I used to work for two large phone and internet service providers, and I was also responsible for selling things smart phones and tablets to the customers in the store. The years I spent working in the business taught me a thing or two about selling hardware and software to the average consumer. It also taught me a couple of things about why certain software and hardware is successful, while others aren't.
I entered the field right around the time when Nokia introduced its Lumia smart phones into the market. By this time, Apple was the dominating force, with Samsung being a number two, but not as close a number as it later became.
It was part of my job to attend seminars and lectures held by Apple, Samsung, Sony and Nokia - but my first employer, the one I spent more time with in the field - had the closest working relationship with Nokia, specifically.
The idea of Nokia entering the smart phone business seemed like a no fail no brainer: Nokia was the most well known phone manufacturer in the world, and since I'm Finnish myself, Nokia was to be a surefire hit in Finland, since obviously every Finnish person who wanted a smart phone would choose Nokia because it's the familiar choice.
Nokia failed miserably in its attempt, however. Lumia never really got off the ground, and I have a few theories as to why. I also have some criticism over the ways that we were told to sell Lumia phones by Nokia executives themselves.
It's also part of a larger topic, one that has to do with projects like Steemit, which is relevant to all of us.
Now, this isn't a post about which phone is the best phone; I have received all of these phones from work, from back in the day when I worked in the business, have used all of them, and they all have their respective strengths and weaknesses. So, if you like a particular phone brand, you are more than entitled to do so. I'm saying this because the "phone wars" on the internet tend to be huge, massive arguments, and I've never really understood why.
When selling Nokia, we were told told to focus on the phone's technical strengths (I'm using Lumia 920 as an example because that's what I happen to remember pretty well): the IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, the 768 x 1280 pixels with a 332 ppi pixel density, the dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, Li-Ion 2000 mAh battery.. you get the picture.
I was always very critical of this.
And the source of my criticism came from simply working "in the field" with the consumers. The average consumer saw no value in technical yadiyada, since the average person is not an engineer.
When a normal person enters a phone store to buy a new phone, he wants it to be easy to use for the things that we wants to do with it.
Whenever I attempted to sell someone a phone, whatever the model or the brand, I simply asked the customer to take the phone in his hand and approached it like this:
"So, what are the things that make you consider switching your non-smartphone to a smartphone, what are the things you'd like to be able to do with your phone, what's important to you?"
"Well, I'd like to use Facebook on my phone."
"Okay, you do it by clicking there. See how easy it is? What else?"
Customers usually went with the phone that offered what they wanted with the least amount of stress. A lot, a lot of my co-workers always went tech first."
"This is the best phone, it has quadcore 1.21 gigawatt processor, which, when connected to the flux capacitor, will.."
I don't mean to brag, but I was one of the best salesmen on my team, in whatever team I was in.
The problem with Nokia, in my eyes, was that they didn't focus on ease of use. This was the case with their pre-Lumia smartphones, as well. Not that they weren't good, or potentially good, it's just that the, for the lack of a better term, barrier of entry was too high for the average person.
What Apple did magnificently with their smart devices is that they made them fun and easy to use for the average person. Again, you may disagree, you may have different experiences with Apple and that's fine, that's not the point. The point is that the sales numbers indicate that more people enjoyed Apple, and queries and polls and have shown that the ease of use is a big reason why.
Nokia phones, in a lot of ways, were by engineers for engineers. Not quite, but the idea is that they didn't focus enough on how to make their OS accessible, which lead to consumer frustrations. I sold a lot of Apple phones and a lot of Nokia phones, and the rule of thumb always was that whoever bought the Nokia would be back a week later with questions regarding how to do certain stuff. Apple buyers rarely came back, because the basic things are so ready chewed and easy to digest in the iOS.
And this is multiple years of experience talking.
What could this possible have to do with Steemit?
Well, I'd like to see Steemit go mainstream and become a challenger for traditional social medias, personally. But a potential problem I see is that a lot of people hyping up Steemit are focusing on things that don't resonate with the average person using Facebook, for instance. All of us here love the blockchain, love the idea that our non-conformitive opinions and views can't be censored on it, love cryptocurrencies and love the "alternate economy" idea behind it.
But how would you hype it up to your mom? For instance.
This isn't even me being negative towards Steemit, just an attempt to be constructive and offer a view. I like Steemit myself, I've read great posts, gotten attention for my posts, and even made good money. This is great.
If Steemit is to go mainstream, though, it has to focus on ease of use, fun of use and accessibility to the non-blockchain/cryptocurrency native. The idea of earning money is a good one, since it's something everybody is interested in. But during times like this, when the price of STEEM is down, earning money is hard, and when people come here with only the intent of earning money, they will most likely be disappointed and leave. And tell their friends that it's a scam/unfair.
I'd like to see things like an album for pictures and photos having its own section in the user page, next to the blog, for example. Things like groups that a new user could join to instantly get content and feedback from likeminded people. An overall reduction of clicks - this is always easier said than done, I know, knowing something about programming and coding myself, but I'm always a huge fan of having the least clicks amount of clicks possible. A focus on the fact that all of your content is equal to your followers, contrary to Facebook algorithms that dictate what you want to see for you.
We've seen things like short posts get love and attention, and that's a really great initiative. Most of use are content creators right now, but the vast majority of the internet consists of content consumers. And most people enjoy short and sweet content, since they jobs and lives and family members to attend to. So, it gets a thumbs up for me.
I still enjoy the more comprehensive content myself, but I still want Steemit to be big and one day maybe grab people completely away from Facebook.
But instant messaging is something Steemit needs, and it's been addressed on numerous occasions. I'd argue that a big reason why people is use Facebook is because of the messenger. I have a big number of friends who I never call or text, I just send them a message on Facebook, it's become the main communicating tool for a lot of people.
If Steemit was able to introduce an instant messaging tool, which wasn't spied on by the NSA, it could be huge. But a lot of people also don't enjoy the interface of the Facebook messanger, it's small and clunky. So, a competitor that takes those flaws into account could be a hit. Again: ease of use.
Steemit already has a pretty big advantage to Facebook in the sense that people here are pretty well behaved, and there incentives to behave well because of the flagging system.
Just add a more mainstram appeal and the ability to personalize your profile, instantly message people, etc. and Steemit could take off.
But I doubt it will if the focus is solely on the benefits of the blockchain. I wish more people cared about the technology, but they don't.
We need to think of all the things people use social media for, and attempt to offer it on Steemit. All of us, we need to put our heads together and come up with ideas, even if we are not developers.
Just like in the smart phone selling example above: What would you like to do with your social media?
If you agree, re-steem, since I don't have a big follower base, and this will disappear pretty quickly in the New feed.
