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Wednesday, May 29, 2002 |
Tailoring Cellphones for Teenagers
"The companies have their sights set on young people for good reason: since only 38 percent of American teenagers have cellphones, the market has plenty of room for growth....
There are three basic concerns: what the phones look like, what they do and what they cost. But design issues are often more nuanced, because for teenagers, more than for most adults, a cellphone is not just a means of communication. It is an accessory, a fashion statement, an instant messenger, a toy, a social prop. It is a symbol of independence second only to the car, many teenagers say, and an extension of their personality. [Jenny says, "Right, Clare?!"]
'Individuality is really important with phones,' said Kyle Fox, 17, a high school student who was chatting with friends outside a Seattle mall. 'I don't want the same phone as everyone else....'
Wildseed is planning to customize its phones around popular fashion themes. The phones will have 'smart skins' — replaceable taco-shell-shaped faceplates with computer chips that allow teenagers to change functions as well as the phone's appearance. There are graffiti-splattered faceplates for skateboarders, for example, that come with edgy urban ringer tones and gritty icons. (The phones are expected to be introduced later this year by different carriers, among them, Leap Wireless, a company that has focused on marketing to teenagers.)
Wildseed says its research shows that for teenagers, a desirable cellphone is not about smaller, lighter, sleeker. What teenagers say they want from a cellphone ranges from the concrete (music, messaging and games) to the abstract (style, personality and individuality)....
Equipped with video cameras, computers and questionnaires, sociologists and marketers are trying to figure out how teenagers live and how cellphones fit into that life.
What do they talk about in their instant messages? How do they listen to music? What kind of emoticons do they use? How do girls with long fingernails dial on their cellphones? Do teenagers sleep with their phones?
Wildseed has boiled down teenage existence into a Venn diagram with three circles: entertainment, relationships and fashion. Eric Engstrom, the company's chief executive, pointed to where the three circles overlap. 'Any product that can position itself here will be successful with teens,' he said. 'That's where cellphones have to be....' [Jenny says: "Record companies offering legitimate, fee-based MP3 downloads should be there, but refuse to put themselves there."]
Responding to the desire of teenagers to be seen (and not just heard) on their cellphones, Wildseed has designed its phone to be a showpiece with buttons that flash in time with the music on a built-in radio. This becomes a visual way for teenagers to demonstrate to others that they are engaged....
A cellphone that used Morse code messaging, for example, drew blank stares from teenagers. But another feature, 'airtexting,' drew enthusiastic endorsements. To airtext, teenagers can type a text phrase like 'call me' into their phone and wave it back and forth in the air. As the phone moves, a row of blinking red lights on one end leaves the phrase trailing behind it. Some teenagers said that the airtext feature would be great to use in nightclubs. 'That's tight,' was one girl's endorsement....
'Teens see cellphone technology as empowering,' said Nalini P. Kotamraju, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California at Berkeley who has done research at the University of Surrey in England comparing cellphone use by American and European teenagers. 'But in the U.S. in order for teenagers to get cellphones, they need to have a parent sign a one-year contract. There is nothing empowering about that.' " [NY Times: Technology]
Remember Aura from a few days ago? He's not even a Net Gen, but he wants the cell phone covers, ring tones, screen savers, etc.
Somewhere in my office I have a print article from some time around 2000 in which the "cellular industry" is said to be targeting their ads to kids ages 10 and younger because they already knew this would be their first major mass market in the future. I can't believe it's taken them this long to start putting out phones that appeal to teens rather than businessmen.
And that whole contract thing has got to go. Stop fighting the legislation to let customers keep their phone numbers when they switch carriers (known as "mobile number portability"), and start offering services the Net Gens want. Us Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers will follow pretty quickly. Call me shallow (I don't care) because I want a fun, flashy phone, too, and I'm not alone given the reactions I get during my presentations when I talk about cellular services in other countries. Another untapped market in the U.S.
9:54:47 PM Permanent link here
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Libraries Threaten Paid Online News Archives
"Now, why would any sane citizen of Boulder spend $1.95 for one archived article on TheDailyCamera.com when the same thing could be found -- just as easily -- via the Boulder Public Library's Web site? Why would someone who needs to pull multiple articles from the newspaper database pay so much money when the alternative is free? Only because said citizen doesn't yet know that there's a free option.
Explains Gary Price, author, consultant, and library sciences expert, 'What just about everyone has apparently not realized is that many public libraries offer free, full-text access to thousands of newspapers, magazines, etc. ... What's new is that they offer these services for free and without having to go to the library building. In many cases, people are paying for content (at newspaper sites) that they could already be getting for free. Heck, it's their tax dollars paying for it....'
Given the marketing inexperience and lack of funding at public libraries, perhaps the public won't find out what a good deal they offer. Perhaps the people in your city will continue to pay inflated per-article download fees at newspaper Web sites because they will forever remain clueless that they don't have to pay.
You know, I don't think that's going to happen. In time people will figure this out, and paid Web newspaper archives are going to be in trouble -- forced to convert to a free model in order to compete....
If you take the library 'threat' seriously, perhaps the answer is offering free access to your news archives. (Or at the least, require user registration for access.) There are examples of free-access article archives among newspapers, such as the San Francisco Chronicle and St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, but they are the minority in the newspaper industry." [Editor and Publisher, via Library Stuff]
David at TeleRead responds:
"Via a mix of private philanthropy and long-range public funding, a TeleRead-style national digital library system could pay for old articles in way that respected freedom of the press. We're not talking necessarily about a Pentagon-sized budget here. If nothing else, keep in mind that newspapers are not making that much from accesses to old articles. And yet, from a civic perspective, what could be more important? Some of the most enthusiastic users of archives are local citizens researching issues relating to the environment, zoning, courts or schools. This is much of what the First Amendment is all about, the use of media as empowerment tools for individuals in a democracy. Unfortunately, however, even at just $3 a pop, articles are not always affordable for massive research by ordinary citizens, as opposed to special interest groups.
Think of another benefit, too, from a TeleRead approach. If access is free or truly low cost, then newspaper research could be a core part of civics classes. Imagine the marketing benefits to the news organizations. And in case anyone is curious, no, I don't think that the library or school versions of newspapers should be stripped of advertising. It's there in the paper versions, after all....
Related issues still arise. TeleRead is hardly going to save the newspaper business. It just will have to save itself. One way could be truly microscopic coverage of neighborhoods, perhaps through little email newsletters and wide use of paid stringers. More mulitmedia also would help, as would new services such as branded databases to help local businesses market themselves (services that perhaps could be perks for advertisers and help justify rates). And on the savings side, here is some outrageous heresy in the wake of the dotcom crashes: what about junking the big presses? We're talking long term of course. But as e-readers grow cheaper and simpler to use, especially with wireless and e-ink, will the younger generation really care about pulped wood as much as their elders? I myself am a babyboomer and yet don't subscribe to the paper New York Times. I read it via my cable modem. When decent portable and wireless displays arrive, I may also give up my subscription to the Washington Post.
Bottom line? If the Post and the rest want to survive, they should forget about making massive sums through archives and instead think of new ways of growing revenue and reducing costs....
Like book and magazine publishers, the newspaper business must stop dreading the library model and understand that the press actually could fare better under it."
The only idea I would add to this debate is to take David's speculation one step further and predict that news aggregators will be the way the next generation of newspaper readers get their news. In a high-speed, always-on, ubiquitous computing, wireless world, it's a natural.
Okay, a second idea I want to interject into the debate is that libraries and newspaper publishers could easily work together to provide better service to residents. Librarians can provide further resources for newspaper stories, they can partner to sponsor events, they can engage readers in debates on important issues, they can work to create special archives for important area events, newspaper sites can use the local library's online "ask a librarian" service to connect readers with information, and more. There's a lot of potential here, but no one seems to be connecting the dots.
9:13:28 PM Permanent link here
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Blogonomics: Making a Living from Blogging
"Well, if we assume that each blogger reads an average of 15 blogs, and that (since we are not yet clones) each blogger reads five blogs that are not on everyone else’s hit parade, we can bet that no matter how big the blogosphere grows a) there will be plenty of eyeballs to go around and b) we will all be within a few clicks of any pertinent piece of news and c) valuable information should quickly and efficiently percolate to any reader who might want it. Think capillary action, the magic that defies gravity to suck water molecules to the top of a redwood.
Sure, opinion pages, online diaries, Christmas newsletters, commonplace books and blogs are old news. What is new is the blogosphere, the endless and (physically) effortless networking of conversations. This is the exponential leap. We’ve had the leaves; now we have the twigs, branches and trees that can connect us all together into a real-time forest of minds. The blogosphere is a social fractal, a network that scales up and down with equal facility.
As an information processor, the blogosphere superfluizes old media’s expensive and carefully constructed infrastructures and franchises.
Suddenly, Vivendi, AOL-Time Warner, EMAP and Newscorp are factories whose economies of scale are swamped by infinity, networks that have come unplugged, refrigerator salesmen trudging into the next ice age....
Next month, Pressflex will begin public testing of Blogads, a service to help individual bloggers sell and display classified ads.
Each blogger will set his own prices and approve his own ads. Each ad may include graphics and can link to outside sites or to a larger ad. We will host the service and take a small fee on each ad sale." [PressFlex.com, via Daypop Top 40]
Except that most bloggers read far more than just 15 blogs. I'm up to about 150 sites in my aggregator, and Phil's clocking me at 400. The blogosphere grows because we can shift web sites into our aggregators, rather than trying to manually visit 150 individual URLs every day. I think it would be interesting to survey how many sites the average blogger reads on a daily basis, and then track the numbers to see if they increase as news aggregators move into being second generation products.
As for Blogads, publishers and (ahem) record companies are natural fits because folks that like a band or book enough to highlight it on their site might be willing to put up an ad for it, too. Synergy if done right. It's the same kind of targeted advertising that television broadcasters need to begin adapting to in order to start working with - not against - digital video recorder (DVR) users.
I love the image of BigCos as "refrigerator salesmen trudging into the next ice age." A perfect description of the entertainment industry at this particular moment in time.
Addendum: I couldn't resist, so here's a survey to start the ball rolling. If you're a blogger, please fill out this survey asking how many sites you track daily. I'll run it indefinitely, reset it once in a while, and post the results every so often.
8:54:43 PM Permanent link here
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Eminem #1 After One Offical Day of Sales
"It took Eminem only a few days to do what took P. Diddy a whole week to accomplish.
Not only will the Detroit rapper's The Eminem Show bump P. Diddy and Bad Boy Records' We Invented the Remix from the #1 position on next week's Billboard albums chart after having been "officially" on sale for only one day, it will take the top slot with a higher first-week total by more than 30,000." [MTV, via mp3 is NOT a crime.org]
7:51:23 PM Permanent link here
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"Andrew Raff, the primary author of eMarketer's PDA Report is willing to share an 8 page summary of his report if you email him at araff@emarketer.com. For a summary and more information on the report, go to http://www.emarketer.com/ereports/pda_market/welcome.html.
' eMarketer's PDA Market Report reviews the current status of the worldwide PDA/handheld computer market - from the perspective of data-centric devices - and analyzes the trends that are shaping its future growth. The report reviews enterprise and consumer adoption and is an ideal resource for technology vendors, industry analysts, enterprise buyers and anyone who is marketing to or for the industry.'
Thanks, Andrew!" [The Handheld Librarian]
posted by Lori Bell | 2:40 PM [The Handheld Librarian]
5:02:40 PM Permanent link here
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Jews in Spaaaaace! - Religious Observance Above the Earth
" 'When the Space Shuttle Columbia blasts off in July, Colonel Ilan Ramon will be the first Israeli to lift off into space,' tralala writes. 'Although not the first Jewish astronaut, he is the first to request how, technically, should he observe the Sabbath in space. The Sabbath for the earth bound is celebrated every seventh day starting Friday at sunset. With the shuttle orbiting the earth every ninety minutes, Col. Ramon wondered if he would have to observe the Sabbath every 10 and a half hours. He turned to the Rabbis for advice...What makes sense to you in terms of an appropriate observance?' " [Plastic]
4:05:27 PM Permanent link here
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Faces from the Ice Age
"What could be the oldest lifelike drawings of human faces have been uncovered in a cave in southern France. The images were first recognised over 50 years ago, but were then lost after doubts were cast on their authenticity. Now, one German scientist, Dr Michael Rappenglueck, of Munich University, says it is time the pictures were reassessed.
And there could be other surprises awaiting archaeologists, he believes, when they look not at the walls of prehistoric painted caves, but at the floor....
These images of 'real people' - male and female faces, people in robes, hats and boots - may date back 15,000 years. This was long before the rise of the great civilisations and a time when Europe was firmly in the grip of an Ice Age....
...it has sometimes been asked why the animals painted on the walls of such caves are so much more lifelike than the human forms depicted with them.
Could it be because the more sophisticated human pictures were placed on the floor, asks Dr Rappenglueck?
If so, such treasures on the floors of other prehistoric caves may have been accidentally destroyed....
'On the floors of one cave I noticed a series of pits arranged in the shape of the Pleiades (also known as the Seven Sisters) star cluster,' he said.
Drawings of the Pleiades have been found by Dr. Rappenglueck on the walls of many Neolithic caves in several parts of Europe, but until now no cosmic marks had been found on cave floors.
He speculates that the small holes could have been filled with animal fat and set alight mimicking the flickering stars in the sky.
'Perhaps this is the origin of the candlelit festivals of the Far East where lighted candles are held in the shape of the Pleiades. Perhaps it is a tradition that stretches back tens of thousands of years into our Stone Age past.' " [BBC News Sci/Tech]
8:48:36 AM Permanent link here
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New Eminem Walks Right Out of Stores
"For the last three weekends not a night has gone by without at least a few cars cruising down Los Angeles's main drag, Sunset Strip, blasting 'The Eminem Show.' This album, the latest from the fast-rhyming, ire-raising rapper Eminem, briefly became the equivalent of bass-enhanced car stereos and custom rims: a showboating way to call attention to a car. This is because these drivers were blasting early pirated copies of the album, which was scheduled to be released next week.
So many copies of the album have been taken off the Internet and sold as bootlegs that Eminem's label, Interscope/Universal, made the rare decision to release the album early. First, it was pushed up to today, then the album was put on sale Sunday, wreaking havoc with the marketing campaign. Despite these problems, it is expected to be one of the best-selling albums of the year." [NY Times quote at LawMeme]
Ernest has a good roundup of articles on this story. It will be interesting to watch the numbers on Eminem's album come out. If the numbers are at all low, watch for the music industry to claim piracy, when in fact it might just be that folks are tiring of Eminem. I also think the now prevalent "singles over albums" mentality will play a part in all of this as well. Who really wants to pay for the bad tracks on his albums anymore?
Either way, the record label has no one to blame but themselves since the tracks were available before the general populace even had access to pirate them. Those original songs are from folks on the inside. Funny how you don't hear them calling for new legislation against their own industry insiders.
7:19:22 AM Permanent link here
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Want to Sell Used CD or DVD? You May Need Identification
"Chicago retailers who buy and sell used CDs and DVDs would be treated like pawnshop owners--required to demand photo IDs and keep meticulous records of each transaction--under a crackdown launched by a City Council committee Tuesday to keep pace with the hot commodity for thieves.
In the Belmont police district, Northwest Siders have reported more than 8,000 CDs and 475 DVDs stolen since Jan. 1, District Cmdr. Francis Kehoe said. Another 600 CDs and 20 DVDs were added to that total over Memorial Day weekend, Kehoe said.
More than 80 percent of all burglaries and thefts reported in the Northwest Side district involve CDs and DVDs, which are 'virtually untraceable' and can quickly be churned into cash, Kehoe said....
In October 1999, a rash of residential burglaries involving golf clubs, in-line skates and bicycles prompted a crackdown on used sporting goods stores. Like pawnshops, they were required to get two pieces of ID from the seller, one with a photo. If the seller didn't have a photo ID, the shop was required to take a Polaroid. The merchant also was required to keep a log of items purchased...." [Chicago Sun-Times]
At this rate, they're going to keep better track of CDs than of guns. Is this really legal? Don't we have existing laws against theft that deal with these types of situations?
7:06:30 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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