A Little Random Can Go A Long Way

a little random can go a long way- ipod shuffleKudos to Kathy Sierra for a fantastic piece on the benefits of random.  In today’s world of filters and predictability, a little random can go a long way.

When the iPod Shuffle first came out, the ads were based on the theme, “Life is random.” I thought it was one of the lamest marketing spins ever. I imagined the meetings, “Let’s spin the lack of display as a feature. Yeah, that’s it. We’ll sell the inability to choose your music as a benefit!”

But I was so so so wrong. Within a few weeks’ of the Shuffle’s release, the serendipity effect had kicked in. “OMG! That was the perfect song for this!” “Seriously. It can’t be random. It’s putting songs together that just… work*” The Shuffle was getting people out of their playlist ruts. Out of the music comfort zones we all fall into (emo, anyone?). Exposing them to songs they’d loaded onto their pre-Shuffle iPod but that never seemed to be one of The Chosen Ones. Think about it. Think about all the music on your (non-Shuffle) iPod, computer, or vintage CD rack. Now think about the subset you actually listen to regularly. For most of us, it’s a pathetically small set. By literally forcing people to listen to randomly-chosen songs, the Shuffle was constantly delighting, surprising, rewarding, stretching users. And users loved it.

Kathy also lists some excellent resources at the end of the article for anyone wanting to learn more about unpredictability and creativity.


5 Responses to “A Little Random Can Go A Long Way”

  1. ggwfung Says:

    it’s that search for serendipity, that chance moment. Life is much too rigid to know what’s next on the playlist.

    ever tried using a dictionary this way?

    ggw

  2. glen Says:

    Dictionary roulette? Sounds like fun…

  3. Donald Latumahina Says:

    I think one simple way to inject more randomness to our life is setting our browser’s home page to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. This way we will get a random Wikipedia article whenever we open the browser.

    I especially like to press Alt+Home several times to get some random pages. I’m always curious to see what will show up next.

  4. Eric Smooth Says:

    Visit broadcas5er.com for the best little dictionary on the net

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