Digital Home Thoughts: When a Product Becomes a Platform

"I'm still a huge evangelist for the Rio Karma. At its price point, the Karma is, in my opinion, the best hard disk portable media player on the market. But that's all it is, a media player. What makes me envious of the iPod is its status as a consumer electronic device platform. With the Karma, I might add a better set of headphones, but I'm never going to add any functionality unless Rio includes it in a firmware upgrade. The iPod is different. It offers both software and hardware functionality I can only dream of getting from another device.

Take the Digital Camera Link from Belkin for instance. With this device, iPod users simply connect their iPod to any digital camera and transfer photos from the flash card to the iPod's hard drive. If the camera gets full while you are out in the field, this is a great solution for archiving pictures before taking more. Where is the camera link for my Karma? I can use the Karma as a mass storage device, so in theory, something like this should be possible. The list of cool software add-ons for the iPod is too long to review in its entirety: calendar info, tasks, contacts, and on and on..."

This editorial from Jake Ludington touches on an interesting phenomenon: when a product achieves mass-market success, entire industries spring up around it, almost without any intentional effort on the part of the original vendor.