Comments on: A Tale Of Two Case Studies: Amazon, Pepsi, and Tangible Intangibles

By: Online Shopping Mall

Online Shopping Mall — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:48:39 +0000

What about the intangible tangibles??!

Mbop Megashop

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:35:19 +0000

Very nice addition. The money that we have is very intangible… yet still there is a pinch.

I wonder what the relationship is?

By: Jeroen Hoekman

Jeroen Hoekman — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:56:50 +0000

I love this kind of thinking Scott and you make a good point there. Do you also realize that you pay for your intangible product with intangible money: with a cardboard card with a specific number on it, which stands for money in a bank, but that money does not physically exist. Considering the intangible digital product: This has one very big advantage. Looking at my CD and DVD collection, I realize that they will be useless in a couple of years, just like the box with video tapes and long play records in my garage. The digital products are not completely dependent on the actual technology and hardware. So, when I will be listening to the same music on my future version of the ipod, while throwing my CD´s in the dustbin.

By: Mike CJ

Mike CJ — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:05:47 +0000

Sure thing Scott – give me a shout on email or Twitter when you're ready.

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:05:13 +0000

Yes it is timely! Like I said to you when we met a while ago, this is the underlying issue of problems with just displaying lots of ebooks on a website and then not really getting the sales you want. I think it goes to a lack of strong distribution as well – which a tangible product can provide solutions for – so we need to think deeper about this.

I love your final line on 'experience, experience, experience' – after being criticised for using the language, it's great to see it being used a lot more! I'll write a blog post on it methinks!

By: annholman

annholman — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:57:30 +0000

Fabulous post Scott and personally it's very timely! I'm fascinated by the need to encourage a culture of tangibility with digital products. If that doesn't happen, many of us have problems. Only when we make things tangible will people pay and feel value. That feeling will increasingly be about tapping into peoples emotions rather than handing them a physical product as has been mentioned.

I agree fundamentally with Michael Greenland's point about this being about the digital experience and more importantly the 'user experience' to quote his term. We have to be careful here though that we don't create products/services that are about as useful as one telephone in the world.

All I have got to say is forget about 'location, location, location' its about building 'experience, experience, experience.' That's what will make it tangible!

Cheers Scott for another thought provoking post!

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:42:14 +0000

Hey Mike – yes I followed the conversations on your book keenly around the web. I think the uproar really is misplaced, and in my mind, the more important discussion is along these lines of tangibility with digital products.

Congrats on the Kindle launch – I'd love to do a case study on your book perhaps at the end of January?

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:40:56 +0000

Hey Chris – thanks for the comments. I think you sum up when the mainstream is at the moment – they are happy with tangible intangibles through iPod, iTunes, and enjoy the lifting of restrictions that they bring.

Your point, then, of providing a tangible touch point – like using the high street to preview an item – is a very strong one, and one that demands attention. Hence, I think a good bit of budget is then spent (in the instance of books) on book placement in key locations.

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:59:01 +0000

Martin – some great thoughts there – I'll just hone in on the one that takes my interest the most:

“I think the future belongs to the platform with the best overall spreadability.”

Spreadability. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. A single, loose download on a site has no spreadability. An ebook thats in iTunes has plenty of it.

Then that brings the other thing, as you say, that books will become full blown multimedia experiences. Now *that* is fascinating – although it will turn the cost of a book up dramatically!

By: Mike CJ

Mike CJ — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:44:01 +0000

Fascinating post – I'm one of the authors of Beyond Blogging, which you refer to, and I had never thought the whole tangible / intangible thing through, but you're absolutely right! What we need is some kind on platform / library like iTunes for our online books – I guess Audible has already done it for audio books.

Having said that, will Kindle do the job for us, I wonder? Oh, and the Kindle version of the book is about to launch over the next couple of days.