It's a VOIP deal, much like the telephony that your local cable offers you in one or more of its bundles, only magicJack's novel approach 1) lets you use your regular phone, 2) embeds its software in the USB gizzinta (hence the "jack" of its magic), and 3) never gets into any explanation of Internet packet transmission, etc. It's a phone service, sans any real customer service, so don't bother wondering anything more about it. Media reports say the company has sold a few million units, which at $40/apiece, means some serious coin.
You'd think that its value proposition, if not the brand position, is unassailable. Mainstream competitors charge every month what magicJack costs for an entire year, not to mention additional set-up and/or service fees that magicJack apparently defers. Other Internet services, most notably Skype, still come across as very techie, in spite of the cuddly look-and-feel of the user interface, and the pricing models are somewhat complicated. And old-fashioned land-lines can't compete whatsoever on price.So I say that it has a gigantic problem: the offer is too good to be true.
No brand exists in a vacuum; branding is delivered, and perceived, in an ever-changing context of the Here And Now. It's one thing to present consumers with a clear, relevant differentiation, but when the difference is so glaringly, cosmically huge, it makes comparison not only difficult, but oddly irrelevant. It dares us to choose not just a better option, but wholly unique offer that literally defies comparison.
It raises as many questions as it purports to answer, and I'd suggest it erects barriers to entry that otherwise wouldn't have been there.It doesn't help that the commercials and web site look like they're repurposed from Pocket Fisherman and ThighMaster campaigns. Phone service is something that actually matters to a lot of people; that's why it was once considered a utility, like electricity and water. So it's hard to consider relying upon a provider that could just as well be selling countertop ovens. And it's kind of weird that there's no information about the company, nor any way to contact them (and the exploitation of the inventor's daughter and her cute puppies is shameless, to say the least).
And that's when I figured out the deal: it's not a phone service, and they have no intention of signing up users for Year 2 or beyond. Customer service is the program with VOIP, as the moving parts of PC hardware and software uniqueness, combined with the variability at numerous points in home or business Internet connections, means that problems are all but guaranteed. That's why Skype hasn't ever really taken off, and why many people reject the idea of letting their cable TV providers treat their phone problems with the same irritating disinterest.
The magicJack deal might work fine right out of the box, or it might not. And it might not work the same a day, week, month, or year from now. For the price you paid, you get a gizzinta, and a promise.Sure, some people will buy that sort of thing. But it's not a sustainable business. And the branding is accurate: the gizzinta is no different than one of those miracle vegetable choppers.It's too good to be true.
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