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These days, it’s cool to not be in the Windows Tribe.

By now, you must have seen the plethora of “I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC” commercials. Unfortunately, in its quest for World domination (90+% market share)… Microsoft has sacrificed quality and customer service.

Over. And Over. And Over. Again.

It’s not ALL due to an evil conspiracy to take over the world. A huge part of it is the fact that they can’t build new versions of their software from scratch. They have to use all that OLD, BUGGY code from the last version, and add to it.

Can you imagine building your new house on top of your old one? How sturdy would that turn out?

Here’s a viral video from CollegeHumor, that spoofs the Matrix movie (quite well, I might add), and takes shots at Windows at the same time. If you get the jokes, you’re probably in the anti-Windows tribe.

The moral of the story:
In your quest for success, keep profits a close second to meeting the needs of your tribe.

The other moral of the story:
If something isn’t working, have the courage to scrap it and start from scratch.

It hurts a lot more in the short run.
But it pays off a lot more in the long run.
Ask Microsoft.

After all, bad news travels faster than good.

And negative word-of-mouth is the baddest news there is.

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Bolaji Oyejide is an online marketer and word of mouth maven. In his spare time, he explores how to generate passive income via blogging and affiliate marketing. Escape the Rat Race, and Find your Buried Cheese.

Follow me on Twitter…

Popularity: 67% [?]

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Simple is Better.

Microsoft redesigns the iPod package…

Simplicity rules.

Simple is simple to talk about. (That’s word-of-mouth.)

Simple is simple to explain. (That’s word-of-mouth, too.)

Simple is simple to use.

Simple is best at resolving complex problems.

Simple exudes confidence.

Simple speaks volumes.

And simple is really, really, hard to do.

Doing one thing remarkably

is simply more remarkable than

doing something complicated

      ( with all its caveats…)
      (and asterisks…)
      (and instruction manuals…)

Don’t we all just want something that works?
Make me look smart.
Design a simple solution to a complex problem.
Make it so simple, I can look good doing it.
Because I’m selfish. I’m self-centered. And if it makes me look good, telling people about it (so they can see how good I look) will make me look even better.

There. I said it.

What word-of-mouth for a complicated product looks like:

“Man - it does everything! What do you want? It has everything you want. Feature X? Got that. Feature Y? Got that. Feature Z? Got that. It even has features 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, & 10! It does it all.

What does the listener take away from this? Nothing. Doing everything may as well be doing nothing. It’s not memorable. Besides, everyone claims to do everything. Very few actually do.

What word-of-mouth for a simple product looks like:

“Dude - if you want to get XYZ result, this is exactly what you need. I used it for my XYZ needs, and it was eeeeasy. I use it for XYZ all the time.”

Result? If the listener does indeed need XYZ result, they’re sold.
(On the flip side, you won’t get customers not interested in XYZ. But that’s okay. Don’t attract customers who will end up disappointed.)

More is not better.

More is typically worse. Think law of diminishing returns. Think Google search engine versus Yahoo search engine.

Don’t try to please everyone. Keep it simple. Do that one thing… remarkably.

And word-of-mouth will flow. (Eventually.)

What’s your favorite simple product?

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Bolaji Oyejide is an online marketer and word of mouth maven. In his spare time, he explores how to generate passive income via blogging and affiliate marketing. Escape the Rat Race, and Find your Buried Cheese.

Follow me on Twitter…

Free Prize Inside:

Microsoft’s zunePhone ad (parody):

Simple is simply… better.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Rate this:

2.5

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