Microsoft held a press conference today to unveil two new phones formerly only known under the codename “Project Pink”.
The KIN ONE is a pebble-shaped phone with a full qwerty slide-out keyboard and touch screen; the KIN TWO is more like typical slideouts on the market today and also has a touch screen.
What makes KIN phones special is that Microsoft spent a lot of time thoughtfully designing the user interface from the ground up for the social media addict. The layout is strikingly similar to Microsoft’s yet-to-be-released Windows Phone 7 Series and Motorola’s MOTOBLUR layer for Android phones.
Based on my skimming of blogs and Twitter posts, reactions to KIN have been fairly polar — either you love it or you hate it. And maybe this is an unfair sweeping assumption but it seems that most of the haters are spec-heavy, gadget-lusting men. Yes, Engadget and Gizmodo commenters, I’m talking about you.
Personally, I think KIN has the potential to dramatically turn around the perception of Microsoft as a lumbering beast in the mobile world. And all while gaining the key audience group most needed at the moment to keep business running in the future: teenager girls.
And why do I say this?
Research, listen, respond
When I tuned into the live webcast of the media announcement I had low expectations but I was struck time and time again by the stories the speakers had to tell about their target audience. Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Division at Microsoft, states right off the bat that they spent thousands of hours interviewing and listening to the exact people that they want as their customers.
This process is referred to as “user-centered design” and it’s a process that I’m a big fan of. When done with an honest willingness to listen to the user, combined with good decision-making, the end product actually solves a problem.
The camera is a prime example of this. There was an overwhelming response that there was a problem with getting good pictures in low-lit social events with their current phones. Microsoft then made it a high priority to get good images by adding a flash and 5-8 megapixel resolution sensors.
Friends over technology
One of the most common negative responses to KIN is that it doesn’t have a smart phone operating system like iPhone or Android phones do. Although KIN supports Facebook and Twitter streams, there are no 3rd party apps. If you’re already an iPhone or Android owner, it’s unlikely that you will drop your current phone for a KIN.
However, there’s lots of people out there that don’t have smartphones yet. Or, in terms of the target market, are now just becoming that cellphone-carrying age. Heck, even at the age of 29, someone in my circle of friends recently just bought a text messaging phone and others ooh’ed-and-ahh’ed over it.
Further observations: I’ve been tutoring university fashion students for the past couple of years in Flash programming and I’ve noticed at least two mobile-features about these 20-something ladies: they love, love their BlackBerry and they love, love to text/IM. (They even send up to 20 messages in the middle of our 3-hour tutoring sessions!).
And they are not rocking slim, fashionable BlackBerry Pearls; they’re all carrying the bigger BlackBerrys with the large keyboard in order to pump out their messages as quick as possible. They don’t care about 3rd party apps! They care about staying in touch with their friends — instantly.
And it’s not just these fashion students… I’ve overheard other females in coffeeshops obsess over the BlackBerry simply because of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).
Marketing
Derek Snyder, Senior Product Manager of the KIN team, introduced himself in the webcast as “part of the social revolution” but the image of a 30-something male does not conjure up KIN for me. Whether it’s intended or not, codename “Project Pink” says exactly who the demographic is: females between 13 – 21. And Microsoft has nailed it with their marketing materials.
The models and clothing in their advertising seems straight out of an Urban Outfitters or Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. The kin.com website if very youthful with the mandatory links to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
But you know what I think is brilliant? A webisode series called The Journey. For one thing, it’s like a reality tv show. And as much as I like to deny the genre as a whole, one of my favourite tv shows is a reality show (shhh!) and they are strangely addictive. Think Gossip Girls but low-budget — you want to stop but can’t because you need to find out if so-and-so is going to get back together with whats-his-face (argh, the suspense!). Plus, don’t you think the heroine of The Journey also looks remarkably like Ellen Page?
Cloud coverage
KIN Studio will be the last point I’ll cover. KIN Studio essentially automatically backs up the entire phone: photos, video, messages, and call history to an online repository. All the info is displayed playfully over a timeline and photos/videos can be shared in the same drag and drop interface as the phone.
(Auto-syncing photos is a killer feature… Google and Picassa, are you listening?)
This goes back to the user-centered design I mentioned above. Derek Snyder told a story about a young women who had a shoebox of old phones because she couldn’t get the photos and messages she had in each of them off of them. KIN Studio is like a virtual shoebox (and, in my opinion, a very female-orientated feature since I think girls have a tendency to journal write more than boys).
So is KIN a clear winner?
I think KIN has loads of potential. I’m too much of a lifehacking gadget-lover to give up Android at the moment but, if anything, Microsoft has won my respect for coming up with the KIN user experience. (Yes, it’s like MOTOBLUR but they took it to the next level with KIN Studio.)
And at least KIN phones are shipping next month. Palm made the mistake of announcing Palm OS and then letting the excitement die down for almost a year before release, allowing others to copy their key features. KIN is also going to offer Microsoft a lot of “in the field R&D” for Windows Mobile 7 Series since the two operating systems have some similarities — that’s good news if you’re waiting until the end of the year for a “real” smartphone from Microsoft.
The biggest tipping-point will be, of course, price. Verizon declined to announce any price plans but I would think that they will need to meet a $0-100 purchase price (with contract) to get the young audience they want. As for data plans, currently Verizon has a $9.99 plan with 25mb data allowance. In order to support KIN Studio’s constant uploads, Verizon would be wise to roll out a price plan between $9.99 and their $29.99 unlimited data plan. (Although KIN does have WiFi.)
Related to pricing, a lot of people love BlackBerry Messenger because of it’s unlimited messaging included in a data plan, and generally BB data plans are cheaper than regular smart phone data plans. I don’t know the details about how KIN handles messaging but it sort of seems like it has its own rich-media IM infrastructure. Unlimited texting would be a wise add-on to have though.
It would also be nice if KIN had the hardware to support location-based check-in services like Foursquare or Gowalla but, speaking of the teenage demographic again, these services might not be as popular with them (being that they see each other every day at school) versus adults (who are spread out over the city). There is an IE-based web browser on the KIN though so web-based check-ins is still an option.