Max Tatton Blog

Dell’s Streaky Tablet Strategy

Max Tatton-Brown — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:00:36 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, Dell don’t exactly *need* a tablet PC right now. For a start, they don’t have the OS for it and in reality, the iPad is also too pricey for the mainstream Dell audience to shell out. They aren’t going to buy it instead of a laptop, for example. However, if Dell let Apple get a year’s head start without anything competitive to show in the area, they wouldn’t end up competing with just the iPad but the iPad 2, some kind of Google machine and likely something from the likes of HTC, HP and co. too. With this in mind, they had to do something and quick. Android was really all they had to play with so I can only assume they chucked it onto a few form factors before collapsing in tears at the horrors of Android 1.6 vs the slick and clearly tablet-ready iOS. Desperate Times In such a situation, where you know you’ve got to get something out, it must have almost seemed a relief when someone suggested keeping the phone hardware in as a differentiator. The rescue became a strategy of apples and pears rather than apples and strangely proportioned smaller and [...]

Old Spice: Swan Dive or Cannonball?

Max Tatton-Brown — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 07:47:59 +0000

By now, you’ll have seen the excellent recent Old Spice ads as well as the ingenious @oldspice followup campaign. But the thing is, as good as they are, its not going to make me buy old spice. And I don’t think I’m the only one. They’re amusing precisely because they take the piss out of the OTT manliness traditionally associated with the brand. At them not with them Well done to Procter & Gamble for embracing a great idea and letting W&K do a good job of it. The brand has certainly received more exposure than it’s seen for a long time. But in terms of building a relationship, I feel a bit like it’s us and W&K sitting together and laughing at a brand that we both know we’d never buy even if it came with free SWAN DIVEs (which, technically, it does.) There’s a good chance some may be more inclined to make the switch and without a doubt its an achievement that this marketing prompted such decisions. But social media campaigns alone can’t fix the problems with the Old Spice product, namely the smell. Style over Substance I have to put this one down as a success [...]

iPad Thoughts- 1 month later (ish.)

Max Tatton-Brown — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:43:20 +0000

A few more observations now that I’ve been using it a while. Naturally if you aren’t interested in iPads then you might want to give this one a miss… Many people express frustration that there’s no apostrophe on the main keyboard. However, a wise few are aware of a trick to summon it- press the exclamation mark/ comma key then drag up; the apostrophe key will appear as if by magic. More of this please Apple (but at least tell your users about it next time…) Tucking a piece of paper into the top of the official case while folded over is the perfect way to write up notes on the train (or anywhere else for that matter.) Please observe the diagram above for evidence. Because of Instapaper, I don’t regret getting the WiFi version rather than the 3G. Loading up articles with the bookmarklet during my work day to read on the train home is a pleasure- if you aren’t aware of it then check it out. The battery life is still brilliant, I do end up charging it every few days but it’s almost an afterthought. Connecting a bluetooth keyboard essentially turns the iPad itself into a little [...]

IPad Thoughts – 4 days in

Max Tatton-Brown — Sun, 30 May 2010 08:18:59 +0000

Time for a few early iPad thoughts (it arrived on Thursday, ahead of schedule!) Will try not to be too gushing and also to avoid topics I've seen discussed most frequently elsewhere. In no particular order: Its not a big iPod Touch- the relationship is the other way round. That device acts as a satellite to this one, a little outpost for the concept and technology. At times it almost feels like a little cute imitation, a knitted memento of its bigger brother. A pleasant unanticipated benefit has been that my iPhone battery lasts way longer. The time I used to spend fiddling with apps on the train has been displaced by eBooks and Wired magazine, leaving more juice in the most vital organ. Having picked up a case today, it makes a big difference to the usability- especially if you get one which can tilt the screen at an angle (as per the official Apple offering.) Uploading documents to iWork.com from the 'MS Office' style apps seems a handy inclusion as anyone with mobile web access can bring up the site without having to open a laptop etc. The Wired app is nice but somehow less satisfying than its [...]

Information is Beautiful but Ceremony is Special

Max Tatton-Brown — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:27:04 +0000

Day in day out we’re bombarded with companies telling us how important it is to remove the barriers between us and our information. The iPad, for instance, offers to put the web in the palm of your hands. No browser, no operating system, no hardware, just the web, flopping about in your control, an infinitely malleable quagmire of data cupped in your palm. But is this really a good thing? In the transition to the digital age, we’ve shed much of the ceremony that accompanied the experience. Beautiful LP sleeves, the crackling noise of tearing an envelope open, even those moments sitting in the cinema waiting for the movie- the move to digital formats has left these in its wake, forgetting that sometimes the inconvenience can be a fond mental prompt of what’s to come. Why is it that opening your iPad’s box (or unwrapping a chocolate bar- thanks @duncangeere) gives a tingle of excitement and launching a new app for the first time doesn’t? I can’t help but feel that in making information an unbridled and raw commodity, some of its lustre has been duller and mystique reduced. The likes of iTunes LP and Coverflow are respectable attempts to re-conjure some [...]

What is Google Findy?

Max Tatton-Brown — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:00:15 +0000

Google’s little secret I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t have much more to ask here than the question: What is Google Findy? I stumbled upon it during a recent search but strangely it isn’t on Google, Bing or Yahoo anywhere. Perhaps it’s just linked to The Scottish Business and Entrepreneurship Awards but that seems unlikely too… When I clicked on “Take our survey”, I was sent to a generic enough page with no Google Findy references at all. When I went back to the experiments overview, it showed only two more unrelated experiments. Can we find Google Findy? So what is Google Findy? Is it possible that nobody else except me and one other flickr user have seen this? I even buzzed @charlesarthur, @zee and other normally inquisitive journos only to get no response. What is Google Findy? Let’s findy out together. If you can help me prove I’m not going mad, get in touch.

Spot If I am right about the future of Spotify.

Max Tatton-Brown — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:00:03 +0000

As usual, the writing of this post was accelerated due to current events, namely the excellent new version of Spotify’s iPhone app. But that’s not actually what I want to talk about today. In fact, there’s a much bigger picture here involving the brutally buzzwordised concept of “music-as-a-service”. Ek-sactly what I was thinking Everyone should be familiar with the Spotify app by now (and if not, email me for an invite) and some of you may even be avidly bopping away to the iPhone version- a much more powerful experience for the jailbroken contingent. And Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek seems quite happy with this situation, explaining to Tech Crunch that “applications are better for swift music playback” and describing a strategy where the Spotify app may fill the role of quality music player in everything from mobiles to set-top boxes and games consoles. However, the long term potential goes so much deeper than this. If Spotify can get on top of their currently nascent API, couldn’t it become a way of accessing any music, any where, any time in familiar format? This is a concept that should be familiar to anyone who has accessed their iPod music from other apps [...]

Why I’ll always have time for timesheets

Max Tatton-Brown — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:20:58 +0000

Graham Goodkind’s recent piece on why PR timesheets should be scrapped seems to over-simplify the issue. Certainly, they’re an imperfect system as demonstrated by his stats showing how they are inevitably filled out with less than ideal accuracy. But so’s democracy – as Churchill famously stated, it’s the “worst form of Government except for all others that have been tried” – and you don’t see us turning our back on that institutional bastion. Instead Graham focuses on the idea of selling ‘value’ as opposed to simple hours. Like for Like Realistically, we’re all working to a similar schedule- generally the standard 5 days a week with a few hours here and there for bits and pieces we couldn’t let go of. And I think goes without saying that every PR agency aims to supply value and good ideas as standard or they’ll have bigger problems than admin on their plate. But by making time the commodity, agencies have a baserate by which they can demonstrate the real value of their craft per hour. If it takes one agency 10 hours to get a quality result that would have cost 8 hours elsewhere, that’s a less efficient business all round. Beautiful [...]

Apple’s Razor Sharp New Direction

Max Tatton-Brown — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:18:42 +0000

With the iPad, Apple has clearly slashed its usual profit margins and priced the device to sell. I think this marks a fascinating shift for the company toward the classic ‘razor blade‘ strategy of providing a cheap platform to enable a steady revenue stream. The announcement of iAd only confirms this, introducing yet another example of the minimum effort/ maximum profit scenario that the iTunes store whet their appetite for so long ago. On top of this, by getting iPads into consumers’ hands, it helps blossom a beautiful relationship on the hardware front too. Once people have splashed out on a decent library of apps and got used to the new dynamic of computing, here comes the new premium iPad Pro for mugs like me who will “invest” and general update models with a nicer screen, higher capacity etc. It’s the subtlest form of lock-in, surrendered voluntarily and looked on as an advantage over alternatives. Before you know it, an iPad is a regular upgrade alongside your main machine, much like iPods have become. The result is a tasty double-whammy of reliable revenue, all the time supported by the traditional high-margin products like MacBook Pros and their ilk. Not a [...]

Maxicom – AxiCom = MaxTB at Wildfire

Max Tatton-Brown — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:30:39 +0000

Hello anonymous blinking observers. It’s time to announce that as of Monday the 15th of March, I’ll be leaving my role at the magnificent global PR powerhouse AxiCom to join the team of thrusting young things at Wildfire PR. Raising the Temperature You may be familiar with the agency online via such noted Wildfirers as DannyWhatmough and DebbyPenton ( or have met them in real life as Danny Whatmough and Debby Penton respectively…) Alternatively, I’d be surprised if you haven’t read the brilliant Wildfire blog or indeed Danny’s own. For many of you this will mean business as usual except for one logical alteration: what once was @maxicom is now part of my wider web presence as @maxtb. There will be no encores… Ch-Ch-Changes Another exciting change is the fact that I’ll now be working remotely from somewhere in town one day a week- expect to see me shouting into my mobile at a workspace near you (any recommendations for suitable locations gratefully received.) Secretly, I hope this may also give me a better chance of completing Operation “Beat Whatmough at Foursquare”. To all you journalists out there, Wildfire seem to be on a streak of announcing various new clients right now so it looks [...]