TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

So I was grazing, as guys do, in a technology store yesterday, and I overheard a salesperson trying to sell a cell phone to an older couple (by "older," I mean "older than I am," which is extremely old) and at one point he told them that the phone he was holding in his hand had all of Spider-Man 2 loaded into its memory. This raised two questions in my mind:

(1) Who in the world would watch Spider-Man 2 ON A TELEPHONE?

(2) Why did I immediately want this phone?

Comments

[Bryce]

Wait, let me get this straight. You were electronics shopping on Easter Eve? Have you no reverence?
OK, I was too. I found a sweet new rifle with a lser scope for rabbit hunting.

[igor]

Second Easter First

[SoCalGirl]

So, Bryce, you live in Mission Viejo?

[Buddha]

1) Toby McGuire, obviously. I'm told he wears the costume to bed

2) It's all about keeping up with the Joneses, Dave. Whether the aforementioned Older Couple were in fact Joneses is moot; the fact is you're falling behind. Now get out there and buy a movie phone...or radio toaster...or toilet computer...or some other equally impressive two-for-one technological marvel.

[everysandwich]

And why would a salesperson think that AARP people could see Spider-Man2 on a phone screen? It's a curse of the ageing that as the eyes get weaker, the phones get smaller. Why isn't Spider-Man doing something about that conspiracy?

[Bangi]

YES!finally a place whr i can use my new found knowledge!

ahem...it was a clear case of "customer-driving marketing--understanding customer needs even better than customers themselves do and creating products and services that will meet existing and latent needs,now and in the future"!!

what?...the meaning?...i dunno...

[Dave in Huntington Beach (SoCal too!)]

So, you live in SoCal, SoCalGirl?

[bbescuela]

Bangi, if one of their latent needs was to call Spiderman, that might work.

[Dave (not Barry)]

That phone is absolute crap UNLESS it has the original Spiderman AND the sequel, not to mention room to download all of the versions yet to come (Spiderman XIIII, "Conspiracy at Pine Meadows Assisted Living Center")

[everysandwich]

Bangi and Bhudda -- I agree that in these cases of demographically mature targets, the marketing force may choose to leverage aspirational user imagery vis-a-vis open ended cultural invitations to cross-generational cultural icons, thus creating a powerful problem-solution context in which product features and benefits fill a need unspoken and create cotangential synergy with sell-up laddering opportunities.

[kibby F5�]

I'll wait till more "Adult" rated choices come out.

Yhank you.

[Alex]

Dave --

1. Dude. It can hold a movie! There's a good reason right there.

2. Because you could replace Spiderman with G2G.

Anything else?

[SoCalGirl]

Yes, I live in sunny southern CA where we always refer to it with those 3 words, even when we're being flooded out!

But I am technologically challenged so, in reality this whole thread is way over my head - Actually, I thought we were talking about killing bunny rabbits!

Color me gone!

[Shannon]

Personally, I'm waiting for the co-branded Mansquito phone to come out.

Although I'm guessing Mansquito vs. Spiderman would be no contest at all, would it?

[everysandwich]

Jeff -- there you go finding *meaning* when I was trying so hard to generate impenetrable marketing jargon. But now that you'd mention it, I'd keep Cacoon and scratch Golden Pond, replacing it with Barbarella. That way you get immortality and sex while eliminating death and crankiness-- all in convenient phone form -- great for the active senior on the go!

[DrEmmerich]

Sure it wasn't a Nokia N-Gage, with Spiderman 2 the game? (Not that it'sany more usefull). And more importantly, if it's annoying now having talking on their cell phones during a movie, what will it be like when people start watching movies on their cell phones during at movie?

[DrEmmerich]

Sure it wasn't a Nokia N-Gage, with Spiderman 2 the game? (Not that it'sany more usefull). And more importantly, if it's annoying now having talking on their cell phones during a movie, what will it be like when people start watching movies on their cell phones during at movie?

[lorzilla]

Maybe all movies with a "II" in the title should be released on cell phones which are then marketed & sold to the tech-challenged...

[julietine]

Dave,

I can answer that question for you...Because you are a guy!..that's why!

[penny]

if it's annoying now having talking on their cell phones during a movie, what will it be like when people start watching movies on their cell phones during at movie?

Hear hear (not 'here')!

'Yeah, could you hold for just a minute? I'm in the middle of a scene'

(which of course gives a whole new meaning to 'making a scene')

[Kafaleni]

(1) People with no one to phone

(2) what Julietine said. That and a morbid fear of technological obsolensence and what it means on a global scale about our personal replaceability. Not that we worry about things like that.

[queensbee]

well, its stupid of course, but, if the cellphone heads are watching a movie, maybe we wont have to listen to their insipid conversations.

[everysandwich]

Queenbee, we can hope. But if people talk in movie theaters, often to the characters in the film, I'm afraid some of them will talk to the movies on their phones.

[Cody Pendent]

What a wonderful twist to an age old ethical question:

Is is ethical to dial 911 on a cell phone screening "BlowBack", while in a crowded movie theater watching "Ladder 49"?

Which begs the point...Is it ethical for a firefighter to scream "movie" into a MoviePhone, while in a fire station?

[oceanhead007]

Hey Dave! (Wherever you are!) Long time!

I had to beg my daughter to change the cell phone ring tone on her phone from a lot of bad language rapping men sounds to something else. Now it's some sort of robotic whining. Her phone also takes pictures. But (!) it only takes a certain amount of pictures--not as many as you want of everything in the world, so it's not worth it.

Pretty soon will people watch tv on their cell phones? This is scary.