The wow-factor: some features 'punch above their weight' by making people talk about the product...

Think of the ipad…the fact that when you  turn it, it will automatically adjust the screen from vertical to horizontal…

Now, that feature has a certain amount of usefulness.

But it has a GREAT DEAL MORE value for Apple in the fact that people TALK ABOUT IT, selling the product to thousands more people and giving it heaps of ‘cultural cred’…coolness.

It has the wow-factor.

Do you know what I reckon would give Sansa’s products like the Clip+ a major talking point?

The ability to not only speed up an audiobook / podcast / lecture file as you can now, 

but to do so WITHOUT CHANGING THE PITCH

to that annoying chipmunk squeel.

Why? Because so few mp3 players do this!

It’s IMPRESSIVE.

And it’s VERY useful. It will win over thousands more of those audiobook/ podcast / college student consumers that buy the Clip+ etc NOW for EXACTLY those sort of features.

But you know what would be even better?

The ability to have not just FAST, NORMAL, SLOW, but to give the USER the power to change it incrementally (say 2-5% at a time). 

TO GET THE SPEED JUST RIGHT FOR THE CONTENT.

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Imagine a convo between two college student ‘early-adopters’…leaders amongst their peers in what to buy:

“You know, you can even increase the speed of podcasts and stuff without changing the pitch…so you don’t get the chipmunk effect - which can get really distracting and annoying!..So if you’re say, listening to a lecture, and the profs talking about something that’s a bit obvious or whatever, you can just speed up thru that bit but  know you haven’t missed anything.”

“Really?! Wow, that’s cool man - and you can skip thru the boring bits of a podcast too!”

“Oh for sure. Actually, it changes in increments too - like 5% or something …so you can get the speed JUST RIGHT for the content…”

“You’re kiddin me?! Wow man, that’ is VERY cool - i’ve hardly heard of ANY players that do that!”

"Yeah man, well the Sandisk is just known for being THE BEST player for audiobooks, podcasts and such…

lots of people buy it just for the audiobook features alone. 

And it’s pretty much PERFECT for lectures, 'cos it starts playing wherever you left off, on EVERY lecture - even after you put more songs on it. So even if you can’t be bothered studying, it just makes it too easy for you !"

“Oh no, that’s TOO perfect…!.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty much the go-to player for voice stuff…Now let me tell you about the music features hehe…!”

I listen to podcasts almost every day, and I have never felt the need to change the speed of their playback, even though I could do it easily on my three rockboxed Sansas.:stuck_out_tongue: