Peek Speaks
Peek is simply email. This blog is simply Peek.

What’s in your bag?

When you hang out with “industry” people too much, you start to think like them. As we started to create Peek a while back, we found ourselves around a lot of mobile industry people. And there was a lot of pressure to start thinking like them.

One of the big ways “they” think is like this: mobile phones are these great little computers and we just can’t wait till you can do everything on them from call your friends to book airline tickets to write term papers to watch TV to exercise more to…. In fact, why would you ever need anything besides a mobile phone? And who in their right mind would want to carry anything at all besides their phone?

Well, maybe that’s putting it a bit strong. But we have had to listen to a lot of such people along the way.

“It’s all converging. One device will do everything…as soon as the next such-and-such comes out.”

Indeed, there are lots of pretty impressive smartphones out there. But one thing we just can’t get over: nobody carries “just one thing.” We’ve been noticing it for years — going to business meetings and seeing people with PDAs and email devices and cell phones on the conference table; hanging out with friends and seeing them whip out point-and-shoot digital cameras, handheld game players, and a flip cell phone.

We surveyed about 1000 people and found that of the people with smartphones, 45% of them have two cell phones. Rubicon Consulting did a study that found a third of iPhone users carry two phones.

The data got us thinking. And looking around.

Some people have a lot of stuff! Which made us think — despite all this convergence talk for the last ten years, there have a been a series of really huge and successful products: more than 100 million mp3 players out there; game players like the Nintendo DS (which has sold more than 75 million units) are among the most successful products ever; pocket digital cameras are rocking along faster than ever; personal navigation devices are growing at triple digit rates; and check out the point-and-shoot video cameras cropping up everywhere!

The picture above is pretty extreme, but here is something totally real world: a bag from really close to home (mine) with a bunch of things in it (a phone, a PDA, a mirror, keys, sunglasses, a USB key, a Target gift card, etc. etc. etc.)

Through the magic of the Internet, there are just tons of other folks that were kind enough to provide us with a little market research with their what’s in your bag group on Flickr. Check these out for yourself:

http://flickr.com/photos/smokingpermitted/6781495/

http://flickr.com/photos/electrichamster/1954690088/

The vast majority of regular people carry various stuff for various occasions — and we think mobile email fits that mold. Carry it when you are running errands, leave it behind when you head out on Friday night.

So if you need a swiss army knife, Peek isn’t for you. If you want something that’s totally easy and great at what it does — say hello to Peek!

5 Comments

1. seriously? you point out that you have “a Target gift card” in your bag? where is your product launching again?

   Comment by algorythmic — August 20, 2008 @ 6:42 pm

2. Yeah, we really like Target. Truly just a coincidence! This picture is from way before they agreed to launch Peek. (PS, we like the Palm V too….)

   Comment by admin — August 21, 2008 @ 6:52 am

3. Great press yesterday on SAR, I suggest offering a bundle at point of sale with a year of service, that way you get the price point down a bit.

   Comment by Mike D — August 21, 2008 @ 6:55 am

4. It’s an interesting idea. I used to have a two-way pager at an old job (we called them belt computers), and witnessed the rapid uptake of email-only Blackberries, but I do wonder how many people will add the device at that $20 monthly cost. Yes, many people carry PDAs in addition to phones, but the Peek doesn’t replace that so you’re going on the assumption that enough of those people will not only be willing to add a third device (phone, PDA, Peek), but they’ll pay $20/month for the service.

   That said, I work with a bunch of realtors and I’d be willing to bet a good number of them would in fact run to Target to buy Peek if they had any reason — at all — to believe it would help. So my feelings are decidedly mixed. I’ll probably still tell them just to get iPhones and be done with it, but I’m sure I’m going to have to be prepared to support Peek alongside everything else.

   Comment by fedward — August 21, 2008 @ 12:43 pm

5. Mike - glad you saw us on SAR and thanks for coming to check out out. Great idea on the bundle… duly noted.

   fedward - Based on the sampling of bags from this post, we believe people won’t mind carrying around a simple, elegant device for email along with a digital camera, Flip video, iPod, etc. etc. And please do tell your realtor friends to run to Target to pick up a Peek!

   - Jeremy
   Peek Marketing

   Comment by jeremy — August 21, 2008 @ 5:09 pm

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