[Community] phones

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi Zack,

Am 16.09.2013 um 21:08 schrieb Zack:

> Hi Nikolaus,
> 
> > So we can't offer even dual-core or 8 MPx cameras... We can
> > just offer what we have designed so far (without giving up some
> > basic principles like 99% openness, most components available
> > at major chip distributors).
> 
> This lack of super-powerful features is what I was advocating for.
> If you define the target audience as people who want freedom-rich
> computing, with 99% FOSS, it may turn out that they don't even need a 3MP camera.
> 
> If you further define the target audience as people who want
> privacy rather than government snooping, you may find the
> audience is larger than expected.

A fact is that we have found that the audience has become smaller and
smaller over the past 5 years since Openmoko did start.

> 
> You don't know what they want or who they are until you get their attention
> enough to be able to ask them.

Not necessarily. You can ask them at conferences and fairs or discuss in
a forum like this...

> 
> Use the scientific method. Define your hypothesis, design an experiment
> i.e. a phone feature set and a price, then run the experiment
> in the form of a campaign. If funding is insufficient, the experiment
> failed, so revise the hypothesis.
> 
> > The other problem is that nowadays a successful campaign must
> > be run extremely professional
> > Samsung etc. Kickstarters are no longer a method to fund some
> > geek projects, but have become a standard sales channel like Amazon or
> > Best Buy. Just a different form of payment and delivery terms.
> 
> Crowd funding is a populist activity that threatens
> big companies, so those companies will try to make competitors believe that
> a relatively luxurious approach to the handling of campaigns
> is required. This scares off some potential small competitors,
> but it is smoke and mirrors, or Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt.

This statement above is my personal opinion and observation. Not influenced or FUD by big companies.

After many years of running projects I have got FUD-resistant :)

> 
> In the US, the mainstream media does something similar
> when they regularly joke about bloggers and belittle people
> who take blogs or the Internet seriously. This is just an anti-populist tactic.
> 
> Another anti-populist tactic is when the big companies
> try to take over the populist activity itself, as when newspapers
> start blog sites or when companies sell products through Kickstarter.
> 
> The tactics of big companies really don't matter.
> It is the perspective of the person who pays into a crowd funding campaign that matters,
> as follows:
> 
> 1. Crowd funding is like a fundraiser for a community
> organization (e.g. to raise money for a school to buy sports uniforms).
> No one expects a communitarian enterprise to be run by
> a slick marketing agency from Manhattan. In fact, some may find super-slick
> marketing to be out of place or offensive.

I have seen several good meant projects fail in the recent months. See below.

> 
> 2. Many of the projects on Kickstarter or Indiegogo are
> esoteric, and/or they exist to satisfy desires that are unusual
> or unanticipated. Consequently using these services is more like when
> a person happens unexpected upon a specialist who has no marketing budget,
> e.g. a craftsperson at a fair who sells Medieval sword replicas.
> There is not a reasonable expectation of perfection in marketing,
> but there is a hope for excellence in the product itself.

Yes, that is true. But we are not in this area. We are offering a smartphone.

And there, people expect a lot of excellence of the product driven by companies
like Apple or Samsung. And we simply are not able to fulfill this expectation of
the general public because we don't have access to the same suppliers.

> 
> 3. People go to crowd funding sites looking for products that are like exotic gems.
> They know that most big companies do not produce a wide and deep
> variety of products. It's not economical, and middle management
> is too lazy or self-interested to bother. Customers go to crowd funding sites
> with a focus on finding the interesting "gem" projects, not on
> finding 24/7 support or glitzy marketing.

This is how we all would love to see it.

But if I compare sucessful campaigns and failed campaigns, I see a different picture.

Look at this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/omate/omate-truesmart-water-resistant-standalone-smartwa

and compare with this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/203272607/gnustep-project

The latter being a GNU FOSS project where even RMS did write some first lines of code.
But the campaign was a one-man show and just a simple video. Therefore its fate was to
fail, even at a target of mere 50k USD.

The first one is obviously backed by a venture capital fund and a marketing campaign and
is obviously much more successful...

So it is not that companies require good marketing. Or someone is telling that as an urban legend.

It are the users and potential pledgers of the crowd funding campaigns who prefer good marketing
(like everywhere in life).

BR,
Nikolaus