Teach Your Way to New Users

"In Gox We Trust" educating consumers on Bitcoin and other technologies

“In Gox We Trust” educating consumers on Bitcoin and other technologies

OK, I admit it, I wrote this primarily so I could write the caption above. Overall, I’m taking a neutral-to-skeptical view on Bitcoin. However, Tibanne Co.’s launch of Bitcoins.com as an attempt to popularize its adoption, is quite notable. Many publications have already covered this in detail. I’m more interested in what it represents for technology marketing.

Popularizing nascent “invisible” technologies

Example of explaining concepts on Bitcoins.com

Source: Bitcoins.com

Educating the broader population, about brand new technologies that catch on after they incubate among ‘early adopters’, is no small feat. For technologists and marketers, there’s a lot to learn from these recent efforts. What’s challenging about platform-type technologies like Bitcoin or Twitter, just to name a few, is their ethereal quality. You can’t put a Bitcoin in your wallet.

I’ve been marketing software for many years, and I’ve always envied companies that create physical products. Apple can simply place a perfectly photographed iDevice on their homepage, and that’s almost all that’s needed to produce a pavlovian response in gadget lovers. Selling software and services requires different tactics, and I think we’ve yet to find a predictable framework for doing so. Mobility and expanding options in “channels” only increases the complexity (and opportunity) of this task.

Teaching to the Trend (more…)