VUVOX is centered on enabling our customers to visually express in new ways. We recognize that the market is stuffed full of simple slide shows, video editors and widgets. In many cases, one dimensional presentations are more than sufficient to communicate random images that are may be centered around quick social updates. We are confident that many of these companies will do well and we wish them the best. We are on another track.
We really care about final quality and the content that is being communicated. We also believe that most people feel strongly about how their memories are preserved. However, production values (to borrow a Hollywood term) have always been the domain of lofty professionals with big budgets and time on their hands. Current desktop and online consumer companies have more or less said: “if you want high quality personal content, be prepared to spend a lot of time.” In a 24/7 world….who has time ? The result is that today’s creation solutions force you into accepting imposed limitations. In this world, tech terms like “ease of use” become an accepted tradeoff for simplistic expression. The result: EVERYTHING looks the same. Is this the future of digital media communication ? Is this all you want ?
Anyone who spends time on VUVOX, immediately realizes that we take the user’s overall site experience and targeted feature design very serious. While we don’t always get it right the first time, we know that design elegance centers on making complex tasks appear easy. The experience should deliver results that continually delight the customer. There is no reason more advanced production values can’t be within reach of every customer.
Of course, talk is cheap.
We just had a discussion about a specific feature that might be just beyond some customer’s ability to intuitively understand its function. If they have previously used any standard photo editing tools…they should instantly understand this feature…if not, they might be initially scratching their heads until they move through the process once.
The risk: It will require the customer to click a few more times and perhaps learn something new.
The reward: If we implement this feature it introduce a new browser based creation paradigm that is very exciting (we hope).
What do you think ?
- Should we put that functionality in ?
- Do we “dumb down” the product to make sure everyone can use it ?
- Do we narrow our target market to provide a feature that may cause the larger mass market problems ?
VUVOX Blog
Boston, MA: Our friends at Flashforward and Lynda.com are using VUVOX to showcase images coming directly from the conference. The attendees are invited to upload their images to Flickr and join the “Flashforward Boston” group and/or tag their photos “flashforward” –> They’ll be participating in one big photo feed, that is syndicated back into the Flashforward Website.