ipod phone and marketing skateboards...

**skategeezer** · 01-10-2007 04:04 PM

everyone is freaking out over the ipod phone..it looks sweet..but..convergence NEVER seems to work...

you can't be a street/longboarding company or a longboarding/street company...

from seth godin...again...

Two kinds of people in the world...

The folks that want (need!) an iPhone, and those that couldn't care less. And of course it's not just Apple and it's not just phones. It's every single industry in the world.
You're not likely to convert one group into the other. What you can do is decide which group you'd like to market to. You can't do both at the same time, not particularly well, anyway.

Posted by Seth Godin on January 10, 2007 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

**Mile_High_Mark** · 01-10-2007 04:08 PM

This just in...

You can't be a toilet paper/longboarding company or a longboarding/toilet paper company.

**LAbomber** · 01-10-2007 05:08 PM

anyone know how much it is?

**cosmiccase** · 01-10-2007 05:09 PM

499 for the 4GB, 599 for the 8GB. Totally not even worth 399. I hate it so much.

**WalkTogether** · 01-10-2007 05:10 PM

You can't compare everything to skateboarding either.

**skategeezer** · 01-10-2007 05:44 PM

yeah, I know...but everything in my life seems to relate to skateboarding

**chicagolongboards** · 01-10-2007 05:49 PM

It's all to easy for that to happen. I have friends that don't even skate up to date with whats going on in the market.

**Mile_High_Mark** · 01-10-2007 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by skategeezer

yeah, I know...but everything in my life seems to relate to skateboarding

Yes, but at some point you have to make a conscious effort NOT to relate everything to skateboarding.

"When all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail." -- Abraham Maslow

**Justin Metcalf** · 01-10-2007 06:12 PM

wow...yet again mark amazes me by pulling out a quote that fits perfectly into what the topic is. Haha a tip of the hat to you my good sir.

Anyways, back on topic....
What's the big deal with the phone? It looks good, performs well, and has recieved very good reviews. I don't understand where the hate is coming from. I mean yeah it costs a lot but if you don't want to spend the money...don't freaking buy it...duh

**WalkTogether** · 01-10-2007 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by Mile_High_Mark

"When all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail." -- Abraham Maslow

I like that.

Gravity is a "longboarding/street company."

**revelation2** · 01-10-2007 07:03 PM

Ipods are expensive. So are skateboards. Which one has less moving parts?

Walktogether, I totally agree with you, gravity is a longboard/street company.

**easy** · 01-10-2007 07:23 PM

Rant alert... but calling this device a 'phone' is like calling a Wefunk a 'skateboard'. iPhone is a pretty good marketing starting point (any idiot or gadget zombie knows what a phone is) but a better reference would be a handhled, touch interfaced iMac without a hard drive (but get the new airport base station and plug in a UBS drive...). Think access to not only the internet, but to your home computer (or anyone else's) from anywhere by either a cell connection or the random wifi hotspot. Cingular/AT&T get a free ride for a while, but wonder how long it will take for VOIP to be offered - it is an OSX "computer" after all - not just a phone with extra storage. A 'phone' is a simple, trivial network interface device that engineers and marketers have been over hyping and screwing up for years, being actually able to access anything you normally do via a computer with the same device you order pizza with is actually pretty cool. Think of it as a pocket sized computer that you can easily make calls with.

**king edward** · 01-10-2007 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by revelation2

Walktogether, I totally agree with you, gravity is a longboard/street company.

As is comet.

**Mile_High_Mark** · 01-10-2007 08:08 PM

Originally Posted by stinee

wow...yet again mark amazes me by pulling out a quote that fits perfectly into what the topic is. Haha a tip of the hat to you my good sir.

Anyways, back on topic....
What's the big deal with the phone? It looks good, performs well, and has recieved very good reviews. I don't understand where the hate is coming from. I mean yeah it costs a lot but if you don't want to spend the money...don't freaking buy it...duh

The hate probably stems from the act of removing "Computer" from the company's name. It's as if they're abandoning the core technology that spawned such zealous supporters.

Technology should be an enabler, not something to be worshipped in and of itself. Constructing a hammer is certainly not trivial (and does involve other technology), but that ultimately pales in comparison to the item that's constructed using that hammer.

**WalkTogether** · 01-10-2007 09:29 PM

Pocket Pistols cranks on some spiffy slalom boards and street/park boards. That's more "niche" than general longboarding.

**HerBDerb** · 01-13-2007 02:07 AM

The iPhone, it's everything.

**BobLoftin** · 01-13-2007 08:27 AM

I love Mac computers, but I couldn't care less about this phone. It looks cool, but I'm one of those people who is in the "so what" category. I'm not part of the text-messge generation. I don't really like talking on the phone. I'm an old grump about this stuff. I find it annoying when I see people texting each other relentlessly. I enjoy being able to become unreachable. I have a $10 Virgin Mobile pay as you go cell phone for emergencies and only a few people have the number.

I don't actually know where this rant is going. I just wanted to participate.

**pavedwave** · 01-13-2007 08:44 AM

what does it do that PDA's haven't been doing for the last few years?

if we pitched an iBoard design to apple i'm sure they'd bite.

**mc99david** · 01-13-2007 11:05 AM

i work for cingular, and the goal is for your phone to be your computer. As soon as data storage gets better and voice activation gets better thats the way it will be. There just is no reason for your computer to ahve to take up so much space... it will get there, and apple finaly making a phone is nice because there are tons of windows devices, and i am just not a windows fan at all.. so nice to have something that is going to work with my mac.