Honestly Apple, Really? NO

Today the tech world is swirling with yet another rumour about the latest product that might be coming from Apple – a cheaper version of its flagship iPhone.

The rumour says the “new” cheaper version, will have a larger screen, and a new design, and is economically priced for third-world economies.

For years, Apple’s marketing mantra has been to leak rumours, mis-information and in some cases actually intentionally leave prototypes of their latest tech in public places, to be mysteriously found and leaked to the world.

Remember when the prototype of an iPhone was “accidentally”left at a bar, and it’s grainy amateurish pictures went viral over the social networks?

This is how they “surprise” us with their product launches; to keep is guessing as to which rumours are true, and which ones weren't.

Honesty is the foundation of any relationship, except it would appear, if you are an Apple customer – gossip mongering is hardly an honourable form of communications.

Seriously Apple, when you first rumoured, leaked and yes – lied – about your future tech toys, it proved to be a very successful marketing campaign.

But come on now – we’re all a little older and wiser to this game, and we’re sick and tired of hearing about what may come.

Just tell it like it is. Give it to me straight up and honest. I can take it – and I bet so too can everyone else.

Real trend setters are constantly changing their tactics, because that’s how you set the standards everyone else wants to follow.

If you keep dancing to the same song, eventually others will get bored and just walk away – WALK AWAY I SAY.

We all miss Steve Jobs, and we've all heard the rumours that Apple won’t be the same without him.

Prove those rumours wrong, by giving us something more than just more rumours.

The Insanely Dangerous Things We Do to Get On TV

Yesterday, “Fearless” Felix Baumgartner became an instant television star after jumping over 38-kilometres (23.61 miles) above the Earth,on verge of space.

The Austrian dare-devil dropped about 1, 100 kilometres per hour (684 miles per hour) breaking several world records, while becoming the trending topics on most of the social networks, and having his space-suit-mug plastered on all media around the world.

This isn't the first – and it won’t be the last – insanely dangerous thing someone has done to garner instant fame. Remember this past June when Nik Wallenda walked across Niagara Falls on a tight rope?

Both dare-devils survived their crazy stunts, and both made the headlines for the next few days.

Maybe it’s the reality TV generation we unfortunately are in, but it appears the only way to get on television these days is to be doing insanely crazy stuff.

From shows which test people’s level of bravery like Survivor, to ones that test our patience like The Jersey Shore, you don’t have to be a talented actor or have any sense of real intellect or creativity these days to get on a major network.

Just being beautiful and allowing yourself to be humiliated for all to see appears to be the norm.

And if you aren't beautiful, or willing to be voted off the island, you can always jump out of a balloon high up near the barrier between space and Earth, or walk across Niagara Falls.

Why do television networks produce this puff? Whatever happened to shows which actually made us think, feel and laugh?

Truth is, broadcasters have always catered to the largest and widest possible audiences. That’s why they are called “broad” casters. It’s like fishing, they toss their net of shows out into the viewing ocean, and whatever people fall into their net they contain with mindless drivel, while the rest escape to their digital, on demand podcasts.

Perhaps that’s why television and radio are dying – because of the failure of broadcasters to keep pace with the competition from the on demand digital media.

Television and radio broadcasters on the major networks in both Canada and the States have reported significant drops in their viewing and listening audiences over the past decade.

Over a decade ago, on demand digital media didn't exist. We were forced to watch and listen to whatever television and radio programming network executives thought we wanted.

Now we the people are calling the shots. With on demand digital media, we the people are our own program directors. We may occasionally surf late night television, and tune into local radio shows for our morning commutes. However more of us are just saying no to the broadcasters stilted and stale programming choices, as we discover shows that actually mean something to us on our podcast catchers, and other digital media such as Netflix, Apple TV, and on demand networks and shows available through other similar systems.

Although watching someone free-fall from a low Earth orbit may entertain and amaze us for 15-seconds, that 15-seconds of fame is long gone almost as fast as it began.

To really have a successful television or radio show, you need a stable of steady, regular, dedicated viewers and listeners. Tossing out the old fishnet and hoping you catch something is very fleeting, and won’t build a dedicated fan-base to sell advertising.

And if you don’t continue to sell advertising, eventually you won’t be in business, because that’s what pays the bills.

But hey, look on the bright side – at least you can get your 15-seconds of fame. Well, so long as the broadcast television and radio stations continue to exist in the ever growing world of on demand digital media.

How much time is left?

Better hurry up.

Fifteen-seconds doesn't last long.

Nope.

Not long at all.

Is Social Networking Becoming Less Social?

Okay, I admit it, I’ve used social networking for shameless self promotion. Many of us have – but is that all that social networking has become?

People peddling their products, services, and pats on the back in tweets, blogs, photos, videos and other postings online?

Doesn’t seem all that social does it?

I remember a time, not long ago, when a social function involved going out to hang with real people in the real world. We’d gather at a friend’s place, a local restaurant or pub, or maybe some special event like a movie, festival, or club, and then spend a few hours enjoying each other’s company.

Then the social networking buzz began – where you could catch up with long lost friends, classmates and colleagues from anywhere around the world, at anytime.

At the time, seemed like a great idea – who doesn’t want to see if the high school bully went grey, put on weight, and lives in a trailer park?

Turns out a lot of people liked the idea of re-connecting with others over the web, as social networking spread like chipmunks following a trail of walnuts.

Even better, social networking connected complete strangers with similar interests together. No longer need you hide in your dimly lit basement to assemble your belly button lint collection – now you weirdos too can find solace in the comfort of knowing you’re not alone in the universe.

Social networking became a normal part of everyday life, as we discovered its power of connecting us all. From finding the perfect mate via online dating, to just having someone to talk to when you can’t sleep at night, to allowing us to vent about poor service for the world to see – social networking gave us something we’ve never had before – a place to speak our minds.

But lately, if you browse the latest trending topics on social networking, they almost always are cluttered with tips and tricks on marketing and promoting yourself, your products or your services.

Using social networks to promote ourselves isn’t a bad thing – we’ve probably all done that at some point. 

However, when the social networks primarily become promotion machines, they lose the essence of social, and the level of engagement decreases substantially.

Or at least it does for me – and I’m guessing it most likely does for you too.

Every day I go through my new followers, to see who’s added me, and whether or not I should return the favor. I see everything from nicknames, real names, to business names.

Usually when I see a business following me, I get a knot in my tummy, as I decide whether or not to add ‘em. 

As with all those I choose to follow back, I check out their most recent posts first, to get a handle on their handle.

Many business often use the social networks to promote their products and services – that’s a given. But increasingly many individuals with regular sounding names or nick names are too.

Thinking back to the old days when socializing meant just chillin’ with friends, occasionally business was discussed. But usually these conversations were quick, and more general than hard core sales pitches to get you to buy.

But these days, sometimes the second I add someone, I get an automated message back from them telling me about some promotion, or special offer they have just for me.

I feel cheated, because I added them to connect on a social level – not to be sold.

I wonder whether or not it was wise to add them, and often unfollow them almost right away – and that’s not all that social either.

So I ask again – have social networks lost their social aspects?

Coke Is It, Dive Into the Nestle Plunge & Elvis May be Dead, Or Is He? Who Controls What You Think?

We wordsmiths are in your head.

 

Your thoughts came from my brain.

Us writer-types working for big-name advertising agencies, newspapers, television stations and other media control your thoughts. We invent your way of interpreting the way you think the world really is.

Coke is it, dive into the Nestle plunge, Elvis is dead.

Elvis isn’t dead, he’s hammering out a new ad campaign for Burger King on the second floor. You just think Elvis is dead because we told you he was.

You can control your thoughts. However, we’ve made it too easy for you to just flip into “autopilot” and let us and our cookie-cutter creative copy invade your mind, and tell you how the world is.

In our invented world, weekends are like beer commercials – complete with bodacious babes in skimpy outfits, and buff boys in boxers partying like there is no tomorrow. Mornings are always easy, thanks to breakfast in a can, Pop-Tarts, or can’t get enough of my Sugar Crisps. Work is always fun, thanks to the funky delivery guy from Brown’s because when it absolutely positively has to get there on time, we deliver the world on time.

 

Yep, our invented world is what you want. Because we tell you what you want. Do you really need a Schticky? When you open your Molson Canadian, do the babes just start breaking down your door as the party begins?

Do you really need a mountainous burger of beef patties in your Whopper?!?!

Here’s the rub – you don’t need any of that crap.

The world we invent for you is crap, served with a smile. But you let us feed you this diet of crappy ideas, because you think things like Built Ford Tough actually means something. There’s something special in the air, and it isn’t American Airlines . . .

 

It is the stink of complacency. The putrid smell of conformity.

In order to fit into the world of ideas, you never think.

That’s my job.

Maybe you should start thinking. Wake up and smell the fucking Folgers Crystals for yourself. Create your own world, one where you belong. A world based on your ideas, your beliefs, your values.

Buy into the commercial corporate ideas of YOU.

That’s how you start to really live.

Who’s The Most Beautiful Canadian?

Shania Twain, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are among Hello! Canada magazine's most beautiful Canadians.

Sadly, I wasn’t on the list. I suppose white men with beer-belly guts and rising hairlines just don’t cut it.

Though Justin Bieber and Ryan Reynolds made the list.

You know you’re not going to qualify for a beauty list, when you’re competing against people who haven’t fully gone through puberty yet.

But what makes a beautiful Canadian – or beautiful person – well – beautiful?

A while back, marketing giants Ogilvy& Mather created the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, which featured anything but the traditional supermodels to market women’s skin care products. Average looking women were used, to show where real beauty comes from.

One billboard in the series asked viewers to phone a toll-free number to vote on whether a woman on the billboard was "fat" or "fab". The results were posted real-time on the board. The percentage of "fat" votes overtook "fab", leading to the creation of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund that claims to change the Western concept of beauty from ultra-thin models with "perfect" features to making every woman feel positive about her looks.

Dove produced a series of online short films promoting the self-esteem fund.

Unilever, the company which owns the Dove brand, has been criticized on the grounds that Unilever also produces Fair and Lovely, a skin-lightening product marketed at dark-skinned women in several countries. Unilever also markets the Lynx's brand, which contradicts the sentiment of the Campaign for Real Beauty, by using traditional hot models in the advertising.

Unilever also owns and is responsible for the branding of their AXE brand of deodorants and body sprays, which uses hot chicks in skimpy outfits craving ordinary looking men after they apply the AXE product.

So we’re back asking the question – where does real beauty come from?

Unilever tried to show us our inner beauty, and that we’re all beautiful in some way, but eventually went back to the old tried and true standard of using fashion models.

Beauty comes from within – or does it?

 As a species, we are naturally attracted to others visually first. This goes back to our basic instincts – men look for women with full lips and hips, good teeth, hair, skin and nails, as a sign of someone who’s healthy and fit to produce off-spring. Tall dark and handsome also has some truth – it’s a sign to women that the guy is fit and will have good genes, and that the man can defend the cave (remember we’re talking basic instincts here) to protect the family.

Even our pheromones have been linked to our health – muscular, men smell better to women, according to more than a few studies. When compared to overweight men, socks worn by the fit men seemed less “stinky” than the unfit men to women who volunteered to participate in one study.

However, in today’s complex society, obviously there is more at play than how one smells. We all want to be surrounded by people that make us feel good.

No one wants to hang out with the neighborhood bully, or be forced to endure a night alone with someone that bores the hell out of them.

So true beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, as it depends on what each one of us needs in another to be happy and comfortable.

Maybe that’s true love really is blind?