The Gizmondo model
In publishing, people are still trying to make the old business models work. In an era of electronicity that just doesn’t work.
What about the Gizmondo model? It’s the new handheld game machine that has camera, GPS receiver, surfing, music player, IM, and so on. (It’s released in the U.K., coming in October to the U.S.) It sells for two prices — $233 and $414 right now. With the lower-priced model, according to Eric A. Taub in The New York Times, “up to three short full-motion commercials will be sent to Gizmondo users each day. The commercials will not interrupt any other activity, but when they play, the unit cannot be turned off.”
Every e-reading device will be capable of playing video and will access the internet. Maybe publishers should think like the networks and use books to gather audiences that they sell to advertisers. Then who would worry about “piracy”?
August 30th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Do you really think this is a good idea?
Advertising is not the be-all and end-all of existence. Crazy as it may sound, some people might like to not have crap pitched at them every five minutes of their life from birth to death.
Sure, right now you get the choice of paying more to avoid the commercials on that device. That was the initial draw for cable TV too, remember? Pay more and get no commercials? Seems to have disappeared. Even on premium channels, you get commercials between movies.
No commercials in books, please. If all e-books come with commercials, then I’ll stop reading ebooks.
August 30th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
So maybe everyone feels as you do — then pump the e-books with ads, put ‘em out in a flood, and you pay the publisher for a key that turns the ads off. Opera has that kind of model, for instance.
My point is there’s more than one way to skin a cat, not that advertising is good.
Just because I can’t not read words put in front of me doesn’t mean I can’t develop a coping mechanism for ads. But your approach is the soundest — just say no.
The other point that we may be overlooking here is that maybe inobstrusive ads can be created, more like TV commercials than magazine print ads, and maybe they sell book clubs or movies made from books or some other related material. And maybe, like Gizmondo’s, they never interrupt you. There’s a wide spectrum here, and maybe there’s a spot in it that even you can abide.
September 5th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
The business model may work, but their CEO says in that article that they will need to sell 1.5 million Gizmondos each quarter worldwide in order to break even. That is a huge number and one that puts it inline with the sales of the DS and PSP or the GBA of the past.
With the strength of their titles, this will be difficult to do. The Gizmondo is unique, but so was the N-Gage. The most interesting piece of the Gizmondo is the GPS, and cellphone bring this (and other location technologies) to portable gaming. For the mobile-consoles, the DS or PSP could easily release GPS add-on.
Take a look at the link on my name for some other ideas for location based games. I regularly visit the site it is posted on, and the article contains some good info on LBG.