What's Next

Of course, I’m having problems with my audio. It’ll upload, but won’t play. So here’s a summary of everything that was said:

Existing Market:

For my product, as I mentioned in “The Amazon Whisperer,” I feel like the next step would be making an app for phones so people are able to see the availability of seats at the library, without actually having to go there to check.

I asked three people about this idea and these are the responses I received:

• ·      Cara Millburg: “I think putting this concept into an App would be much better than using it only at the library. The most effective way is to probably have it in the library and in an App so you can have double the accuracy.”
• ·      Savannah Hyatt: “I like the idea but I’m not sure what I’d want next. After being able to access it from a phone I’m not sure how much further you could go, but I definitely like the phone idea.”
• ·      Kyle Campbell: “This would be even better if you made it for all of the libraries on campus, and not just the main ones. There’s a lot of small ones people go to, but it’d be nice to know if those are packed too!”

For the most part it sounds as those the concept for my idea would be used/like by people. My only concern is that people will like it, but won’t keep up with it, and completely forget to check in, making the chart on the app inaccurate.

To start off I think the best idea would be to put this on the UF Campus app, rather than making it an entire app of its own. That way, we could test it out on one college campus, then extend it to others, and finally extend it to other libraries across the country.

New Market:

For a new market idea, I would keep the same concept but use it for libraries all over the country, not just those on college campuses. I feel like the idea, overall, would just make traveling to the library much more convenient for everyone.

I asked the same three people what they thought of me extending my idea to public libraries and not just those on college campuses:

• ·      Cara Millburg: “I don’t really know many people who go to the library when they’re home. I don’t. I think people go to grab a book or movie, not exactly to study like they do here. I don’t think it’d work as well in big cities.
• ·      Savannah Hyatt: “I would still use it at home! I don’t go to the library often at home but I have used it before for studying when my house gets too noisy, it could probably work.”
• ·      Kyle Campbell: “Do people still go to libraries other than on campus? I’m not sure. I’m not sure how reliable it would be, but you can always count on people to be at the libraries on campuses, I don’t know about anywhere else.”

Basically, for the new market idea, I learned that most people probably wouldn’t use it or take advantage of it. With students specifically, it doesn’t sound like most of them use their community libraries while at home, and simply rely on the ones located on campuses.

I’m not really surprised by this because I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been to the public library in my hometown. I don’t think this is an issue in other libraries, but is mainly specific to those at colleges/universities where student’s are always studying for exams, etc.