Neil Young's PonoPlayer gets its initial funding from a very successful Kickstarter campaisn

Neil Young’s Ponoplayehttp://www.ponomusic.com/#aboutr, a high-end portable music player, received twice its goal on Kickstarter. It sought $800,000 and got $1.6 million. 

I’m not going into the merits of bitrates and such. The PonoPlayer will obviously play music at a higher fidelity than most of the audio equipment available today, including the various iPods. The question, though, is when would you want to listen to high-fidelity sound through this device? Jogging? At work through your computer speakers? 

No, I’m interested in the funding for this device. It’s new and different and appeals to a niche of consumers. Obviously well-heeled consumers are the first market. 

 But as Apple and Microsoft mature and bad bureaucratic habits set in to block new ideas for, oh, user interfaces and such; direct appeals to the public can go over the heads of corporations and individuals heavily invested in the current state-of-the-art. I’m  not imaginative enough to predict what those new and different ways will look like. I’m saying that you won’t have to push through committee after committee to get it on the market.

 

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog