Week 12 - VERSUS... KayOh!

Ha! The age old debate! You're either an iPhone or an Android.

First of all, I'm not a fan of Apple. I hate their stupid phones, I hate their stupid "tablet", I hate their stupid laptops (although, they are extremely light), I hate their stupid software. I hate their stupid rainbow wheel of death. HATE IT!!!

And yes I'm quite biased, I grew up with Windows machines, but I've had my fair share of Apple products.

I first started using Mac's in highschool, and I wasn't so keen.

Then, of course, who could forget the iPod? those "Jerk it out" ads had everyone hooked. I had an iPod Mini and was absolutely devastated when one day it wouldnt work. It showed a little dead iPod with a url for apple support. THAT DIDN'T REALLY HELP ME!!

Another thing I hate about Apple products, forced obsolescence. Not only is it terrible for the environment, it is extrememly expensive.

So I got a new iPod around the same time my family's computer crashed and Dad got us a Mac desktop. This was also around the same time as the "Hi, I'm a Mac" ads with Justin Long were out. Still wasn't so kee, but I guess I was thankful because I was forced to know how to use one. A few things I discovered while doing this:

NO PRINSTCREEN BUTTON

NO DELETE BUTTON

AND NO RIGHT CLICK!!!

Fast forward a few years and my parents go over to America and bring me back an iPhone. I wasn't so happy, but it was a present, so I took. Most of my friends laughed, they knew my disdain for the thing. 

Eventually I wanted to get rid of it so much I used my boyfriends old Nokia E63. I wanted buttons, I wanted to make my own rigntones, I didn't want to have to sync my phone with iTunes and lose most of what I had downloaded elsewhere. I wanted the simplicity, and while Apple's main grab is that it is simple, it's waaaaay too complicated!

The only product I actually appreciate is iTunes and Genius. iTunes is funky, and it is easy to use, and Genius is exactly what I was looking for in a music player. I have all my music and if I feel like listening to a particular type I can just click the nucleus and I have an entire playlist.

I think it's funny how there is this Apple vs everyone culture, you're either with them or against them. You're with Apple because it's cool, or you;re a designer, or you're with the others because you like having something that works.

If I were to go with a Smartphone it would be a Samsung Galaxy, because it allows for more changable interaface.

I like this quote from Larry Page "That phone you're carrying around, we think of it as a phone, but it's really a computer, right?[...]We've learned from computers that it's really nice to have complete connectivity, to be able to connect anything in a kind of open way...the phone is your main computing platform. We look at those technologies and say, wow, we could do a whole lot more."(quoted in Roth, 2008)

Page's quote really gets users, it shws what a consumer wants from their device. I find that mostly people buy iPhone's because it's the most popular, they don't really know much about it. If they did any kind of research they would know that an Android platform is a clear winner.

Mainly I hate Apple's because everyone has them, and the paranoid geek inside me envisages a future where we are all controlled through our Apple devices!

I'll leave you with how Family Guy creators feel about Macs

Roth, D. (2008) 'Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web'. Wired, June 23. [URL: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android]

Week 7 - The Long Tail

As I still don’t fully understand the long tail, but as Chris Anderson describes it: “You can find everything out there on the Long Tail. There's the back catalog, older albums still fondly remembered by longtime fans or rediscovered by new ones. There are live tracks, B-sides, remixes, even (gasp) covers. There are niches by the thousands, genre within genre within genre”

So as I see it, you are better off selling a lot of singular niche or unique titles, rather than a few of the more “popular” titles like Britney Spears. It’s sort of ironic I guess, Britney Spears is popular, but then again, so are the niche items, according to sales. I’m still a little confused...

Wait, more people are into niche than they are into popular?

“Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you've got a market bigger than the hits.” (Anderson, 2004)

Oooooh! so I was sort of on the right track!

Moving right along... I get a little nostalgic when it comes to the tech and commerce of the 90’s. I tried finding a cassestte recorder so I could make actual mixtapes, and I never pass the record section in op shops (yes, I’m an opshopper). My behviour reflects the trend that as we are given more and more options, more ways to buy the popular, we find our tastes are in the niche and the vintage.

The rise of the hipster, which I think I have mentioned on this blog, is nurturing the Long Tail. A hipster loves everything old/“vintage” and ironic. Today’s hipster listens to his Walkman rather than his iPhone (which is in his pocket) wears tweed he bought not from the opshop, but from American Apparel, and rides a fixie that he spent thousands refurbishing to make it look older.

(click here for the evolution of the hipster, and see how they nurture the Long Tail market)

I’m saying that it’s now fashionable to have old and unique things. The eigthies saw “Freaks” (weeds smoking, army jacket toting rebellious types on the fringe of society) revelling in the niche of unique stylings, as did the 90’s. Now it’s everybody with a little quirky obsession that they bought from etsy.com. I’m saying there’s money in it.

While there is money in selling copious amounts of popular crap you could get in hot dollar, you can just as much, even more in marketing to the wide publics taste for the underground.

Anderson, C. (2004). The Long Tail. Wired, 12.10 [URL: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html]