Introduction
What’s small, white, strung together and used as Christmas lights in China? Alright, maybe they don’t have Christmas lights in China, and maybe not all iPods are white, and maybe they aren’t easily strung together, and maybe that wasn’t even the best of analogies to imply how common iPods are right now, but that’s what I was going for at least. The point is that Apple is dominating the portable media player market with their line of iPods, and today we’ll be taking a look at the iPod nano to see if all the slick marketing campaigns are actually backed up by a quality product.
The nano is currently Apple’s mid-priced iPod solution, falling between the iPod shuffle on the low end, and the new iPod video on the high end. The nano integrates a color screen and the patented iPod control interface into a much smaller design than its bigger brother. Of course, you sacrifice the vastly superior storage capacity found in the full size iPod, going from either 30 or 60GB down to 1, 2, or 4GB of storage for the nano. The nano is for those of us that prefer a smaller, more convenient device and don’t require video playback or massive amounts of storage space.
First Impressions
Although the iPod accessories market is very robust (as anyone who has walked by the portable media section of a Best Buy can tell you), you won’t find much more than the essentials included with a nano right out of the box. Of course you’ll get your standard earbud headphones, a USB cable that serves as a charger and uplink cable to your Mac/PC, as well as a dock adapter for use with other iPod accessories (all of which are sold separately). You’ll also get a couple replacement foam earbud covers, and a little custom fitted cloth "pocket" to protect your nano from scratches and the like. (This is something Apple began including shortly after reports surfaced of people easily scratching the nano in their pocket. - Ed)
The disc includes Apple’s iTunes software, but since you’ll need to update to the latest version upon installation anyway, you might as well skip the CD and just download the current version directly from Apple’s site. When you first connect your iPod to your computer, you’ll also be prompted to update the software running on your iPod. The installation of iTunes, and the iPod software is all fairly straightforward although if you’re using a Windows PC you might run into a fairly common InstallShield error. I say "fairly common" because I experienced the problem - Apple has a page dedicated to the issue on their support site, and there’s even a website called "error1607.com" which references the InstallShield error code which is, if you can believe it, "1607." While it was pretty easy to find a solution to the problem on the Internet, it definitely ruined the whole "plug and play" experience I was hoping for from an Apple product. (I own an iPod nano as well and when installing iTunes on a few of my PCs, I never had this error. Maybe just the crappy PCs have this error? Hehe. - Ed)
http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/275/Apple+iPod+nano/
Monday, May 21, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Seeking Out "Next Practices," the Next Generation of Best Practices
Improve your recruiting by developing a process for identifying next-generation best practices
Many in HR proclaim a desire to be more strategic, yet most doom themselves by not acting any differently than everyone else. A clear indication of this can be seen in the speed by which documented best practices are mimicked and improved. Benchmarking has become a common practice in the profession of recruiting, which most organizations use to identify what must be done to emulate those who do something better. Unfortunately, most stop there with emulation, and that may doom them to mediocrity forever.
The business world once moved at a significantly slower pace, a pace that made benchmarking and emulating best practices prudent activities. However, things no longer move so slowly! By the time firms benchmark a best practice today, the situation that warranted the development or implementation of the best practice might have changed or may no longer be present. Instead of systematizing an effort to consistently follow the leader and mimic the soon-to-be-obsolete practices of others, I recommend adopting a proactive approach, one in which you develop your own "next generation" of best practices. I call these "next practices."
Next Practice Development Is More Common in Other Business Functions
Next practice development isn't about making something more efficient; instead, it is about a fundamental transformation of the core business activity. For example, Apple has long been a participant in the computer industry, in which the core best practices are predominately focused on refinement of manufacturing technologies that enable computers to do more. While Apple could have easily jumped on the performance bandwagon, it instead opted to develop next practices in the areas of product packaging and service.
With the introduction of the iMac, Apple demonstrated that computers don't have to be beige and gray boxes. With the introduction of the iPod and iMusic service, Apple demonstrated that product companies can develop sustainable long-term relationships with consumers. It abandoned efforts to compete on the nature of performance, long a computer-industry challenge, and reinvented the game with best practices that were unique to its business.
Next Practices Help You Create the Future
Best practices only allow you to do what you are currently doing a little better, while next practices increase your organization's capability to do things that it could never have done before. By jumping a level up to next practices, you're taking a giant step in that you are actually creating your future recruiting capabilities, rather than relying on the innovation of others.
Examples of Next Practices
If you are not sure of the distinction between best and next practices, here are some examples in several HR areas:
Practice Area: College Recruiting
* Average practice: Visit the top schools within your state.
* Best practice: Visit the top 10 schools in the U.S.
* Next practice: Recruit remotely (without having to visit) from the best schools around the world.
Practice Area: Next Job Hiring
* Average practice: Hire individuals who have the skills that are currently needed by "this manager."
* Best practice: Hire individuals who have the skills for both this and the next-level-up job (that the individual will likely be promoted to in the next few years).
* Next practice: Hire individuals who can do both this and the next job but also have the capabilities of reskilling rapidly into skill and competency areas that have yet to be identified.
Practice Area: Global Hiring
* Average practice: Hire the best from India and China, and bring them to America.
* Best practice: Hire the best in India and China and then move operations to India and China.
* Next practice: Find the very best performers in every individual country around the world and let them work remotely in their home countries.
Practice Area: Recruiting Metrics
* Average practice: Cost per hire.
* Best practice: Measure quality of hire through performance appraisal scores.
* Next practice: Calculate the actual dollar impact on business results of each key hire.
Practice Area: Corporate Website
* Average practice: Post information on it, like it was a paper bulletin board.
* Best practice: Also include "sales" elements like streaming video and individual employee profiles.
* Next practice: Provide the capability to morph or mass-customize the information provided to visitors, so that it provides the right tailored information for this individual candidate, based on the background and interest profile he or she provided.
Practice Area: Recruiting Focus and Prioritization
* Average practice: Recruiters respond to all jobs equally.
* Best practice: Prioritize requisitions based on the potential business impact of that position.
* Next practice: In addition, assign recruiters, recruiting budget, and the appropriate sourcing approach, based on the actual success rates of recent hires in this targeted position.
Practice Area: Candidate Assessment
* Average practice: Conduct behavioral interviews with all candidates.
* Best practice: Add an online test as the first screen.
* Next practice: Replace the test with an online video simulation developed for this job, which both excites and more effectively assesses the candidate's skills, weaknesses, and capabilities.
The Process for Identifying Next Practices
Predicting which HR practices will become obsolete and what will be needed to supplant them in the future is obviously more difficult than merely calling up a great company and asking it what it's doing now. However, the impacts are significantly greater on the business, so it's definitely worth the effort.
The first step is to do some reading in the area of business change so that you can learn how to identify precursors to change points. Unfortunately, there are but a few authors who talk about what in business is known as "inflection points," where everything in a particular product line or industry changes. Start by reading Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove and the current best-seller, The World is Flat. Then, start reading forecasting articles in publications like BusinessWeek, Fortune, The Economist, Business 2.0, Workforce Management, and the McKinsey Quarterly. Individuals who might help you identify upcoming inflection points include individuals in product development, R&D, and strategic planning.
After you identify these inflection points where business will change dramatically, the next step is to identify which practices in recruiting and HR will no longer support the direction of the company post-change.
It's important to remember there are almost always precursors or warning signs that alert you to upcoming inflection points. These precursors are alerts that recruiting and HR must prepare for change by beginning to develop the appropriate next practice so that HR is adapting its own next practices at the same time and speed as the rest of the business. For example, if product design implemented changes to dramatically reduce time-to-market so that products were introduced once a quarter rather than once a year, workforce allocation models would obviously need to change. Speed of hiring might need to increase to match the firm's increased speed of product development.
Other approaches you might consider include reading CEO speeches and articles written by key industry thought leaders who have a track record of forecasting inflection points. Look for individuals who think outside the box and are consistently unhappy with current approaches.
The next stage of the process involves setting aside some time to think about the future. This thinking can be stimulated with if–then and what–if exercises that focus on what might soon become obsolete. Part of the process should also be to develop rules that prohibit looking at solutions that can only help you improve by 5-10%. Next-practice thinking, in essence, demands that you reject all solutions that don't allow you to improve by a quantum amount of, say, 25%. This quantum improvement rate is the key differentiator between best practices and next practices. If you want to make a quantum jump in business or recruiting, you simply must have to have tools and strategies that allow you to make a 25-50% improvement, all within a relatively short period of time. If you are really bold, just assume that every process must improve by, say, 25% (at the same rate of change in your company's product line) each and every year.
You can also seek out any developing next practices by networking with only the top firms that have been in the forefront of developing previous next practices. Instead of asking about current best practices, ask them what practices they are considering or developing for the future. Of course, they will be reluctant to share future plans, so you'll need to have done your own thinking and propose a trade of your next practice for theirs. Incidentally, you can't do this with 99% of the firms in your industry because most firms have never developed a process to begin thinking about next practices.
The final step, if your budget allows, is to consult with out-of-the-box thought leaders to help validate your thinking. Efforts should be made to network with individuals who have demonstrated their ability to accurately predict inflection points and the related next practices in recruiting and HR. Thought leaders like Kevin Wheeler, Michael McNeal, Michael Homula, Dan Hilbert, and even myself come to mind. Sometimes, these individuals can shock your team into thinking ahead.
Conclusion
If you want to become a leader in developing next practices, the first thing you need is courage. Think of all the sea captains who told Columbus he was nuts about his next practice! It takes tremendous courage to constantly argue that your firm's best practices could ever become obsolete. Another wise move is to commit yourself to becoming an expert in business change, so that you can begin to identify the precursors to business change. Finally, develop a mindset that assumes that every major practice is holding back your firm and the recruiting function. However, if you are satisfied with a 3% rate of change, don't bother with next-practice thinking. It's only for those that want to be first every time and to win big! Any questions?
About Author
Dr. John Sullivan (JohnS@sfsu.edu) is a well-known thought leader in HR. He is a frequent speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley firms. Formerly the chief talent officer for Agilent Technologies (the 43,000-employee HP spin-off), he is now a professor of management at San Francisco State University. He was called the "Michael Jordan of Hiring" by Fast Company magazine. More recruiting articles by Dr. Sullivan can be found in the ER Daily archives. Information about his numerous other articles, books and manuals about recruiting and HR can be found at www.drjohnsullivan.com. Dr. Sullivan is also the editor of VP of HR, an e-newsletter providing "out of the box" solutions for senior HR managers. Free subscriptions can be obtained on his website.
Many in HR proclaim a desire to be more strategic, yet most doom themselves by not acting any differently than everyone else. A clear indication of this can be seen in the speed by which documented best practices are mimicked and improved. Benchmarking has become a common practice in the profession of recruiting, which most organizations use to identify what must be done to emulate those who do something better. Unfortunately, most stop there with emulation, and that may doom them to mediocrity forever.
The business world once moved at a significantly slower pace, a pace that made benchmarking and emulating best practices prudent activities. However, things no longer move so slowly! By the time firms benchmark a best practice today, the situation that warranted the development or implementation of the best practice might have changed or may no longer be present. Instead of systematizing an effort to consistently follow the leader and mimic the soon-to-be-obsolete practices of others, I recommend adopting a proactive approach, one in which you develop your own "next generation" of best practices. I call these "next practices."
Next Practice Development Is More Common in Other Business Functions
Next practice development isn't about making something more efficient; instead, it is about a fundamental transformation of the core business activity. For example, Apple has long been a participant in the computer industry, in which the core best practices are predominately focused on refinement of manufacturing technologies that enable computers to do more. While Apple could have easily jumped on the performance bandwagon, it instead opted to develop next practices in the areas of product packaging and service.
With the introduction of the iMac, Apple demonstrated that computers don't have to be beige and gray boxes. With the introduction of the iPod and iMusic service, Apple demonstrated that product companies can develop sustainable long-term relationships with consumers. It abandoned efforts to compete on the nature of performance, long a computer-industry challenge, and reinvented the game with best practices that were unique to its business.
Next Practices Help You Create the Future
Best practices only allow you to do what you are currently doing a little better, while next practices increase your organization's capability to do things that it could never have done before. By jumping a level up to next practices, you're taking a giant step in that you are actually creating your future recruiting capabilities, rather than relying on the innovation of others.
Examples of Next Practices
If you are not sure of the distinction between best and next practices, here are some examples in several HR areas:
Practice Area: College Recruiting
* Average practice: Visit the top schools within your state.
* Best practice: Visit the top 10 schools in the U.S.
* Next practice: Recruit remotely (without having to visit) from the best schools around the world.
Practice Area: Next Job Hiring
* Average practice: Hire individuals who have the skills that are currently needed by "this manager."
* Best practice: Hire individuals who have the skills for both this and the next-level-up job (that the individual will likely be promoted to in the next few years).
* Next practice: Hire individuals who can do both this and the next job but also have the capabilities of reskilling rapidly into skill and competency areas that have yet to be identified.
Practice Area: Global Hiring
* Average practice: Hire the best from India and China, and bring them to America.
* Best practice: Hire the best in India and China and then move operations to India and China.
* Next practice: Find the very best performers in every individual country around the world and let them work remotely in their home countries.
Practice Area: Recruiting Metrics
* Average practice: Cost per hire.
* Best practice: Measure quality of hire through performance appraisal scores.
* Next practice: Calculate the actual dollar impact on business results of each key hire.
Practice Area: Corporate Website
* Average practice: Post information on it, like it was a paper bulletin board.
* Best practice: Also include "sales" elements like streaming video and individual employee profiles.
* Next practice: Provide the capability to morph or mass-customize the information provided to visitors, so that it provides the right tailored information for this individual candidate, based on the background and interest profile he or she provided.
Practice Area: Recruiting Focus and Prioritization
* Average practice: Recruiters respond to all jobs equally.
* Best practice: Prioritize requisitions based on the potential business impact of that position.
* Next practice: In addition, assign recruiters, recruiting budget, and the appropriate sourcing approach, based on the actual success rates of recent hires in this targeted position.
Practice Area: Candidate Assessment
* Average practice: Conduct behavioral interviews with all candidates.
* Best practice: Add an online test as the first screen.
* Next practice: Replace the test with an online video simulation developed for this job, which both excites and more effectively assesses the candidate's skills, weaknesses, and capabilities.
The Process for Identifying Next Practices
Predicting which HR practices will become obsolete and what will be needed to supplant them in the future is obviously more difficult than merely calling up a great company and asking it what it's doing now. However, the impacts are significantly greater on the business, so it's definitely worth the effort.
The first step is to do some reading in the area of business change so that you can learn how to identify precursors to change points. Unfortunately, there are but a few authors who talk about what in business is known as "inflection points," where everything in a particular product line or industry changes. Start by reading Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove and the current best-seller, The World is Flat. Then, start reading forecasting articles in publications like BusinessWeek, Fortune, The Economist, Business 2.0, Workforce Management, and the McKinsey Quarterly. Individuals who might help you identify upcoming inflection points include individuals in product development, R&D, and strategic planning.
After you identify these inflection points where business will change dramatically, the next step is to identify which practices in recruiting and HR will no longer support the direction of the company post-change.
It's important to remember there are almost always precursors or warning signs that alert you to upcoming inflection points. These precursors are alerts that recruiting and HR must prepare for change by beginning to develop the appropriate next practice so that HR is adapting its own next practices at the same time and speed as the rest of the business. For example, if product design implemented changes to dramatically reduce time-to-market so that products were introduced once a quarter rather than once a year, workforce allocation models would obviously need to change. Speed of hiring might need to increase to match the firm's increased speed of product development.
Other approaches you might consider include reading CEO speeches and articles written by key industry thought leaders who have a track record of forecasting inflection points. Look for individuals who think outside the box and are consistently unhappy with current approaches.
The next stage of the process involves setting aside some time to think about the future. This thinking can be stimulated with if–then and what–if exercises that focus on what might soon become obsolete. Part of the process should also be to develop rules that prohibit looking at solutions that can only help you improve by 5-10%. Next-practice thinking, in essence, demands that you reject all solutions that don't allow you to improve by a quantum amount of, say, 25%. This quantum improvement rate is the key differentiator between best practices and next practices. If you want to make a quantum jump in business or recruiting, you simply must have to have tools and strategies that allow you to make a 25-50% improvement, all within a relatively short period of time. If you are really bold, just assume that every process must improve by, say, 25% (at the same rate of change in your company's product line) each and every year.
You can also seek out any developing next practices by networking with only the top firms that have been in the forefront of developing previous next practices. Instead of asking about current best practices, ask them what practices they are considering or developing for the future. Of course, they will be reluctant to share future plans, so you'll need to have done your own thinking and propose a trade of your next practice for theirs. Incidentally, you can't do this with 99% of the firms in your industry because most firms have never developed a process to begin thinking about next practices.
The final step, if your budget allows, is to consult with out-of-the-box thought leaders to help validate your thinking. Efforts should be made to network with individuals who have demonstrated their ability to accurately predict inflection points and the related next practices in recruiting and HR. Thought leaders like Kevin Wheeler, Michael McNeal, Michael Homula, Dan Hilbert, and even myself come to mind. Sometimes, these individuals can shock your team into thinking ahead.
Conclusion
If you want to become a leader in developing next practices, the first thing you need is courage. Think of all the sea captains who told Columbus he was nuts about his next practice! It takes tremendous courage to constantly argue that your firm's best practices could ever become obsolete. Another wise move is to commit yourself to becoming an expert in business change, so that you can begin to identify the precursors to business change. Finally, develop a mindset that assumes that every major practice is holding back your firm and the recruiting function. However, if you are satisfied with a 3% rate of change, don't bother with next-practice thinking. It's only for those that want to be first every time and to win big! Any questions?
About Author
Dr. John Sullivan (JohnS@sfsu.edu) is a well-known thought leader in HR. He is a frequent speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley firms. Formerly the chief talent officer for Agilent Technologies (the 43,000-employee HP spin-off), he is now a professor of management at San Francisco State University. He was called the "Michael Jordan of Hiring" by Fast Company magazine. More recruiting articles by Dr. Sullivan can be found in the ER Daily archives. Information about his numerous other articles, books and manuals about recruiting and HR can be found at www.drjohnsullivan.com. Dr. Sullivan is also the editor of VP of HR, an e-newsletter providing "out of the box" solutions for senior HR managers. Free subscriptions can be obtained on his website.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Analysts: iTunes Would Get Short End of Stick in Beatles Deal
Putting Beatles songs on iTunes may give music lovers a thrill, but it won't pay iTunes' bills. The profit margins for songs sold on the No. 1 online music download vendor are razor-thin, and Steve Jobs has openly said the service is mostly there to boost iPod sales. Still, having an iTunes outlet would probably be a boon to Beatles publisher Apple Corps as well as the band's fans.
Reduce Datacenter TCO
Complimentary Whitepaper: Enabling Technology by Blade I/O Virtualization, reveals smart TCO solutions for daunting server-complexity problems. Learn more.
Despite signs that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple may land a historic deal with the Beatles to make the band's entire catalog of music available on its iTunes store, analysts say that such a move would be a "non-event" in terms of the company's profits.
Rumors of such a deal have been circulating for years. Speculation grew to a feverish pitch Friday when ex-Beatle Paul McCartney told Billboard magazine that an agreement with iTunes is "virtually settled."
Currently, none of the digital-music merchants has rights to sell Beatles tunes online.
Rocky History
Apple's iTunes is by far the largest player in the sector, but the company was hampered by a long-running trademark dispute with the band's music-publishing arm, which is named Apple Corps.
The two sides reached a settlement in February, which many expected to pave the way for an eventual deal to sell Beatles songs.
Still, this won't do much to boost profits at Apple and other online sellers, analysts said Friday.
At 99 US cents a song, it is believed by most that Apple simply breaks even on song sales Free White Paper - What Retailers Should Know about M-Commerce.
Paltry Profit
Though the company does not disclose its actual profitability on music sales, chief executive Steve Jobs has said publicly that there is little in the way of profits in sales of music. He added that he started iTunes as a way to help boost sales of the company's popular iPod music player.
"Having the Beatles on iTunes is fabulous, but it's a non- event," according to W.R. Hambrecht & Co. analyst Matthew Kather, who has a buy rating on Apple.
"It's not a needle mover," agreed Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, who also has a buy rating on Apple.
Wu and others believe that to significantly boost any music seller's bottom line, it would take a jump in online sales, and such a spike is unlikely to come from the sudden availability of the Beatles.
Settlements Here, There and Everywhere
Still, the development is sure to be a boon for music aficionados and for Apple Corps, the company that manages the Beatles' commercial interests, Wu said.
Apple Corps and EMI Group, which holds the rights to the band's recordings, in April said that they had settled a longstanding dispute over royalties paving the way for the band to release its back catalog through digital-music retail platforms.
A recent agreement between Apple and EMI to make EMI's artists available over iTunes without copyright-protection software, albeit at a higher price point, also has raised expectations that a deal will soon be reached to allow the Beatles' material to be sold digitally.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/GIeqhpDPkfPcMK/Analysts-iTunes-Would-Get-Short-End-of-Stick-in-Beatles-Deal.xhtml
Reduce Datacenter TCO
Complimentary Whitepaper: Enabling Technology by Blade I/O Virtualization, reveals smart TCO solutions for daunting server-complexity problems. Learn more.
Despite signs that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple may land a historic deal with the Beatles to make the band's entire catalog of music available on its iTunes store, analysts say that such a move would be a "non-event" in terms of the company's profits.
Rumors of such a deal have been circulating for years. Speculation grew to a feverish pitch Friday when ex-Beatle Paul McCartney told Billboard magazine that an agreement with iTunes is "virtually settled."
Currently, none of the digital-music merchants has rights to sell Beatles tunes online.
Rocky History
Apple's iTunes is by far the largest player in the sector, but the company was hampered by a long-running trademark dispute with the band's music-publishing arm, which is named Apple Corps.
The two sides reached a settlement in February, which many expected to pave the way for an eventual deal to sell Beatles songs.
Still, this won't do much to boost profits at Apple and other online sellers, analysts said Friday.
At 99 US cents a song, it is believed by most that Apple simply breaks even on song sales Free White Paper - What Retailers Should Know about M-Commerce.
Paltry Profit
Though the company does not disclose its actual profitability on music sales, chief executive Steve Jobs has said publicly that there is little in the way of profits in sales of music. He added that he started iTunes as a way to help boost sales of the company's popular iPod music player.
"Having the Beatles on iTunes is fabulous, but it's a non- event," according to W.R. Hambrecht & Co. analyst Matthew Kather, who has a buy rating on Apple.
"It's not a needle mover," agreed Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, who also has a buy rating on Apple.
Wu and others believe that to significantly boost any music seller's bottom line, it would take a jump in online sales, and such a spike is unlikely to come from the sudden availability of the Beatles.
Settlements Here, There and Everywhere
Still, the development is sure to be a boon for music aficionados and for Apple Corps, the company that manages the Beatles' commercial interests, Wu said.
Apple Corps and EMI Group, which holds the rights to the band's recordings, in April said that they had settled a longstanding dispute over royalties paving the way for the band to release its back catalog through digital-music retail platforms.
A recent agreement between Apple and EMI to make EMI's artists available over iTunes without copyright-protection software, albeit at a higher price point, also has raised expectations that a deal will soon be reached to allow the Beatles' material to be sold digitally.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/GIeqhpDPkfPcMK/Analysts-iTunes-Would-Get-Short-End-of-Stick-in-Beatles-Deal.xhtml
The iPod: Almost the Best Thing Since the Printing Press
You have a massive library of music, easily organized into whatever categories you want -- country, classical, what have you -- and no shrieking ads. All in a tiny removable box that never breaks. Maybe it's not quite up there with the invention of printing, but I claim it's close.
How to Choose the Right Payroll Firm
Get a free overview on the most important factors in choosing an outsourced payroll firm. Receive free quotes from pre-qualified Payroll Service firms. Learn more.
Today, thoughts on advertising Email Marketing Software - Free Demo and why the iPod constitutes a blow for culture, sanity and civilization.
Two types of advertising exist. One is demure, courteous and unaggressive. Newspaper ads are examples. I open the paper to read about some massacre or other, and an ad for a new camera is on the right half of the page. It tells me that the thing has 50 giga-pixels, great lenses, records movies and makes coffee -- in general, why it's a splendid camera and I should buy it.
Fine. If I want a camera, the ad is useful. Otherwise I can ignore it.
Variety of Ads
Also in the civilized category are the computer-generated ads from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google you see at the bottom or sides of many Web sites. These are technically slick.
The software analyzes the page and tries to offer ads that would interest the viewer. However, the ads don't do anything obnoxious. They just sit there.
The other kind of advertising, as for example on television, is force-fed, intrusive, unpleasant and usually electronic. These pitches are calculatedly loud, jump around a lot and never stop. Most people hate them (most people I know, anyway). The infrared remote Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. control with its mute button was some help, but a nuisance. Then came set-top boxes with hard drives that let people record shows and eliminate the commercials.
The advertisers went crazy, of course, because they make their money by forcing people to watch annoying ads.
Pesky Pop-Ups
In the same class are pop-up and pop-under ads on the Web that you have to close before you read the page.
Pop-up blockers work pretty well to eliminate these, but once again we have the technological race between advertisers and those who want to protect themselves from ads. Now the Web suffers ads that move to obscure the page you are reading until you do something about them, or they finally disappear.
Radio is no better. Until recently, the only way to escape the unending yammer of advertising on a car radio was to play CDs instead. The problem was the nuisance of changing the CD, possibly causing a five-car wreck as you fiddled with the thing. Six-disc changers appeared in cars. Better, but not perfect.
But now -- aha! I recently bought an 8 GB iPod nano, from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple.
Music Free of Ads
For readers who are not teenagers, this is a gadget smaller than a Heath bar that holds music -- lots of music. The cute thing about the nano is that it is solid-state, without moving parts. You can get iPods and iPod clones with much greater capacity, but they use small hard drives. Things that move eventually fail.
Just now, I have 1,506 "songs" -- some are full symphonies -- amounting to four full days of music on my nano, and I've only used almost 6 of 8 gigabytes. Technology being what it is, in short order there will be iPod nanos with 16 and then 32 GB. At that point almost all of us will be able to carry in a shirt pocket all the music we ever actually listen to.
It's easy to use. Apple clearly thought a bunch about the design.
In the Car
Today, you can buy car adaptors for iPods. They are outrageously expensive (US$450 I have seen) since they can't consist of much more that a wire ("line out") and a tiny power supply. Presumably that will change.
Bingo. You have a massive library of music, easily organized into whatever categories you want -- country, classical, what have you -- and no shrieking ads. All in a tiny removable box that never breaks.
Maybe it's not quite up there with the invention of printing, but I claim it's close.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/PgJdrD002RrsAt/The-iPod-Almost-the-Best-Thing-Since-the-Printing-Press.xhtml
How to Choose the Right Payroll Firm
Get a free overview on the most important factors in choosing an outsourced payroll firm. Receive free quotes from pre-qualified Payroll Service firms. Learn more.
Today, thoughts on advertising Email Marketing Software - Free Demo and why the iPod constitutes a blow for culture, sanity and civilization.
Two types of advertising exist. One is demure, courteous and unaggressive. Newspaper ads are examples. I open the paper to read about some massacre or other, and an ad for a new camera is on the right half of the page. It tells me that the thing has 50 giga-pixels, great lenses, records movies and makes coffee -- in general, why it's a splendid camera and I should buy it.
Fine. If I want a camera, the ad is useful. Otherwise I can ignore it.
Variety of Ads
Also in the civilized category are the computer-generated ads from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google you see at the bottom or sides of many Web sites. These are technically slick.
The software analyzes the page and tries to offer ads that would interest the viewer. However, the ads don't do anything obnoxious. They just sit there.
The other kind of advertising, as for example on television, is force-fed, intrusive, unpleasant and usually electronic. These pitches are calculatedly loud, jump around a lot and never stop. Most people hate them (most people I know, anyway). The infrared remote Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. control with its mute button was some help, but a nuisance. Then came set-top boxes with hard drives that let people record shows and eliminate the commercials.
The advertisers went crazy, of course, because they make their money by forcing people to watch annoying ads.
Pesky Pop-Ups
In the same class are pop-up and pop-under ads on the Web that you have to close before you read the page.
Pop-up blockers work pretty well to eliminate these, but once again we have the technological race between advertisers and those who want to protect themselves from ads. Now the Web suffers ads that move to obscure the page you are reading until you do something about them, or they finally disappear.
Radio is no better. Until recently, the only way to escape the unending yammer of advertising on a car radio was to play CDs instead. The problem was the nuisance of changing the CD, possibly causing a five-car wreck as you fiddled with the thing. Six-disc changers appeared in cars. Better, but not perfect.
But now -- aha! I recently bought an 8 GB iPod nano, from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple.
Music Free of Ads
For readers who are not teenagers, this is a gadget smaller than a Heath bar that holds music -- lots of music. The cute thing about the nano is that it is solid-state, without moving parts. You can get iPods and iPod clones with much greater capacity, but they use small hard drives. Things that move eventually fail.
Just now, I have 1,506 "songs" -- some are full symphonies -- amounting to four full days of music on my nano, and I've only used almost 6 of 8 gigabytes. Technology being what it is, in short order there will be iPod nanos with 16 and then 32 GB. At that point almost all of us will be able to carry in a shirt pocket all the music we ever actually listen to.
It's easy to use. Apple clearly thought a bunch about the design.
In the Car
Today, you can buy car adaptors for iPods. They are outrageously expensive (US$450 I have seen) since they can't consist of much more that a wire ("line out") and a tiny power supply. Presumably that will change.
Bingo. You have a massive library of music, easily organized into whatever categories you want -- country, classical, what have you -- and no shrieking ads. All in a tiny removable box that never breaks.
Maybe it's not quite up there with the invention of printing, but I claim it's close.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/PgJdrD002RrsAt/The-iPod-Almost-the-Best-Thing-Since-the-Printing-Press.xhtml
It's On: Zune vs. iPod/iTunes
As a defensive shot, Apple's event wasn't particularly strong in my view. That means that if Microsoft had done its homework it would have had an opportunity to do to Apple what it did to Sony with the Xbox. It didn't.
Reduce Datacenter TCO
Complimentary Whitepaper: Enabling Technology by Blade I/O Virtualization, reveals smart TCO solutions for daunting server-complexity problems. Learn more.
Last week we saw the two big guys go at it: First Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple showed off product updates for the iPod and iTunes, and then Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft had the coming-out party for Zune -- its so-called iPod killer.
I'd like to talk about all this first and end up discussing products I think do the best job in the media space today to point out some non-Apple examples of excellence. Hopefully this will prove that others can build products that are as good or better than Apple's.
Apple Shoots First
Apple's announcement was underwhelming when taken against the expectations set for that company. What was anticipated was a new iPod with a larger screen more appropriate for video content, an iTunes modification which would do for movies what the original iTunes did for music and a living room media player done right. Many expected an Apple cell phone in addition to all this.
What Apple announced, however, was a slightly modified iPod for movies that offers better resolution, better capacity and slightly longer battery life. While the firm has made some impressive iTunes improvements, with regard to movies, Apple's only got Disney (NYSE: DIS) so far. Granted, Disney is the first studio I'd pick, but this fell well short of the initial iTunes effort. Apple did announce what could be the best home media center on the market this holiday season -- the only problem is that it won't show up until after the season is over. The firm did not unveil any cell phone, but I expect if it does, it will be tied to a completely different event.
On the Defense
Apple is adding new colors to the iPod line and has a cool, new iPod shuffle. Neither of these announcements had been expected. Colors, however, have historically been a problem in that the ones people want tend to sell out and then there is an overstock of colors folks don't like. The technology to do custom colors in stores has been around for well over a year, but no one in this segment, not even Apple, has yet figured out how to offer that yet.
The new shuffle is the most impressive new Apple product that will ship this year. Unfortunately, however, the shuffle doesn't do movies and Apple set expectations solidly tied to movies for this event. Still, it is an impressive little player even if it still follows the Apple M.O. of not including a radio or replaceable battery.
So as a defensive shot, Apple's event wasn't particularly strong in my view. That means that if Microsoft had done its homework it would have had an opportunity to do to Apple what it did to Sony (NYSE: SNE) Latest News about Sony with the Xbox Latest News about Xbox 360. It didn't.
Microsoft's Zune Response
Let's start with Zune's hardware, because that's where the buyer starts. While Apple has the most complete line of players of any vendor, Microsoft launched with one player in three colors: white, black and brown. I'm not a big fan of brown, but each of the devices do look better in reality than they do in pictures.
As for movies, which clearly would have been a good attack vector given Apple's focus and disappointing miss, all Microsoft needed to do was offer a big screen and at least two studios. Microsoft had the big screen but they had zero studios, in fact they have no TV or movies at all at this point.
Now, to be fair, the jury is out on using these small digital media devices for video. Some think it will work, and even Steve Jobs has been outspoken in saying he doesn't think video is smart -- though he made those comments before Apple had video capability. However, the idea of offering a hardware device that seems designed to do movies but does not actually do movies, seems like the quick path to low sales Free White Paper - What Retailers Should Know about M-Commerce, particularly since we know that the fastest growing non-Apple player is the SanDisk Sensa, a small player focused on music. Meanwhile, the Zune player is oversized, all because of a screen you don't need just to play music. The device is built with video in mind.
On the positive side, the Zune is a robust, almost hardened device and should look nearly as good on year three as it does on day one. It may have better battery life -- though it's hard to tell because the screen appears to pull more power, and, particularly under flat rate pricing, it provides a more complete music experience. It has accessories that allow it to move easily from (big) pocket to living room to car and appears to have a lower build cost which should result in a lower purchase price. Apple's accessories are vastly more diverse and complete, of course, but the iPods have also been in the market a lot longer.
Missed Opportunities
In addition, there is a lot going on behind the scenes with Zune that could allow it to stand out. Zune may offer fans better connections with musicians through a MySpace-like social networking service, and it also offers users the ability to share files with other Zune users via a unique wireless connection, and a very high-quality, iTunes-like experience. It also has a radio. I can't see why anyone would create a digital music player without a radio when we live in a world where gyms are equipped with TVs broadcasting audio on FM and when we have such a need to have access to real-time info about weather, natural disasters and terrorist alerts.
We know, however, that people don't buy Apple's iPods to get iTunes. Rather, they get iTunes as a result of buying what continues to be a very nice looking family of devices and continue to favor appearance over features across a broad segment. Just look at the success of the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Latest News about Motorola RAZR. It is a marginal phone but its stunning looks drive it to the top of that market.
It is interesting to note that while Apple will miss the fourth quarter with its living room media player, Microsoft's Vista-based Media Center misses this quarter as well and doesn't appear to take Zune into account at all. Frankly, the Apple product line appears to be much closer to what the market actually wants.
Finally, Zune has created a problem with Microsoft's other high-profile music effort "Plays for Sure." I interviewed one partner who had been set to launch a "Plays for Sure" offering this week who said that now, thanks to Zune, "Plays for Sure" support is on indefinite hold.
So who won last week's early battle? Apple did -- and it didn't even seem to be trying too hard.
Examples of Non-Apple Excellence
I believe that it is possible to build excellent products in the digital media space -- and not be Apple. Here are three products that stand out.
Sonos: If there is a company that seems to really get music, industrial design and user experience at all once it is Sonos. I met with reps from this company to talk about its latest software update which allows users to bypass the PC entirely and use the Rhapsody service for music. Previously you could use to a storage Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. device in your home directly but you had to set it all up on the PC first. Having to have a PC on all the time to service home media devices just seems wrong-headed to me. Apple's original peer to peer model failed in the face of client/server technology in business, so it seems strange that folks who should have learned that lesson would need to relearn it. Sonos seems to just get this right.
Kaleidescape: If you want to see what an amazing Media Center looks like look at Kaleidescape. Granted, even the inexpensive version of the product costs nearly US$10,000 and the full featured products cost more than twice that, but this is the best product for home movies on the market -- and at that price it sure better be. If you want to know what some of the folks who build Media Center PCs use in their own homes this is it. This is the only major system that allows you to rip DVDs into it and visually manage the result. You can also easily script the entire movie experience, from previews to ads for sodas and popcorn. These folks didn't use Windows Windows hosting solutions with 24x7x365 support – Visit HostMySite.com, Linux or the Mac operating system -- they wrote their own OS. If someone can figure out how to do something like Kaleidescape affordably they could own the home multimedia space.
High Tech Computer: Finally, HTC just released the stunning new Cingular Latest News about Cingular 3125 phone using Microsoft's Mobile platform on the Cingular network. At $149 with a two-year commitment, this thing has lust written all over it. I've carried it for awhile and everyone I've shown it to wants it. It showcases that some folks using Microsoft technology understand that design, too, is important.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/rsstory/53035.html
Reduce Datacenter TCO
Complimentary Whitepaper: Enabling Technology by Blade I/O Virtualization, reveals smart TCO solutions for daunting server-complexity problems. Learn more.
Last week we saw the two big guys go at it: First Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple showed off product updates for the iPod and iTunes, and then Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft had the coming-out party for Zune -- its so-called iPod killer.
I'd like to talk about all this first and end up discussing products I think do the best job in the media space today to point out some non-Apple examples of excellence. Hopefully this will prove that others can build products that are as good or better than Apple's.
Apple Shoots First
Apple's announcement was underwhelming when taken against the expectations set for that company. What was anticipated was a new iPod with a larger screen more appropriate for video content, an iTunes modification which would do for movies what the original iTunes did for music and a living room media player done right. Many expected an Apple cell phone in addition to all this.
What Apple announced, however, was a slightly modified iPod for movies that offers better resolution, better capacity and slightly longer battery life. While the firm has made some impressive iTunes improvements, with regard to movies, Apple's only got Disney (NYSE: DIS) so far. Granted, Disney is the first studio I'd pick, but this fell well short of the initial iTunes effort. Apple did announce what could be the best home media center on the market this holiday season -- the only problem is that it won't show up until after the season is over. The firm did not unveil any cell phone, but I expect if it does, it will be tied to a completely different event.
On the Defense
Apple is adding new colors to the iPod line and has a cool, new iPod shuffle. Neither of these announcements had been expected. Colors, however, have historically been a problem in that the ones people want tend to sell out and then there is an overstock of colors folks don't like. The technology to do custom colors in stores has been around for well over a year, but no one in this segment, not even Apple, has yet figured out how to offer that yet.
The new shuffle is the most impressive new Apple product that will ship this year. Unfortunately, however, the shuffle doesn't do movies and Apple set expectations solidly tied to movies for this event. Still, it is an impressive little player even if it still follows the Apple M.O. of not including a radio or replaceable battery.
So as a defensive shot, Apple's event wasn't particularly strong in my view. That means that if Microsoft had done its homework it would have had an opportunity to do to Apple what it did to Sony (NYSE: SNE) Latest News about Sony with the Xbox Latest News about Xbox 360. It didn't.
Microsoft's Zune Response
Let's start with Zune's hardware, because that's where the buyer starts. While Apple has the most complete line of players of any vendor, Microsoft launched with one player in three colors: white, black and brown. I'm not a big fan of brown, but each of the devices do look better in reality than they do in pictures.
As for movies, which clearly would have been a good attack vector given Apple's focus and disappointing miss, all Microsoft needed to do was offer a big screen and at least two studios. Microsoft had the big screen but they had zero studios, in fact they have no TV or movies at all at this point.
Now, to be fair, the jury is out on using these small digital media devices for video. Some think it will work, and even Steve Jobs has been outspoken in saying he doesn't think video is smart -- though he made those comments before Apple had video capability. However, the idea of offering a hardware device that seems designed to do movies but does not actually do movies, seems like the quick path to low sales Free White Paper - What Retailers Should Know about M-Commerce, particularly since we know that the fastest growing non-Apple player is the SanDisk Sensa, a small player focused on music. Meanwhile, the Zune player is oversized, all because of a screen you don't need just to play music. The device is built with video in mind.
On the positive side, the Zune is a robust, almost hardened device and should look nearly as good on year three as it does on day one. It may have better battery life -- though it's hard to tell because the screen appears to pull more power, and, particularly under flat rate pricing, it provides a more complete music experience. It has accessories that allow it to move easily from (big) pocket to living room to car and appears to have a lower build cost which should result in a lower purchase price. Apple's accessories are vastly more diverse and complete, of course, but the iPods have also been in the market a lot longer.
Missed Opportunities
In addition, there is a lot going on behind the scenes with Zune that could allow it to stand out. Zune may offer fans better connections with musicians through a MySpace-like social networking service, and it also offers users the ability to share files with other Zune users via a unique wireless connection, and a very high-quality, iTunes-like experience. It also has a radio. I can't see why anyone would create a digital music player without a radio when we live in a world where gyms are equipped with TVs broadcasting audio on FM and when we have such a need to have access to real-time info about weather, natural disasters and terrorist alerts.
We know, however, that people don't buy Apple's iPods to get iTunes. Rather, they get iTunes as a result of buying what continues to be a very nice looking family of devices and continue to favor appearance over features across a broad segment. Just look at the success of the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Latest News about Motorola RAZR. It is a marginal phone but its stunning looks drive it to the top of that market.
It is interesting to note that while Apple will miss the fourth quarter with its living room media player, Microsoft's Vista-based Media Center misses this quarter as well and doesn't appear to take Zune into account at all. Frankly, the Apple product line appears to be much closer to what the market actually wants.
Finally, Zune has created a problem with Microsoft's other high-profile music effort "Plays for Sure." I interviewed one partner who had been set to launch a "Plays for Sure" offering this week who said that now, thanks to Zune, "Plays for Sure" support is on indefinite hold.
So who won last week's early battle? Apple did -- and it didn't even seem to be trying too hard.
Examples of Non-Apple Excellence
I believe that it is possible to build excellent products in the digital media space -- and not be Apple. Here are three products that stand out.
Sonos: If there is a company that seems to really get music, industrial design and user experience at all once it is Sonos. I met with reps from this company to talk about its latest software update which allows users to bypass the PC entirely and use the Rhapsody service for music. Previously you could use to a storage Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. device in your home directly but you had to set it all up on the PC first. Having to have a PC on all the time to service home media devices just seems wrong-headed to me. Apple's original peer to peer model failed in the face of client/server technology in business, so it seems strange that folks who should have learned that lesson would need to relearn it. Sonos seems to just get this right.
Kaleidescape: If you want to see what an amazing Media Center looks like look at Kaleidescape. Granted, even the inexpensive version of the product costs nearly US$10,000 and the full featured products cost more than twice that, but this is the best product for home movies on the market -- and at that price it sure better be. If you want to know what some of the folks who build Media Center PCs use in their own homes this is it. This is the only major system that allows you to rip DVDs into it and visually manage the result. You can also easily script the entire movie experience, from previews to ads for sodas and popcorn. These folks didn't use Windows Windows hosting solutions with 24x7x365 support – Visit HostMySite.com, Linux or the Mac operating system -- they wrote their own OS. If someone can figure out how to do something like Kaleidescape affordably they could own the home multimedia space.
High Tech Computer: Finally, HTC just released the stunning new Cingular Latest News about Cingular 3125 phone using Microsoft's Mobile platform on the Cingular network. At $149 with a two-year commitment, this thing has lust written all over it. I've carried it for awhile and everyone I've shown it to wants it. It showcases that some folks using Microsoft technology understand that design, too, is important.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/rsstory/53035.html
Study: iPod owners still want FM radio
I'm a fan of the iPod, and judging by the sales numbers, many other people are fans as well. I'm particularly excited about the rumors of upcoming flash-based video iPods, touchscreen capability, and of course wireless. The iPod is getting all sorts of new capabilities, but the ability to receive FM radio is curiously, and my opinion, inexcusably absent.
I'm apparently not the only one who thinks so, either. A recent survey conducted by Jacobs Media, asked 25,000 listeners of 69 rock radio stations what new features they'd like to see out of the next version of the iPod. 43 percent of current iPod owners and 33 percent of general MP3 player owners said that they would like their devices to have FM radio capabilities. 20 percent also wanted more storage, and there were requests for larger screens.
Jacobs Media suggests that the market for MP3 players is growing, and that saturation among the respondents is only 47 percent. Finally, among the rock listeners, 57 percent used an iPod, so maybe those multicolored commercials of people rocking out could really happen.
The demand for FM radio may be somewhat expected, given that the survey was given to radio listeners. But the survey does suggest to Apple and other manufacturers that they should pause for a moment before packing their devices full of features. Exciting features are all well and good, but make sure the basic features are there first.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/04/03/study-ipod-owners-still-want-fm-radio
I'm apparently not the only one who thinks so, either. A recent survey conducted by Jacobs Media, asked 25,000 listeners of 69 rock radio stations what new features they'd like to see out of the next version of the iPod. 43 percent of current iPod owners and 33 percent of general MP3 player owners said that they would like their devices to have FM radio capabilities. 20 percent also wanted more storage, and there were requests for larger screens.
Jacobs Media suggests that the market for MP3 players is growing, and that saturation among the respondents is only 47 percent. Finally, among the rock listeners, 57 percent used an iPod, so maybe those multicolored commercials of people rocking out could really happen.
The demand for FM radio may be somewhat expected, given that the survey was given to radio listeners. But the survey does suggest to Apple and other manufacturers that they should pause for a moment before packing their devices full of features. Exciting features are all well and good, but make sure the basic features are there first.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/04/03/study-ipod-owners-still-want-fm-radio
Anti-iPod Article sent in by 'Nukey'
I know that this may well be quite a long story, but I will go through the ins and outs as to why I disagree with iPods, the iPod culture and disgusting advertising techniques by the Apple Corporation.
This is not my first message on here [anti-ipod.co.uk], I have left plenty over the times. But I really need to express my opinion here because I feel the iPod situation is getting out of hand in a very serious way.
Firstly, before I go into full details, I would like to say that all you current iPod owners, you have your own opinions and I respect that. I am not ranting on at the people who own iPods, just the products themselves.
It all started on October the 23rd, 2001. On the main release of the world's very first iPod creation, the population only started to draw little attention to the product. At this time the mobile media market was starting to rise, with companies providing brands before and after the creation. This was a big birth for the digital media player market, and this would set to revolutionise the music industry forever. But things didn't go as planned in the end.
Apple's iPod was meant to be the perfect combination between the Apple Mac and the portable device. This would pair nicely with the two, and promoted the Apple Macintosh machines themselves, because they were seeing a very steady decline within the computing market.
Now, everywhere you go, you can't seem to escape the product. On every train you travel on, in every city centre you walk through, and the people you know, you will always find these players being used. This is not a bad thing in general; modern technology growth is always good in a society of change.
But this can depend on tactics and how they are undertaken to bring this digital player to people.
There are plenty of things that need to be covered, including advertising, the price of the products, the specifications of the products and how they can benefit the customer for what they pay for.
Marketing is a very big thing where the Apple Corporation is concerned. They rely on 90% of sales to be generated through advertising, just like many other companies, such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's. There are set procedures that need to be adhered to to be able to bring the message across, in a non-invasive way. Television advertising is a small output for iPod revenue, because most of iPod's products are advertised in press, on billboards and word-of-mouth by review magazines and the media in general.
If you are travelling throughout the major cities (In the United Kingdom mostly), you will pass buss shelters and billboards advertising the iPod brand. The iPod brand is like many other brands that offer a trend, (eg. Adidas or Nike).
The marketing is very well laid with iPod, but there are many factors that are bad on the company.
For example, they use subliminal messaging within television advertisements. Adverts for all sorts of products can offer images and clips of iPods, just to make the company look better than it is, because of an overflow of fashion and high-end company "street cred". One example was a car advertisement, I can't remember the make of the car, but there were a shot within the first 10 second sequence which gave a close-up of a person using an iPod. But the burning question is... What does this have to do with cars?
It's all advertising. This is why you never see much direct television advertising. It's because they reflect the advertising in other ways, by incorporating them into advertisements for things that are totally different.
You would be surprised that details this small can influence you to do something totally different.
Because of iPod's brand, they charge a lot of money for the advertising, incorporated within the other brands. This is a partnership with the company; however the company makes revenue, the happier they become overall.
But this isn't all of it. Just like the cinema factor, About 10 years ago cinemas would incorporate subliminal messaging on behalf of major companies within movies, to persuade you to buy their products. For example, an advertisement still for Pepsi could flash up, it's only 2 frames long, not enough to see but enough to pick up. The next thing you know, you are craving it.
I will lead on to the craving situation of the iPods in a moment.
There's no getting away that iPod's advertising is very clever, sneaky and pursuasive. But the incorporation and integration to other advertisements irrelevant to the product itself is not a good thing. They are just jumping on the bandwagon to use their company to promote Apple's products, while in turn taking money form the advertising departments of the Major companies just for showing the product in the first place.
The popularity of the iPod is constantly increasing, and the sales of these devices are increasing daily. They are becoming a household name within the music industry, a well recognised name which advertises it self.
It is a very bad thing that the iPod culture is blowing other devices out of the water, just for the brand and fashion reasons. It's not at all fair on the other companies that are ploughing millions, if not more, into research into their different brands. The other companies are supporting people by making everyone different and unique, as to keep your general personality different from everyone else. This is good because being unique is a good thing. But Apple are going against this, branding everyone the same, and forcing everyone to be the same and have the same products as well as buy their equipment and make themselves more money.
The Apple Company are targeting it's customers. I know for a fact, working for a major company as a customer care advisor, a company that sells iPods, that iPod's customer service is absolutely dreadful. I have to speak to them on a regular basis and I get nowhere. As I'm having trouble, it must be a lot worse for the customer, should they need help and have the only option to take it on their own back.
With iPod everyone is branded the same. Every single iPod product on the market that requires earphones always has white ones, and there's no variety for the customer. The earphones are the same make, colour and specification, although can be changed at their own will. Most manufacturers (Eg. Sony), offer a wide variety of earphones for bundling with portable players. Apple doesn't offer this, it's a way of saying "...If you change your earphones, YOU pay, because you're not using our ones".
This is why people just stick to the ones they have got. They use the issue I have just mentioned to you as a cover up for legal reasons, I shall explain in a minute. Everyone's earphones are the same because they see every customer as an advertising post which is very unfair on the customer. If you are wearing the white fashionable earphones then people will know its iPod straight away, and can persuade people to buy one. I know it seems a little far fetched, but you'll see what I mean when the rapid growth of these devices increase substantially.
Where the legal side is concerned, they were told to advise the customers to change the earphones to prevent fraud. They did as such, but in a way to keep the customer with the ones that they have already. This was just to cover their backs really. This is purely because if they get stolen they will have to buy another one, which means more business for them. The more addicted they can get their customers, the more they buy, the higher chance of having their iPods stolen and the more likely that they will buy a replacement which equals more money to them.
Battery life used to be a serious problem with the first generation units. They would die on a regular basis leaving people without entertainment. Replacing the battery would cost a lot of money, and in some cases, it would just be cheaper to buy a new one than have the battery repaired.
When looking at the functions of an iPod and what it holds, you really don't seem to get much for your money. The display is very basic, the standard iPods are just black and white, and the way menus are laid out, along with functions and connectivity are quite frankly, poor.
I feel very sorry for those who own iPods, because they've been roped into this underground world of deceit.
You must always remember, there are better players out there on the market. I am not telling you to just throw your iPod in the bin; you just need to think about what I said. Don't be a sheep, be a leader. You are your own person, there's plenty more out there, it's just a case of finding the right one.
Anyway I'm sorry it's been long, but just bear this in mind. It's never good to be too fashionable, being unique is fashion in itself.
http://www.anti-ipod.co.uk/articles.php?subaction=showfull&id=1173748929&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&
This is not my first message on here [anti-ipod.co.uk], I have left plenty over the times. But I really need to express my opinion here because I feel the iPod situation is getting out of hand in a very serious way.
Firstly, before I go into full details, I would like to say that all you current iPod owners, you have your own opinions and I respect that. I am not ranting on at the people who own iPods, just the products themselves.
It all started on October the 23rd, 2001. On the main release of the world's very first iPod creation, the population only started to draw little attention to the product. At this time the mobile media market was starting to rise, with companies providing brands before and after the creation. This was a big birth for the digital media player market, and this would set to revolutionise the music industry forever. But things didn't go as planned in the end.
Apple's iPod was meant to be the perfect combination between the Apple Mac and the portable device. This would pair nicely with the two, and promoted the Apple Macintosh machines themselves, because they were seeing a very steady decline within the computing market.
Now, everywhere you go, you can't seem to escape the product. On every train you travel on, in every city centre you walk through, and the people you know, you will always find these players being used. This is not a bad thing in general; modern technology growth is always good in a society of change.
But this can depend on tactics and how they are undertaken to bring this digital player to people.
There are plenty of things that need to be covered, including advertising, the price of the products, the specifications of the products and how they can benefit the customer for what they pay for.
Marketing is a very big thing where the Apple Corporation is concerned. They rely on 90% of sales to be generated through advertising, just like many other companies, such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's. There are set procedures that need to be adhered to to be able to bring the message across, in a non-invasive way. Television advertising is a small output for iPod revenue, because most of iPod's products are advertised in press, on billboards and word-of-mouth by review magazines and the media in general.
If you are travelling throughout the major cities (In the United Kingdom mostly), you will pass buss shelters and billboards advertising the iPod brand. The iPod brand is like many other brands that offer a trend, (eg. Adidas or Nike).
The marketing is very well laid with iPod, but there are many factors that are bad on the company.
For example, they use subliminal messaging within television advertisements. Adverts for all sorts of products can offer images and clips of iPods, just to make the company look better than it is, because of an overflow of fashion and high-end company "street cred". One example was a car advertisement, I can't remember the make of the car, but there were a shot within the first 10 second sequence which gave a close-up of a person using an iPod. But the burning question is... What does this have to do with cars?
It's all advertising. This is why you never see much direct television advertising. It's because they reflect the advertising in other ways, by incorporating them into advertisements for things that are totally different.
You would be surprised that details this small can influence you to do something totally different.
Because of iPod's brand, they charge a lot of money for the advertising, incorporated within the other brands. This is a partnership with the company; however the company makes revenue, the happier they become overall.
But this isn't all of it. Just like the cinema factor, About 10 years ago cinemas would incorporate subliminal messaging on behalf of major companies within movies, to persuade you to buy their products. For example, an advertisement still for Pepsi could flash up, it's only 2 frames long, not enough to see but enough to pick up. The next thing you know, you are craving it.
I will lead on to the craving situation of the iPods in a moment.
There's no getting away that iPod's advertising is very clever, sneaky and pursuasive. But the incorporation and integration to other advertisements irrelevant to the product itself is not a good thing. They are just jumping on the bandwagon to use their company to promote Apple's products, while in turn taking money form the advertising departments of the Major companies just for showing the product in the first place.
The popularity of the iPod is constantly increasing, and the sales of these devices are increasing daily. They are becoming a household name within the music industry, a well recognised name which advertises it self.
It is a very bad thing that the iPod culture is blowing other devices out of the water, just for the brand and fashion reasons. It's not at all fair on the other companies that are ploughing millions, if not more, into research into their different brands. The other companies are supporting people by making everyone different and unique, as to keep your general personality different from everyone else. This is good because being unique is a good thing. But Apple are going against this, branding everyone the same, and forcing everyone to be the same and have the same products as well as buy their equipment and make themselves more money.
The Apple Company are targeting it's customers. I know for a fact, working for a major company as a customer care advisor, a company that sells iPods, that iPod's customer service is absolutely dreadful. I have to speak to them on a regular basis and I get nowhere. As I'm having trouble, it must be a lot worse for the customer, should they need help and have the only option to take it on their own back.
With iPod everyone is branded the same. Every single iPod product on the market that requires earphones always has white ones, and there's no variety for the customer. The earphones are the same make, colour and specification, although can be changed at their own will. Most manufacturers (Eg. Sony), offer a wide variety of earphones for bundling with portable players. Apple doesn't offer this, it's a way of saying "...If you change your earphones, YOU pay, because you're not using our ones".
This is why people just stick to the ones they have got. They use the issue I have just mentioned to you as a cover up for legal reasons, I shall explain in a minute. Everyone's earphones are the same because they see every customer as an advertising post which is very unfair on the customer. If you are wearing the white fashionable earphones then people will know its iPod straight away, and can persuade people to buy one. I know it seems a little far fetched, but you'll see what I mean when the rapid growth of these devices increase substantially.
Where the legal side is concerned, they were told to advise the customers to change the earphones to prevent fraud. They did as such, but in a way to keep the customer with the ones that they have already. This was just to cover their backs really. This is purely because if they get stolen they will have to buy another one, which means more business for them. The more addicted they can get their customers, the more they buy, the higher chance of having their iPods stolen and the more likely that they will buy a replacement which equals more money to them.
Battery life used to be a serious problem with the first generation units. They would die on a regular basis leaving people without entertainment. Replacing the battery would cost a lot of money, and in some cases, it would just be cheaper to buy a new one than have the battery repaired.
When looking at the functions of an iPod and what it holds, you really don't seem to get much for your money. The display is very basic, the standard iPods are just black and white, and the way menus are laid out, along with functions and connectivity are quite frankly, poor.
I feel very sorry for those who own iPods, because they've been roped into this underground world of deceit.
You must always remember, there are better players out there on the market. I am not telling you to just throw your iPod in the bin; you just need to think about what I said. Don't be a sheep, be a leader. You are your own person, there's plenty more out there, it's just a case of finding the right one.
Anyway I'm sorry it's been long, but just bear this in mind. It's never good to be too fashionable, being unique is fashion in itself.
http://www.anti-ipod.co.uk/articles.php?subaction=showfull&id=1173748929&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)