It feels a little weird to write this blog. After all, I run a web company and I’m writing a blog- not an article for a newspaper. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently so I wanted to put my thoughts together as a post.

“The Death Of Print” has been predicted for the last 10 years or so. Magazines are going out of business, Newspapers are doing the same or significantly downsizing. Anyone looking at the industry has to admit the future ain’t too bright. But does that mean that print is going away? I want to make the argument that print is going to be around for a good while longer and remain one of the most popular mediums for the foreseeable future.

Why is print still a valid medium? Two words- user experience.

I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy. I have computers, an iPhone, TVs etc. But I don’t like to read online. I do it but I prefer reading print. Online reading is often not a consuming experience since the medium is by nature distractable. I start reading something and then I’m jumping around, researching something on Wikipedia, etc. I rarely finish a blog or article when reading online. But give me Sunday’s New York Times and I will end up reading 10-15 articles start to finish over the course of several days. I love the focus of print. It’s keeping my hands busy without being too heavy (hello Kindle!).

Speaking of Kindle- I don’t get it, same with iPad but at least the iPad looks better. Why are people paying hundreds of dollars so they can then pay $5-15 a book and then have to read it on that ugly thing. I have to say I was a little shocked that it wasn’t a bomb.

There are plenty of people like me, including many avowed techies. Sure I scan blogs, Twitter, CNN on a daily basis but I almost never read Fast Company, Inc. or even the Indy Star or Nuvo Newsweekly online. The Web is for scanning/consuming (like a plate of food you pick at) and print is for reading/owning.

You might think that I’m just showing my age (38) but consider the recent resurgence of vinyl records. Vinyl was all but dead 10 years ago (sound familiar?). The CD had put all but a handful of record pressing companies out of business. The only records being pressed were for DJs and some vinyl geeks over in Europe. In the early to mid 1990s you could buy used vinyl for pennies. Stores were just clearing it out. But then Napster happened and then iTunes and now the CD is a dead man walking just like vinyl was 10 years ago.

Vinyl Records are the only section of the music industry that is growing. Many of the buyers grew up with CDs and are now turning to vinyl. Why?

Same two words- user experience. A CD is mostly a transportation device- it takes music from the store to your digital devices. Sure there’s some art work there but usually not much and it’s really small compared to a record. CDs are nearly worthless at this point and we are just a few years away (if that) from their demise as the standard medium for releases. I know from talking with friends in the music business that many labels are looking at a vinyl/digital release format in the near future.

So as we embrace our digital future and all the glory that it will be, let’s not forget that we have not actually changed, we are still animals that want to touch, feel, smell and interact with our world. The screen creates a barrier between us and a full tactile experience. I predict as we move towards more content being digital there will be a quiet but growing backlash by consumers craving tactile experiences.

Print isn’t dying, it’s just resting.

I was having lunch with my buddy and “Social Media guru” Kyle Lacy the other day at LaPiedad here in Broad Ripple. Everytime I have lunch with Kyle something interesting comes out of it.

Somehow we started talking about CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) and how we don’t find them very useful. We both felt a little guilty about it. Turns out we are both using the same methodology (roughly)- paper and email to manage leads and tasks.

Personally I start every week by writing all active projects on a notepad and then creating a list of “to-dos” and active leads. That pad of paper is my CRM. I look at every project everyday, I can’t avoid it like a CRM that requires me to log in, etc. I’m sure there’s great ones out there but everyone I’ve tried, and I’ve tried a few, end up not being used. Paper just works.

We both felt that technology, in this instance, actually added an unnecessary layer to our process. Kyle said something like “it’s weird cause I think of myself of a techie” to which I responded “you’re not a techie, you’re a platform agnostic, you use whatever works.”

Normally the word “agnostic” is used in the religious arena- “I don’t know if there is or isn’t a God so I’m not going to take a stand, etc.” The non-religious definition is “a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something”. I’m using it more broadly here as “someone who has little to no platform or channel loyalty.” A little bit of a re-definition I admit but I’m not sure what other word would capture that idea.

definition time- what I mean by “channel” and “platform”
channel: medium used to reach an audience- radio, tv, internet, text, etc.
platform: operating system and corrresponding hardware that runs software often connecting via a channel. i.e. Laptops, iPhones, GPS, Satellite Radios, etc. Or, for our purposes: paper (operating system), pencil (hardware) and language (software).

What I’m seeing is a generation that doesn’t care what platform or channel they use as long as it works. And by “works” I mean it does the job effectively and they enjoy the experience. If a piece of paper works better than a computer- great! If I can hear the songs I want via Pandora then I don’t care about the new station in town. If my cell phone gets good reception at home then who cares about a land line? MySpace full of losers? Hello Facebook! All these iPhone fanatics (myself included) are just one great phone (maybe the G-Phone?) away from cancelling their AT&T contracts. We have no loyalty to AT&T, if anything our experience with their service has decreased any existing brand loyalty.

Since there is very little channel or platform loyalty it creates real challenges for brands that relied heavily, increasingly past tense, on their channels and platforms as a differentiators- think Comcast grappling with the upcoming move to Internet TV, Microsoft with the move to web software eroding their desktop market share, AT&T totally fumbling the transition from land lines to cellular towers (or the lack therefore).  As consumers rapidly jump around many companies are panicking. They aren’t scaled to do that. They aren’t agile.

So how does a company deal with all these Platform Agnostics out there messing everything up? Focus on the user experience- create a superior user experience, the “killer app” of user experiences.

Look at the business card or the post-it note. No digital technology has replaced these and I’m not seeing a near future where that happens. Same with email- an “antique” digital technology. There were high hopes for Google Wave to be “email 2.0″ and maybe that will happen but right now it looks more like “antique” email will continue to be king and only slowly integrate Wave-like elements over time. Business cards, post it notes, note pads, email- they are all “killer apps” and no-one has come close to dethroning them despite numerous attempts.

Technology isn’t going to slow down but for every new shiny object that reaches critical mass usage there will be dozens if not hundreds of others lying along the road. Users are selfish. They only care about themselves. Keep this front and center in all your efforts and you will convince some of these Platform Agnostics into believing your creed.

Social Media Platform Fatigue- when a social media site suffers a drop in users or activity due to the users becoming increasingly annoyed or bored with the user experience.

No platform is perfect and certainly no platform is perfect for every user. Add to that users are not a static bunch. They are learning and changing the more they “use” software and the Web. Users also increasingly expect software and websites to improve dramatically on a regular basis. This is increasingly important for daily use sites. Sites like Facebook, Google, CNN, ESPN, Twitter etc. Sites that the same users visit day in and out. 

Most of the time improving a site doesn’t mean just adding more stuff to it. Just take a look at Facebook or MySpace to see what happens when you add functionality and content to a platform without really considering how it should be organized for the user. Both platforms are increasingly messy and hard to navigate.

Platform Fatigue is seen most acutely in social media sites. Consider that only 6 years ago Friendster was the dominant online social networking site and MySpace was just beginning to rise through the ranks. Friendster-MySpace-Facebook-Twitter all in 6 years!

Maybe the problem here wasn’t so much the inevitable spam and clutter but the platform itself. Maybe users just got tired of the platform?

The challenge is that social media sites start out doing one or two things really well but they usually give into the temptation of trying to be all things everyone. MySpace was where bands went to post their music, Facebook was for college students, etc, but now both those sites have lost their defined and even narrow vision in an attempt to attract more visitors and thereby revenue. MySpace is heading south and I predict Facebook could see a similar fate in 2010 if it doesn’t fix some usability issues. Facebook is becoming really hard to navigate.

Twitter is an interesting exception to the rule so far. It has mostly resisted the temptation to expand its offerings. It has made small incremental moves, recently “lists”, but nothing dramatic. The platform is really simple to use, you can only do about 4 things on Twitter but there applications are limitless. I wonder how long before the investors start to clamour for ways to suck revenue from Twitter? That push usually leads to a chaotic rush to add features that are revenue based in some way or another.

I’m sure some users get frustrated with the limitations of Twitter but I would think some users get frustrated with the limitations of Google as well. But consider this, Google users have very little platform fatigue. They use it multiple times a day. It doesn’t try to be all things to all people. There is really only one thing you can do on Google.com for the average user- find stuff via search. Sure Google has Gmail, Docs, Wave etc but most users are just doing one thing- search. Those other apps are great next steps in the relationship but they generally don’t clutter the search experience with these other offerings. They mostly act as stand alone platforms.

Other search engines tried to expand their search offerings in an attempt to monetize their user base only to drive those same users into the arms of Google. Yahoo clutters its home page with ads and links to all kinds of junk- is it a news site? Email? Search engine? Store? All of the above?  Sure! All Google cares about is the user, they know a sustainable revenue model only happens with happy users.

So my advice to Social Media sites- focus more on the user experience and less on new features. It may be frustrating at times for some users who are craving new features but the other road leads to a feature rich site that is increasingly difficult to use. I see Facebook heading this direction and the further it goes the less I find myself stopping by to check in on my friends. Too bad since it was a nice platform, once.