Robert Ferrigno

Media lit

March 22, 2010

Siftables: A New Technology

Recently at the media labs of MIT the development of a new product called Siftables has created a new buzz on how people can interact with one another. The product has found a nice niche to capitalize on and has the potential to become one of the next big things in portable technology. The Siftable is unlike most portable media devices out on the market, because of its size, interface and projected uses. This product has the ability to create a brand culture for itself with young people by creating a new way of interaction, like so many other successful products before it have done.

The product is a small square shape device with a 1 – 1 ½ in screen covering the face of it. The product is projected to have wireless Internet connectivity and will use Short range IR for each Siftables to communicate. Users will be able to get their newest news highlights from the New York Times app, and follow their favorite twitter threads al on a device that takes up as much room as some pocket change. The creator of this product wants it to be able to be used for “creative expressive activities” which is why the Siftable is programmed to be used in conjunction with other Siftables to create music and beats. The creator referred to how in the future people will no longer have to get onto subways with large guitars and other equipment, they can simply get together with a pocket full of Siftables and use them in different ways to create unique new sounds. The only user interface is the act of manipulating and moving the Siftable. Which is possible with the internal motion sensor, which is similar to the one built in to today’s Apple IPod Touch.

Another advantage the product has over other products is that one user can purchase more than one Siftable over the projected life of Siftables. So one person could own one Siftable or over three different Siftables. The more Siftables that you can get together the more you can do with them. It’s hard to find a good product that actually has many advantages to own more than just one of the exact same thing. So when one buyer goes out and gets one Siftable he might not just own that one for the life of the Siftable. He is most likely to go out and purches one or two more during the life of the product. Other buyers can be lured in by immediately having more than one and will porches a few when they first buy the product. The product is somewhat a reminder of the tremendously popular 90’s toy “The Tamagotchi” which was a small primitive computer that a person could interacted with by taking care of it a and playing small simple mini games. This similar 21st century idea can achieve the same success and recognition if not more as long as developers can get it to work efficiently and make it cost effective for buyers without cutting to much profitability.

The product is still in the development stages, so an actual marketing tactic has not been deployed yet. Although the product has already caused a buzz in the Technology community, the resources and ideas that are going into the products final production piece seam like they will really pay off due to all the new outside the box thinking that went into it. The product has the ability to create a culture around itself and get larger amounts of customer acknowledgement because of this. The developers have also opened this product up to whoever is interested in using a Siftables. The device has been designed to be used with small kids all the way up to adults so there is no ceiling being put on an age group or gender that it should appeal to. Another interesting thing that the people developing this product have done is they have given other developers the opportunity to get in on the action through open development apps. The product will have the ability to run internet, applications, games, and even learning tools, all of witch can be built on.

The Siftable is an amazing new product that brings an intuitive interface together with the possibility of physical manipulation to send input to the product. The product can be easily marketed and can appeal to a wide range of people of different generations. This product is unlike many other products that it would be grouped with and because of this the Siftable should be seen making a strong name and community for itself in the near future. The makers of Siftables used creative thinking and plenty of R & D to come up with this product and it will pay off because they can manage to create a new type of device and community to get involved in it.