I really enjoyed Howard's chapter on Remuneration. After reading the introduction of this book, I was given a brief overview of the concept, but this chapter really made it clear to me what remuneration exactly is.
Remuneration is all about experience. It is about getting a benefit or reward from visiting a social media site. Remuneration is less about functionality and a business model, and more about a positive user experience. To put it into perspective: Why do we go to a movie theater? Well, a movie theater's function is to display films. But we could just rent one and watch it at home, or catch a movie on cable television. So why go through all of the trouble of driving to a theater, buying a $9 ticket, spending $15 dollars on food, and sharing a space with 50 strangers, when we could receive the function of a movie at home? It is because we like the experience. We aren't going to a theater just to watch a film, but also to be in the cinematic atmosphere, and experience the excitement of the lights dimming for previews, and crunching on the salty popcorn. It is so much more than watching a movie. That is exactly what remuneration refers to when talking about social media.
The reason we return to our favorite social media sites is most likely because they do a good job remunerating. We have to have a sense of benefit for us to enjoy a site. Howard gives a great example when comparing AltaVista and Google. AltaVista, while it functioned well and had a good business model, was very poor at remuneration. Its site was frustrating and busy, making the user experience confusing and slow. There wasn't a clear entry point and the webpage was full of too many search categories and options. On the other hand, Google did great with remuneration. It's first layout was very simple and it was clear where to begin a search. Even though Google had a detailed and very good functionality, that is not what users care about nor do they care to see it. What we care about is use and ease of a site, not everything "under the covers", as Howard would say. As you can see, just because a site had a great business model and functionality, does not make it a popular site users want to go back to again and again. While both business models and functionality are needed to have a successful site, they cannot stand alone-- remuneration is key.
The best and most popular example of remuneration today is Facebook. Why do millions and millions of users not only visit it every day, but also spend hours on it? Because it provides a beneficial user experience. We are rewarded by being able to connect to our relationships in a easy way. There are millions of other sites with the same functionality behind them, but the reason they are not as successful as Facebook as everything to do with remuneration.
I really liked your example about the movie theater. It really put into perspective what remuneration is all about. With everything getting easier for us to do with new technology it is interesting to look at why people continue to do some things. Like going to the library—like why trek to the library, find a seat, and strive to avoid all the annoying people doing work when we have our own computers and chairs at home? There must be something remunerable about the experience. Google really is a great example of how remuneration works—how many times do you hear a teacher say “google that”? On the other hand, I don’t find a site like Blogger remunerable. It is difficult to navigate and not very intuitive. For instance, why do we have to press “no comments” to post our own comment?
ReplyDeleteI like how you pointed out that renumeration involves a multifaceted experience. It's important to know that a site functions well because of how all of the tiny aspects of it come together to provide the experience. Renumeration can't be achieved through just one good thing about a site. In your movie theater example, people aren't going to the movies just for the popcorn or just for the dimming lights. They go because together all of those small details come together to form the positive experience that keeps them coming back. In social media, people don't go to Facebook simply because they can join groups or they can share photos there. They continue visiting a site because all of the qualities they desire come together to form that site. The way you aligned these two examples made me appreciate the renumeration factor of a successful site even more.
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