Do do that Vudu that you do so well

I am officially an evangelist for Vudu (www.vudu.com), a cool new 'box' for viewing over 5000 on demand movies on my TV. I also have DirecTV On Demand, which is in some ways similar. The only thing worthy of noting by comparison is that I have my wireless adapter perpetually hooked to the Vudu box, and not to DirecTV. Why? Mostly because of ease of use. First of all, the internet connection seemed to cause my DirecTV box to occassionaly hang, while Vudu has never had a problem. But beyond that the Vudu interface is easy to navigate, visually attractive, and simple. It starts with the remote. Just like Tivo (www.tivo.com), they put a lot of thought into this remote. It fits comfortably in the hand. It uses an RF remote - which means it doesn't require line of sight. Not having to hold my remote high to get the signal over the coffee table, and not having to worry about my 6 year old son intentionally blocking my line of sight because he thinks that's funny, is key. Beyond this is the very simple interface. Easy to find what I want, but beyond that not a lot of choices - which is a good thing. I find the movie I want, and can then play or pause. That's pretty much it. My wife, a person I love but didn't know what a spreadsheet was before she met me (gasp!), can easily find movies. That also says a lot. I'll have more to say about the content choices, price, and competition in the future.

Eye-Fi at CES

I just returned from CES in Las Vegas. One of the more interesting and attention-grabbing products was eye-fi's (www.eye.fi) wireless SD card. It fits in any digital camera with an SD slot, and then when you are in your home network it wirelessly transfers your photos to your PC or a photo sharing service. Technically its probably not very complicated, but its simplicity is elegant, and its value proposition is compelling. Think about it - what it can do is useful to both young people and elderly people. How many tech products can you say that about?

However, I do have two issues from a marketing perspective. First of all, the name. I get why you want to create an association to WiFi, but why the 'eye'? What's the connection, its not obvious. If you wanted to create the WiFi association, how about MiFi, or MyFi. It makes it more personal. The second issue ties into the name. I went to look up their website, and not surprisingly typed in www.eyefi.com. That's not their site; and even worse the actual business is internet related, so there is a high risk of confusion. You'd have to google their name to find them, because you'd never think of eye.fi. Clearly, neither of these marketing mistakes are hurting the good press they are getting. But I think they could have helped themselves more here.