In this week's glorious, media-focused New Yorker magazine, the financial page tackles the ongoing next-gen DVD wars, a topic I visited months ago. While the New Yorker's piece deals, generally, the financial implication: this is essentially a marketing battle. To quote the piece.
Once the public buys one of the products to the point of a majority, it's pretty much over for the other. And the public won't be doing that based on heavy technological analysis; it will be based on who is make the better argument.
The most important rule is that, as the economist Hal Varian says, “the product that people expect to win will win.” Consumers know that if they back the loser in a standards war they’ll be stuck with an obsolete product, so convincing them that your product is a winner is essential.
Once the public buys one of the products to the point of a majority, it's pretty much over for the other. And the public won't be doing that based on heavy technological analysis; it will be based on who is make the better argument.
