The secret to the iPod success

The most successful products are not just as the name suggests. Successful products become brands. Products like the iPod. I've surveyed the iPod's progress off-handedly for a while (not owning one myself) and I've become convinced at several points that it was due a crash. Nothing could stay so successful for that long I reasoned to myself. I was wrong. Because through the marketing of Apple and the magic of word-of-mouth the iPod has become something else. Portable Music Player is now spoken only a breath away from the word iPod. It has become the icon for the genre. It started off simply. iPod designed a product that simple outstripped anything seen before. It offered new levels of functionality and was coupled with a brilliant piece of support software; iTunes. It didn't take long for the product to gain momentum. A reputation was built that fed the fires of superiority. The iPod almost single-handedly kick-started the legal music download scene. The little white earphones became legendary. Nowadays even a superior product cannot dislodge the iPod. It has become so entrenched in the market that a blunt object couldn't batter it out. For it to be dislodged a new technology would have to emerge. And with every new generation of iPod gaining new features it's hard to see it falling anytime soon.