jarango

Shuffle

I think the most important of the two “big” announcements in this year’s Macworld keynote was the iPod shuffle, but not because of the gadget itself. Yes, it looks beautiful (is Apple capable of ugliness?), and yes the specs are nice, but c’mon—it’s just a flash-based music player, right? We’ve seen their likes before, and with better specs to boot. No, the thing that really excites me about the shuffle is the way it’s being marketed. For someone that makes a living helping people find exactly the information they’re looking for, it’s refreshing and exciting to see a product being sold primarily for its unpredictability. The “Life is random” slogan is pithy, memorable, personal, profound, and … well, a little disturbing. (I wonder how much Steve J’s pancreatic crisis of last year had to do with it?)

If the shuffle has legs, it will go down in marketing history as a textbook example of perfect jiu jitsu marketing: transforming a product’s weaknesses into its strengths. No budget for a screen? Who needs a screen!—It’s random! You’re supposed to be surprised by the next song. Brilliant and simple.

I’ve owned five portable digital jukeboxes, two of them Flash-based. All of them have had screens, and (four of them) playlists, and—of course—shuffle. However, none of them (including the two iPods in the list) have been easy enough for me to be able to give one as a gift to, say, my mom (who is not a computer user). The iPod shuffle, on the other hand, seems to be the pure essence of what these things should be and how they should behave. I think just about anyone will be able to pick one up and use it. To sell its minimalistic UI—an apparent shortcoming—as a way to introduce randomness into your (boring) life is genius. I suspect Apple will sell truckloads of the little white sticks.

January 12, 2005 | Archived in Business, Music