It's been a long time since I've posted anything to our blog. Well, what can I say, not much is going on. Actually, since I rarely receive any comments, I assume very few people read this. So I haven't put any time toward this.
Originally, I hoped that if a lot of people read about the development of our products and provided some feedback, we could use their comments to help direct our efforts. It would also show there was some demand for our products. One of the challenges any start-up deals with when talking with potential investors or lenders, is convincing them there is a market for their product. One way to do this is to hire a marketing firm to conduct surveys to try and estimate market demand. These sort of surveys might help show if a new health club at a particular location is viable after asking a series of questions to local residents. The more people you ask, the more accurate your results. If your geographic area is large, it becomes a bit more complex. Typically a well constructed marketing survey costs a lot of money. And we chose to spend our very limited funds on development. So, I was hoping the feedback from the blog would help. Well, maybe it has shown there is very little demand for the type of products we are working on.
We haven't totally given up. There are a few interesting technical developments/improvements in the past few months that are promising. So we keep plugging away.
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2009
Friday, October 19, 2007
Report Shows More Home Theater Owners Want PC Integration
A recent study by The NPD Group found that 17 percent of consumers are interested in accessing PC content from their home entertainment system (25 percent for consumers with a home network).
“[Faster] Internet access, new content sources, and the evolution of the PC as a multimedia repository promise to change the features and functionality of devices in the home entertainment center,” says Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group.
Now I need to update my business plan with some of this informtion.
“[Faster] Internet access, new content sources, and the evolution of the PC as a multimedia repository promise to change the features and functionality of devices in the home entertainment center,” says Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group.
Now I need to update my business plan with some of this informtion.
Friday, March 23, 2007
PCs Will Take Over the Living Room
There was an interesting article titled, "Is Console Gaming Over?" in the online version of BusinessWeek today. David Ferrigno, CEO of DISCover and the author of the article, makes the case that PCs will probably replace gaming consoles in the living room.
David mentions that when he worked in the console industry (for 14 years), the analysts predicted the combination of the PC and the Internet would wipe out console gaming. But the console gaming companies went on to create a multi-billion dollar industry. So, the analysts were wrong, the PC did not replace gaming consoles in the living room (except for HTPC enthusiasts like myself).
Now David believes this will change because the price difference between a gaming console and an entertainment/gaming capable PC has shrunk. The PC used to cost 10 times more than the gaming consoles and now since the price of PCs have steadily come down, the PC is only about twice as expensive. However, since the PC can also be used to play, organize and store massive amounts of games and other media including photos, movies and music, you get much more value.
Other factors like portability (with laptops) and performance are better with PCs. And now, new ease-of use features coming to PCs will make them much more appealing for use in the living room. David is also very optimistic about the potential benefits of Microsoft's Vista and the support for advanced technology like DirectX 10 and multi-core processors. Digital distribution (I assume he's referring to the ability to just download a gaming title from an Internet store) will also contribute to the availability and convenience of obtaining a wide variety of games for your PC.
David concludes by basically saying that 'the combination of cost, portability, performance and ease-of use will make the PC fun and easy to use for all forms of media and living room entertainment.'
I hope he's right because it looks like their target market is very similar to ours, except they're going after the gamers and we're targeting the audio enthusiasts.
David mentions that when he worked in the console industry (for 14 years), the analysts predicted the combination of the PC and the Internet would wipe out console gaming. But the console gaming companies went on to create a multi-billion dollar industry. So, the analysts were wrong, the PC did not replace gaming consoles in the living room (except for HTPC enthusiasts like myself).
Now David believes this will change because the price difference between a gaming console and an entertainment/gaming capable PC has shrunk. The PC used to cost 10 times more than the gaming consoles and now since the price of PCs have steadily come down, the PC is only about twice as expensive. However, since the PC can also be used to play, organize and store massive amounts of games and other media including photos, movies and music, you get much more value.
Other factors like portability (with laptops) and performance are better with PCs. And now, new ease-of use features coming to PCs will make them much more appealing for use in the living room. David is also very optimistic about the potential benefits of Microsoft's Vista and the support for advanced technology like DirectX 10 and multi-core processors. Digital distribution (I assume he's referring to the ability to just download a gaming title from an Internet store) will also contribute to the availability and convenience of obtaining a wide variety of games for your PC.
David concludes by basically saying that 'the combination of cost, portability, performance and ease-of use will make the PC fun and easy to use for all forms of media and living room entertainment.'
I hope he's right because it looks like their target market is very similar to ours, except they're going after the gamers and we're targeting the audio enthusiasts.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
IDC Forecasts Growth for the Media Center PC Market, But Remains Cautious About Mainstream Adoption
IDC is one of those market research firms that startups like Amplio Audio should use to figure out the size of their market. I have no idea what it would cost to get one of these companies to do a detailed analysis, but one of their general reports (these are not necessary product specific) costs thousands of dollars. The price tag for the full report from which this article is based is $4,500. As much as we could use detailed market data and know how important it is for our biz plan, we've decided to invest in our technical development. Maybe I will talk more about our market analysis in a future post...
Anyhow, here's an IDC report that talks about the growing popularity of HTPCs or what they call Media Center PCs. Click on this link to read the full article.
Anyhow, here's an IDC report that talks about the growing popularity of HTPCs or what they call Media Center PCs. Click on this link to read the full article.
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