inquisity

Yeah, I know it happened more than a year ago, but the decision to change Cingular’s name to AT&T is still one of the worst branding decisions since I’ve been paying attention to brands. Cingular spent so much money building a great brand that catered to younger consumers, and threw it away because AT&T is more “recognizable” (I would love to see the marketing data on that, by the way).

I’m still amazed at how powerful the Cingular brand is (yes, present tense). Pretty much everyone I know who has AT&T still calls it Cingular. Stephen Colbert picked up on the absurdity of it all:

I’m guessing the marketing people have either seen their error and don’t want to admit fault, or have decided changing the name back to Cingular would confuse people even more and are sticking with AT&T for the time being. I find it hard to believe that the decision was the right one.

A great in-depth analysis from Laura Ries here if you’re curious.

One of 2007’s hottest games has been Guitar Hero, which practically everyone I know has either played themselves or seen a friend play. One of my roommates bought it for the Nintendo Wii, and so I ended up trying it a few times (ok, way more than I’ll admit). The game is great because it mixes the right amount of musicality for the masses (very little) with the fast-paced feeling of a video game.

My friend commented that while Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has great songs, there were some great ones on the previous versions. Since the developer does not seem to be planning a release of the older versions on the Wii, my friend is out of luck. In addition, there are other songs that, in his opinion, belong in the new “Legends of Rock” title which are inexplicably absent.

The natural step, then, is for the developer to make songs available for purchase via the internet. This makes particular sense for the Wii, which gives access to online gameplay for free (in contrast to XBOX).

Let’s call this new game “Guitar Hero Ultimate.” I see two possibilities for this new title. First, a World of Warcraft approach where the user would buy a copy of “Ultimate” for much cheaper than the normal price of $50-$60, and then be forced to buy games online. This approach is basically giving users the “right” to buy songs, much like buying a copy of World of Warcraft allows you to pay for online gameplay. Second, “Ultimate” could simply have a new theme like previous Guitar Hero titles (i.e. the 90s, oldies) and have the ability to download new songs. The latter seems much smarter because current Guitar Hero players would probably be miffed about being forced to change.

Promoting the new Guitar Hero Ultimate as “the new Guitar Hero game with the ability for as many songs as you want” seems like a great way to make users happy that already have copies of all previous games as well as those who have a Wii or simply want their content ala a carte.

Just when will they learn?

When Windows XP came out, Microsoft offered it in two versions: Home and Professional. The Home version generally was viewed as less stable and efficient, and most people who had problems with XP had problems with Home, not Professional. I thought they had learned their lesson. You can imagine my surprise when I say the new lineup of options for Windows Vista:

Windows Vista Starter (”emerging” markets only)
Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Business
Windows Vista Enterprise
Windows Vista Ultimate

You read correctly: not two, not three, but six versions of Vista? I’ll have to dedicated at least an hour researching which one is “for me.”

Apple has done a great job of amplifying the confusion around these versions and giving users a simple alternative:

I suppose I could begin to understand Microsoft’s reasoning for two versions: people do different tasks on their work computers than home computers (or they should anyway; you know who you are…) I guess if one version was optimized for higher security and better performance of “work” applications like Excel, that could be beneficial.

Yet Apple has one version that does it all, so why not Microsoft?

Apparently, I’m the only one my age who uses voicemail.

It seems that, because we all have cell phones, people expect you to simply call back if you have a missed call. Ok, that makes sense. But when you have a missed call and a voicemail when you look at your phone, isn’t it common courtesy to listen to the voicemail before you call that person back?

I’ve just stopped leaving messages for any of my friends that are in college – they all seem to call back 10 minutes later and make me repeat what I just said on my message. Maybe we’re used to reading text messages instantly, and because it takes time to check your messages (you have to call a number and put in a password), voicemail is too much of a hassle.

I would guess that once we are out of school and have jobs, we will use voicemail more often since we can’t always expect someone to pick up their phone – we’ll be at the office or in a meeting, after all.