Marketing and early adopters

Okay so I have been doing some very serious thought about convergent media and how we can cross the chasm that Geoff Moore talks about in his book Crossing the Chasm. For those that are not familiar the curve looks like this:


Already Apple is positioning itself to try to cross the chasm by deploying another unique product to an installed base that knows how to use an iPod, but there are also even more winds of change blowing. The problem is crossing the chasm and moving the technology into the hands of the middle of the curve users.

I consider myself an early adopter of as much technology as possible if it will make what I do easier, but I also am very conscious of cost associated with some early adopter technologies. The key here is how the marketing can demonstrate how easy it is to use the technology so the middle majority, as I will call them, will adopt it. My feeling is that is why experiential marketing has truly grown in recent times. This power of experience gets the product into the hands of the buyer of the technology and empowers them to use it and see how easy it is to use.

All of this talk of convergent media will mean nothing unless the tools on the final end become easy to use. iTunes certainly has made it easy as have TiVo and others, but when you go forward and look at how you can now through Slingbox get your television delivered to you at any time through the net that changes another paradigm but only if it is easy to use.

So how do we design the product to make it work with ease?