Put the Piz in Pizazz

Amazon has launched a video downloading / purchasing / renting service.  Apparently it is boring.  It's called Unbox.

Oddly, the service lets you pay big bucks to download highly DRM'ed copies of software that can only be played on One Box.  The computer you download it to holds the file hostage.  So, you buy it, your computer crashes, you lose it.  Unbox, indeed.

But the real story here is the say-blah blah-say reaction of the blah-gosphere to the service.  Techmeme is awash with yawns and angry-yet-droopy eyes over Unbox.  For the Neo-webs, boring is enemy number one. 

I was having a conversation the other night with David Anderson about this.  Some companies see functionality being used to good effect by other companies and they seek to copy that functionality without improving on it or understanding why current popular web applications are actually popular.

As with my post yesterday, popular web sites are all about gaming.  If someone is playing a game in one place and its working well, there is little incentive to go play that exact same game elsewhere.  Jason Calacanis at Netscape copied Digg and tried to change the game by offering money to proven superusers.  So Jason did understand that you can't just clone a concept.

Amazon has worked over the years because there are things there to game.  Reviews, recommendations, wish lists, A9 kickbacks, are a partial list of Amazon's appeal.

Unbox offers no new games.  It comes with a lot of DRM annoyances.  And therefore it is boring.

There is so much low-hanging fruit on the gamable systems for retail front that I'm rather surprised at Unbox.  I think that's what people are really voicing.  After other recent, interesting, offers from Amazon, this one left people sad.  Like when you DH is up in the bottom of the 9th and doesn't get a game winning home run (or for National League fans, your pitcher).

David's wife, Mikiko, has said she never reads the Amazon reviews because she doesn't trust them.  If I wrote a review and she saw it on there, she would trust it. 

There is a huge division right now between the two hot markets: e-commerce and social networking. 

Patently built-to-fail companies like Gather are great examples of me-too building.  Gather must have seemed like a perfect Medici Effect - where you find the perfect synergy of two previously unjoined concepts.  Blogging and Social Networking.  But there's no there, there.  We see Gather flailing in classic dotcom mode - not getting users, trying more expensive techniques to get them, and blasting through their $8 Million.  They aren't closely examining their game.

As far as Unbox is concerned, I'm willing to bet Amazon will get a good game for their Unbox - but the DRM will kill it.

Technorati Tags: amazon, unbox, techdirt, gather, medici effect, social networking, designated hitter

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Comments

[RisingSunofNihon]

I agree with you here. I just don't think Unbox will work. Why would people pay those prices for digital files of TV shows and movies (that can't be transferred or anything) when they can wait a little longer and purchase the DVDs for what almost amounts to the same price? I am surprised that Amazon.com went ahead with this particular business model for downloadable content...