All Gen Gamers Joking about the Pandora

[Link]

^

Well, In surely don't support queue jumping myself, but if only 10 of those 40000 buy a Pandora, we've financed another 10 preorders from the classic queue as well, which is a good thing.


What we need is publicity. I've got units available from stock again, so increasing sales is the main goal to get the remaining preorders out as fast as possible.

+1

 

[PokeParadox]

Unfortunately it has been proven in many studies that bad news travels more easily than good news...

 

[aatu]

Yes but if he spreads negativity about the Pandora to 40000 ppl then they spread it ... Then it ruins the number of potential buyers and then it's just another gift that keeps on giving . I mean I don't like it anymore than you do but if that's what it takes to survive than that's what it takes , just how the world works

Is there a proof that it works that way (i.e. scientific investigations, not "the internet says so") ?

Actually, that's a relatively well established fact in marketing. I've learned it as a "3/11" rule. Meaning (on average) any given person tells positive news/experience to 3 people, and negative news/experience to 11 people. Well, after the social media phenomenon, the numbers are probably a little higher, but the ratio should still be quite accurate.


PS. Apparently quite close to grapevine.

 

[2bit]

Thatgui : I was going to say the same thing as aatu but he said it better .

 

[elwing]

that said, I guess the openpandora already got plenty negative views, it can't go much worst and a few of the people seing it running could buy one after watching it running cool games and apps...

 

[thatgui]

Unfortunately it has been proven in many studies that bad news travels more easily than good news...

Yes but if he spreads negativity about the Pandora to 40000 ppl then they spread it ... Then it ruins the number of potential buyers and then it's just another gift that keeps on giving . I mean I don't like it anymore than you do but if that's what it takes to survive than that's what it takes , just how the world works

Is there a proof that it works that way (i.e. scientific investigations, not "the internet says so") ?

Actually, that's a relatively well established fact in marketing. I've learned it as a "3/11" rule. Meaning (on average) any given person tells positive news/experience to 3 people, and negative news/experience to 11 people. Well, after the social media phenomenon, the numbers are probably a little higher, but the ratio should still be quite accurate.


PS. Apparently quite close to grapevine.

I don't deny that, but are mechanism that are working here that easy to comprehend ? How are factors like project scale, project awareness, target group, outreach of this certain podcast/review site weighted ?

 

[Link]

I think we can best tell you after February, when holiday and post holiday sales wind down. When there are no more preorders remaining for ED & Craig, that will be a happy time. I think there should be a case redesign for that day, Pandora in the Black, carbon fiber casing. Just wishing.

 

[elwing]

after February, when holiday and post holiday sales wind down. When there are no more preorders remaining for ED & Craig

Why does that sound completely wrong and far fetched... or maybe you're not speaking of February 2013?

 

[aatu]

I don't deny that, but are mechanism that are working here that easy to comprehend ? How are factors like project scale, project awareness, target group, outreach of this certain podcast/review site weighted ?

Well, those factors just mean that every case is an individual matter. But the 3/11 comes as the average, more like a rule-of-thumb. And sure, sometimes "all press is good press". But that is usually not the case with no-name brands. On the contrary, one of the worst things a new small company can confront is bad word-of-mouth. If someone hears from a company/product for the first time, and it's in a negative tone, he will simply skip it altogether (but leaving a lingering bad first impression). With bigger companies this isn't necessarily a problem, as the press coverage usually reminds the potential customers again, and gives them a chance to change their opinion. But for Pandora, that takes a little more work, as we don't actually have that much visibility. And sending that "40000-guy" his unit has the benefit of at least minor damage control.


PS. Then again, marketing is what it is. I might be TOTALLY wrong:


http://dilbert.com/s...mic/2010-10-01/


http://dilbert.com/s...mic/2010-10-20/


http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-10-20/

Spoiler

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-10-20/

 

[Kumaki]

Well, unfortunately, Kickstarter wasn't in place when this thing got started.


there's a lot of good folks out there without whom this never would have happened. They should be getting their units.


I'm one of those who waited until they were instock to order one.


Of course, I also had a problem that delayed the tax refund I was going to buy it with by six months...which in the end, resulted in my getting a silver-case ReBirth instead of the original black-case 256 G unit I would have ended up with had my tex refund not been delayed.

 

[klapse]

What is that, fear based queue jumping?

Come on quartercast, this is a sound move from a bussiness perspective.


I'm an idealist myself - and would make a lousy bussiness person as being fair to everyone is very importante to me.


But it just doesn't work that way in this world. The potential bad press generated by ignoring this fellow and his 'followers' could result in some really unfortunate eventualities for *everyone* that loves the Open Pandora.


Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

This comment and others give 40,000 followers a high importance, which is statistically mistaken as I see it. 40k sounds like a lot of customers but they are followers, not customers. Only a fraction of those listened to the actual review of the pandora and only a fraction of those will mention the pandora to others. These mentions even if negative may generate new sales.


The potential customer base of the pandora is hard to pin down. Linux users and retro gamers are certainly in that group. That number is in the millions. The problem is how to reach them and inform them of the pandora.


Take a potential user base of millions and subtract, say 20,000 who have been turned off by the review and you still have millions.


This isnt to say that this reviewer isn't important. Positive reviews leading to a few hundred orders would go a long way toward clearing the queue. Let's all try to spread the good news about our device.

 

[quartercast]

Hear hear, quite eloquently put too

 

[Kumaki]

Well, I always talk up the Pandora in my own small circles.

 

[aatu]

The only purpose of making a better impression to the 40000 followers isn't direct purchases. Think about a situation when a friend of any of those 40000 followers hears about the Pandora (from another source, like engadget, etc.), and mentions about it to the follower. The follower will be quick to point out the negative impression he's gotten of it. Aaand now we lost a potential sale.


For example, because of the Creative's driver debacle few years back, I always try to drive people away from any Creative product they are even thinking of buying. Bad stigmas follow you around, it's not easy to get rid of them. Meanwhile, because of a very good Philips CRT monitor I once bought, I favor all Philips products and recommend the brand to others. While on the contrary, my father had a bad experience with a Philips radio set twenty years back, and still to this day doesn't want to buy anything from Philips, if at all possible.


And what makes this an extra bad situation for us, is that the podcaster himself has a stake in the matter (pre-orderer himself). He's not just echoing someone else's experience and impression, it's his own. And if I understood correctly, it's a podcast centered on retro-gaming, which makes the subscriber-base very closely tied to our field, and thus generates a far greater percentage of lost potential sales than if it was on some general tech site. There's also the fact that (at least judging from that specific podcast) he's been talking about it earlier too. The way the other speakers reacted once Pandora was mentioned, it felt like it was a running gag among them. To them Pandora was almost analogous to BSOD or one-button-mouse.


If queue-jumping one person is all it takes to do some damage control, then this was a very sensible move. And remember, he is a pre-orderer, so he was even entitled to a unit, the only difference is that he is getting it sooner. And like ED said, he basically swallowed the upgrade cost by himself. So it doesn't even affect the queue. If at all, it's only a positive action, as it takes one position OFF the queue. Nobody is getting a unit LATER because of this.

 

[FaeMinx]

^ Very nicely said.

 

[thatgui]

The only purpose of making a better impression to the 40000 followers isn't direct purchases. Think about a situation when a friend of any of those 40000 followers hears about the Pandora (from another source, like engadget, etc.), and mentions about it to the follower. The follower will be quick to point out the negative impression he's gotten of it. Aaand now we lost a potential sale.


And what makes this an extra bad situation for us, is that the podcaster himself has a stake in the matter (pre-orderer himself). He's not just echoing someone else's experience and impression, it's his own. And if I understood correctly, it's a podcast centered on retro-gaming, which makes the subscriber-base very closely tied to our field, and thus generates a far greater percentage of lost potential sales than if it was on some general tech site. There's also the fact that (at least judging from that specific podcast) he's been talking about it earlier too. The way the other speakers reacted once Pandora was mentioned, it felt like it was a running gag among them. To them Pandora was almost analogous to BSOD or one-button-mouse.


...


And what makes this an extra bad situation for us, is that the podcaster himself has a stake in the matter (pre-orderer himself). He's not just echoing someone else's experience and impression, it's his own. And if I understood correctly, it's a podcast centered on retro-gaming, which makes the subscriber-base very closely tied to our field, and thus generates a far greater percentage of lost potential sales than if it was on some general tech site. There's also the fact that (at least judging from that specific podcast) he's been talking about it earlier too. The way the other speakers reacted once Pandora was mentioned, it felt like it was a running gag among them. To them Pandora was almost analogous to BSOD or one-button-mouse.

So if it is already some kind of running gag, how can the situation be more worse than before. And there is no indicator that leeds to the assumption that sending him the unit will automatically lead to a change in his audience opinion about the Pandora

For example, because of the Creative's driver debacle few years back, I always try to drive people away from any Creative product they are even thinking of buying. Bad stigmas follow you around, it's not easy to get rid of them. Meanwhile, because of a very good Philips CRT monitor I once bought, I favor all Philips products and recommend the brand to others. While on the contrary, my father had a bad experience with a Philips radio set twenty years back, and still to this day doesn't want to buy anything from Philips, if at all possible.

I strongly suggest to reconsider your aquisition strategy. But thinking about potential customers - is the Pandora something that someone will be getting "off the shelf" without looking more into it, especially with a very non mass market price tag on it ?

If queue-jumping one person is all it takes to do some damage control, then this was a very sensible move.

There is no proof yet that real damage control has been done with this move.

And remember, he is a pre-orderer, so he was even entitled to a unit, the only difference is that he is getting it sooner. And like ED said, he basically swallowed the upgrade cost by himself. So it doesn't even affect the queue. If at all, it's only a positive action, as it takes one position OFF the queue. Nobody is getting a unit LATER because of this.

He his entitled to a unit as more then 1000 others are also - maybe some are more entitled to it as they are waiting for one longer.


Anyway, this could have been also solved by sending him a review unit - or not ?

 

[aatu]

<wall of text>

So if it is already some kind of running gag, how can the situation be more worse than before. And there is no indicator that leeds to the assumption that sending him the unit will automatically lead to a change in his audience opinion about the Pandora

Because like BSOD and one-button-mouse, things change. Those are things of the past. MS and Apple did something to alter peoples' mind about it. And so should we. No indicator? How about past experience? If he gets the unit, it's 99.99% likely he will note it in a future podcast. And this will alter the listeners' previous perception of the product and company. Not everyone will order a Pandora, we know that, but the positive news will have a chain-reaction, which was discussed before.


Related analogy: if you release a ball from 2 feet high, you don't actually KNOW for certain it will fall. You just know it has done so before, and most likely will do so this time, too. There are people who actually study these sorts of things in the marketing field, I'm not just making this up.

<wall of text>

I strongly suggest to reconsider your aquisition strategy. But thinking about potential customers - is the Pandora something that someone will be getting "off the shelf" without looking more into it, especially with a very non mass market price tag on it ?

My acquisition strategy being wise or unwise has no bearing whether other people do this also. But marketing studies have shown that this actually is quite common, so I'm not the only one. People can be quite irrational (but still predictable). One extreme example are fanboys, it's very hard to persuade them to change their minds. (And furthermore, I personally like to think my acquisition strategy as rewarding/punishing companies for their past actions.)


I'm not sure how the "off-the-shelf" part relates to that part of my post. But it does relate to the follower and his friend part. And remember that discussing with knowledgeable friends is also part of "looking into it". And if that part gives a negative impression, it means all the other background checking needs to give a far better impression to get a sale done. And in the worst case, the word-of-mouth might drive the potential customer to skip the product altogether, without giving it a chance to redeem itself.

If queue-jumping one person is all it takes to do some damage control, then this was a very sensible move.

There is no proof yet that real damage control has been done with this move.

Actually, I even used the "if" word. Nevertheless, this is the same ball dropping analogy with regards to the chain-reaction, I wouldn't even need the "if".

And remember, he is a pre-orderer, so he was even entitled to a unit, the only difference is that he is getting it sooner. And like ED said, he basically swallowed the upgrade cost by himself. So it doesn't even affect the queue. If at all, it's only a positive action, as it takes one position OFF the queue. Nobody is getting a unit LATER because of this.

He his entitled to a unit as more then 1000 others are also - maybe some are more entitled to it as they are waiting for one longer.


Anyway, this could have been also solved by sending him a review unit - or not ?

Yes, it feels bad when someone else gets something you don't, and even for free. I feel for you. But like I said before, ED swallowed the upgrade fee himself. It isn't anything away from the rest of us. ED calculated this as an investment. And like he said before, he is more lenient with bloggers and reviewers. And a retro-gaming podcaster with 40000 like-minded listeners? I'd say that's right up our alley.


(and yes, I know not ALL of them can be accounted as hearing that particular future podcast or even as potential customers)


And yes, sending a review unit would have sufficed. But that could have left him with the gripe that he STILL hasn't gotten his own unit. It's better to get a full and clean closure. Now we don't even have to worry about getting the review unit back. Granted, this can also backfire if the podcaster isn't satisfied with the product. Then we're screwed. But sending a review unit wouldn't have changed that fact.

 

[F_Slim]

There is no proof yet that real damage control has been done with this move.

... and there never ever will be, because there is no second test-group.


Considering that the possible damage could have cost a lot more than what it did cost to try and keep the current status or even improve the reputation of the project, it seems foolish to not at least try ... we wouldn't even be here to have this conversation if proof of a sufficient success rate instead of good faith would have been the base of all decisions ...

 

[Solstar]

Its Gamester81. He had posted a few times about it here on this forum like this thread: http://boards.openpa...ra/#entry153217


or this post: http://boards.openpa..._20#entry183455


He is huge in the retro gaming world, has pretty much reviewed every retro gaming console and newer consoles to. This is his web site and youtube channel:


http://www.youtube.c...low=grid&view=0


http://gamester81.com/

i always liekd gamester81,i'm a big fan of him..but yeah he's a spoiled brat unfortunately...the sheer number of money he spent on consoles that goes up past the four zero is incredible

 

[klapse]

If anybody knows other reviewers who have a big following, suggest them for a review unit here. And talk about the Pandora in their channels / forums!