Design 2.0: Peter Rojas

Peter Rojas is the founder of popular gadget blog Engadget, which he started after serving as editor for Gizmodo. As the last speaker, Peter was courteous to keep his talk short to leave ample time for Q&A.

Gadget ecosystems

What goes into creating a successful gadget nowadays? It used to be that a TV was a TV, and that was it. Today it has to interact with half a dozen different devices, from the DVD player and the Tivo to the stereo system and the custom remote. Gadgets are part of extremely complex ecosystems that need to inform the design.

Consider the different parts involved in creating a successful mp3 player. You need:
* hardware
* embedded software
* PC software, maybe Mac software
* a method to deliver music, e.g. iTunes Music Store or Rhapsody

This last step in itself involves getting the labels signed up, setting up a delivery infrastructure, a DRM mechanism, etc. Of course, a music store could in theory be spread across many different players, but more on open vs. closed below. Not to beat a dead horse, but Apple was successful because it offered a seamlessly integrated experience.

Cellphones are even more complicated: manufacturers, carriers, consumers, phone OS folks, chipset manufacturers, third party software developers and regulators all have to coordinate to bring a phone to market, and unsurprisingly it takes a very long time. Combined with haphazard integration across products, this causes a lot of frustration in technology.

Open vs. closed

Analysts have been babbling about convergence for years now, and yet we’ve seen very little progress in this domain. The trouble is that each company wants to control their system, with the end result being a balkanized ecosystem. Think of Intel’s Viiv platform, and AMD’s similar but incompatible effort. Companies won’t be able to change user behavior until they themselves change their behavior to enable simpler technology.

Stay tuned for the Q&A summary tomorrow, which has some interesting content.