PONO!! Who was it made for?
Not talking to your end users is a BIG mistake?
The PonoMusic player, which debuted in 2014, was advertised as a music player offering high-resolution audio (Waniata, 2014). The PonoMusic player ecosystem included the PonoPlayer, the PonoMusic world application, and the PonoMusic online store. According to COO Rick Cohen, the player promised: “outstanding sound quality,” “the highest resolution (of audio files) available anywhere,” and “Young as its ambassador of sound” (Waniata, 2014). Several constraints could have contributed to the short lifespan of the music player. From the cost to the design, one wonders who the Pono player was created for. Not only were consumers made to buy the music player, but they would also have to transfer files from the PonoMusic store via USB to their music player. “The other problem was getting the most out of the Pono in terms of sound quality required further investment in high-spec tech” (Power, 2020).
What factors influenced the success/failure of the music player? The player’s triangular shape was drastically different from the current rectangular MP3 players on the market. The Kickstarter fundraising campaign helped to raise millions for the project, but poor management led to a quick depletion of funds. Neil Young was a popular artist who used his fame to influence the popularity of the music player.
What went amiss? Defining the stakeholder needs and requirements is integral to the SE life cycle.
“The stakeholder requirements govern the system’s development and are an essential factor in further defining or clarifying the scope of the development project” (Wiley, pg. 52, 2015).
Following the procedures used to identify the stakeholder needs, the development team would have been able to mitigate foreseeable obstacles by “eliciting stakeholder needs from the identified stakeholders, prioritizing the stakeholder needs to identify which to focus on, and specifying the stakeholder needs” (Wiley, pg. 53–54, 2015). A company failing to correctly identify stakeholders’ needs and requirements can lead to a rapid demise, as seen with Neil Young’s Pono music player. The company seemed to have created its product for an audience that would not appreciate its value in the marketplace. Apart from the founder, Neil Young, other stakeholders included the CEO, record labels, investors, manufacturers, and customers. With the appropriate research, they would have realized that the customers they were targeting were not the customers that would buy their product.
So, who was the music player created for? That would be music enthusiasts who appreciate better sound quality in their music. At this time, streaming music was becoming more popular, so the added complexity of transferring music to the player via USB would deter people who preferred the ease of downloading music straight to their music player. Problems involving the music rights also constrain what the PonoMusic player could offer. In the end, the Pono music player needed to be more user-friendly for it to succeed.
References
Pendlebury, T. (2017, April 22). Pono is dead. probably. Long Live Xstream. CNET. https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/pono-is-probably-dead-long-live-xstream/
Schneider, M. (2018, February 16). Neil Young knows why pono failed: “the record labels killed it.” Billboard. https://www.billboard.com/pro/neil-young-pono-record-labels-xstream/
Houghton, B. (2018, February 16). Neil Young on the death of the Pono Music Service. Hypebot. https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2018/02/neil-young-on-the-death-of-the-pono-music-service.html
Rowell, D. (2020, June 25). Was the pono predestined to fail?. The Travel Insider. https://blog.thetravelinsider.info/2019/12/was-the-pono-predestined-to-fail.html
Waniata, R. (2014, September 18). Ponoplayer FAQ: All your questions about Neil Young’s music player, answered. Digital Trends. https://www.digitaltrends.com/music/ponoplayer-faq-burning-questions-neil-youngs-music-player-answered/
Wiley. (2015). Incose Systems Engineering Handbook. John Wiley & Sons.
Aguilar, M. (2014b, March 11). Why Neil Young’s new Pono Music Player doesn’t make any sense. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/why-neil-youngs-new-pono-music-player-doesnt-make-any-s-1541582373
Power, E. (2020, June 19). Who killed pono? inside Neil Young’s digital music disaster. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/killed-pono-inside-neil-youngs-digital-music-disaster/
