final Fantasy and Modern RPGs

To be successful in the future, the Final Fantasy franchise is going to have to not only recapture some of the brilliance from previous games, but innovate. Final Fantasy is not the only RPG franchise that is in need of innovation. While critically acclaimed and commercially successful, RPGs like Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age cannot match the appeal of a game like Modern Warfare 2. I’d go further and state that the RPG genre has lost some of its luster as gaming becomes more mainstream. With this in mind, I’d like to make some suggestions:

  • Roleplaying games should revolve around character, plot, and setting: As I mentioned before, Final Fantasy XIII lacks the depth of previous Final Fantasies and this is the main reason people should be disappointed in the game. In an era where some video games rival blockbuster movies in terms of revenue and production costs, there is simply no excuse for lousy writing, especially in RPGs. Bioware has done a good job of bringing professional writing talent to RPGs, even developing novels that explain the events leading up to DA: Origins. To succeed in the RPG space, this vital element of the game cannot be neglected and is actually an opportunity for new revenue streams.
  • Players should be able to have freedom but not get lost: Some RPGs are way too linear, requiring player to make very few actual decisions and merely react to challenges. Others are so open to the point where players can become lost and get squashed by mutated super-rats. RPGs need to seek a balance where players have not only choice, but also direction. Fable II provided this with a line that showed the player exactly where to go to accomplish a quest. While this mechanism may have been too obtrusive, it worked well. I urge developers to be creative and find a way to give all types of players the means to enjoy their game since some will want linear and others won’t.
  • Developers should consider new ways of “roleplaying”: Bioware was criticized by some for moving Mass Effect away from more traditional RPGs and adding shooter elements. Despite this criticism, Mass Effect 2 went on to sell a gazillion copies. Well, I’d like to see more experimentation. Does anyone remember Final Fantasy Tactics - an excellent strategy game with many role-playing characteristics? There is a lot of room for fresh thinking and untraditional approaches to RPGs, especially now that the gamer population is changing and growing so dramatically.
  • Respect your predecessors and franchise heritage, but don’t be constrained by them: One of the problems with Final Fantasy XIII is that there are 12 games that came before, not including spin-offs and FFXI. This is a problem because the series still has a hangover from the wild success of FFVII. We shouldn’t be characterizing the main character of FFXIII as a female Cloud. She should be Lightning, a unique character capable of standing alone. If there is another Final Fantasy, it needs to reinvent the franchise. I always hear people ask for a new HD version of FFVII - how about we get a new game thats even better?
  • Cinematic cut-scenes are awesome, but we’re here to play a game: I love a good cut scene as much as the next gamer, but there is no need for 20 hours of them. Games should engage the players without becoming a full-fledged movie to do it. Perhaps the game engine should be built to take more of the story-telling burden and split it up into more digestible chunks throughout the game.
  • DLC may be cheap, but it should be quality: I’m a proponent of using DLC to expand games, offer new experiences, and earn additional revenue for developers/publishers, but I’m disturbed at how frequently DLC for good games is poorly executed. DLC should match the quality of the retail product. Ideally, the blueprint for a title’s DLC will be designed in tandem with the actual game, allowing for a seamless and congruent plot.
  • Mobile- and web-based games are areas of opportunity: If I were looking to develop new RPG IP, I’d be looking at what opportunities the web and mobile devices can provide. It’ll only be so long before people get tired of tending sheep on Facebook and want a more sophisticated experience. I look at EA’s Lord of Ultima as good example of what can be done in a browser for a relatively low budget, and believe that RPGs can take advantage of the web too. Bioware did a pretty interesting Flash game as a marketing tool for Dragon Age.

Anyway, this is just a gamer’s perspective on Final Fantasy XIII and RPGs in general. I’m a big fan of the genre and hope it continues to thrive in the HD era. To do so though, I firmly believe that developers and publishers have to be innovative in terms of their designs and marketing. The genre stagnated for a long time and has only recently recovered, and clever marketing is going to be key in recruiting new fans. Without an expansion of the fan base, I’m not too positive on the genre’s outlook.

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The Hyposphere - Why the Blogosphere Is So Trendy

by Brian Guenther

I think I read too many tech blogs. I am constantly barraged by opinions and thoughts that just don’t resonate with my understanding of technology trends and my observations of human behavior. I am often confused by the extreme views of tech pundits that greet every product announcement as if it was an enormous domino falling that would set off a rippling chain reaction that would forever change the world. This frustrates me to no end because for some reason I cannot stand self-serving bullshit and have a good nose for it.

I was relatively late to the blog craze, as it took me a good amount of time to find blogs that were actually good and at least somewhat credible. Before that, I relied on the WSJ and BusinessWeek for most of my news. I figure I’ve been reading ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch for over 3 years now. And one of the things I’ve noticed, particularly in the past year, is how much the tech blogosphere now revolves around hype. This trend has only been exacerbated by Twitter. I admit, I have no data to support this belief. This is based purely on my observation of tech blogs and Twitter links.

Starting with the iPhone, most new product or feature announcements from  juggernauts like Apple, Google, and Facebook have been greeted with torrents of opinions, reactions, and predictions, all delivered with frothing intensity by bloggers. If I am to believe what I have read, the Kindle (oops, it is the  iPad these days) will either obliterate newspapers completely or save them from financial ruin. Facebook will replace the rest of the Internet and become some sort of operating system. Google Wave (remember that?) would have replaced IM, email, and maybe even in-person human interaction. Oh, and the founders of Twitter would be a household name. Well here we are,and these things haven’t happened.

Even now, there is a never ending flood of content about the destiny of the iPad, it’s battle with the Kindle, and how it will completely, utterly, irrevocably change computing forever-eternal after. I recently read a piece by TechCrunch on how Facebook will be the next Microsoft or Google on the back of its Like buttons and other new features. Really? By my calculations, Facebook would have to pull in $10/year from every one of its users, if it expanded to encompass the entire world population. Judging from what I’ve read, that is Facebook’s destiny. Just look at their page views. Before this scenario actually occurs, they’ll need to invent a real, enduring business model. I’m not convinced they’ve found one yet. Zynga certainly has and will one day most likely divorce Facebook .

When I think about the future and how current companies fit in that picture, I try not to let myself get carried away. It helps that I live on the East Coast, because I see first hand that most things tech bloggers froth about isn’t really relevant in my neck of the woods. More importantly, I remember the fate of Napster, the glory days of MySpace, the exuberance of the first web boom, and, of course, the subprime mortgage disaster. If there is one conclusion we can draw from our recent history, it is that the future holds unexpected surprises.

For example, I don’t see why Facebook can’t become the next MySpace. They are betraying their users, alienating partners like Zynga, and are becoming so large that people might want to differentiate themselves by moving on to the next hot thing. Who really wants to be in the same social network as their mom? I don’t think Facebook is going to collapse under the weight of privacy concerns, but I don’t see Microsoft-esque potential as a business. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Repeat after me, users and eyeballs aren’t the only thing you need to be a successful business.

So why does the blogosphere act the way it does? Well, I think some people actually believe that these cool news products are (to borrow from Steve Jobs) magical and revolutionary. The people that follow technology and are willing to write about it, however, are not your average human. Perhaps they lose sight of the non-early adopter set or get caught up in the communal excitement about the latest developments in technology. Their behavior is different and not really comparable to other people, which is why things they might get excited about don’t resonate with other people.

Then there are the boosters who make a big deal about everything. Many successful blogs fall into this bucket. They report on everything from improbable mergers, odd-looking meta tags, or new product announcements to funding-raising and job postings. These blogs tend to be the most exuberant and outlandish in their coverage. They report on whatever is hot at the moment and keep writing it to death until something hotter comes along. I understand why they are doing this - most of them write for a living and need strong, polarizing opinions to gain readership and encourage viral growth. They need lots of eyeballs to charge advertising fees, attract consulting gigs, and fill conferences. They write the way they do because that is how you get people to pay attention.  The problem is when this exuberance is passed on to the general population and the media catches wind, it unleashes an avalanche of coverage and prognosticating that is just stifling. In the long-run, this becomes dangerous as people start to believe the hype. Remember how much AOL used to be worth?

The reason the tech blogosphere has become so hype-driven is because so many people are out to define themselves as a thought leader in a hot space. They want to be the next blogger celebrity, the next blogger-turned-bigshot-consultant, or the next best selling author. These people crave attention, money, and status. As I’ve learned through this modest website, it is so easy to start a blog and dive into social media to promote yourself. And now a virtous cycle has been created where the blogosphere feeds itself on its own hype. For those of us who blog because we enjoy it, want to engage in discussion, and want to share meaningful, well-conceived ideas, it is a disappointment.

In this age where anyone has the capability to spread their ideas and gain momentum through social media, we have to be discerning consumers of information. We have to be able to form our own opinions, understand the motivations and biases of others, and look beyond the trends of the moment. We have to look to society or human behavior and pose simple questions about what people really want and do. That’s the only way we can survive the exuberant hype we are bombarded with and the hapless media spreads as the next hot story.

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Yawn. The iPad is here.

by Brian Guenther

General Thoughts

In typical fashion, the arrival of the latest Apple toy was greeted with liberal amounts of gushing, hand-wringing, and entirely too much media coverage. A TV show even turned itself into an iPad commercial. Even a gadget-enthusiast like me found it to be a little too much. Despite my misgivings toward the iPad, I reserved one and picked it up on the launch date. I’ve been using it ever since.

So, what’s my verdict? Buy one. Don’t buy one. It doesn’t really matter. You aren’t missing anything revolutionary or magical, despite the hype from Apple’s marketing and PR departments. I should say that from the beginning, I’ve been an iPad skeptic. However, after testing my own shiny 32GB WiFi iPad over the last week, I’ve been careful to re-evaluate the device based on its actual merits and flaws.

My Observations

First off, there is a lot to love about the iPad. It is marvelously fast at browsing the web and running applications. It’s battery life surpasses all expectations, lasting me over the course of three days with light to moderate usage. And the screen is absolutely gorgeous. It is a pleasure to use the iPad, as it is a very intimate experience. There is nothing separating you from the content and you can manipulate it effortlessly. Its ability to power on almost instantly is also amazingly convenient.

Despite these virtues, the iPad has some major flaws. My biggest issue with the iPad is that you have to use iTunes to populate it with content. I was very surprised to find that I could not put my many movies on the device because I had the wrong format (the universally accepted .avi). Apparently I needed an Apple format. To get my videos into this format, I first upgraded to Quicktime Pro ($30), which was unable to finish encoding a video on my laptop without crashing. Several programs later, I finally found one that worked well: Handbrake. To get subtitles, I had to get a subtitle converter utility. Then I had to queue up all of the files on a blazing fast computer, transfer them via USB hard drive to my laptop, and then upload them into iTunes. The whole process takes hours for a handful of videos.

I also couldn’t port over my many PDF documents. To do this, I had to download a cloud-based application and upload my documents to the service. To read these PDFs, I now have to have an Internet connection and am restricted to the app’s 1 GB storage limitation. A couple of days ago, I discovered GoodReader, which allows you to circumvent iTunes by opening up a network connection.

Coupled with the iPad’s lack of Flash, it quickly became clear to me that Apple’s strategy is to force users into buying content from them, either through iTunes or through the App Store. By cutting out Flash (and all of the music, games, and video that use it on the web) and limiting file formats, they make most of our owned content and web entertainment unavailable on the iPad. This forces us suckers (oops, I meant customers) to turn to the Apple teat for all of our media and entertainment needs. If this were a PC, I wouldn’t have to go through this hassle. It’s ironic that Microsoft is now the more consumer-friendly company in this discussion.

Now, let’s talk about the App Store. It sucks. The selection of apps is pretty limited, the prices are too high, and the mechanisms to browse apps are not very useful. It is pretty clear from the App Store design that Apple wants to showcase premium apps over free apps, in an attempt to maximize revenue. As a business-oriented person, I don’t have a problem with this, but when I saw how expensive the apps were, I found myself disinclined to buy any. The reason the iPhone has been so successful is the number of free or cheap apps that dramatically enhance the functionality of the device. With the iPad, you’ll find yourself dropping a lot of money to accomplish this. However, the apps I have tried are pretty cool and well-designed. Don’t expect the functionality you would get on a desktop though.

Is the iPad a Kindle Killer?

A lot of speculation has bubbled up about the iPad killing the Kindle. I’ve got to say, I didn’t think it was true. However, the iPad is proving to be a very capable replacement, thanks in large part to it’s impressive battery life. I often find myself switching from books to email to news, which is something I could never do with the Kindle. I also find PDFs to be much more usable on the iPad, once you figure out a way to get them on there.

Amazon isn’t really losing though, because I’m doing all of my reading with the Kindle application. This is because all of my books are there, the iBook selection is garbage, and my reading is synchronized to my iPhone and Kindle automatically. When I decide to charge my iPad, my Kindle is perfect for picking up where I left off. And I think the Kindle still has a great role in terms of travel. To stay in the hardware game though, Amazon is definitely going to have to step up its game.

All of that being said, the iPad is not even remotely close to the Kindle in price. Once you factor in data costs, app pricing, and the iPad itself, you’re closing in on a four-figure expenditure. I think Amazon will counter the iPad by dropping their price, making it a more clear-cut decision for consumers.

What is the iPad good for?

After these last few days, I’ve come to the conclusion that my initial reaction to the iPad seems to be correct, at least for now. It is a great device for consuming content on your couch. It does an excellent job at browsing the web, checking email, and getting on your social network of choice. While it doesn’t multi-task, it is pretty effortless to go between applications and webpages.

The iPad most certainly does not replace my iPhone or my computer, though it has taken over a good portion of my e-reading needs. The primary flaw in the iPad is that it is not good for productivity. The on-screen keyboard is not very good, necessitating the use of a peripheral keyboard to really hammer out content on it. I found it best for short text entry, such as that used in personal email and web browsing.  From a software standpoint, the productivity suite from Apple is also very limited in its support of Office which, for better or worse, is absolutely required in the professional world.

In terms of using it for entertainment, it has a good set of speakers for music or video, and the screen is awesome. I haven’t tried any games yet (too pricey), but I think you’re better off with an Xbox. It definitely seems too heavy for prolonged usage, and you better get used to holding it with two hands. However, if you’re into the whole casual gaming thing, the iPad will suit you well. I just don’t think it is particularly mobile and if you’re going to use it from the comfort of your own home, why not turn on the TV and grab a real controller?

What intrigues me the most about the iPad is how it will be able to fulfill specialized functions. For example, I imagine it will be a tremendous education tool. I could also see it as being useful for health applications. However, it is far too early to make that judgement. We’ll have to give app developers time to figure out how to take advantage of the iPad and produce some real killer apps.

Conclusion

Apple has already reported selling over 450,000  iPads, with over 300,000 selling during the laucnh weekend, more than the first iPhone during its launch. I’m not very impressed by this number or the comparison. The iPhone’s true rise to prominence was the release of the 3G model and the App Store. Like the iPhone, I think we’ll have to look to the second generation to see what the iPad will become. I still don’t think we’re seeing anything particularly special. The iPad is optimized for casual media consumption and the sale of iTunes and App Store content. It does not replace netbooks, nor does it even fulfill all of their functions. However, I would not be surprised if Mac enthusiasts found a way to make the iPad a central part of their life. I found myself facing too many compromises to use it like a computer replacement.

In fact, I don’t think the iPad is necessarily a step forward in computing. Sure, it has a cool user interface, but it is a closed system. You can’t use many widely-embraced file formats and standards like Flash. You don’t have complete control over the device. Instead, you have to depend on iTunes and the App Store. While this is a good thing for Apple and developers, it is definitely sub-optimal for consumers. I’m pissed about some of the decisions Apple made. And if they continue to go down this path, I don’t see any reason the PC contingent can’t catch up and surpass them.

What I do think Apple has done with the iPad is take the computer from a piece of technology to an every-day appliance. Technology is something that doesn’t work perfectly, is sophisticated, and has to be learned. The average blender isn’t technology - it’s an appliance. And that is how I’ve come to think of the iPad - a appliance used for consuming media.

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Separating Form from Substance: The Future of the Book and E-Book

by Brian Guenther

Amidst all of the “discussion” on the Internet regarding the iPad, the Kindle, and the future of the printed book, one key thought has been overlooked. The book is a delivery mechanism, just like the iPad and the Kindle. It is merely the technology facilitating the distribution of content. Looking at it from that perspective, history reveals the answer to our questions about the future of the book as we know it.

Over the course of history, mankind has used many different technologies to capture words or images. Stone, papyrus, and paper are just some of the surfaces we’ve used, and charcoal, paint, and ink are how we’ve transmitted our words or images to those surfaces. Today, we’re seeing the rise of distinct new technologies to capture and transmit words and images. So what is going to happen to the venerable bound book now that we have screens and digital storage? Well, if history is any indicator, the old ways of doing things will die out slowly once the new technology gains adoption, as costs go down and superior effectiveness is demonstrated. The process can take long periods of time, or it can be swift. For example, look at the impact of the printing press - books became accessible to the masses, newspapers emerged, and the scroll was lost to the ages.

So is the book going to go away? Eventually, it will. But that is a process that is going to take a long time, because the technology has to find ways to be as versatile as paper, it has to be cheaper, and it has to be as effective. E-readers in a couple of years will fit those criteria for your basic fiction novel. They won’t necessarily match those criteria for things like atlases or magazines, but they’ll be getting closer. All parts of the world won’t be on the same adoption curve or time line either, since e-readers depend on reliable and ubiquitous computing/power/networking infrastructure.

Now let’s ignore the distribution element of “books” and instead look at how content has evolved. Over time, mankind went from isolated content (cave drawings) to scrolls (small amounts of information) to books (large amounts of information) to periodicals (timely information). Our modern content-distribution systems, e-readers, computers, and the Internet increase the amount and complexity of content, create interconnections between content, and introduce the ability for content to have a lifetime. This means new types of content (e.g., blogs) will emerge and old types of content (e.g., books, newspapers, magazines) will change. The physical analogs will survive as long as the economics and audiences exist, but I can tell you now that it is only a matter of time.

Content is going to change beyond what we’ve seen already. Just look at Penguin’s demo for the iPad. Interactivity and multimedia are the key aspects of their future vision. As I’ve written before, the book is no longer a collection of written words. It can include video, audio, links to other content, social dimensions, and more. Any one of those dimensions of the book may dominate - it all depends on the author(s) and the audiences’ needs. In the end, this is more important than whether or not people are reading on a Kindle or an iPad - the content is the future. And the future is blended content - mash-ups of long-form text, graphics, video, audio, and social commentary. I’m not saying all content will have all of these elements, but I would suspect even your basic novel will have other elements produced by fans (e.g., the social commentary) that make the book more than it is today.

As the technology enabling publishing changes, so does the nature of content authors. In earlier eras, it was artists, priests, nobles, and the wealthy who could afford to write things down. With the printing press, professional writers and journalists emerged who regularly produced content. Now, with the Internet, we’ve seen the rise of the blogger - practically anyone with a modicum of tech savvy, some writing talent, and a little time can now publish content. The democratization of content-production will extend to all creative types, as content is mixed and matched with the advent of e-publishing.

People across the blogosphere can debate merits of the Kindle and the iPad all they want, but they’ve missed the point. We are not only witnessing a change in publishing technology (from print to digital), we’re witnessing a change in the nature and origin of content. This is going to rock the publishing business and create new opportunities for content production. We’re facing a future where anyone can publish content, creating a reduced role for the big publishers. Who needs their editors? A lot of people can edit work, and a lot of them could probably do a better job (I’ve seen some truly atrocious work out there that never saw the hand of an editor and got published anyway). The distribution channels will be more open to independent authors. Book publishers will become more like music publishers - inventive or highly talented authors will be able to circumvent them and succeed, but the publishers will continue to use their knowledge, contacts, and power to produce big hits. Eventually publishers may go the way of the dinosaur, but who knows when. One thing is clear, they won’t be the only game in town. Services like Lulu will mature and become an viable alternative path. Hell, it may even make sense for Amazon to get into the game, reducing it’s dependence on publishers. We’ve all seen how friendly they are with each other.

We’ll also see the rise of new agencies that specialize in blending different types of content, especially serving the entertainment industry. We’ll see more collaboration among specialists (e.g., writers, video editors, musicians, computer programmers) to produce blended content. Pricing of content will change as interactive and multimedia elements become more common.

Now let me curb my enthusiasm a bit. This vision sounds great and futuristic, but it is a transformation which will take time. As I said earlier, the old-fashioned book will die a slow death. Traditional authors, who work with words only, will continue to write text-only works. The other creative types will continue to work in their varied media. But everyone will be pushed into blended content, led by collaborative works such as textbooks. It is just a matter of time. Especially when you think about how easy it is for today’s youngsters to manipulate different types of media and how much tools to do this will progress in our lifetimes. And all the while, it won’t matter if you have an iPad, Superkindle, netbook, or the next i-gadget.

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You’ve Just Set a New High Score! The Recent Evolution of Incentives in Games and Elsewhere

by Brian Guenther

As anyone who reads this blog should know, I classify myself as a gamer (though this term’s usefulness is dying). While most gamers just play their games and enjoy them, I prefer to think about how the game was designed and structured to addict it’s users. And what I’ve seen over the last few years is really interesting, especially when you look at other areas of human behavior. I’ll explain…

In recent years, we’ve seen the advent of achievements and role-playing characteristics in non-traditional role-playing genres. Achievements and role-playing characteristics are mechanisms that provide incentives for players to behave in very specific ways within games. They were a brilliant addition and have proven to be very effective. All you have to do is look at Xbox Live to see how much people care about achievements, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a great example of the adoption of role-playing characteristics into new genres (though not the first franchise to do this).

Side note: To get an idea about how extreme some people are, I came across an individual that played through Final Fantasy XIII on both the Xbox and the PS3, just to get the achievements. They wasted $60 and 60 hours just for a digital score.

Achievements are an external gaming mechanism, meaning they aren’t part of the internal game mechanics, but rather sit atop of the game and don’t usually impact what you can do with-in the game. Some examples of this are the Xbox Live achievements and Gamerscore system, or Titles and Emblems in Modern Warfare 2. To earn them, you have to fulfill a pre-determined condition, like beat a game on Hard difficulty.

Where achievements are external mechanisms, role-playing characteristics are internal to the core gaming mechanics. They started out in dungeon crawling games like Ultima, and determined how your character could interact with the world. In the past few years, we’ve seen more and more games adopting this game mechanic, most notably first-person shooters. In Modern Warfare, you have to earn the right to wield the biggest, baddest sniper rifle in the game. Oftentimes, progressing a character to this point will take hours upon hours of gameplay.

What these mechanisms do is provide tangible incentives for players to play the game, whereas before beating the game or competing against other players was incentive enough. Now, players are able to gain recognition for their actions and behaviors. And guess what? They love the recognition! Fans of Call of Duty will play over a dozen DAYS to earn the meanest looking emblem next to their user name. Game designers have effectively extended the amount of time players will dedicate to their game by introducing an additional set of player incentives. However, they’ve also skewed WHY players are doing what they are doing. No longer is it solely about the game experience, plot, or replayability elements. Now, players may brainlessly shoot a gazillion zombies just for a badge or achievement, devaluing all of the efforts that it took to make a great game. This is one of the downsides of the movement to incorporate these addictive game mechanics. The other observation I’ve made is that we’re starting to see games in non-traditional areas or used in new ways.

One of the best examples of this is the EcoGuide LCD digital dashboard in the new Ford Fusion Hybrid. The dashboard sports a digital tree that reflects how economically you drive (which corresponds to an efficient use of gasoline). The more efficient you are, the more the digital tree flourishes. If you drive inefficiently, the tree suffers for your irresponsible behavior. Another example is a new type of exercise bike, made by Expresso Fitness, that I saw in a Cambridge gym. Unlike most bikes which have a basic exercise dashboard or a TV, this one featured an LCD display and handles to steer the bike. Why would you want to steer an exercise bike you might ask. Well, because the exercise bike is actually a game - a racing game to be more specific. Once you mount the bike, it places you in a digital environment displayed on the screen, and you are pitted against simulated opponents on various winding landscapes. Like any other racing game, you find yourself instinctively working harder to go faster than the competition. Even more intriguing, the game tracks your performance and will put you on a global leaderboard based on how well you did. I only used it once, but it is very interesting what can be done with that sort of tracking. No other exercise machine I’ve seen has been designed that way, and none have been connected to the internet. This is definitely the future (more on this in a coming article).

Anywhere, where was I? Oh yes, harping about non-traditional uses of games. We’ve long seen the use of gaming in education, but never in a car or a piece of gym equipment. What’s changed? Well, as I’ve written about in the past, gaming is now a mainstream activity, making it more accessible to people. More importantly, people have caught onto the psychology of games, where competition or the desire to win engages players more strongly than is seen in other types of media. The incentives that are built into games are a strong way to influence or direct user behavior, and you can apply game design to other things to achieve this effect. Exercise is a natural area because you can correlate people’s goals with the game’s incentives very easily - level of effort becomes the basis of competition in the game while also resulting in the exercise that is the reason to be in the gym in the first place.

It is my opinion that this is only the beginning. We’re going to see games incorporated into more aspects of our lives. And the main reason for this, and its a scary one, is that corporations are going to embrace it in their loyalty programs and promotions, facilitated by smartphones, location-aware gadgets, and a loosening of personal privacy. We’re seeing this already with Foursquare, but it relies on active user engagement, whereas companies will want passive detection of your location. The end game (deliberate pun) is that as technology is more prevalent in our lives, becomes more interconnected, and gains greater awareness of our activities, intent, and location, our behavior will be significantly influenced. And games are the avenue through which this trend is starting. There is a professor at Carnegie Mellon, Jesse Schell, who spoke about his own vision of the future for gaming. He draws a lot of parallels with what I’ve written about, and presents in spectacular fashion. Click here to be entertained.

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Purveyors of (False) Hope

by Brian Guenther

After an interesting conversation with one of my professional colleagues regarding real estate investing and passive income, I decided to do something I have long contemplated: buying a copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad. This book and author have been around for a long time and have spawned conferences, seminars, and even a board game. I knew what type of book it was and wanted to see if it contained any useful nuggets of information. I am currently 20% of the way through, and if I hadn’t bought the Kindle version, I would be strongly tempted to burn it. You see, Robert Kiyosaki is a classic purveyor of hope. And he, like many of his peers, is full of crap.

There are three main categories of books that are the domain of people like Robert: weight-loss, personal finance, and self-help. These are the three areas where many people across ethnicities, geographies, and socioeconomic bands struggle, making them rich places to offer advice or provide hope. This is something everyone needs and can be equated with comfort. An example of the internal dialogue that a buyer of one of these books may experience goes like this: “My life sucks and I want to change it, but I’m not sure how.”

This is where these books come in. They relate to the problems people have, offer simplistic and general explanations of how it happens, and pitches a method of either not falling in the trap or getting out of it by being smarter than the other poor suckers out there. This method may even have a simple and completely inane framework to back it up (e.g., Rich Dad Poor Dad’s Cash Flow Quadrant). The author will sprinkle in a liberal dose of buzzwords, jargon, and anecdotes to make things seem more complicated and therefore legitmate. No where in the book will it seem hard to accomplish whatever change you are attempting. Because you have this book, you have the tools and internal brilliance to succeed! And because there is so little substance to the book and background philosophy, you’ll be treated to circular writing and loads of repetition.

It is all so much tripe. The advice will be scant on details or practical advice. An examination of the author will reveal that he is in fact a hypocrite or even a liar. Case in point, the “Rich Dad” upon which Robert Kiyosaki bases his books never existed. The first book will lead to a second which will be followed by a third and so on. Then seminars will be organized. You see where this goes.

But people fall for this, and they believe in it. As a cynic and skeptic, I struggle to understand why, but I like to think it is because I am smarter than everyone else (probably not true).

I believe the answer lies in pyschology and brain chemistry. I recently read some research that refuted the classic model first developed by Abraham Maslow, known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This research indicated that people’s needs can actually be at the sub-conscious level and can compete or conflict with each other. Maslow’s model instead looks at needs as a hierarchy, where the levels are not at odds with each other. The other main difference is what needs the research identified.

According to this article, published by Forrester, people have four primary needs:

  • Comfort
  • Connection
  • Variety
  • Uniqueness (the need to be a part of something unique)

And while not a need, it was found that convenience is a primary determinant of how a product can fulfill a need.

Upon closer examination of the outputs created by purveyors of hope, they manage to hit each of the human needs with their products, in convenient packages. This is why their products succeed. People’s conscious and unconscious needs are met by these crappy books that only serve to enrich the author. How do you think Robert Kiyosaki actually made the majority of his money?

I do believe that some people will affect change in their lives by reading these crappy books, because of the power of motivation and human ingenuity. Some people just need to be inspired and they’ll fill in the gaps. But for the thousands of people that buy this crap, only a handful will succeed. Because if it was so easy, we’d all be wealthy.

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