I've just read a blog posting by Ian Karnell at karnellKNOWLEDGE talking about how a decade after Pointcast broke the mold and opened a marketing channel to the desktop, marketers are now starting to take note.
The post goes on to describe a few current initiatives where companies have launched branded 'desktop alert' apps (he calls them rich internet apps - RIA), where the user gets a pretty rich single purpose app, that reside in the user's system tray.
Ian believes the trend will continue, and certainly based on the leads and projects we are currently working on, we echo this trend. So; the problem follows, as he aptly notes,
... that brands need to begin to prepare to wage war for real estate in the user's icon tray and on the user's desktop.
You bet. And it will be a major hurdle once users already have a few of these RIAs installed. Picture it, each app with their own look and feel, each with their own pop-up alerts, each launching on startup vying for attention --- what a mess. And what's worse is that most of these RIAs are over the top in and of themselves - such as having animated little desktop characters that bounce across your screen when new data arrives. Not really a smart move if you're trying to build customer loyalty.
Although this targeted approach to putting little desktop apps does bring with it a certain focus and simplicity that can only benefit users, the larger context is missing. It's like giving a user a browser that can only surf pages from a certain company. It might simplify the user experience, but at the same time, the value is incredibly limited and before long if a browser comes along that allows surfing to other sites of interest, without increasing the usability complexity, then the battle is quickly lost.
So, this is, in a nutshell one of our beliefs also. The single brand, single purpose (SBSP) RIA or desktop alert app will not last too long before the user realizes it:
a) has limited value on its own
b) takes up too much screen real estate and conflicts with other installed alerting applications
You see, although ahead of its time, Pointcast did actually get some things right. It did allow users to personalize their experience. And it did so without cluttering up the system tray, or adding new UI paradigms. But there were also many, many things they did wrong (that's another topic).
Whenever we work with a client who is interested in publishing a Branded Desktop Alert app, one of the first things we do is to talk with them about "extended user value". In addition to the value of their services on the desktop, what else is there demographic interested in? If they want to foster true customer loyalty, then need to give users freedom, not lock them in (I think there is a CSNY song about that ).
Winning users on the desktop will require simplicity and value. And yes, that can be packaged within a brand - just not locked within it.
That's the difference.
