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Laptops More Popular Than Televisions?Monday, January 03, 2005Are people suddenly getting a lot more creative, or are television programs really that bad? One of the two hypotheses has to be correct, because the 2004 holiday season's consumer notebook sales pretty much slam-dunked TV sales -- for the first time -- and likely not the last. Not only did people spend more on technology this year, the tech products they bought had to meet these criteria: mobility, personalization, and the ability to "connect" with people -- and to other products. Doesn't it seem a little odd that we're paying a very pretty penny to be able to connect to another product? Sure, they don't call it "the information age" for nothing, but market stats and forecasts indicate that information-gathering and connecting isn't losing any juice. Remember when finally launching your own website (or several, depending on the talents and skills you were selling) was a big deal? Then blogs came along so we could showcase our skills (or our lives, like a daily downloadable soap opera, usually involving family members). And every serious techie knows that's just merely scratching the surface of the screen. Notebook electronics manufacturers know it, too, as do consumers, market analysts, retailers, and Alan Greenspan. If notebooks with all-purpose, built-in Wi-Fi capabilities are helping boost the economy, that's nothing to sneeze at. Wall Street is definitely humming a digitized tune. We're actually turning a good portion of the "entertainment industry" into our own hands -- literally. These light, easy-to-carry portable notebooks are fast-connecting, have personal video recording and remote control capabilities, and can be used as a vehicle to access any of the nearly 50,000 hotspots worldwide. We've become experts at entertaining ourselves, which is genuinely a very good sign: We're not depending on sources outside of ourselves to create action. We've become extremely active and in control of our approach to entertainment -- how many people do you know who enjoy confessing they're confirmed, passive TV couch potatoes? It's part of the natural order to want to seek out more information -- to learn more; to decipher; to invent; to make ourselves or the things around us better, whether appearance- or performance-wise. And it's certainly no question that speed is tantamount to nearly all else. TV commercials, for example, slow us down, take us out of the "zone" of whatever program the networks or cable companies are feeding us. Now, we can "feed" ourselves -- much faster, and with personalized quality and pizzazz. Or, maybe we should just all leave our homes, star in our own TV talk shows, and invite a stranger as our guest every weekday, at 5. Maybe. But our laptops are going along for the show. |
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