Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

China represents the future of the online industry and retreating from it is losing the future. Market leaders need to play their cards right in they want to stay in the game and ahead of the competition. China’s so-called liberation has the industry and its players on their heels. The government’s drive to “purify” the Internet of “scandalous” materials not only threatens to suppress the realization of greater freedom inside the country, but hurt the reputation and interests of companies, such as Google, and negatively affect the business ecosystem.

Hi Anitokid,

Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment. However I dont quite get what you are getting at? The discussion is about product experence being enhanced by web 2.0 experiences?

If I make a guess, you are probably talking about localisation in my point one. Thus a great example of negative effects of over localisation.

Please keep in touch.

“Otherwise what else can you design that is not already done? A better chair or mobile phone perhaps?”

Fabbers.

OK people you need to stop these cryptic comments! Heh-heh. They are freaking me out!

DT, if you read my blog or most any tech-related website like Wired, than that comment shouldn’t be cryptic. Conversely, if you don’t understand what I mean, then you might want to read my blog more often. Fabbing is tied up into Web 2.0 in a few ways and it will impact our profession in ways that are going to scare more than a few designers. Not so much now or for old farts like me, but for the younger ones.

And btw, you might want to see what Lucas Arts cooked up recently while you’re visiting.

csven,

I actually do know what it means and I am actually going to write something about it base on material I am collecting of which some are from your site.

But perhaps you might like to explain it more in context to my post as I personally see it as relevant but not quite in the same context.

Sure “Fabbing” has a lot to do with the customer made movement, and I see its great potential, but I see it as a lot more tactical, just one aspect of an entire strategy. Furthermore just looking just at it fails to consider the overall strategy of the front end which is establishing the community in the first place. This is what my article is focusing on, basically no community no anything.

Actually the equipment for “Fabbing” such as SLS, SLA, 3D printing has been around for more than 10 years. I my self worked in a rapid prototyping shop for a year. In reality a lot of it is just hype, a sudden tech savvy hungry public are realizing its potential, abet a very small population.

However if you get down to it accessing such technologies both going into it and the application of the end result will be something the user will not expect, and we all know Works In Progress is something, those not trained to see, that is difficult to handle.

Basically what I am trying to say “Customer Made” is not really “Fabbing” (I hate that word as its not entirely accurate) it’s more “Customer Select” and the rest of the process has to be managed by professionals. Otherwise the right experience is at risk.

Designing products that will work with Web 2.0 Strategies…

For all the talk about web 2.0 mindset, how do we actually translate the mindset into proper entrepreneurial ventures, particularly in designing products that can employ the power of communities, the wisdom of crowds and the long tail framework? Our …

Note the question: “what else can you design that is not already done?”

Note my answer.

I was being specific to that part of your post. Nothing more.

As I don’t entirely understand what this post is about, I didn’t venture to do more than that. When I have time, I’ll come back and try again to understand.

I wanted to return to this - said I would - so I’ll dive in (sorry for the delay):

“One of the main issues here is no one can really define what Web 2.0 is all about.”

Actually, Tim O’Reilly is probably the person most recognized as the authority on Web 2.0. So instead of Wikipedia you might want to read his explanation (Link).

“Potentially I see a whole host of internet enable products, starting with 3G phones, that will take the market by storm in the next few years.”

I’m sure you remember “smart appliances” from some years back; lots of hype leading to failure. Just because something is internet-enabled doesn’t make it a Web 2.0 product. I’m sure lots of people are out there thinking “let’s connect our product to the internet and jump into the whole Web 2.0 thing”. I don’t believe that will be sufficient. Simply connecting is not enough, imo. There will doubtlessly be some that *do* take the market by storm, but I’m betting they’ll do so by understanding the underlying issues (as you’re attempting to do here, much to your credit).

“Otherwise what else can you design that is not already done? A better chair or mobile phone perhaps?”

To be honest, this line puzzles me. Isn’t a 3G phone really just a *better* mobile phone? Could not a chair also have some connectivity? In fact, do you not think a time will come when that’s commonplace?

“2) Big to small to big. Web Communities vs. blogs networks”

Not sure I follow you here. And I don’t see Flickr as part of this trend I think you’re describing.

What I’ve been looking for - and have been expecting for some time now - is what Kaneva recently announced. In addition, I expect that between hybrid spaces like Kaneva’s and content distribution systems like Spore’s, we’ll see an entirely new creature emerge.

“3) Adsense and other web monetizing models may eventually eat itself”

Click fraud is old news. And I disagree that micro-advertising will go away. There’s too much money at play here. The ad agencies are desperate. Viewers are moving increasingly online. Television as we know it is dying and all that money is going to migrate; has already started.

“So how do we apply all this to product development?”

Look at Nike iD pairing up with Sneakerplay for an answer. I think they’re on the right track. Others will follow.

“Once advertisers realize the money spent online is not reflective on their earnings, they will pull out.”

Do you know something they don’t? And do you believe that all of them expect to transition smoothly? I don’t. I assume they realize spending won’t necessarily align to earnings during a transition phase.

“The product’s ability access to Web 2.0 communities, either their own (Xbox Live) or a partner (Nokia + Flickr), will be a vital selling point in time to come.”

This sounds to me as if you’re still regarding Real products as distinct from the Net. I don’t do that anymore. And because I don’t, I don’t come to the conclusion that such access is “a vital selling point”. That, to me, is like saying tires on a car is a selling point. My point being that integration will be ubiquitous; everyone will have it and it will be expected. For companies, I think the question isn’t whether or not the product connects, it’s determining what the conversation is *after* it connects.

I hope this clears things up!

[…] our recent discussion here, especially in the comments sections it suddenly became clear to me about some fundamental […]

The problem with web2.0 development and social media is that it requires people to be in the same place / on the same network for it to work. This would be fine, except that when a social network or web2.0 application gets big enough, it gets bought out by Google/NewsCorp/Yahoo, and hence our opportunity to create an open source community or to promote more than once social media network becomes limited.

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for your comments, though I think that’s not entirely true. With the web you don’t all have to be on the same networks. With facebook’s new API and blog widgets, the concept of social networking or linking social networks is possible.

In time to come, everything will be networked, personal networks (blogs) with other personal networks (blogs), personal networks with social networks, and social networks (facebook) with other social networks (twitter, flickr) etc.

Please keep in touch?