GQ released its hot cover featuring Channing Tatum and it’s spreading like wildfire all over the Internet. What’s also getting a ton of buzz? The…
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BusinessWeek Sale: McGraw-Hill May Give Away For $1
July 14th, 2009 |
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McGraw-Hill might reap only a nominal $1 by selling Business Week, according to people familiar with the 80-year-old financial magazine’s record of losses
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Teen spirit
July 14th, 2009 |
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A report by a 15-year-old work experience student at an investment banking firm, about teenagers and the media, says young people don’t listen to the radio, go to the cinema or use Twitter. But are there other teenage habits that might come as a surprise
When Matthew Robson, on work experience from his London school at US bank Morgan Stanley, was asked to describe his friends’ media habits, he had little idea the impact his answers would have.
His report has been the talk of web bosses and media analysts, and even caused a ripple at a conference in Idaho, US, attended by some of the world’s leading figures in new media.
Although some of his findings were predictable – it was already well known that teenagers don’t like to pay for music – he also said that teenagers find it hard to make time for television, don’t like Twitter or traditional radio, and rarely go to the cinema.
But beyond the world of new media, what else do teenagers do Thirteen-year-old Scott Campbell, who lives in Aberdeenshire, gives his view.
ENVIRONMENT
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of teens are not particularly worried about the environment. There is a small minority of youngsters who are active in attempting to help the environment, but with homework, school, friendships and often a job, teens often do not have time to help the environment. Teens may also see that the gradually-worsening environment can have benefits (global warming brings warmer weather) at this current time, but often do not consider the future risks of not attempting to save it.
NEWSPAPERS
Teenagers have never been avid newspaper buyers. Today’s young teens think the act of parting with up to £1 for the very same words that can been read absolutely free on a newspaper website, borders on the perverse. Why pay for something that’s free And the "old media" is not as interesting to teens as it used to be, as it is often late with coverage of important events. For example, the death of Michael Jackson was on the web within minutes, whereas it was only in the newspapers the next morning. This does not mean there is a lack of teen intellect, it instead means that the majority of teenagers are utilising the new forms of media. Teens will often read free papers such as the Metro, which also include celebrity gossip and shocking stories and are more interesting than stories about the economy or swine flu.
VIDEO NEWS
A large percentage of teens prefer to get their news from popular YouTube stars, such as Philip DeFranco (general, odd news) and Michael Buckley (entertainment news), as it is presented in a more human, conversational format. YouTube is incredibly interactive; comments can be left and the presenter can be messaged; teens do not like a one-way conduit of information. It also takes out the inconvenience of having to trawl through news sources to try and find interesting stories, as news sources are often "polluted" with uninteresting news, for example, about the credit crunch or the expenses scandal. Human interest stories which either humiliate the subject or are particularly unusual are mostly preferred.
COMPUTER GAMES
While adults may think that computer games turn teens into gangsters, murderers and thugs (in a werewolf-like transformation), they do not. Teens play games to take on the role of the character that they are playing, and to try out the situations virtually. While games may provide the player to carry out acts which would be considered to be crimes, most games still provide the player with consequences to their actions, such as being arrested, and having weapons confiscated (in game, of course). The gamer will often begin to think morally about the situations when they take on the mantle of a particular character. Furthermore, many games present teens with a positive influence, such as Guitar Hero, which I don’t doubt has encouraged many teenagers to take up the guitar.
LAZINESS
The wide belief that teenagers are "lazy" and like to sleep in is not true. A large number of teens play sport, which regularly requires very early mornings. As well as this, most teenagers have to wake up earlier than the average adult worker to get to school on time. Also, a large amount of homework is set by multiple subject teachers, meaning that teens will have to stay up extra late to accommodate the extra tasks. Over the week (and at weekends if sport is involved) a large lack of sleep will make most people want to have a long lie.
Scott Campbell co-edits his own news website,Net News Dailyand wroteGiving up my iPod for a Walkman for the Magazine.
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Way with words
July 14th, 2009 |
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By Denise Winterman
BBC News Magazine
A brilliant speech can go down in history. But most of us write words the world will never listen to. Can speech-writing teach us skills for dealing with everyday life
Pants. Just one of the reasons the US Embassy in Britain is currently advertising for a speech-writer. It says knowledge of the nuances between the Queen’s English and American English is vital, for obvious reasons.
However speech-writing is about much more than trying to avoid red faces. As far back as the ancient Greeks, the power of carefully crafted words has been fully understood and expertly exploited.
OBAMA’S TECHNIQUES- Three-part lists
- Imagery
- Anecdotes
- Alliteration
<a href=”Obama’s victory speech
But rather than being all about creative flair a good speech-writer uses a number of techniques to get a point across. And these verbal tools are not only useful at the lectern, anyone can use them in everyday situations, from handling a boisterous child to reasoning with a traffic warden.
This is because speech-writing is the language of persuasion. And the average day largely consists of trying to persuade people, says Dr Max Atkinson, a communications consultant and author of Speech-Making and Presentation Made Easy.
"The way words are put together makes all the difference," he says. "It’s often thought that great speakers are blessed with a gift, but they all use the same techniques. What makes people stand out is how often they use them.
"These techniques are the building blocks of effective speech-writing and can be used in other areas of life. Some people use them without even knowing. They are usually the best speakers and the most persuasive people, but anyone can learn them."
Mantra
Study great speeches and you will soon see a formula, agrees Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College London. While some are more complex, others are relatively simple.
What makes the techniques adaptable to everyday life is the fact that language is governed by rules – rules we all learn from the time we begin to peak.
"Even the smallest child is learning the rules of language, and language acquisition and so these techniques can be applied to them," says Dr Atkinson.
"Research has shown that you can get a different reaction from a child depending on how you speak to them. Like everyone else, they respond to the way something is said."
In a nutshell, a great speech is communication at its most effective, and we all want to communicate effectively in whatever situation we find ourselves in, says professional speech-writer Lawrence Bernstein.
"The rules and techniques of good communication work on all levels – if you’re on a stage speaking to thousands of people, asking your boss for a pay rise, trying to buy a new house, or teaching a class of 10 year olds."
So what are the best techniques
CONTRASTS
A tactic used by John F Kennedy and by Margaret Thatcher.
People are still quoting JFK’s line: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." And Baroness Thatcher was at her most formidable when she famously told the 1980 Tory party conference: "You turn if you want to, this lady’s not for turning."
"Using contrasts is a real winner," says Dr Atkinson. "Research shows 33% of the applause a good speech gets is when a contrast is used.
"This is because you are often using a negative and then a positive and that has impact. It makes your point bigger and better."
It’s a technique that translates into everyday life, especially with children. While explaining they can’t have one thing, it’s good to point out what they can have instead. "No, you can’t have a skateboard of your own, but you can have a go on your brother’s."
THREE-PART LISTS
Three really is the magic number. "Education, education, education" – Tony Blair’s 1997 election-winning mantra. Or it can be a list as simple as "here, there and everywhere".
It’s a technique used by US President Barack Obama – he used 29 three-part lists in roughly 10 minutes during his victory speech on election night, says Dr Atkinson.
The theory behind the technique is that three is the first and earliest point at which a possible list of similar words can become unequivocal. No other word needs to be added to make it a list.
"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen"
Power of three in the Lord’s Prayer
"It’s about completeness. A third word can give confirmation and completes a point," says Dr Atkinson. "It applies in all walks of life. Church services and prayer books are full of three-part lists. Research has shown that people know a prayer is finished when it ends with them praying for three things. They know to say ‘Amen’ and don’t have to be prompted."
Also, it is economical – a third word is the earliest point at which a possible connection, implied by the first two, is confirmed. If you carry on listing items, say speech-writing experts, you risk being criticised for "going on and on". It can be the same in life in general.
IMAGERY AND ANECDOTES
Be it "opening doors" or "breaking down barriers", paint a carefully constructed picture with your words.
"It’s about taking people on a journey and making it memorable," says Prof Furnham. "Imagery and anecdotes are some of the best ways to do this and they can personalise things."
Again, it’s President Obama who experts say is a master of this technique.
"He knows how to use imagery both to increase impact and to make his points. He paints an image but also evokes associations with great communicators of the past like Lincoln and King," says Dr Atkinson.
This technique works whether addressing a nation, or guests at a wedding, say experts.
BREAK THE RULES
A good speech-writer knows the rules to follow, and also how to break these to maximum effect. There is always room for the unexpected in a great speech, and in life, says Phil Collins, former speech-writer for Tony Blair.
If done well it can grab people’s attention – and he should know. Mr Collins penned Mr Blair’s joke about there being no danger of his wife "running off with the bloke next door".
It was one of the former prime minister’s most unexpected and memorable lines, delivered in his last speech to a Labour conference in 2006. It was deftly done and showed a real understanding of Blair and Gordon Brown’s prickly relationship.
"No one was expecting it, which is what made it so good and so memorable," he says. "Pitched right and delivered well, something unexpected will make people sit up and listen."
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Perfect contrast from President Kennedy for this week that we celebrate 40 years since humans launched to the moon: "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
John F, Congleton, UK
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Baby Whitney Port Newsweek Cover
July 13th, 2009 |
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Before she walked alongside the likes of Diane von Furstenberg or rode shotgun as Lauren Conrad’s bestie on MTV’s The Hills, burgeoning fashionista Whitney Port graced the cover of Newsweek — in diapers!
In an entry on her Official Blog Monday, The City star shared her magazine cover debut with fans, writing:
“So what do you guys [...]
Sporting dilemma
July 13th, 2009 |
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By Jo-Anne Rowney
BBC News Magazine
The Australians have criticised the England cricket team for unsporting delaying tactics on the last day of the first Ashes test. But what’s the difference between cunning gamesmanship and cheating
In the closing minutes of the test, England sent "12th man" Bilal Shafayat on to the pitch to give batsman James Anderson new gloves, with the team physio also sauntering on.
Australian Captain Ricky Ponting and a number of pundits have been critical, but sport has always been rife with time-wasting techniques and attempts to unsettle the opponent.
TIME WASTING
There are occasions, when competitors are ahead and they just need the whistle to go. Footballers have regularly kept the ball in an opposition corner to delay the game. It’s within the rules, but it often angers opposition and fans.
Time wasting is also common in the ring. Sometimes fighters are hurt and just need to eat up the time left in the round so they can get back to their corner and recuperate. The shouts of "box, box" are often heard as boxers cling to each other – drawing out a round and minimising opportunities to hit.
As well as genuine efforts to use up time, sometimes delaying tactics are a psychological weapon.
TIME WASTING AS PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTACK
You’ve had a ball called out – you know it was definitely in. You’re a set down and just dropped a service game. You’re in trouble, big trouble. But how can you turn this around
It’s time for a toilet break.
"Skill in winning games, esp. by means that barely qualify as legitimate"
OED definition of ‘gamesmanship’
It’s a thought that’s run through many tennis players minds. Not only does it allow you time to think in the comfort of the toilet, but also puts your opponent off the boil. It leaves the adversary stiffening up, their temper fraying.
Jimmy Connors stands accused of beginning the leak legacy. In his match against Ivan Lendl in the 1983 US Open final, Connors suddenly sprinted off the court – leaving Lendl in the 100 degree heat for several minutes. Lendl protested, but Connors went on to win the match.
"Our attention wanders all of the time, taking our focus off a task," says Dr Richard Cox, consultant to the British Institute of Sports. "Any delaying technique is used to deflect attention. This is even easier to do in a sporting event. It may be a temporary break, but that’s enough."
Also in the tennis arena, some of Greg Rusedski’s mannerisms raised an occasional eyebrow. One quirk was the wrapping of the grip. Carefully wrapping the handle’s grip back into place he could easily waste a few seconds. Then he might retie his shoelaces.
Rusedski was also noticeable for the frequency with which he towelled off between points.
"He is getting the opponent’s attention," says Dr Cox. "Their mind can be shifted at any one moment, as we only ever focus on one thing, he’s making sure that’s not the game.
"If you were to freeze your brain you’d see we have one focus at any given moment, whether an image or sound, or a comment."
And of course, whatever the actions until there’s a way to read a sportsman’s mind no-one can prove that Connors’s toilet visit and Rusedski’s towelling weren’t entirely innocent.
DIRECT DISTRACTION
There are the direct attempts to put the opposition off. Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar is infamous for his wobbly knees during the 1984 European cup final penalty shoot-out against Roma. As Francesco Graziani prepared to take the kick, Grobbelaar wobbled his knees in mocking terror. The unnerved Italian missed, and the cup was packed off to Anfield.
For optimum focus the player needs to be emotionally balanced, keenly centred on the game. In cricket this may prove hard when handing over the bat. Steve Waugh, the former Australian Captain, used to talk openly about planning the "mental disintegration" of his opponents, a practice known as sledging.
Sledging – low abuse – is a well known attempt to unsettle the rival team. On one occasion fiery fast bowler Merv Hughes decided to give advice after England’s Graham Thorpe had played and missed several deliveries in a row. "Read the back of your bat mate, it’s got instructions on it," he said.
Effective sledging seeks to undermine confidence, says Dr Cox.
"Sledging is designed to deflect concentration and attention. Morality and ethics seldom come into play with psychological warfare. It’s childishness.
"The player’s powers of analysis, which are so important to the game, are impaired – emotional balance changes with anger, the adrenaline rushes into your system, and your focus changes. It doesn’t pay to become emotional."
OUTRIGHT UNDERHANDEDNESS
Underhand tactics are an everyday occurrence in football. Many players fall to the ground, feigning injury, after a the gentlest of touches.
But cricket also has its sneaky tactics. In February 1981 New Zealand needed six runs to tie the match from the final ball. The Australian captain, Greg Chappell, ordered the bowler, his brother Trevor Chappell, to bowl underarm. He rolled the ball along the ground to avoid the chance of a six.
It was described as "the most disgusting incident I can recall in the history of cricket" by the then prime minister of New Zealand, Rob Muldoon. He said: "It was an act of cowardice and I consider it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow."
But however much outrage follows any act of gamesmanship, there are always a host of sportsmen who would have done the same thing.
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Looking glass
July 10th, 2009 |
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By Ian Hardy
Click reporter, Silicon Valley
If you want to find something out these days, one of the first things you will do is type words into a box on the webpages of a search engine.
The result will be an avalanche of websites which contain the words you are looking for, hopefully with the most useful ones at the top of the list.
For much of the past two decades, search results have been triggered by straightforward keyword connections.
It has been an adequate solution, but it is far from perfect says Mike Elgan, a columnist at Computerworld.com.
"Human beings view the world in terms of associations – a classic example in the scientific community is when you say the sentence ‘I saw a bird with a telescope’.
"Human beings instantly know it was you not the bird that was using the telescope. But computers don’t know that," he said.
Human understanding
Search engines have never really understood the precise meaning or true intent of questions or phrases – semantic search is a process trying to improve this.
A new generation of web services is in development to offer results for words and picture searches, and attempt to understand users’ questions.
"The idea is for people to be able to scan it and find interesting things more like a magazine"
Anand Rajaraman,
co-founder of Kosmix
Kosmix is one of a new batch of search engines trying to incorporate human understanding into its complex mathematical computations.
Anand Rajaraman, co-founder of Kosmix, said the site’s goal is to encourage a kind of "serendipity" by displaying information in a visual way.
"The idea is for people to be able to scan it and find interesting things more like a magazine.
"You know how you are scanning a magazine and suddenly something catches your eye serendipitously," he said.
‘Exciting work’
Bing is the latest reincarnation of Windows Live Search and MSN Search which have never been as popular as Yahoo or Google.
To improve it Microsoft bought semantic search company Powerset that uses updated methods to produce their results.
Scott Prevost from Powerset told Click that despite advances, the problems of natural language are not even close to being solved.
"There’s a lot of exciting work that will happen particularly in the next five to 10 years," he said.
Also, increasingly search is moving beyond desktops. One recent survey in the US showed the number of search apps downloaded to mobile phones in the past year has doubled.
While a third more searches are being done on mobile web browsers – many devices have GPS and a constant stream of updated information.
Voice search
A search engine of the future will not just return a list of restaurants, for instance, but it will know you are inside a car, what time of day it is, and the traffic conditions.
So when you get to the restaurant, it will be able to guide you to the nearest parking space, and tell you what specific lunch specials are on the menu that day.
But typing on the go can be dangerous and even illegal in some places, so the physical way we search may change over time.
Scott Prevost, from Powerset said that as speech recognition improves, voice input will start to appear more in mobile phone searches.
"With a mobile device it’s easier to say what you want rather than type some keywords," he said.
"People speak in short simple sentences when they know there is a speech recognizer listening to them," he added.
It is a long way from the search engines of the 1990s which were not smart enough to generalise. Often they could only find something if you knew exactly what you were looking for, sometimes down to the exact filename.
Make connections
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, believes search is still in its infancy and that semantics is key to a more powerful internet.
He said it all comes down to the ability to make connections.
"The thing explodes when somebody has the creativity to look at a piece of data that was put there for one reason and realizes that they can connect it with something else".
He added that, for example, someone could "realise something about global warming because we’ve managed to get all of the data out there."
There is a race going on between the established players and the young startups to take search to the next level.
All are aiming to make it highly personalized, intuitive and more integrated into our lives.
Perhaps one day search engines will deliver the most suitable result you were looking for every time.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Paradise lost
July 7th, 2009 |
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Satnav feels like start-of-the-art technology, but it’s a century since the first auto-navigation device was invented and, says Joe Moran, our growing dependence on such systems says much about how we have given up on understanding road networks.
A report presented recently to the US Congress warned that satnav – satellite navigation – systems could start to fail from next year as the US Air Force’s satellites deteriorate. It is yet another episode in our long and fraught relationship with in-car navigation – a phenomenon that is more ancient than you might think.
Today’s satnavs are really a number of older inventions cobbled together. In fact, mechanical in-car navigation stretches back further than most people would think – 100 years to be precise.
The earliest in-car navigation system was the Jones Live-Map, patented as early as 1909. It was a turntable with a pointer on which the driver placed paper disks for individual routes and it measured distance and direction through a cable connected to the front wheels. On early boneshaker cars and bumpy roads, with no opportunity for mid-course corrections, it must have been next to useless.
If the Jones Live-Map had raised expectations among those seeking a reliable resolution to the in-car tensions between harassed driver and hapless navigator, they were to be disappointed. Over the next few decades, car manufacturers experimented with various Heath Robinson-like contraptions to guide drivers, some of which even promised to warn them about road conditions, like rough surfaces and police speed traps. But all of them were basically variations on the Jones-Live Map and about as accurate in giving directions.
It was 1981 before the next significant advance in mechanical navigation – Honda’s Electro Gyrocator, fitted as an optional extra on its Accord model.
The Gyrocator was the first computerised in-car navigation system. Developed in Japan, it was like the Jones Live-Map – a solid-state system that could not respond to the changing narrative of the drive. So if you went wrong the errors soon stacked up and, unlike a broken watch, it would not even be right some of the time.
A British first
However, unbeknown to most motorists, the technology for a real-time system already existed. The US Defense Department had developed GPS (global positioning by satellite) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that President Reagan made it available for civilian use.
The other technological piece of the satnav jigsaw was digital mapping, which was pioneered by a tiny British firm, NextBase, which grew out of a circle of friends who met as teenagers, programming some of the earliest home PCs at a school holiday computer camp in Northampton.
In 1988, working from a friend’s spare bedroom in the Surrey stockbroker suburb of Esher, they created the AutoRoute journey planner, a complete digital road map of Britain.
The technology for satnav, in other words, was around for several years before it was developed. All these different inventions simply needed to be brought together.
This suggests that the growth of satnav is not just about the advance of technology. It speaks to our contemporary anxieties and preoccupations about the road. More roads and better cars mean we can travel further, and so the risk of getting lost is all the greater.
Britain’s roads are also an increasingly bewildering place to navigate – a maze of spaghetti junctions, elevated roundabouts and coned-off contraflows.
Take the left vortex
The British road system is no longer known by its epic cross-country routes – the M1, when it opened 50 years ago, was known as "the London-Yorkshire motorway". It is known by its pinch-points like Staples Corner (at the very southern end) and the Lofthouse interchange (where the M1 meets the M62), mentioned daily on radio traffic reports as vortices from which none can escape.
The motorways that once carried hopes of uniting the nation now evoke images of eternal circularity, encapsulated in those urban myths about foreign tourists (or confused pensioners, or naive northerners) who drive round the M25 for days in the mistaken belief that it is the M1.
Satnav clearly suits an era which has given up on understanding the roads as a coherent, logical system – an era in which map-reading may be going the way of obsolete skills like calligraphy and roof-thatching.
Perhaps that is why satnav devices are branded things like Road Angel and Time Traveller, presenting themselves not as scientific cartographers, but as magicians and soothsayers, guiding you through the maze of our road system by psychic intuition. Satnav is a seductive mixture of science and mystery, perfectly attuned to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in the maddening twists and turns of the British road system.
However, satnav still seems to make us uneasy. Many drivers, for example, dislike the voice prompts that say "take the first left" or "take the second exit". Most speech synthesisers use female voices because they are easier to distinguish from engine noise and road rumble – and British satnavs have rather clipped, head-girlish accents.
Destroying local knowledge
Two of the early satnav voices were Susan Skipper, who appeared as Nigel Havers’ posh girlfriend in the 1980s sitcom Don’t Wait Up; and Eve Karpf, who voice-dubbed the famous line in the Ferrero Rocher commercial ("Monsieur, with these Rocher, you’re really spoiling us").
Men in particular seem to recoil from being given digital instructions, and read the satnav woman’s pregnant pauses, or her curt phrases like "make a legal U-turn" and "recalculating the route", as stubborn or bossy. Of course, they are reading too much into it. Satnav is just a dumb computer, obeying its algorithms.
We still don’t quite trust the electronic voice to get us where we want to go. Since before even the arrival of the car, people have worried that maps sever us from real places, render the world untouchable, reduce it to a bare outline of Cartesian lines and intersections. Satnav feeds into this long-held fear that the cold-blooded modern world is destroying local knowledge, that roads no longer lead to real places but around and through them.
You can sense it in all those fearful newspaper headlines about motorists guided by their satnavs to the edges of cliffs or deposited in village ponds. We may have grown to rely on in-car navigation, but it will be a long while before we learn to love it.
Joe Moran’s book On Roads: A Hidden History has just been published by Profile. He also keeps a blog (see Internet Links, above, right).
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Go Figure
July 2nd, 2009 |
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GO FIGURE
Different ways of seeing stats
A new online tool puts the power of information in the hands of anyone who’s interested, and turns data into animation. Here, Michael Blastland, in his regular column, gives just a taste of what the site can do.
I hope my video offers just a feel of what you can find out on the newOECD Factbook eXplorerwebsite. Just as exciting is the OECD’sRegional Statistics site.
Readers might also like to explore the inspiration for the OECD technique, and for many other new ideas about communicating data: animated stats about international development by theGapminderorganisation.
• Art or information
Go Figure promised to draw occasional attention to statistical eye candy.
Here’s an example, sort of, titled The Past and Future of Information. I say "sort of" because no numbers were used to create it. It is openly unscientific.
Brilliant, say some. Meaningless, say others. The fuss is partly because it reignites a row between those who think data visualisation should have some data in it, particularly if it looks as if it’s a graph, and those who think it has merit if it simply captures feeling or ideas in a compelling design.
So the question that animates all the argument is: does this do anything useful other than look colourful It comes from a site calledBaekdal.comwhich describes itself as "a magazine about greatness". Tell me what you think.
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A What-man?
June 29th, 2009 |
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When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, is started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week.
My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day.
He had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade – a bland grey.
LISTEN UP TEENAGERS… THE CLASSIC WALKMAN EXPLAINED- 1: Clunky buttons
- 2: Switch to metal (that’s a type of cassette, not heavy rock music)
- 3: Battery light – usually found flickering in its death throes
- 4: Double headphone jack (not to be found on an iPod)
- 5: Door ejects – watch out for flying tapes and eye injuries
So it’s not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else.
From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
As I boarded the school bus, where I live in Aberdeenshire, I was greeted with laughter. One boy said: "No-one uses them any more." Another said: "Groovy." Yet another one quipped: "That would be hard to lose."
My friends couldn’t imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked.
In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
" I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down ‘rewind’ and releasing it randomly"
Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn’t is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.
I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don’t have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.
Digital relief
Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past. I made a number of naive mistakes, but I also learned a lot about the grandfather of the MP3 Player.
You can almost imagine the excitement about the Walkman coming out 30 years ago, as it was the newest piece of technology at the time.
Perhaps that kind of anticipation and excitement has been somewhat lost in the flood of new products which now hit our shelves on a regular basis.
Personally, I’m relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I’m relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can’t imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.
Having said all that, my cherished maxim is: portable music is better than no music.
Now, for technically curious readers, I’ve directly compared the portable cassette player with its latter-day successor. Here are the main cons, and even a pro, I found with this piece of antique technology.
SOUND
This is the function that matters most. To make the music play, you push the large play button. It engages with a satisfying clunk, unlike the finger tip tap for the iPod.
When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman.
The warbling is probably because of the horrifically short battery life; it is nearly completely dead within three hours of firing it up. Not long after the music warbled into life, it abruptly ended.
CONVENIENCE
With the plethora of MP3 players available on the market nowadays, each boasting bigger and better features than its predecessor, it is hard to imagine the prospect of purchasing and using a bulky cassette player instead of a digital device.
Furthermore, there were a number of buttons protruding from the top and sides of this device to provide functions such as "rewinding" and "fast-forwarding" (remember those), which added even more bulk.
As well as this, the need for changing tapes is bothersome in itself. The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod.
Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology
"I remembered it fondly as a way to enjoy what music," he said. "I liked where I liked but when I see it now, I wonder how I carried it!"
WALKMAN 1, MP3 PLAYER 0
But it’s not all a one-way street when you line up a Walkman against an iPod. The Walkman actually has two headphone sockets, labelled A and B, meaning the little music that I have, I can share with friends. To plug two pairs of headphones in to an iPod, you have to buy a special adapter.
Another useful feature is the power socket on the side, so that you can plug the Walkman into the wall when you’re not on the move. But given the dreadful battery life, I guess this was an outright necessity rather than an extra function.
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Why you may not be able to trust some online reviews
June 25th, 2009 |
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By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine
A publishing giant got into hot water after offering gift vouchers to anyone who would give their textbook a five-star review. It raises one of the key questions in online purchasing, how much can you trust the customer reviews you read
In the US, it is called "shill reviewing".
You are the owner of a company whose product – Brand X Widget is struggling. On a major online retailer, Brand X Widget has been given a slew of one-star reviews by customers.
How tempting it is to tell all your employees to log on, without revealing their allegiance to the company, and dole out some five-star reviews. Slowly but surely Brand X Widget’s star rating rises.
OTHER TERMINOLOGY- Sock puppetry: The act of creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one’s self, allies or company (New York Times)
- Astroturfing: Formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behaviour (Wikipedia)
- Seeding: Process of placing viral marketing such as videos in forums etc
Of course, the customer is the loser.
Read around the issue of these shill reviews and you will see discussion forum melees about books whose Amazon star-rating has mysteriously risen. Everyone knows reviews influence sales.
"If you look at internet retailers one of the drawbacks they have is that they don’t have the advice a physical bookshop can give," says Graham Neill of industry magazine The Bookseller. "[Customer reviews] are almost like a member of staff that you would grab in a bookshop and ask ‘what do you think of this book’. It is a good sounding post."
Amazon and other retailers have long recognised the importance of customer reviews. Dedicated reviewers earn status by appearing in the "top reviewers" list, and can even be sent products to review in advance.
It’s no surprise that the recent actions of science publisher Elsevier caused a storm. The firm offered a $25 (£15) Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook Clinical Psychology if they would go on Amazon and Barnes & Noble (a large US books retailer) and give it five stars. Elsevier was quick to disown the actions of its marketing employee and emphasise that it had all been a mistake.
"The company doesn’t pay for positive reviews," says Tom Reller, director of corporate relations. "This was a recent employee error. We haven’t given out any gift cards under the programme."
POSSIBLE SHILL"Went for a fantastic meal at the Hearty, Happy Miller the other day. This is country pub food at its very, very best (1). The new beer garden made the visit a particular pleasure. A great place to take the kids. And so easy to get to taking the A473 to Trumpton, taking a left at the Blue Man roundabout and continuing for two miles (2). You’ll spot it because of the beautiful new beer garden (3). STAR RATING: *****"
- 1. Gushing praise
- 2. Advert-like qualities
- 3. Repeated key phrase
He emphasises that the rogue employee had gone a long way beyond normal publishing practice.
"Encouraging interested parties to post book reviews isn’t outside the norm in scholarly publishing, nor is it wrong to offer to nominally compensate people for their time.
"But in all instances the request should be unbiased, with no incentives for a positive review, and that’s where this particular e-mail went too far."
Away from publishing, travel review websites like Tripadvisor also prove a great temptation for shills. If you run a hotel on the brink of bankruptcy you may want to boost your own, or damage a neighbour with allegations of rats, bedbugs and strange smells from the plumbing.
"Obviously, the damage to travellers is to those who rely uncritically on anonymous reviews," says travel writer and blogger Edward Hasbrouck. "It can also reward disreputable travel companies and hotels, and damage the reputations of good ones."
But how can the unwitting customer spot a shill, and what can websites featuring customer reviews do to defend themselves
Hasbrouck has written on the challenge.
"If there are only a few reviews of a place, assume that there is a good chance they’ve been planted by friends or foes. If there are many reviews, act like a statistician, and start by dropping the outliers [the most extreme comments]."
In more general terms, watch out for similarities in style between reviews from people with different usernames, particularly if those reviews were placed about the same time.
EUROPEAN LAW"Commercial practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair: 22. Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer"
Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC
If a series of reviews has been inspired by a manager or owner pushing a particular agenda, you may see variations of the same phrase cropping up again and again – a reference to a new conservatory at the hotel, or the all-you-can eat buffet at a restaurant.
Watch out for people who are new users, or whose only reviews are on the same item. And a sudden wave of five-star reviews after a more sustained run of lower ratings should provoke suspicion.
For those who run the websites, they can spot the cruder shilling attempts if they emanate from the same IP address.
The big customer review websites say they have robust policies to combat shilling.
"Amazon works hard to maintain the integrity of its customer reviews," a spokesman says. "We have very clear guidelines, and when a customer reports a review that they feel is inappropriate, we investigate, and may (or may not) take it down."
TripAdvisor is also on the case.
"Every review is screened prior to posting and a team of quality assurance specialists investigate suspicious ones; we have proprietary automated tools that help identify attempts to subvert the system; and our 25 million monthly visitors also help police our content.
"When a review is suspected to be fraudulent, it is immediately taken down. Further measures to penalise those attempting to game the system… can include sending a warning letter to the property owners and posting a notice on TripAdvisor to warn travellers that a particular property is being investigated for potentially fraudulent activity."
Shilling damage
But, of course, it is in the interests of the websites to say they have a handle on shilling, says Hasbrouck.
"Knowledge of shilling also damages the business of review web sites, who therefore have an interest in reassuring the public that they have eliminated it."
Ultimately, the sheer weight of numbers of the honest users may be the best defence.
"One of the things Amazon have is a question did you find this review helpful – reviews are ranked," says Neill. "I wouldn’t underestimate the humble customer’s ability to distinguish between what is a gushing press release and a genuine ‘I felt this book was fantastic’."
And of course, there are those who would say the reliable customer reviews can only be maintained in parallel with professionally produced content.
"In terms of travel information there is so much online it can be overwhelming," says Anna Paynton, who works on the Rough Guides and the website TravelDK, which features customer reviews. "How do you wade through it And how do you know what to trust A lot is posted by businesses and by friends of the businesses. That’s why having a guidebook is so important. It’s been researched by travel writers and researched by editors.
"Most people know that user generated content is going to have an element of unreliability. We do check but the problem is that there is so much it is very difficult to really monitor it closely."
So perhaps we should rely on our own shill-hunting abilities.
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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.