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David Pogue and Yahoo's "Normals" Problem
Nerval's Lobster writes "In a keynote talk at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, David Pogue (Yahoo's freshly minted technology columnist) suggested that the new 'Yahoo Tech' Website — a key part of the company's latest rebranding — would be targeted at 'normal' people as opposed to 'gearheads.' Based on a map that flashed on the giant screen behind him, which showed the 'normals' clustered in the middle of the country and the 'gearheads' restricted to the coasts, it's clear that Yahoo has embraced a divisive strategy that tries to equate Yahoo's brands with some sort of mythical 'middlebrow' audience that exists within clearly defined borders. (During his presentation, Pogue also flashed a slide that made fun of competing tech-news brands: The Verge was rendered as 'The Urge,' for example, while Gizmodo became 'Gizmoody.') The problem is that rigid audience of 'normals' doesn't exist, at least not in the way that Yahoo envisions. Large numbers of well-educated technology consumers — 'gearheads,' in Pogue's parlance — exist all over the country; to say otherwise is like suggesting that Wyoming is 100 percent Republican, or that everybody who lives in Florida hates snow. In other words, Yahoo's approach to tech content isn't merely schismatic; it's willfully unaware of the variety that exists among technology fans."
Nerd website complains that new nerd section in other website isn't nerdy enough. News at 11.
Reminds me of Windows 8, actually.
Actually the amount of vile idiots in the comments of the mainstream news sites is about the same. 95% CNN, MSNBC, and FOX comments are total dung heaps. Frankly they all make Slashdot look like a bastion of polite, openminded, and levelheaded people.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I don't even want to know I live in a world where people like you are alive!
I rooted my car, looked under the hood of my tablet, fiddled with the color settings of my CPU and overclocked my TV. And I make my own test equipment, thank you.