Check out the mysterious Sony Rolly. It’s a mediaplayer with a little extra. Supposedly it has no screen and only one knob to control it. Nobody’s really sure what it does as of yet, but it looks like a lot of fun. Click the picture to get a larger view.
Sony comes up with this totally new kind of product, that brings us entertainment in the shape of music in a totally new way. So what does this tell us?
It tells us we have come to a new era people. One where “product innovation” finally retakes the lead from it’s arch-enemy “marketing”. With the dominance of the Apple iPod in the portable mediaplayer market, Sony have obviously gone searching for a niche that’s still fresh. With this cool new Rolly thing, they search for the same kind of dominance. And they’re doing it the Apple way: through innovation (it’s cool, but what does it do exactly?) and usability (just one knob?).
Also, it tells us that the user is finally starting to get the attention he deserves. The current media landscape has been influenced so much by blogs and other types of opinionated personal websites, that they are more and more starting to become dominant in search results and linking. The web, so to speak is becoming more democratic. And the world is slowly evolving back into a space where companies listen to consumers needs, instead of the other way around.
To see a little preview of the Rolly, check out this Youtube video.
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