Chapter 3.1 Business and the Internet{0}
Chapter 3.1 E-Business and Internet
In an article from Wired titled ” The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine,” Robert Capps talks about the success of the Flip Ultra by Pure Digital. Founders of the Flip Ultra, Jonathan Kaplan and Ariel Braunstein, noticed an opportunity 
in the camera industry, because digital cameras were expensive compared to cheap disposable cameras. Pure Digital relied on the return of the used boxes when customers went to retailers to develop their prints, yet, “brisk sales combined with a lack of speedy returns destroyed the company’s thin margin, and the camera failed” (Capps, 2009). Kaplan and Braunstein became aware of customers willingness to overlook quality for convince. Following their failure with the disposable digital camera, they saw an opportunity to make a cheap and simple video camera, the Flip Ultra. The Flip Ultra was released in 2007 as a small digital video camera that had bare minimum features and was the size of a cigarette pack. The down falls of this video camera are footage quality, the mini viewing screen, no adjustable color features, and its basic controls. Most of all, it was easy to control its recording and uploading functions. The Flip Ultra took the number one spot of video camera’s putting Sony and Canon in the runner up position. Its success was not anticipated by its industry, however, it lead to the latest trend known as Good Enough Tech (Capps, 2009).
I found this article to be related with the subtopic disruptive technology, as mentioned in chapter 3.1. A new way of doing things that initially does not meet the needs of existing customers is known as disruptive technology; these types of technologies tend to cut into the low end of the marketplace, hoping for company success from new investments (Baltzan & Phillips, 2011). The Flip Ultra is an example of a disruptive technology because it was a low quality video camera that surpassed the high-quality products, such as Sony and Cannon. This article mentions that the Good Enough revolution is here for the reason that consumers are now favoring convenience over quality. Thus, Capps points out, that having it here and now is more important than having it perfect and that today we favor convenience over quality.
Works Cited:
Baltzan, P., & Phillips, A. (2011). Information Systems. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Capps, R. (2009). The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine. Wired, (17), Retrieved September 11, 2010, from www.wired.com:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/17- 09/ff_goodenough?currentPage=all