The recent hiccups in Blackberry’s network and deliverance brought another interesting case study on why going to mass looks lucrative but can be a killer, in India.
The earlier case study where I argued that the hibernation and certain death of Orkut (the first ever “ice age” social network in this subcontinent) was due to the sudden “en-mass” appeal of it.
India is clearly divided in between “have” and “have not”. The have will always try to float ahead of have not and prove that they are away from the clutter. A struggle for “identity” (the flick kick of “struggle for existence”) is what defines a product in this subcontinent.
Many products understood it early and succeeded or they got it as they have evolved. For example, Facebook now has the “timeline” app that differentiates one who “knows” the apps from the one who’s mass citizen of FB and not app savvy! In future FB will add more features that will distinctly divide FB India between “Have” and “Have not” (need not be the economic definition but social currency). Now the blackberry is available at a price of any smart phone in India and hence it’s moving towards the mass.
This massification will eventually kill Blackerry’s charisma and convert it into another museum piece like Nokia. The consumption psychology and adapted differentiation theory has to be well placed before the “greed” of capturing the “whole India”.
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