Last weekend, I found myself in a company of four members of what David Pogue calls the Droid Army. Being the only iPhone user in the group was definitely not working for me. So I decided to look deeper into the Nexus One – the gadget – and Google’s way of marketing the product. One of the ‘aha’ features of the new gadget is its speech to text feature. It works. It really does. And it handles different accents fairly well. None of the product reviews mentioned this feature. Are there more hidden features that are going unnoticed due to Google’s targeted marketing approach?
Google’s belief in not advertising using the mainstream commercial channels might not be the best move in today’s context. There are many on the streets that still think that Droid was the last phone that works on Android. What is Google counting on – word of mouth and tech blog readership? Google must spend its money to drive the phone to the heart of its customer base.
I personally know a few people, who bought the iPhone the day the Nexus One was released. If I was in their shoes, and had all the information available at my disposal to make an informed decision – I would have gone with the Nexus One. But the irony is that these people did not even know about the new gadget. Those who did, found the reviews tainted with skepticism.
Unless you had been an avid Technology blog reader, or had been hanging out with Google employees who got a sneak preview of the phone around Christmas, there was no way to find out about the launch of the phone. In this day and age, you need to build anticipation in the market before you launch. By sprinkling a few phones in the market prior to its launch, the Nexus One could have gained a lot more attention and momentum in the market. But that did not happen– Google preferred, instead, to release the phone to its own employees, something known as “dogfooding”.
By focusing on online advertising alone, and that too limited to Google websites, there seems to be a push for a new model of online advertising and marketing campaigns. Some blogs on the topic pointed out that Google chose to launch the phone using mobile and social channels, to a limited set of people who are in tune with the gadget world – those who were most likely to watch out for it, and most likely to be enthused by it. But if the Nexus One’s real competitor is the iPhone, then Google will have to change its narrow focus, and reach out to the masses. After all, its a phone, not a high end toy.
Given what we know, the phone is definitely a winner with application developers. It gives them an open platform to showcase their creativity, and will help companies to develop cutting edge applications and cater to their mobile audience. So no matter who wins the race – this is clearly the time to invest in making your website mobile friendly and develop cross-platform applications.