Meta architecture

November 3rd, 2009

While discussing Meta Products, now might be a good time for an attempt to classify the products we’ve found so far. Let’s have a look at their information architecture.

Class 1

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With many Meta Products the information flows from a physical, web connected product to an online interface (pictured above). This is the case with Nike+, where the combination of sensor and iPod/iPhone counts as the physical part, and the Nike+ website counts as the online interface. With these types of products the physical part often functions as a sensorial input, whereas the online interface plots the results of this sensorial input. Besides Nike+, a Meta Product like SmartUs follows the same principle.

Class 2

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Some Meta Products of the kind as described in Class 1, need some intermediate hardware device to serve as a hub between the physical product and the online interface (pictured above). The reason for this lies in the fact that the initial product cannot establish an internet connection on its own and so it cannot upload information to the online interface. Most of these products connect to a computer through USB, after which the computer uploads the information. Examples of this information flow are Fiat eco:Drive, Poken and our own project Social Mutator.

Class 3

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Then there is a different group where the information flows in the exact opposite direction, from online interface to physical product (pictured above). Take the Olinda radio for example, which sends the musical taste of your online social network to a physical radio as streamed music. Now suddenly the online part serves as the input, whereas the product functions as an actuator (playing songs). Besides Olinda, Nabaztag is a good example of this information flow.

Class 4

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Classes 1 and 3 can also be combined, resulting in an information stream that flows from a physical product via an online server all the way to another physical product (pictured above). Many devices work this way, in which the online server merely functions as a forwarding system. One of the oldest examples is the telephone, where a voice signal is being forwarded by a telephone company to the other end of the line. Devices using the web as their communication medium can have a far richer information stream than just voice signals. Nabaztag and Olinda can also operate this way, when friends interact with each other through these Meta Products.

Class 5

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Finally, at the borders of Meta there is a group of products that have no direct information flow between physical product and online interface (pictured above). However, some sort of connection is made between these parts. An example is Webkinz, where a consumer gets a secret code with every pet he or she buys, enabling him or her to unlock a digital pet in the online part. You could question whether this is really Meta, since there is no information flow whatsoever. What’s for sure though is that the online part adds to the total product experience, which makes you reconsider what the boundaries of a consumer product are.

Which classes are the most fruitful for future markets is still unclear. Trends however seem to go in the direction where web connected products communicate with each other directly through an online server (Class 4). Let’s see how it evolves!

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‘Industrial’ Design

October 17th, 2009

I was taught Industrial Design Engineering at Delft, University of Technology. A great education which I can recommend to everyone. However, I think it should reconsider its mission statement. Take its name for example: ‘Industrial’ Design. It refers to the era from which it stems (somewhere in the sixties). Back then it was all plastic fantastic, and mass production was the way to build. Many of the courses I took involved designing products for mass production. Terms like ‘design for manufacturing’, ‘design for assembly’, it all aimed at mass producing goods in the most efficient and cheapest way.
However, 40 years after its foundation the world demands more and more flexible, personal and unique products. I first noticed this a few years ago when students, including me, sought for interesting graduation topics and found the industry demanded design solutions in single produced products or small series. Most of the graduation proposals that students handed in at the faculty’s graduation commission got declined, since these topics did not involve mass production. How could they be so rigid and blind for what was happening out there?

Recent trends and innovations all point in the same direction, which is the exact opposite of mass production (The Long Tail). Here’s an example that illustrates what I mean: in a few years people will be able to produce and replace certain broken parts in their coffee machine themselves, simply by downloading a CAD-file, which they’ve paid for, and printing it with their own affordable 3D-printer. No mass production whatsoever is involved here!

In these cases the ON-OFF connection will become more and more important, since the web is the most flexible platform you can think of. It can help people with designing, customizing and even building their own products. So start designing for flexibility, start designing for the web, start designing Meta Products!

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Why all advertising should shift to the web

October 13th, 2009

Walking around the subway net of Paris while absorbing walls after walls of advertisements, I realized (and you must agree with me) no one is really getting happier with this amount of information yelling for attention. The irony of all this is that these ads are trying to sell you a product which should make your life easier, more fun, and in the end happier. The result however looks more like the opposite. I can think of 3 reasons why these kinds of advertisements are wrong:

1. You cannot ignore them. The human body is simply programmed to respond to bright colored, eye catching objects entering our personal space. So in a way, advertisers are simply forcing you to give them your attention. I think you should be able to decide for yourself whether you want to or not.

2. They pollute the city landscape. Buildings are filled with 23 feet high neon lighted attention grabbers. Instead of making a symbiosis between ad and building, advertisers do their utmost best to differentiate as much as they can from the context in which the ad is placed. Seriously, there are other ways to stand out.

3. They cost a lot of energy. Whether ads are put on paper or on neon signs, a lot of power is needed to produce and distribute them.

Having this in mind, I wondered how all this would look like when augmented reality sets in on a large scale. Just aim with your whatever-kind-of-connected-meta-device at the urban landscape and see advertisements pop up. You can filter if you want to, geo-tag locations or do whatever you want with the information. And the best thing is: you’re disturbing no one! City landscapes could be cleaned up, printers could stop polluting, but most importantly: you could ask for ads when you want to. Advertisers on the other hand will have an easier job getting your attention, since you were the one who requested the information in the first place and so your mind is already receptive for advertising.

Sure, as an advertiser you’ll have to take one step back while waiting for consumers until they request ads, but in return you’ll have a highly interested target group willing to learn more about your product.

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New vision, new mission, new challenges

September 27th, 2009

It all started with Nike+. I remember walking in San Francisco seeing people running with Nike shoes and Ipod Nanos. At first, I wasn’t aware of the interconnectedness of these two products and thought everybody was merely listening to their music. In my curiosity I entered the Nike Town store and heard the whole story about Nike+. What a revolutionary concept! Not only could you measure your running speed, burned calories and so on, you could also join the Nike+ community and team up with others around the world. You could even challenge others to compete in contests you’d set up yourself. What a great motivator to go out and start running right away! It was in that very same store I bought my own Nike+ set.

Back in Amsterdam, one of my partners at Booreiland had been having a conversation over dinner with some of his friends. He talked about our backgrounds in industrial design engineering and artificial intelligence, and also about wanting to do something more with those expertises. So far, Booreiland had been a web and graphic design company. One of the people at that dinner, whose name I can’t recall, pitched my partner the idea of combining product design with the web. He said, if you could somehow hook up products to the web, that would result in consumer products with amazing new functionalities, incorporating the best of both worlds.

Back in the studio he told us about this new opportunity. It sounded like a great idea, but how do we do this? How do we find the right team? Where to find leads? Are there any examples out there yet? Of course there were… Nike+! Nike, together with Apple, had succeeded in combining the offline world (running shoes) with the online world (community platform). With this in mind, we realized the web could become so much more meaningful. At the same time, our mission at Booreiland would become so much more meaningful as well. It seemed the right combination of what we’d been taught back at college (product design and AI) and our experiences with web design at Booreiland. New vision, new mission, new challenges!

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