The future of shopping is "super"

Last night I had dinner with the CEO of an IPTV-focused shopping service and we talked about many things, including cross-platforming his service, and it's unique business model, onto the Internet. "The Web bores me," he said.

With a background in film, the former TiVo and EA employee was relaying a concept I heard repeatedly at Under the Radar. It is the notion that the challenge of software as we mourn the death of Web 2.0, evidently a violent one per Mike Arrington, is to stop creating 6 billion new devices with new models of use (phone navigation versus Web navigation versus cable system menus and so on) and rather, to marry compelling services with the standing behavior of the consumer. Serve the buyer. My dinner accompanyment stated that their company's system (one I'll talk about once it's out of stealth mode) "allows users to do more without learning a new technology or menu structures". At the other end of this argument are companies like United Keys, who are talking with large PC manufacturers about replacing keyboards with a software-driven LED type scenario. As stated on the United Keys website:

"The bottleneck of PC computing is the laborious nature of hierarchical command structures," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO conferences. "It limits the user experience and leads to feature underutilization."
Denmark West, EVP of Strategy and Business Development for MTV, sat with Rafe Needleman at the Under the Radar conference and asked him what MTV is looking forward to. Mr. West said that MTV is looking to "super" serve the audience. To me, that means more than 'every option available under the sun' and instead 'any option you will find useful'. Will that be more intelligent underlying software or new devices such as United Keys, in customized user installations of software we already use or in algorythims which identify conditions and patterns and respond accordingly?

All, I'd say. Without regulation and with the intelligence and technology barrier so low, we're still parallel developing all kinds of things, racing to super serve the consumers. I'm officially finished wanting to win this race. The glory isn't in getting the sale, enabling the debt and filling the whole with non-biodegradable materials. The glory is in being socially conscience.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm not sure what he meant. Was his suggestion that we have a universal interface to everything? I love my Tivo remote, but I'd have a hard time safely navigating my car around San Francisco with it.
Lisa Padilla said…
Not a universal interface, Steve, just more comfortable and familiar user interface -- to mitigate individuals needing to learn yet another user interface. There are a lot of things we shouldn't be doing in the car anyway, I'm sure you'll agree. Included in that would be navigating TV programming. This is another case for VoIP applications. For example, Nuance-backed software.

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