Digital, hybrid and physical experience
A lot of services that rely on physical entities in the past has now been digitalized, including the service for music. Nowadays, instead of going to a store and buying physical CDs, most customers buy music online. Spotify is a typical platform that provides the service of music. Via Spotify, users searches music they want to listen to on their devices via the Spotify application. This request is then sent to the Spotify database where all the music and data are stored. The data is then transferred back to the users’ end and he/she can enjoy the music. While searching and browsing through music, the user’s taste of music is analyzed and stored in the database. Music that suits the user’s taste would then be recommended to the user in the future. By digitalizing the service for music, the resources of music are shared by thousands of users: people can listen to the same song in Spotify’s database without needing to make any additional copy of the music.
Uber provides the service of transportation using the tool of the Internet and digital mobile devices that most people use nowadays. I am especially interested in the method Uber uses to encourage existing users to invite new users to Uber. Thus I did some research on how Uber’s incentive system works and mapped it out. Every Uber user is associated with an unique invite code and user can invite their friends to Uber using their invite code. Every time a friend signs up with his/her invite code, they will get their first ride free (up to $10). Once they have tried Uber, he/she will also receive a free ride, which will be applied automatically.
Barbershop is a type of service that has been existing since before the digital realm. I documented my experience at Supercut, a typical barbershop located in Oakland. When a customer enters the store, a worker at the barbershop would ask the customer’s name and ask him/her to sit and wait. While waiting, there are usually magazines and newspapers available for the customer to read. When there is hairstylist available, the customer would be guided to a barber chair and get haircut. During this process, multiple tools would be there ready to use for the stylist. After the customer pay and leave, worker at the barbershop would clean up the hair on the chair and floor, clean up the tools, change batteries and do other preparation may or may not be visible to the customers. Each service experience provided at the barbershop to each customer is unique and not reproducible without cost. Workers at the barbershop cannot copy their service as Spotify can copy its music without any additional cost. Different customers cannot share the same service at the same time as different customers can listen to the same sone via Spotify.
