I think what you want to be is, in effect, like Switzerland - you want to be the people of unquestionable integrity.
You want to be the people with the technical precision, the people who are neutral, but who are leaders.
You don't want to stand on the sidelines; you want to take positions and take on issues, but you want to try and do it as an ambassador to the community.
All Novell can do, and all Novell really wants to do, is state the facts of the situation, and advocate.
Um, what is this guys stance? I mean really.
A large company who advocates a desktop is most certainly going to influence the direction adoption goes in, is it not? He said it himself, the default is Gnome.
OK, but that's not very neutral. Basically that says to me "we don't care about tailoring to your needs, if you don't know what you want we'll give you Gnome because you can't tell the difference anyway."
How is that any different than Microsoft's customer stance? as someone else posted earlier in this thread, they should have focused more on their migration methods. If you really want to get businesses motivated to swithing away from MS you need to upfront about the facts of the transition. Tell them what hurt and what was pleasantly painless.
Businesses run by intelligent people will make decisions that may sting in order to get a better position in their marketplace. A company wide transition to another OS is not ommited from that pool of decisions, but no smart company is gioing to make a decision like that without information on what the change entails.
Another thing that bugs me, not just with this article but with all articles of this type, is the marketing analogies of who they are as a company. Businesses have marketing departments. So if your trying to influence a business, tell them the TRUTH, not marketing fluff. It's like these companies keep feeding themselves each others shit and wonder why they have a bad taste in their mouth.
It's not a very large number either (not as low as 6 though)
Actually, in the book Linked it was argued that the degrees of separation are generally less than 6. The older model created by Erdos and Renyi (random) was an attempt at mapping a completely random network. This was the predominant model used by many until Duncan Watts and Steven Strogantz (clustered) offered a different approach that showed a relatively small number of social links were sufficient to drastically reduce the distance of one person to another across the world.
I can't remember who introduced the idea of connector social nodes off the top of my head, but this idea contradictided the previous two models. The idea that a connector node, a social node that had a disproportionate amount of connections to many other nodes, was not possible in the random or cluster models - yet it was an accurate description of social networks and how they function. If I remember correctly, this meant that people were generally about 3 degrees separated from each other, they were just unaware of the relationships they needed to utilize to make the connection in that short a span of hops.
While I agree that there are planty of people in the hosting business who are ignorant on how to do it properly, I would also argue that these people at least have a technical proficiency above and beyond the average user.
I'm not disagreeing with you, and many others here have made very valid points about other factors to viruses and the systems they run on - but I am only really qualified to make statements regarding end user proficiency.
Taking your statement as true, I still believe that the number of clueless users far outweight the number of clueless webhosts. I would also be willing to bet a clueless webhost has enough technical knowledge to "know what he doesn't know", hence the number of elementary questions asked on boards such as the one you pointed out.
I don't believe the average end user has the knowledge to evaluate what exactly is the problem with their computer they need to address. They just know its "broken." This tendency alone gives even a clueless web host a leg up.
Once again I'm not trying to say that there aren't a a sizeable amount of clueless web hosters out there who are getting their boxes compromised. I just think there is a larger. slower moving target of home users that gets the main focus.
Man, this is something I sit up at night and try to figure out. How do you create a means of educating an ignorant end user to a satifactory point of sophistication all the while making the barrier to entry non existent.
The problem is also compounded by the fact that the tech behind the scenes is getting more complex by the minute as the concepts build on each other.
I think a cool idea whould be to create some sort of setting or application that runs on your windows box and proactively explains things when they come up. Somewhat like ESPN had going on about 3 years ago with Hockey games. Once a week a game was chosen to be the "learning" game. Whenever a penalty was called, the announcers would breifly explain and illustrate what the penalty was, how it occured, why it was a penalty, and the price to be paid.
I know they have a help file now, but no one is going to go out of their way to learn something like this. Maybe a little more comprehensive tool tip text type of thing would do the trick.
Just as long as it isn't animated and dosn't make noise.
Please reread my post. I also pointed out that the end users were often not savvy enough to protect their boxes. I never said anything that defends MS or attacks Linux.
When you look objectively at the situation you would see that the path of leat resistance is Windows home boxes. How is that a fanboy statement?
Well, I hardly think that the people maintaining web servers are technical idiots. SO targeting a set of systems that are constantly monitored and maintained by people who are generally neurotic about it isn't exactly the most vulnerable group for creating botnets is it? The home users are.
While I think that implementation may have a little to do with it, I think the driving factor is that Linux has no where close to the user base that Windows does.
The purpose of many of these viruses is to create a large botnet. That's alot easier to do when you targt an OS aimed at the everyman computer user who lacks sophisticated understanding of his box and how to maintain it. Linux on the other hand has no where close to the user base spread across so many different releases and distros that creating a virus for Linux is probably done just to prove a point. The numbers just don't warrant the attention yet.
No, my argument - and the one you keep dodging, is that these are decisions by Sony Corporate, not SCEA or Sony Music.
Jesus. SCEA has NO SWAY over Sony Music. Sony Corporate has ALL the sway. Get if fucking straight man. I never argued against this being the plan. I never argued against Sony Corporate making these decisions. I Said SOny Music doesn't make decisions for SCEA. LEARN TO READ ASSHOLE.
The departments had no influence over each other. Sony Corporate decided this was the game plan, the Home Theater division didn't force the Blu-Ray, and the pictures/music didn't force the DRM.
Corporate decided that they were going to use the PS3 to gain control of the next wave of HD medium delivery vehicles, the PS2 did it with DVD, so they're going to do it again.
So my point still stands. Sony Music has no say over what SCEA does. The rootkit, while evil, was not used in SCEA products - so the comparison is ridiculous. You are allowed to vote with your dollar, and I have no issue with that. WHat I do have an isue with is people with NO concept of business theory making asinine statements off of things that aren't even connected in the way they say they are.
Btw, Blu-Ray isn't just a Sony thing. Dell, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Electronic Arts, Vivendi, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Disney, and Apple all have their hand in this pie. According to your logic, Disney has sway over PS3 design decisions too.
Might I ask why you can't tell the difference between Sony Music and SCEA? This company is so huge that the different divisions hold no sway over each other.
Huh? If I google for "sewing machine" and I get some text ads on the right directing me to places that sell sewing machines on the web, that's a Marketer that did that?
Yep, because people don't just type in sewing machines. They type in Singer, Electric sewing machines, computerized sewing machines, ect...
The thing that the marketer does is analyzes the cost of bidding on a keyword, keeps track of the conversion rates, and makes sure each keyword maintains an acceptable cost of conversion and conversion ratio. While you don't need a degree to do that - you are marketing.
Did you know that a Google ad that has the search term highlighted in bold in the title line has a significantly higher conversion rate? How about the fact that the landing page that the ad points to needs to mimic the message exacty in the text ad or you get a drop percentage pushing 80? By the time a programmer figured this out, he would have cost his business a bundle. How about realising that using the term "holliday" for selling things at Christmas will cost you WAY more than you need to pay because you are also competing with the European travel market at the same time?
Theres alot more to it than your oversimplified statements, and your ignorance is showing. None of the above examples are evil, in fact they cut costs that would ultimately be passed down to the consumer.
Also, you seem really focused on the Business to Consumer activities, which I agree are at times a little slimey. In the Business to Business arena, that behavior will get you effectively BANNED FOR LIFE. You can RUIN a businesses' reputation by trying to manipulate the perceptions of the purchasing entity. You will never get a job again if you do that.
As I was saying before, this state of affairs didn't exist 100 years ago (or probably even 60 years ago--exactly when did Marketing become a college degree?).
Because the Social/cultural/economic/business landscape has become so complex that not having a specialized entity in your business to handle these things will spell out the demise of your company. But it doesn't sound like you run a business either.
Just because a lot of people are too stupid to buy a nice car unless the price is jacked up doesn't mean it's the way things should be.
But it is the way things are, time to cope.
BTW, how hard is it to just do things like they used to do in the old days: import a small number of the item in question, see if it sells or catches on. If not, no big loss; if so, then import a lot more. It doesn't cost a lot to send one container over, or to set up a website to sell directly to people (or use distributors that already have websites). You don't need to pay Marketers tons of money to analyze markets, create huge and expensive marketing campaigns, and have a big "product launch" (ugh), when you can just start small instead.
Because your competition will eat you alive. You want to start a business that way, be my guest - but you are going to lose your ass to a business that understands that power of perception. You can blame marketing degrees all you want, but these techniques were used by the earliest rulers to maintain social calm. The advent of the marketing degree did not create this.
Oh, that's a great thing to say about Americans--"too dumb for most Japanese products". Unfortunately it's true.
I didn't say too dumb, I said too advanced. Don't put words in my mouth. The American public doesn't live in an extremely digitally integrated commuter society like the Japanese. The DoCoMo functionality of getting television streamed to your phone through a cell network is too advanced for our poplation. We wouldn't use it. We are just now begining to adopt iPods that do the same thing, and thats by a relative few against the whole population. Too advanced.
This is just a case of having to do the same evil as your competitors in order to survive.
but now nearly every company works this way, and has a Huckster, er, Marketing Department.
While that is often the perception - your marketing department also works closely with product managers to make sure that no one is creating anything that there is no market for.
Lets take cars for example. Nissan makes really efficient and trustworthy vehicles (for the most part.) There were alot of people who wanted that reliability with a little more luxury. Nissan wants to sell these cars to the American public, but culturally we have an issue with conspicuous consumption. The American people who want a luxury vehicle at an affordable price point won't buy it if it says Nissan on it. So they go and develop a brand called Infinity. Nissan did nothing to create this behavior, it was a factual state of affairs that needed to be dealt with, and Marketing was the discipline to use. Not very evil.
An interesting thing happened next. Even with a brand change, people wouldn't purchase the Infinity cars initially because they were underpriced. This sounds ridiculous, but its true. The American public refused to accept Infinity as a luxury brand without the equivalent price point. The prices were raised as a response to consumer feedback. This too was a marketing decision. In no way did Nissan force these behaviors on the Amrican public, the public forced these changes onto Nissan.
But what the uneducated consumer sees now is that Nissan slapped some leather in their cars, gave it a new name, and added 30% markup to the cost. While esentially this is true, it was motivated by the consumer response - not by consumer manipulation.
There are other points where this is true also, and it is the fault of the consumer - not the marketer. Wine for instance. Educated wine enthusiasts know a good wine when they taste it, and rarely use price to evaluate worth. The average American consumer uses price as a measuring tool because they don't know better. The marketer did not create this environment, the consumer did.
Also, what if your company goes international? You need a marketer to tell you why you cannot sell things the same way in Japan as in America. Your marketing department also prevents you from losing money by importing Japanese products that sell like hotcakes there, but that are too advanced for our consumer base.
The application is evel, not the technique. And your non specific references to marketing evil are all application specific. Hence, the application is evil, not the discipline.
So when I google for something and a small text ad comes up showing a website where I can buy it, that's actually fairly useful.
And the MARKETER placed the ad, not the advertiser. The decision on what keywords that that particular ad would trigger off of were decided by online marketing experts, ot advertisers. In this case, Google is the Advertising agency. They are utilizing a medium to deliver a MARKETING message.
The problem is that the roles played are misunderstood and therefore unfairly vilified.
They are using a monopoly in one part of the market to gain market share (and eventually set up a monopoly) in another part of the market.
When everyone made the switch to Google that gave them dominant market share in search, wasn't the default "search from address bar" setting in IE at MSN? If thats the case, and MS is so awesome at leveraging their monopolies - how did Google gain share? How did they become dominant?
People keep arguing that MS is leveraging a monopoly that was already in existence when Google took over. Why the hell would Google magically begin losing share now, especialy if it gained so much in the face of this monopoly?
People KNOW about google. I just don't think this prediction holds any water. I don't think Google is going to lose a thing. Google can't be this awesome search beast and a weak can't compete entity at the same time. ESPECIALLY with such a vocal following. I don't see anyone here screaming "MSN YAY!" I see alot of counter arguments, but no one actually cheering for MSN.
Hell, I think most people here change the default search engine from MSN to Google on their parents/family/users systems while fixing other issues. MSN couldn't BUY that kind of loyalty. To think that a default setting is going to ruin everything is a little unrealistic.
You're going to tell me a court is going to overlook the fact that Google owns almost 50% market share in search, and that MSFT's attempt to set its default to MSN search is somehow endangering that?
Oh, how about Google using it's dominant market position in Search to push Firefox? I don't see IE anywhere on the list of software available in the Google Pack.
You always a have a knee jerk response to shit you know nothing about?
BTW, Netscape failed because they tried to become more than a browser, they wanted to become the "netscape network", diverting resources into a pipe dream instead of using them to promote their browser.
If Google has leading market share in the search marketspace, how can they claim that Microsoft's intent to default to MSN in IE7 is a not competative practice. I see how the argument works from the OS/effective monopoly perspective, but the argument seems a little weak if approached a different way.
IE defaults to MSN as it's home page, correct? Well, MSN search is there. Google's stating that people won't use their search because users won't change the toolbar default is equivalent to saying that people don't change their default home page - which is untrue.
Where does this end? The default home page? The toolbar option? At some point this gets ridiculous.
The problem doesn't stem from not being able to make a choice, because the settings can be changed. The problem stems from the public not even understanding the difference between the competitors and not caring to change. Who's fault is that? The entrenched vendor who has no reason to promote its competitors or the competitor who needs to make consumer education a priority?
In this case, how do you establish that? The OS is entrenched, but Google market share is significant over MSN's search. I mean hell, its almost 50%. How can you argue that your dominance is in danger by a company who holds 8%?
Actually, I don't think it's advertisers. I think its PR people. The two are not the same.
Actually - the terms Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations are all switched in and out as if they were the same - they're not. These are the definitions as they function in how I use them in my business. Your mileage may vary.
Advertising - The art/science of building/designing media that best leverages the media vehicle's strengths and weaknesses to deliver a message developed by marketing.
Marketing - Analyzing the current business/economic/social/cultural landscape to create/discover/define a target for a product or service. This target is in turn analyzed for the purpose of creating the most effective message to motivate the target to take a desired action.
Public Relations - The art/science of using Marketing and Advertising as applied methods for influencing public opinion, injecting a designed piece of "common knowldge" into a population, or damage control to make the consumer/revenue generating Marketing and Advertising initiatives of a company easier over the long run.
Inherently there is nothing evil about any of these things - the way companies use them is where the evil begins. Just as the wedge itself isn't evil. Its also not evil when you sharpen the edge and strap it to a stick. It still isn't evil when you cleave someones head with it - the weilder of it is. AND - the weilder is only evil if the cleaving was done out of malice or spite. Somehow I don't see self defense as evil.
Quit blaming disciplines as being inherently evil/good. Not only is it inaccurate, but it takes soe of the blame away from the companies who do evil things with these tools and distributes it amongst everyone using them - regardless of their use is ethical/moral or not.
Please make sure that when you hire a shadow puppet for use on technology messageboards that you hire someone who knows the technology at hand. You discredit your client, you burn the puppet's credibility all to shit, and you actually make it harder for those of us who know what we are doing to do it properly.
I don't need to know how to drive a car or even have a license to purchase one. You CAN attempt to drive it without learning how or having that license. Same with a PC.
We don't accept the ignorance argument for allowing people to use public roads.
No, but it doesn't stop them from buying the car does it?
I'm not directing the following rant at you, so don't take it the wrong way - its for everyone.
<rant>
Why is it Microsofts responsibility to educate the end user? Why isn't it the Linux communities? Linux requires MUCH more technical know how to get off the ground.
Also, why does everybody expect the internet to exist as they envision it in their heads? People love to preach about what everybody else has to do to make it their way. Ridiculous. The free utopian internet was a pipe dream. No one takes into consideration that there are REAL people using it. Look around, most people can't clean up after their dog in a public park, much less function correctly in an environment composed of complex abstract concepts and the facade of anonimity.
To expect the population at large to "learn how to do it properly" is the dumbest shit I have ever heard. Would it be the best answer, probably - will it happen, no. The behavior of the largest demographic will influence the state of a social system. Technical or not, people use the internet the best they know how. Not everyone is an engineer, or a geek. The expectation that your way is the right way is at best elitist and at worst horribly ignorant.
Why not have software developers submit their applications for default whitelisting by the firewall? Why not have system VARS configure home machines to work properly with the preinstalled software? Why not have the software deveopers include in their manuals the directions for getting it to work with Windows firewall? Oh, probably because the mighty self apointed technically elite think that its not their problem, its the users problem.
The most self denied trait amongst the technically proficient is that the higher up on the "knowledge food chain" you are directly relates to how socially retarded you are. There are exceptions, but overall it holds true. This being the case, why are the techies trying to dictate HCI and User knowledge requirements for a system whos intent was to be accesable to everyone?
If the general population is not going to change, then it becomes the responsibility of those in the know to make up for it. The result of putting the responsibility on those who can't even comprehend the problem is botnets and spam. We might want to try subtley addressing the issue before it even gets into the end users hand, then it won't come back to bite us in the ass when they try to do something we would deem stupid. Your marketing stooges might be able to help, cause they know people.
Expecting the consumer to self educate in order to use your product is the dumbest thing a company could do. Is it better for everyone if they raise their technical knowledge up a bit? Probably, but having that be your answer to all these problems is delusional - it's not gonna happen.
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I think what you want to be is, in effect, like Switzerland - you want to be the people of unquestionable integrity.
You want to be the people with the technical precision, the people who are neutral, but who are leaders.
You don't want to stand on the sidelines; you want to take positions and take on issues, but you want to try and do it as an ambassador to the community.
All Novell can do, and all Novell really wants to do, is state the facts of the situation, and advocate.
Um, what is this guys stance? I mean really.
A large company who advocates a desktop is most certainly going to influence the direction adoption goes in, is it not? He said it himself, the default is Gnome.
OK, but that's not very neutral. Basically that says to me "we don't care about tailoring to your needs, if you don't know what you want we'll give you Gnome because you can't tell the difference anyway."
How is that any different than Microsoft's customer stance?
as someone else posted earlier in this thread, they should have focused more on their migration methods. If you really want to get businesses motivated to swithing away from MS you need to upfront about the facts of the transition. Tell them what hurt and what was pleasantly painless.
Businesses run by intelligent people will make decisions that may sting in order to get a better position in their marketplace. A company wide transition to another OS is not ommited from that pool of decisions, but no smart company is gioing to make a decision like that without information on what the change entails.
Another thing that bugs me, not just with this article but with all articles of this type, is the marketing analogies of who they are as a company. Businesses have marketing departments. So if your trying to influence a business, tell them the TRUTH, not marketing fluff. It's like these companies keep feeding themselves each others shit and wonder why they have a bad taste in their mouth.
It's not a very large number either (not as low as 6 though)
Actually, in the book Linked it was argued that the degrees of separation are generally less than 6. The older model created by Erdos and Renyi (random) was an attempt at mapping a completely random network. This was the predominant model used by many until Duncan Watts and Steven Strogantz (clustered) offered a different approach that showed a relatively small number of social links were sufficient to drastically reduce the distance of one person to another across the world.
I can't remember who introduced the idea of connector social nodes off the top of my head, but this idea contradictided the previous two models. The idea that a connector node, a social node that had a disproportionate amount of connections to many other nodes, was not possible in the random or cluster models - yet it was an accurate description of social networks and how they function. If I remember correctly, this meant that people were generally about 3 degrees separated from each other, they were just unaware of the relationships they needed to utilize to make the connection in that short a span of hops.
While I agree that there are planty of people in the hosting business who are ignorant on how to do it properly, I would also argue that these people at least have a technical proficiency above and beyond the average user.
I'm not disagreeing with you, and many others here have made very valid points about other factors to viruses and the systems they run on - but I am only really qualified to make statements regarding end user proficiency.
Taking your statement as true, I still believe that the number of clueless users far outweight the number of clueless webhosts. I would also be willing to bet a clueless webhost has enough technical knowledge to "know what he doesn't know", hence the number of elementary questions asked on boards such as the one you pointed out.
I don't believe the average end user has the knowledge to evaluate what exactly is the problem with their computer they need to address. They just know its "broken." This tendency alone gives even a clueless web host a leg up.
Once again I'm not trying to say that there aren't a a sizeable amount of clueless web hosters out there who are getting their boxes compromised. I just think there is a larger. slower moving target of home users that gets the main focus.
Man, this is something I sit up at night and try to figure out. How do you create a means of educating an ignorant end user to a satifactory point of sophistication all the while making the barrier to entry non existent.
The problem is also compounded by the fact that the tech behind the scenes is getting more complex by the minute as the concepts build on each other.
I think a cool idea whould be to create some sort of setting or application that runs on your windows box and proactively explains things when they come up. Somewhat like ESPN had going on about 3 years ago with Hockey games. Once a week a game was chosen to be the "learning" game. Whenever a penalty was called, the announcers would breifly explain and illustrate what the penalty was, how it occured, why it was a penalty, and the price to be paid.
I know they have a help file now, but no one is going to go out of their way to learn something like this. Maybe a little more comprehensive tool tip text type of thing would do the trick.
Just as long as it isn't animated and dosn't make noise.
Please reread my post. I also pointed out that the end users were often not savvy enough to protect their boxes. I never said anything that defends MS or attacks Linux.
When you look objectively at the situation you would see that the path of leat resistance is Windows home boxes. How is that a fanboy statement?
Well, I hardly think that the people maintaining web servers are technical idiots. SO targeting a set of systems that are constantly monitored and maintained by people who are generally neurotic about it isn't exactly the most vulnerable group for creating botnets is it? The home users are.
Thanks for playing.
Why don't we see many viruses for Linux?
While I think that implementation may have a little to do with it, I think the driving factor is that Linux has no where close to the user base that Windows does.
The purpose of many of these viruses is to create a large botnet. That's alot easier to do when you targt an OS aimed at the everyman computer user who lacks sophisticated understanding of his box and how to maintain it. Linux on the other hand has no where close to the user base spread across so many different releases and distros that creating a virus for Linux is probably done just to prove a point. The numbers just don't warrant the attention yet.
No, my argument - and the one you keep dodging, is that these are decisions by Sony Corporate, not SCEA or Sony Music.
Jesus. SCEA has NO SWAY over Sony Music. Sony Corporate has ALL the sway. Get if fucking straight man. I never argued against this being the plan. I never argued against Sony Corporate making these decisions. I Said SOny Music doesn't make decisions for SCEA. LEARN TO READ ASSHOLE.
The departments had no influence over each other. Sony Corporate decided this was the game plan, the Home Theater division didn't force the Blu-Ray, and the pictures/music didn't force the DRM.
Corporate decided that they were going to use the PS3 to gain control of the next wave of HD medium delivery vehicles, the PS2 did it with DVD, so they're going to do it again.
So my point still stands. Sony Music has no say over what SCEA does. The rootkit, while evil, was not used in SCEA products - so the comparison is ridiculous. You are allowed to vote with your dollar, and I have no issue with that. WHat I do have an isue with is people with NO concept of business theory making asinine statements off of things that aren't even connected in the way they say they are.
Btw, Blu-Ray isn't just a Sony thing. Dell, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Electronic Arts, Vivendi, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Disney, and Apple all have their hand in this pie. According to your logic, Disney has sway over PS3 design decisions too.
Cool, so corporate level whores pay? Word up!
Whores get paid, they don't pay.
might I ask why... did you miss the rootkit?
Might I ask why you can't tell the difference between Sony Music and SCEA? This company is so huge that the different divisions hold no sway over each other.
Huh? If I google for "sewing machine" and I get some text ads on the right directing me to places that sell sewing machines on the web, that's a Marketer that did that?
Yep, because people don't just type in sewing machines. They type in Singer, Electric sewing machines, computerized sewing machines, ect...
The thing that the marketer does is analyzes the cost of bidding on a keyword, keeps track of the conversion rates, and makes sure each keyword maintains an acceptable cost of conversion and conversion ratio. While you don't need a degree to do that - you are marketing.
Did you know that a Google ad that has the search term highlighted in bold in the title line has a significantly higher conversion rate? How about the fact that the landing page that the ad points to needs to mimic the message exacty in the text ad or you get a drop percentage pushing 80? By the time a programmer figured this out, he would have cost his business a bundle. How about realising that using the term "holliday" for selling things at Christmas will cost you WAY more than you need to pay because you are also competing with the European travel market at the same time?
Theres alot more to it than your oversimplified statements, and your ignorance is showing. None of the above examples are evil, in fact they cut costs that would ultimately be passed down to the consumer.
Also, you seem really focused on the Business to Consumer activities, which I agree are at times a little slimey. In the Business to Business arena, that behavior will get you effectively BANNED FOR LIFE. You can RUIN a businesses' reputation by trying to manipulate the perceptions of the purchasing entity. You will never get a job again if you do that.
As I was saying before, this state of affairs didn't exist 100 years ago (or probably even 60 years ago--exactly when did Marketing become a college degree?).
Because the Social/cultural/economic/business landscape has become so complex that not having a specialized entity in your business to handle these things will spell out the demise of your company. But it doesn't sound like you run a business either.
Just because a lot of people are too stupid to buy a nice car unless the price is jacked up doesn't mean it's the way things should be.
But it is the way things are, time to cope.
BTW, how hard is it to just do things like they used to do in the old days: import a small number of the item in question, see if it sells or catches on. If not, no big loss; if so, then import a lot more. It doesn't cost a lot to send one container over, or to set up a website to sell directly to people (or use distributors that already have websites). You don't need to pay Marketers tons of money to analyze markets, create huge and expensive marketing campaigns, and have a big "product launch" (ugh), when you can just start small instead.
Because your competition will eat you alive. You want to start a business that way, be my guest - but you are going to lose your ass to a business that understands that power of perception. You can blame marketing degrees all you want, but these techniques were used by the earliest rulers to maintain social calm. The advent of the marketing degree did not create this.
Oh, that's a great thing to say about Americans--"too dumb for most Japanese products". Unfortunately it's true.
I didn't say too dumb, I said too advanced. Don't put words in my mouth. The American public doesn't live in an extremely digitally integrated commuter society like the Japanese. The DoCoMo functionality of getting television streamed to your phone through a cell network is too advanced for our poplation. We wouldn't use it. We are just now begining to adopt iPods that do the same thing, and thats by a relative few against the whole population. Too advanced.
This is just a case of having to do the same evil as your competitors in order to survive.
No, this is responding to the
but now nearly every company works this way, and has a Huckster, er, Marketing Department.
While that is often the perception - your marketing department also works closely with product managers to make sure that no one is creating anything that there is no market for.
Lets take cars for example. Nissan makes really efficient and trustworthy vehicles (for the most part.) There were alot of people who wanted that reliability with a little more luxury. Nissan wants to sell these cars to the American public, but culturally we have an issue with conspicuous consumption. The American people who want a luxury vehicle at an affordable price point won't buy it if it says Nissan on it. So they go and develop a brand called Infinity. Nissan did nothing to create this behavior, it was a factual state of affairs that needed to be dealt with, and Marketing was the discipline to use. Not very evil.
An interesting thing happened next. Even with a brand change, people wouldn't purchase the Infinity cars initially because they were underpriced. This sounds ridiculous, but its true. The American public refused to accept Infinity as a luxury brand without the equivalent price point. The prices were raised as a response to consumer feedback. This too was a marketing decision. In no way did Nissan force these behaviors on the Amrican public, the public forced these changes onto Nissan.
But what the uneducated consumer sees now is that Nissan slapped some leather in their cars, gave it a new name, and added 30% markup to the cost. While esentially this is true, it was motivated by the consumer response - not by consumer manipulation.
There are other points where this is true also, and it is the fault of the consumer - not the marketer. Wine for instance. Educated wine enthusiasts know a good wine when they taste it, and rarely use price to evaluate worth. The average American consumer uses price as a measuring tool because they don't know better. The marketer did not create this environment, the consumer did.
Also, what if your company goes international? You need a marketer to tell you why you cannot sell things the same way in Japan as in America. Your marketing department also prevents you from losing money by importing Japanese products that sell like hotcakes there, but that are too advanced for our consumer base.
The application is evel, not the technique. And your non specific references to marketing evil are all application specific. Hence, the application is evil, not the discipline.
So when I google for something and a small text ad comes up showing a website where I can buy it, that's actually fairly useful.
And the MARKETER placed the ad, not the advertiser. The decision on what keywords that that particular ad would trigger off of were decided by online marketing experts, ot advertisers. In this case, Google is the Advertising agency. They are utilizing a medium to deliver a MARKETING message.
The problem is that the roles played are misunderstood and therefore unfairly vilified.
They are using a monopoly in one part of the market to gain market share (and eventually set up a monopoly) in another part of the market.
When everyone made the switch to Google that gave them dominant market share in search, wasn't the default "search from address bar" setting in IE at MSN? If thats the case, and MS is so awesome at leveraging their monopolies - how did Google gain share? How did they become dominant?
People keep arguing that MS is leveraging a monopoly that was already in existence when Google took over. Why the hell would Google magically begin losing share now, especialy if it gained so much in the face of this monopoly?
People KNOW about google. I just don't think this prediction holds any water. I don't think Google is going to lose a thing. Google can't be this awesome search beast and a weak can't compete entity at the same time. ESPECIALLY with such a vocal following. I don't see anyone here screaming "MSN YAY!" I see alot of counter arguments, but no one actually cheering for MSN.
Hell, I think most people here change the default search engine from MSN to Google on their parents/family/users systems while fixing other issues. MSN couldn't BUY that kind of loyalty. To think that a default setting is going to ruin everything is a little unrealistic.
Not as dumb as you my friend.
You're going to tell me a court is going to overlook the fact that Google owns almost 50% market share in search, and that MSFT's attempt to set its default to MSN search is somehow endangering that?
Oh, how about Google using it's dominant market position in Search to push Firefox? I don't see IE anywhere on the list of software available in the Google Pack.
You always a have a knee jerk response to shit you know nothing about?
BTW, Netscape failed because they tried to become more than a browser, they wanted to become the "netscape network", diverting resources into a pipe dream instead of using them to promote their browser.
If Google has leading market share in the search marketspace, how can they claim that Microsoft's intent to default to MSN in IE7 is a not competative practice. I see how the argument works from the OS/effective monopoly perspective, but the argument seems a little weak if approached a different way.
IE defaults to MSN as it's home page, correct? Well, MSN search is there. Google's stating that people won't use their search because users won't change the toolbar default is equivalent to saying that people don't change their default home page - which is untrue.
Where does this end? The default home page? The toolbar option? At some point this gets ridiculous.
The problem doesn't stem from not being able to make a choice, because the settings can be changed. The problem stems from the public not even understanding the difference between the competitors and not caring to change. Who's fault is that? The entrenched vendor who has no reason to promote its competitors or the competitor who needs to make consumer education a priority?
In this case, how do you establish that? The OS is entrenched, but Google market share is significant over MSN's search. I mean hell, its almost 50%. How can you argue that your dominance is in danger by a company who holds 8%?
Actually, I don't think it's advertisers. I think its PR people. The two are not the same.
Actually - the terms Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations are all switched in and out as if they were the same - they're not. These are the definitions as they function in how I use them in my business. Your mileage may vary.
Advertising - The art/science of building/designing media that best leverages the media vehicle's strengths and weaknesses to deliver a message developed by marketing.
Marketing - Analyzing the current business/economic/social/cultural landscape to create/discover/define a target for a product or service. This target is in turn analyzed for the purpose of creating the most effective message to motivate the target to take a desired action.
Public Relations - The art/science of using Marketing and Advertising as applied methods for influencing public opinion, injecting a designed piece of "common knowldge" into a population, or damage control to make the consumer/revenue generating Marketing and Advertising initiatives of a company easier over the long run.
Inherently there is nothing evil about any of these things - the way companies use them is where the evil begins. Just as the wedge itself isn't evil. Its also not evil when you sharpen the edge and strap it to a stick. It still isn't evil when you cleave someones head with it - the weilder of it is. AND - the weilder is only evil if the cleaving was done out of malice or spite. Somehow I don't see self defense as evil.
Quit blaming disciplines as being inherently evil/good. Not only is it inaccurate, but it takes soe of the blame away from the companies who do evil things with these tools and distributes it amongst everyone using them - regardless of their use is ethical/moral or not.
Back when it was called remote scripting.
I have a feeling that that the American market will pronounce it "why" regardless of its proper pronunciation.
To he/she who hired the shadow puppet.
Please make sure that when you hire a shadow puppet for use on technology messageboards that you hire someone who knows the technology at hand. You discredit your client, you burn the puppet's credibility all to shit, and you actually make it harder for those of us who know what we are doing to do it properly.
Stick to astroturfing you tool.
Actually you and the GP both miss the point.
I don't need to know how to drive a car or even have a license to purchase one. You CAN attempt to drive it without learning how or having that license. Same with a PC.
No, but it doesn't stop them from buying the car does it?
I'm not directing the following rant at you, so don't take it the wrong way - its for everyone.Why is it Microsofts responsibility to educate the end user? Why isn't it the Linux communities? Linux requires MUCH more technical know how to get off the ground.
Also, why does everybody expect the internet to exist as they envision it in their heads? People love to preach about what everybody else has to do to make it their way. Ridiculous. The free utopian internet was a pipe dream. No one takes into consideration that there are REAL people using it. Look around, most people can't clean up after their dog in a public park, much less function correctly in an environment composed of complex abstract concepts and the facade of anonimity.
To expect the population at large to "learn how to do it properly" is the dumbest shit I have ever heard. Would it be the best answer, probably - will it happen, no. The behavior of the largest demographic will influence the state of a social system. Technical or not, people use the internet the best they know how. Not everyone is an engineer, or a geek. The expectation that your way is the right way is at best elitist and at worst horribly ignorant.
Why not have software developers submit their applications for default whitelisting by the firewall? Why not have system VARS configure home machines to work properly with the preinstalled software? Why not have the software deveopers include in their manuals the directions for getting it to work with Windows firewall? Oh, probably because the mighty self apointed technically elite think that its not their problem, its the users problem.
The most self denied trait amongst the technically proficient is that the higher up on the "knowledge food chain" you are directly relates to how socially retarded you are. There are exceptions, but overall it holds true. This being the case, why are the techies trying to dictate HCI and User knowledge requirements for a system whos intent was to be accesable to everyone?
If the general population is not going to change, then it becomes the responsibility of those in the know to make up for it. The result of putting the responsibility on those who can't even comprehend the problem is botnets and spam. We might want to try subtley addressing the issue before it even gets into the end users hand, then it won't come back to bite us in the ass when they try to do something we would deem stupid. Your marketing stooges might be able to help, cause they know people.Flame on.
Expecting the consumer to self educate in order to use your product is the dumbest thing a company could do. Is it better for everyone if they raise their technical knowledge up a bit? Probably, but having that be your answer to all these problems is delusional - it's not gonna happen.
Shouldertapping.
It is a right of passage for all of us.