kevlar's posterous

kevlar's posterous

Kevin Baird  //  

 
Aug 10 / 10:51am

Good & Evil

Shockingly, the following two specimens of contemporary filmmaking just appeared next to each other on my Facebook wall. The juxtaposition is physically painful. Prepare yourselves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-ZV-bwZmBw

 
Jul 8 / 1:53pm

The G+

"The Google+. A digital frontier. I tried to picture circles of friends as they moved through the network. What did they look like? Sims, avatars? Were the circles like Facebook's? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see. And then, one day... I got in."
 
Jun 29 / 8:16pm

Logitech's Marketing Mess

I took this photo in the Skype aisle at Staples. It shows a few of the headsets available for computers. They all pretty much look alike, they look like they're built equally well, and they list pretty much the same features on the packages. So what's the difference between them? Should I just assume that the quality improves with cost? The prices vary wildly. I scanned a few barcodes and found that online prices for any one of them vary by a factor of 6 or 8 — that is, one site listed the $53 headset for $7.  So, Logitech, what is someone supposed to do when there is nothing apparent on or in the package to distinguish them, and the pricing further confuses the decision? Just buy another brand? Plantronics isn't any better.

Marketing fragmentation is the term used to describe a tactic of flooding a store with perceived choices, when there really is no choice. In the case of Edge shaving gel, it doesn't matter. It comes in narrow little cans, so they really need 12 flavors just to get a visible presence on a store's shelf. It doesn't matter in their case because I doubt anyone wearing a blindfold could tell the difference between the "Sensitive Skin" and "Extra Protection" varieties. Besides, they're all the same price. I'm sure they work equally well. 

Is that the case with electronics such as these headsets? Should everyone just buy the cheapest one because it's no worse than one that costs 8X as much? 


Photo

 
Mar 6 / 6:47pm

Palm III vs. iPhone 4 packaging

I ran across this old box in the garage and was shocked at how big it is, considering what capabilities it contained. More like, I was amazed to think what an iPhone can do being in such a small package. What a difference a decade makes.

Photo

 
Jan 17 / 12:09am

Midtown Manhattan Apple Store

5-frame vertical panorama of the spiral staircase and elevator shaft at the flagship Apple store at 59th & Fifth Ave. Shot with 50mm on a Canon 5D. Stitched in PhotoStitch (Photoshop CS3).

0258 Apple Store Fifth Avenue Vertical Panorama