[Empeg-general] Re: Newspaper Article

[FerretBoy@empegbbs-noreply.merlins.org]

"could this be the stupidest quote from the article"

I disagree.  Everyone on this board knows that sitting in a car to rip all of your mp3's is dumb, but I think the average consumer will see it differently.  Sony will probably market the unit as "Play your CD once, it will be there forever" or something to that effect.  With this kind of approach, customers don't have to understand, or even change their thinking about, mp3s.  They just have a CD player that "remembers" all of their music.

I have kept pretty quite with my opinions about the EOL of the Empeg, but I think the biggest strike against the Empeg was not marketing or price.  I think that people don't like change, even for the better.  How many people have you showed your Empeg to and they say "Where do you put your CD?"  Most of my friends think the Empeg is cool, but wouldn't buy one because its just to different and they arn't willing to commit their car audio so something so radical.  I think the best way to educate the consumer is not to let them know you are educating them (i.e.: speak their language).  Sony knows this and after this product is popular (and I think it will be), people will start to understand the usefulness of units like the Empeg.  In the end, like has been said many times before, the Empeg was before its time.

If you read the OT board then you know that my company just went out of business, but we went out with a great product.   Our product was solid and revolutionary in the industry, but we had trouble selling it because it was so different.  We could handle systems for $500,000 that would cost $3 million for other solutions, and ours did a much better  job . . . but time and time again we saw the customer just shrug us off because choosing us would mean a change of thinking.

I disagree with you not because ripping CD's in your car isn't stupid (it is), but because I think the average consumer won't think this through.  All they think is "this is the same as what I've had before, only better" - Not "This is a better way of life." (Which is no kidding the way I feel about my Empeg).  

-Jeff