Can Bluetooth be cool – Part 2 - BiteBack visits Seattle
And an interesting social media exercise ...
Well, it’s a month since the first IncisorTV BiteBack event, in which we took our cameras to a UK live music venue and talked to people about the way they really felt about Bluetooth – did they use it, if so, for what, and would they say that Bluetooth was cool, or naff? You can see the movie that we made here.
The exercise was a revelation, and substantially changed the way we felt about consumer perceptions of Bluetooth technology. The main observations that we made from the UK event were these:
• Young people (say, 16-25) do not use Bluetooth headsets. They see no reason to do so.
• Older people (25+) do, but mainly because they have to due to legislation – i.e. when they are in a car.
• Everybody, but everybody considered Bluetooth mono headsets un-cool and would not want to wear one in public.
• Nobody I spoke to had ever used a Bluetooth stereo headset.
• The single most popular application for Bluetooth is file-sharing – music and pictures. This application was described by a number of people as ‘cool’.
• The majority thought that Bluetooth might be more popular if it was marketed better. Most said that they never saw Bluetooth marketing.
• Many said that a) Bluetooth used to have a better visibility/awareness than it does today and b) in the social groups that people exist in, Bluetooth is used less now than it used to be.
• Several said that for the key application – file sharing – Bluetooth was too slow.
The BiteBack UK movie itself has since been watched by many thousands of people, and the exercise generated a great deal of interest from the wireless industry. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group had been following what we were doing and executive director Mike Foley used his Twitter and Facebook reach to propose the idea of another BiteBack event in the SIG’s home town of Seattle. That got immediate support, and so the plan was set. Both GN Netcom with its Jabra brand, and Parrot - two of the companies that have done most to reach out to the consumer market with Bluetooth - wanted to be part of the BiteBack programme too, and so they were soon on board.
We found ourselves a venue – the SEE Sound Lounge in Seattle’s hip and trendy Belltown area, set a date – the 30th of October – and booked our flights to get there. Remember the date, by the way, as this was the Halloween weekend. Halloween is a big deal in the USA, more of which below.
Social Media actually works!
We then wanted to promote the BiteBack event to Seattle gadget-eratti, and so there ensued a concerted social media campaign. I used Twitter and Facebook to broadcast the messages and to help me find the right people on the ground in Seattle to help me spread the word effectively. Huge thanks to Colin Christianson, Chris Pirillo and Kristina Hudson at the Washington Interactive Network. All of them are hugely well-connected people in the Seattle area with massive profiles on the various social media networks. They pushed the BiteBack message out far and wide. At the same time, Bluetooth SIG execs Mike Foley and Diana Hoffman, and the SIG’s PR agents at INK, all used their So-Me networks to push the BiteBack message out.
If we were concerned that we might have an empty venue, we needn’t have worried. On the night, the SEE Sound Lounge was so packed with people you could barely move. The Bluetooth SIG, Jabra and Parrot were all in attendance, and spent the evening showing some of the latest and coolest Bluetooth products to the assembled crowds. This was leading edge-evangelisation – face to face, telling the story, showing the products. It doesn’t get much more real!
The American way
So, how would the views of Americans differ from those of Bluetooth-using Brits? Well, you are going to have to watch the movie to get the full picture, but here are a few of the highlights:
• The single most popular application for Bluetooth amongst British users, which was file sharing – music tracks particularly, but pictures, contact details too – was hardly used by the American crowd. This wasn’t because there was no desire to do so. No, it was much more sinister than that. The reason they are not using Bluetooth to share files is because of the cynical decision by the all-powerful US cellular operators to disable the File Transfer Profile (FTP) in the phones that they supply to US consumers. They (the operators) would much rather that their customers pay to transfer their copy of ‘Party in the USA’ thousands of miles across the cellular network rather than Bluetooth it 3 feet across a table. Words fail .... The good news is that most of the people we talked to were aware that it was their operator that was doing this to them, and there was a great deal of resentment towards the money-grabbing capitalists. Hopefully, the message will get back eventually. It doesn’t happen in the UK and other parts of the world, so come on you guys, smell the coffee (Seattle, so Starbucks, presumably)!
• There is a similar reluctance to wearing mono headsets amongst young Seattle-ites, but if anything, the people we talked to were less rude than the UK people!
• There seemed to be a higher level of awareness of stereo Bluetooth headsets in the USA, but still nobody was using them.
• Show a Bluetooth product like the Jabra Halo stereo headset, as we did, and this would generally get a ‘wow, I had no idea you could buy cool products like that’ –type reaction. A few people seemed to be using Bluetooth speaker systems, but only one person admitted to ever having seen a Bluetooth photo-frame such as the Specchio from Parrot. Almost 100% of the people that we talked to agreed that they would use Bluetooth more if they knew more about it – if the products that used Bluetooth were better marketed. Likewise, show them a Bluetooth mono headset that they might want to wear, such as the rather sexy Jabra Stone, a Bluetooth-enabled head unit that they can install in place of rubbishy old CD system in their car, some handy wireless speakers so that they can listen to their music with their mates, and their eyes light up. Clearly, there is still a lot of work to be done to spread the broader Bluetooth message By the way, I know that I am referencing products from BiteBack’s sponsors here, but there are two good reasons for that. First, they are BiteBack’s sponsors, and have shown their commitment, so, hey, what else would you expect me to do? And second, Jabra and Parrot both make some of the coolest, stylish and most innovative Bluetooth products out there, so they qualify entirely on merit.
• The US people were the same as the UK people. They said that if a Bluetooth gadget they were trying to use failed to work as they wanted, when they wanted, they would probably put it away in a draw and forget about it. The ease of use requirement will never go away. It has to be simple, simple, simple.
For the rest, you will have to watch the video. Be warned, though! This was a party event, with a fancy dress theme, and that theme was Disco Monsters. You are going to be seeing some people in some weird and wonderful outfits. Underneath the strange garb, these are still young, technically sophisticated Seattle people. If Silicon Valley used to be the epicentre of young, techy geekdom, Seattle took over that mantle some time ago. These are A List, top-most-relevant-consumers for the developers and vendors or wireless-enabled electronics devices. Their views count.
Meanwhile, BiteBack rolls on. The Bluetooth SIG, Jabra and Parrot have all committed to further events, and our next stop is Asia. Details are still being finalised, but the next BiteBack looks like being a two event programme, with the team meeting with Bluetooth consumers in both Korean and Japan during the first week.
The same crew will be running BiteBack Asia, and we will be working again with Mike Foley and the Bluetooth SIG, and with Jabra and Parrot. There is no limit on who can be involved. If you want to be part of BiteBack, then contact me.
For now, enjoy the movie from BiteBack 2 – Wireless in Seattle.
Well, it’s a month since the first IncisorTV BiteBack event, in which we took our cameras to a UK live music venue and talked to people about the way they really felt about Bluetooth – did they use it, if so, for what, and would they say that Bluetooth was cool, or naff? You can see the movie that we made here.
The exercise was a revelation, and substantially changed the way we felt about consumer perceptions of Bluetooth technology. The main observations that we made from the UK event were these:
• Young people (say, 16-25) do not use Bluetooth headsets. They see no reason to do so.
• Older people (25+) do, but mainly because they have to due to legislation – i.e. when they are in a car.
• Everybody, but everybody considered Bluetooth mono headsets un-cool and would not want to wear one in public.
• Nobody I spoke to had ever used a Bluetooth stereo headset.
• The single most popular application for Bluetooth is file-sharing – music and pictures. This application was described by a number of people as ‘cool’.
• The majority thought that Bluetooth might be more popular if it was marketed better. Most said that they never saw Bluetooth marketing.
• Many said that a) Bluetooth used to have a better visibility/awareness than it does today and b) in the social groups that people exist in, Bluetooth is used less now than it used to be.
• Several said that for the key application – file sharing – Bluetooth was too slow.
The BiteBack UK movie itself has since been watched by many thousands of people, and the exercise generated a great deal of interest from the wireless industry. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group had been following what we were doing and executive director Mike Foley used his Twitter and Facebook reach to propose the idea of another BiteBack event in the SIG’s home town of Seattle. That got immediate support, and so the plan was set. Both GN Netcom with its Jabra brand, and Parrot - two of the companies that have done most to reach out to the consumer market with Bluetooth - wanted to be part of the BiteBack programme too, and so they were soon on board.
We found ourselves a venue – the SEE Sound Lounge in Seattle’s hip and trendy Belltown area, set a date – the 30th of October – and booked our flights to get there. Remember the date, by the way, as this was the Halloween weekend. Halloween is a big deal in the USA, more of which below.
Social Media actually works!
We then wanted to promote the BiteBack event to Seattle gadget-eratti, and so there ensued a concerted social media campaign. I used Twitter and Facebook to broadcast the messages and to help me find the right people on the ground in Seattle to help me spread the word effectively. Huge thanks to Colin Christianson, Chris Pirillo and Kristina Hudson at the Washington Interactive Network. All of them are hugely well-connected people in the Seattle area with massive profiles on the various social media networks. They pushed the BiteBack message out far and wide. At the same time, Bluetooth SIG execs Mike Foley and Diana Hoffman, and the SIG’s PR agents at INK, all used their So-Me networks to push the BiteBack message out.
If we were concerned that we might have an empty venue, we needn’t have worried. On the night, the SEE Sound Lounge was so packed with people you could barely move. The Bluetooth SIG, Jabra and Parrot were all in attendance, and spent the evening showing some of the latest and coolest Bluetooth products to the assembled crowds. This was leading edge-evangelisation – face to face, telling the story, showing the products. It doesn’t get much more real!
The American way
So, how would the views of Americans differ from those of Bluetooth-using Brits? Well, you are going to have to watch the movie to get the full picture, but here are a few of the highlights:
• The single most popular application for Bluetooth amongst British users, which was file sharing – music tracks particularly, but pictures, contact details too – was hardly used by the American crowd. This wasn’t because there was no desire to do so. No, it was much more sinister than that. The reason they are not using Bluetooth to share files is because of the cynical decision by the all-powerful US cellular operators to disable the File Transfer Profile (FTP) in the phones that they supply to US consumers. They (the operators) would much rather that their customers pay to transfer their copy of ‘Party in the USA’ thousands of miles across the cellular network rather than Bluetooth it 3 feet across a table. Words fail .... The good news is that most of the people we talked to were aware that it was their operator that was doing this to them, and there was a great deal of resentment towards the money-grabbing capitalists. Hopefully, the message will get back eventually. It doesn’t happen in the UK and other parts of the world, so come on you guys, smell the coffee (Seattle, so Starbucks, presumably)!
• There is a similar reluctance to wearing mono headsets amongst young Seattle-ites, but if anything, the people we talked to were less rude than the UK people!
• There seemed to be a higher level of awareness of stereo Bluetooth headsets in the USA, but still nobody was using them.
• Show a Bluetooth product like the Jabra Halo stereo headset, as we did, and this would generally get a ‘wow, I had no idea you could buy cool products like that’ –type reaction. A few people seemed to be using Bluetooth speaker systems, but only one person admitted to ever having seen a Bluetooth photo-frame such as the Specchio from Parrot. Almost 100% of the people that we talked to agreed that they would use Bluetooth more if they knew more about it – if the products that used Bluetooth were better marketed. Likewise, show them a Bluetooth mono headset that they might want to wear, such as the rather sexy Jabra Stone, a Bluetooth-enabled head unit that they can install in place of rubbishy old CD system in their car, some handy wireless speakers so that they can listen to their music with their mates, and their eyes light up. Clearly, there is still a lot of work to be done to spread the broader Bluetooth message By the way, I know that I am referencing products from BiteBack’s sponsors here, but there are two good reasons for that. First, they are BiteBack’s sponsors, and have shown their commitment, so, hey, what else would you expect me to do? And second, Jabra and Parrot both make some of the coolest, stylish and most innovative Bluetooth products out there, so they qualify entirely on merit.
• The US people were the same as the UK people. They said that if a Bluetooth gadget they were trying to use failed to work as they wanted, when they wanted, they would probably put it away in a draw and forget about it. The ease of use requirement will never go away. It has to be simple, simple, simple.
For the rest, you will have to watch the video. Be warned, though! This was a party event, with a fancy dress theme, and that theme was Disco Monsters. You are going to be seeing some people in some weird and wonderful outfits. Underneath the strange garb, these are still young, technically sophisticated Seattle people. If Silicon Valley used to be the epicentre of young, techy geekdom, Seattle took over that mantle some time ago. These are A List, top-most-relevant-consumers for the developers and vendors or wireless-enabled electronics devices. Their views count.
Meanwhile, BiteBack rolls on. The Bluetooth SIG, Jabra and Parrot have all committed to further events, and our next stop is Asia. Details are still being finalised, but the next BiteBack looks like being a two event programme, with the team meeting with Bluetooth consumers in both Korean and Japan during the first week.
The same crew will be running BiteBack Asia, and we will be working again with Mike Foley and the Bluetooth SIG, and with Jabra and Parrot. There is no limit on who can be involved. If you want to be part of BiteBack, then contact me.
For now, enjoy the movie from BiteBack 2 – Wireless in Seattle.
posted by Vince Holton at
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