The new customer lock in

ipad and Zynga

What do they have in common?

Lock in.

Not just the old style vertical market lock in. No, this is a happy, fun lock in.

Zynga, the company that brought you Farmville, Mafia Wars and other popular Facebook games are masters of lock in. They are experts in getting your friends to lure you in and then enticing you to spend hours playing their silly games and, the ultimate goal, spend money for virtual things.

Things that only work in that game. And if Facebook kills your account? All that time and money is gone, never to return.

The iPad is the same way. Want something on it? Have to go through iTunes. Want an app? iTunes. Want a book? iTunes. Want to use all that stuff you bought on some other device? Oops.

Like Zynga, Apple has become a master of happy fun lock in.

I do not approve.

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0 Responses to The new customer lock in

  1. Old NFO says:

    Since I don’t play those games, and I’m not buying an Ipad, guess I WIN 🙂

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  3. Borepatch says:

    Yeah. Altho we were at the Happy Fun Lock In Store at the Mall yesterday, and the iPad looked pretty cool.

    Still trying to find a way to get iTunes to run on Linux, though. As a commenter said over at JayG’s place, Apple is the H&K of computers.

  4. George says:

    No lock in on books…my Kindle app works just fine on the iPad. And besides, they have already jailbroken the iPad. 🙂

  5. roadkill says:

    The video game consoles are doing the exact same thing. Hack your Xbox, you loose everything. PC games have been on a decline for years now, because people don’t want their product pirated, so they are favoring closed systems like Apple, Xbox, PlayStation etc. I think most innovation starts on open systems like PC. There’s were software and hardware companies start out. Little guys can’t afford to buy into specialized development equipment or fees. But once the get big and making the monies, then they tend to go to the closed system.