Does pandora need better marketing?


xiongxioi

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During the last few month, members of the lively community are popping up all kinds of spec speculation and suggestions all around this sub, I was also guilty of this. However, after some brainstorming, better spec doesn't necessarily make pandora any mor

[SIZE=10.5pt]People are popping up all kinds of spec speculation and suggestions all around this sub, so did I. However, after some brainstorm, better spec doesn't necessarily make Pandora any more popular. [/SIZE]

Here are my reasons.

First of all, will even the best of the next gen suddenly give P2 the ability to emulate Win98 era games at full speed? Possible, but not likely.

Secondly, pandora is good enough even at 1 ghz. It runs latex, and libreoffice fluidly. Even though it struggles with html 5 and flash, it’s still adequate. Making P2 a power machine doesn’t add in anything P2 doesn’t already have.

Last but not least, the more I use Pandora, the more it grows on me. It truly exceeded my expectations. I didn’t expect to get a little machine that can replace most of my electronics.

I would argue that if ED can get an audio engineer to demonstrate Pandora’s capability, and show how it completely murders and kills all the Mp3s below its price tag with a variety of headphones. Then make a few videos about programming and drawing pictures on it.

People all over the world will want it.

People are more willing to pay a fortune on something they have great expectations beforehand. Thus, if we are ever going to start a kickstarters, we should make it sounds as unreal and crazy as plausible. Show people the numbers, show people how this is one machine that rules them all.

“Why do we need all the popularities”, you ask..

Well, children of the village, we need to sell a lot of it to make P2 in a timely fashion. A number like 2000 will not do. We are just bacteria on a small sea shell. If we can attract engineers, programmers and other geeks, we will get much bigger sale numbers. To my knowledge, there is nothing that’s as portable and functional as pandora. Programmers and engineers can truly make some use of it. So will musicians and students.

600 bucks is pretty steep for a handheld.

It’s not that much for a mini laptop, and certainly attractive if most softwares are free.

The implications here is vast.
 
First of all, will even the best of the next gen suddenly give P2 the ability to emulate Win98 era games at full speed? Possible, but not likely.
Absolutely definitely. I'd wager it based on the fact that the only thing really holding back QEMU on the P1ghz is OpenGL support. If someone can devise some way of wrapping QEMU with lunixbochs' OpenGL library we'd probably see better Diablo 2, Half Life, and other games that came out in '98-00 range. Getting usermode with WINE working would be the biggest break ever.
To the rest of your suggestion, I wonder if we're ready. For the longest time the problem wasn't interest, it was actual production: the supply chain just didn't exist to keep up with demand. The "how should we advertise" post comes up every so often and until recently the response has always been "there's no real point since they can't produce fast enough to meet the current demand". I'd need EvilDragon to weigh in on this now: are we at a stage where if there was a push to advertising the demand wouldn't vastly exceed production?
 
As far as I understand, production of 1GHz units can be done at a rate of hundreds per week, while current demand is not more than dozens per week. So I think production could keep up with demand even if due to advertizing, demand would suddenly increase by an order of magnitude.

The question is: how to do advertizing without much of a budget, for a niche device, mostly aimed at tech-savvy geeks, a device that is actually about 5 years old and even though it is still the best of its class (by virtue of being unique), it's getting harder every day to counter claims of it being outdated. It's not easy.

I think past advertizing has focused too much on the (retro) gaming handheld aspect of the Pandora. Sure, it can do that, it can do that very well, but there are  cheaper options that are essentially nearly as good. We need more focus on the general-purpose aspect of the Pandora - things like LibreOffice, MyPaint / The Gimp, LaTeX, R, OpenSCAD, ssh/mosh etc. - as well as the fact that it is a great platform for homebrew projects. Less focus on "these are the games you can play on the Pandora (like a passive consumer)", more focus on "this is the kind of stuff you can make on the Pandora (like an active, creative producer)". Because in my opinion this aspect of the Pandora justifies its price.
 
Mmm...  games, they're fun and all.  That isn't what sold me on the Pandora.  Dual SD slots, Gimp, a real web browser, amazing headphone audio, Filezilla, Remmina, a real Linux OS that I could pull open a command prompt and use SSH and SSHFS through, good keyboard, gamer quality controls, THOSE were the reason I bought my first CC one - and the reason I bought the 1Ghz one.

For me it was the productivity and audio capabilities that sold me on the Pandora - games are a nifty secondary.

  • Broadband installers could have a Pandora in his/her tool belt for testing connections and configuring routers.
  • Photographers and photojournalists could have a Pandora in their camera bag for offloading SD cards (dual slots), managing picture collections, editing pictures (Gimp) and loading them up to their home server (Filezilla).
  • Using Audacity and a USB <-> XLR mic setup, musicians should be able to lay down multi-track recordings and playback or backtracks for PA systems.
  • Audiophiles spend piles of money on headphone amps and special gear to get the sound that we get by plugging in a set of headphones and opening Audacious.
If we only emphasize games, then we're immediately lumped in with the sub $250 emulation consoles.
 
I say  if this device had phone capabilities then this topic would not be necessary.....Taco Phone  :p
 
I think past advertizing has focused too much on the (retro) gaming handheld aspect of the Pandora. Sure, it can do that, it can do that very well, but there are  cheaper options that are essentially nearly as good. We need more focus on the general-purpose aspect of the Pandora - things like LibreOffice, MyPaint / The Gimp, LaTeX, R, OpenSCAD, ssh/mosh etc. - as well as the fact that it is a great platform for homebrew projects. Less focus on "these are the games you can play on the Pandora (like a passive consumer)", more focus on "this is the kind of stuff you can make on the Pandora (like an active, creative producer)". Because in my opinion this aspect of the Pandora justifies its price.
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oh, and what grench said :)
 
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quote +++ to what _wb_ and Grench said as well.  For me it wasn't really the retro-gaming aspect that sold me on the device.  Heck, I already had a lot of that with my hacked, silver PSP 2000 - which is collecting dust now.  I was missing the keyboard and full-fledged computing programs.  As for the marketing angle, I really like what ekianjo is doing in Japan.  Because he has to sell the Pandora at $609 USD (don't ask me what that is in YEN), he's gone with an up-scaled image for the Pandora.  The beautiful packaging...nice wooden box...it looks like he really has a finger on the pulse of the Japanese consumer.

I guess THAT's what the OP Team needs to do - market the Pandora in the various markets and know how to connect with the consumers on a level that entices them to want to buy the Pandora.  Sell them on it and it's strengths as an all-in-one machine....or like Grench said -  

If we only emphasize games, then we're immediately lumped in with the sub $250 emulation consoles.
 
I try word of mouth. Show it, use it, and be happy with it.

The thing that attracted me to P1 is that is ran Linux and did not involve child labour (or poisons like n-hexane, like on the apple logo) and the price was right.

That sounds stupid, but I should not be able to buy a tshirt for a euro, because I screw over the producer in Bangladesh. I feel I payed a fair price to all in the production chain. *(except for that shitty North American factory.... it screwed Craig hard, and us....)*

The P1 looks very plain, which is good, because it won't get stolen (at least, will not draw that much attention), but if you want to show it off, it really should have a better/flashy casing.

so uhm, tl;dr:

* No nonsense CopyLeft device

* Fair Price

* No child labour.

ymmv
 
I said something to the same respect when reviewing the GCW zero, in regards to how it compared to the Pandora. The PC aspect really needs to be the main focus of the marketing from here on out. The problem is only going to get worse as these android game systems start to really have a mainstream presence.

I see the combination of the nvidia shield and GCW zero both being major blows in this specific category when they become widely available. Those going for cheap, and then those going for high end will have very valid options as far as open game players are concerned. And even more specifically retro gaming.

They makes the Pandora look underpowered and expensive if looking at it as a game device. Let's be honest here.

One idea is to use the very unique quality of the pandora that really hasn't been pursued yet that could really bring in some main stream appeal if you ask me. If someone were to port the android SDK over to Pandora (eclipse etc). (Now hear me out android haters LOL) improve the actual android experience and/or make a decent android virtual machine. Integrate all the correct button mapping and joysticks to their correct android functions, and finish the half decent port already in place and people can code and test their android apps natively on the same device. I would even say get some more versions going for compatibility sake. 1.6, 2.0, 4.0, 4.1 etc etc in separate images/pnd's

This is something that's not currently possible on any arm based device (to my knowledge) the full USB port even allows you to easily connect to a slave android phone to push to several different targets after you have it running properly on the Pandoras android port.
 
I* No child labour.
 What's wrong with Child slavery? I would go out of my way just to buy things that are made of broken dreams and bloody tears of little kids.

I think past advertizing has focused too much on the (retro) gaming handheld aspect of the Pandora. Sure, it can do that, it can do that very well, but there are  cheaper options that are essentially nearly as good. We need more focus on the general-purpose aspect of the Pandora - things like LibreOffice, MyPaint / The Gimp, LaTeX, R, OpenSCAD, ssh/mosh etc. - as well as the fact that it is a great platform for homebrew projects. Less focus on "these are the games you can play on the Pandora (like a passive consumer)", more focus on "this is the kind of stuff you can make on the Pandora (like an active, creative producer)". Because in my opinion this aspect of the Pandora justifies its price.
Yep, that's what I have on mind.

If we are to change our marketing strategy, here is the first step. Change that video on the front page. That video only shows a few games and such.

No one will see that video and think, "Er, this is a machine that will improve my productivity. "

We need something more representive of the pandora's capability.

BTW, to my knowledge, pandora sounds better than my 400 bucks sony walkman with a 400 bucks ear bud. (meze 88 to be precise). The difference is even clearer with a digizoid ZO2 amplifier. It is such a shame that people will have to buy and try the machine itself to find out. There is no information on this site.

The problem with our marketing isn't that we need more of it; It's that it's vague at best and can't give people the whole picture of pandora.

I swear, I don't even know pandora's Audiophile capability a few month back. The same thing applies to pandora's other utility softwares.

People are desperately trying to get that kind of functionalities on Ipad and such (making slideshows on Ipad is such a pain), meanwhile ours are perfectly functional and are going completely under the radar. That's not very smart, is it?

The competition from here on now will only get tenser,(the next gen MTK socs are on their way, and many companies like Nvidia are trying to cash in on the gaming market)  we need to let people know that pandora is fundamentally different from those Chinese MTK based Android smart phones.
 
First of all, will even the best of the next gen suddenly give P2 the ability to emulate Win98 era games at full speed? Possible, but not likely.
Absolutely definitely. I'd wager it based on the fact that the only thing really holding back QEMU on the P1ghz is OpenGL support. If someone can devise some way of wrapping QEMU with lunixbochs' OpenGL library we'd probably see better Diablo 2, Half Life, and other games that came out in '98-00 range. Getting usermode with WINE working would be the biggest break ever.
We can't count our chickens before we hatch them, right?

I don't know much about programming and such, but ain't all the newest chips multi-core based? Even if their single core performance doubles the current pandora's, pandora is getting like 6,7 fps on Diablo 2 and such, 12 to 14 frames is still not very enjoyable. Sure some smart guys may find out a way to wrap these things together, but there is no guaranteeof software backwards compatibility.

In the best case senario, Diablo 2 is running on Pandora nice and fast, that along will not sell a device for 650 bucks. I would spend 500 bucks on an ipad because I know I can write notes and manage my calendar on it. The same thing goes for my walkman's audio capability. Pandora can do these better than both of them, but people won't know unless they buy it.

Engineers and all the speciallists would not buy a device for $600 just to play diablo 2. We need to get the message across that this is a device for all the serious people and professionals.
 
650USD?

The price is currently in that range in a large part due to the existence of a que of people that bought in at 300-350USD, and being unable or unwilling to pay the difference to the price of a Rebirth unit (~500USD).  Given you are referencing a Pandora 2 being successfully marketed, I'd like to point out even people that are otherwise behind this project aren't hot about that kind of price point.
 
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650USD?


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The price is currently in that range in a large part due to the existence of a que of people that bought in at 300-350USD, and being unable or unwilling to pay the difference to the price of a Rebirth unit (~500USD).&nbsp; Given you are referencing a Pandora 2 being successfully marketed, I'd like to point out even people that are otherwise behind this project aren't hot about that kind of price point.
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Nahhhh, I was just giving out examples. Sure, people ain't willing to pay that much for a gaming device, but I would pay double if pandora 2 has matlab, photoshop, windows moviemaker (Not the exact software, just something that can do the trick) and such. If it's for business usage, then its price tag can be justified easily, but it would need improvements. Like better signal output (HDMI?) for presentations, and better keyboard for speed tapping.


There is a void in the market for engineers. So, that's just my opinion, it can be very wrong, so, lets agree to disagree.


I would like OPT to have a larger profit margin so that ed can use that money on things like pros-- I mean cakes, and may be giving out rewards to people who are working day and nights on it for the past few years.
 
Engineers and all the speciallists would not buy a device for $600 just to play diablo 2. We need to get the message across that this is a device for all the serious people and professionals.
I agree, but you're the one that brought up how any theoretical successor probably wouldn't be able to play '98 era games. I simply pointed out that the P1Ghz is almost capable of playing them using software rendering, and that suggesting the P2 would "not likely" be able to is extremely pessimistic.
 
Nahhhh, I was just giving out examples. Sure, people ain't willing to pay that much for a gaming device, but I would pay double if pandora 2 has matlab [Octave], photoshop [GIMP], windows moviemaker [kdenlive] (Not the exact software, just something that can do the trick) and such. If it's for business usage, then its price tag can be justified easily, but it would need improvements. Like better signal output (HDMI?) for presentations, and better keyboard for speed tapping.


There is a void in the market for engineers. So, that's just my opinion, it can be very wrong, so, lets agree to disagree.
Well KDE 5 should be on Wayland with relatively mature Qt 5 libraries should be widely available by next year.  The net effect of the associated efforts on KDE and Wayland's parts should reduce the overhead significantly.  I could see Octave, GIMP, and kdenlive potentially running just fine, although like Exophase was alluding to you'd want to put in as much RAM as you can get away with.

I question the ability to successfully market it to businesses, but it should be possible to setup what you're talking about and of course a good bit of it like OpenSCAD and LaTeX is already ported.
 
Don't forget that the software side of the Pandora is (due to its "nature") in an constantly evolving but unfinished state. But with Apple around for some years and Android eagerly trying to follow in its footsteps people tend to expect a polished system - especially if it is in the premium price range.

So it should be carefully determined which "group" should be addressed by advertising, just advertising to a general audience could lead to negative "feedback"
 
Don't forget that the software side of the Pandora is (due to its "nature") in an constantly evolving but unfinished state. But with Apple around for some years and Android eagerly trying to follow in its footsteps people tend to expect a polished system - especially if it is in the premium price range.

So it should be carefully determined which "group" should be addressed by advertising, just advertising to a general audience could lead to negative "feedback"
There is no bad publicity. I think. Insiders will forgive all its flaws. Outsiders will bring in more cash and speed up its perfection.

There is nothing on the market that's like Pandora. I couldn't for the life of me find a machine that can do so many and yet cost so little. To all the companies out there, 600 bucks on some equipent is not a lot.
 
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