I love digital cameras. Because they enable you to reminisce immediately. Oh. Look at us. We were so young. Standing right there, wow. Where does the minute go?
-- Demetri Martin
According to somebody I'm related to in a Tweeterverse, Microsoft has come up with a new consumer product called Kin. It's a phone.
But of course it's more than that. It's a lifestyle phone. It's a way to communicate non-verbally (which is what's happening with phones as cameras). And the non-verbal lifestyle is an increasingly marketable business. It's social. It's a thing you gotta have.
I have an annoying itch, and that itch says who do they think we are? How long can this kind of market be sustained?
I went to Best Buy the other day. It has changed. All of the appliances that used to be on the side of the store have been pushed to the back. Their CD and DVD (and now Blu Ray) section has tripled in size. And I saw some working class folks poring over the iPad. I recall when the sociologists talked about cocooning, and I like the promise of mobile as a counter to that, but all this consumption of all this self-obsessed goo. Look at me, I'm happy. I'm taking a picture of myself happy.
Grumpy old man talk. I admit. But my real concern is how much of this is necessary, and how much of it will last? Is this fundamental or flippant? I don't know. I don't know what constitutes reasonable social skills. It's all a mysterious blur. But back when I was growing up, we used to say that love was free. Now apparently, you can't get to love without an IP connection.
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