Has the iPod jumped the shark? Is it becoming the MySpace of mp3 players? The iPod backlash is well underway

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Has the iPod jumped the shark? Is it becoming the MySpace of mp3 players? The iPod backlash is well underway

Date Created: 31 May, 2006, 03:55 PM

Pardon my use of metaphor in the title of this blog entry, but on a number of levels they catch the drift of the subjective backlash against Apple's iPod.

To explain: Jumping the shark is a recent catchphrase suggesting a brand's popularity is on the wain. It apparently has its origins in an episode of the 50's-set TV show, Happy Days, and refers to an episode where a major popular character, the Fonz, played by Henry Winkler, goes waterskiiing, and literally "jumps a shark". After this episode was originally aired, Happy Days began to lose its ratings.

In modern parlance, "jumping the shark" means your days in the sun are numbered, your brand popularity has peaked, your tipping point has been reached, your celeb. status has achieved its zenith, and you've been overtaken by younger, prettier things as you've matured. It's the way of the world with fickle consumers looking to ride the next popularity wave and appear to be part of the cool crowd.

Social networking site Myspace.com looked a silly buy for News Corp when it spent half a billion dollars on it. Then when the number of subscribers hit 70 million and daily front page ad revenues looked like first division lotto winings, it looked like Rupert Murdoch had hit the mark.

But recently, the fickleness of young people has been reported as bringing concern to MySpace and other peer-to-peer chat/blog services. What's cool one day, is cast aside like last season's clothing range, or last month's in-place to be seen.

The same is now being said of the iPod, even in the face of Wall Street analysts predicting it still has a long way to go before peaking.

Not surprisingly, not all are enamoured of the iPod. And for a number of reasons which have become obvious over the last little while.

Let's have a look at some of them:

1. "I don't like Apple".

This group stands out like sore thumbs. Perhaps they work in IT away from any Apple products, perhaps they have bad memories of being forced to use out-of-date slow Macs at school while the cool kids used fast Windows PCs loaded with the latest hot games. Perhaps they perceive Apple products as being overly engineered, pretty beyond utility, and poor value for money, compared to other products with a more Windows-based heritage.

2. Purchasers who have been burnt by poor reliability and service.

Into this category we can place those unhappy with iPod battery life, screen scratches, hard disk crashes, and stuff that goes wrong with electronic products subjected to hard use. Into this category we can include those who've lost all their iPod music when they've connected their iPods to another Mac or Windows machine and been subjected to a total loss of data, or the replacement of their's with what's on the other PC or Mac.

We should also include here those who've complained to Apple, via telephone or in person instore and whose claims for repair, return or replacement have been met with icy stares or unhelpfulness, in their opinion.

3. "It's too hot for me" crowd.

Into this group comes those who we might call early adopters, differentiating themselves from the masses by their ability to discover earlier than most the next "big thing". They're also "influencers", and while they might only number a few per cent of the consumer population, they have extraordinary influence in the buying community beyond their numbers. Others look to them to pick up on trends, do some quasi-beta testing, and then tell the world what's hot and what's not.

Once their choice becomes hot and the late adopters have leapt onto the bandwagon, this group takes its leave, searching for other new products. The iPod of course has improved markedly along the way, but now that it's a brand, the early adopters need something else to work up to brand status. It's important for this group to be acknowledged as being discoverers within their circle of influence. The need to move on weighs heavily on this group.

4. The late adopters

This group came late to the party but probably are numerically greater than the other groups. Influenced more by marketing and branding than by the early adopters, they see white earbuds all around, see them product-placed on TV, in movies, and featured regularly in mainstream media, and so they see it as an item worthy of their attention.

Perhaps their children insist on them getting one, or they receive one as a gift (or buy one as a present for themselves). But somewhere along the way, it doesn't meet expectations. Perhaps they get two or three consecutive "lemons", customer service is unhelpful or they can't master the iPod/iTunes interface. It all becomes overwhelming, and the iPod is shelved:

"Yeah, I had one of those.. just don't know what all the fuss was about."

This group is perhaps more technically challenged than the other groups, and their patience for stepping onto the learning curve is slim. Despite the ease with which many others use the iPod/iTunes/Music store combo, this group remains challenged, and wouldn't know a podcast if it fell into their lap. Nor would they buy music from the iTMS, preferring to get someone else to help them transfer their favourite CD to the iPod via iTunes.

This group never really takes ownership of their technological challenges, and while they don't necessairly blame Apple or the iPod, they put it to one side, and go back to listening to radio in the car, or using their cassette or CD Walkman.

5. The philosophically opposed.

Into this group come some of the A-list bloggers who have a bone to pick with Apple over all manner of things. For example:

a. "I don't like how Apple employs DRM.

b. "I don't like how Apple silos me."

c. "I don't like Apple because they treated me badly when I worked for them or tried to work for or with them.

d. "I like their design, I don't like Steve Jobs and he's not getting my money."

e. "Apple's becoming a monopoly", blogged about frequently from their Windows PC, with no hope of irony recognised.

f. The Winer option: "iTunes is awful. Who designed this crap? It doesn't work like I wanted it to, and Apple won't listen to me, of all people" or words and sentiments to that effect.

g. Some other personal, idiosyncratic reason that's beyond my immediate comprehension, but when I go back into professional clinician mode can be understood - eventually.

h. Those who work for competitors wishing to grasp at some of the mp3 action, whether with players, or download music options.

Into this group we can throw Microsoft and MTV with their URGE music download concept, still in search of a good piece of hardware; Sony and whatever its next try at emulating Apple may be (surely of all the competitors, it has the best chance since it both owns music as well as produces mp3 players).

And now we must add a new player to the mix, one who has produced products many Apple users will have purchased: Sandisk, a maker of quality USB flash thumbdrives who have now begun to produce their own music players.

Indeed, they're not mincing words in their marketing efforts, going straight for the iPod jugular with an effort to label the iPod "over the hill" and uncool.

Their campaign, known as iDon't, humourously plays iPod owners as sheep, following the flock, and thus making it an undesirable product if you're a hip young thing.

Here's the manifesto from a website screenshot, below.

The website itself is heavily Flash-oriented, with a flock of sheep entering the screen, and leaving one poor little lamb on its lonesome, thus (right).

In a risky marketing move reminiscent of Microsoft's dinosaur efforts to get Office users to "evolve" and upgrade to the lastest Office - a marketing effort which basically insults current users - Sandisk runs the same risk of alienating potential switchers who may not like being compared to thoughtless automatons or barnyard animals.

Here is a set of posters one can download from the website.

Clicking on each icon reveals some copy of interest:

"DON'T LET "THE MAN" TELL YOU WHAT WALLPAPER TO USE, RIGHT-CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW AND CHOOSE "SET AS BACKGROUND" TO PIMP YOUR DESKTOP."

Now one has to wonder if this is all about trying too hard to knock off the market leader, or just some marketing types having some fun.

So what does Sandisk have to offer instead? No music service as such, but a player which looks like this:

And on the same page, we see some links to reviews of alternatives, including that for anythingbutipod.com and Cnet's review of the Sandisk player, the Sansa e200, pictured above.

And of course, what would such guerilla marketing (or in this case gorilla) be without the blog and RSS feed to go with it? Can a podcast be far behind? Er, not until they find an alternative expression, it can't!

The tongue in cheek style continues here:

"Whichever way, quite honestly, we’re stoked to have started a discussion. So, thanks to all those who are keeping a sense of humor (and even those that aren’t). And thanks also to those keeping open minds, and enjoying our campaign for what it is: A bit of healthy, fun competition. You know, just like in 1984.

More to come. Watch this space peeps.

Eric. (a.k.a. Da Sheep Herder) "

The direct reference to Apple's 1984 introduction of the Mac is out there, and it will be interesting to see if Apple responds in kind.

Frankly, I like the humour. It doesn't take itself too seriously and moreover, doesn't diss the iPod by listing complaints from users, something you'd expect to see collated in a news article like the recent Sydney Morning Herald's of a day or two ago, here. There you'll find in the comments section a litany of complaints that must be kept in perspective given the more than 40 million iPods sold so far.

Sandisk is going for the cool user approach and good luck to them. When Apple releases a touchscreen, wifi enabled, large screen iPod not too far away I expect, I'll look forward to seeing their response. Apple will up the ante, leaving Microsoft, MTV and Urge in the dust.

Where that leaves the likes of Creative and iRiver I don't know, and frankly I don't really care because these are not units I would bother with, although they have their adherents, especially for those avoiding the iPod for the reasons stated above.

So has the iPod reached a tipping point? Yes, but I'm thinking it's more an inflection point, where Apple's catching its breath, before unleashing something quite inspirational this year when it comes to on-demand media.

Whatever happens, welcome Sandisk - you're going to be fun to have around.