It's all about the average users
on
Taming the Web
·
· Score: 1
You're right, as long as you can connect two computers together, nobody can control what you do on those two computers. Someone else posted that people can start again with BBS's, Fidonet, etc. Great.
But remember that those weren't nearly as useful as the Internet is today. The Internet became so valuable because people - normal, non-Slashdot reading, non-hacking people - use it, create content, read content, upload MP3's.
If Napster were only used by the Slashdot crowd, it would not have been useful. It was only when thousands of high school and college kids started uploading and sharing all their music that it became valuable. You can always create a music sharing system that's unbreakable, but if corporations can get the ten largest ISPs to block it, it won't get critical mass.
That is the point that a lot of people are missing. No matter how good the technical fix, as long as most of the ordinary people on the Internet are controllable, then any behavior can be kept far enough at the margins that it won't ever be a threat.
Companies do market research. There are many market research firms out there who are very, very good at answering questions like "what is likely to be popular with our target audience."
Typically what will happen is the company will identify what its target market is. Perhaps in this case, the game maker will tell the market research firm that they are looking for people who spend a certain number of hours per week playing computer games.
Then the market researchers will find people who fit the criteria, form a focus group, ask them lots of questions and analyze the responses, and the company will base marketing decisions on this.
In this case, if most of the people who play games >= x hours a day are male, then the focus group will be predominantly male, and the answers will reflect some degree of (perhaps subconscious)male bias.
In short, it is perfectly plausible that a company would have concrete data supporting a marketing campaign that attracts adolescent boys.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, as long as you can connect two computers together, nobody can control what you do on those two computers. Someone else posted that people can start again with BBS's, Fidonet, etc. Great. But remember that those weren't nearly as useful as the Internet is today. The Internet became so valuable because people - normal, non-Slashdot reading, non-hacking people - use it, create content, read content, upload MP3's. If Napster were only used by the Slashdot crowd, it would not have been useful. It was only when thousands of high school and college kids started uploading and sharing all their music that it became valuable. You can always create a music sharing system that's unbreakable, but if corporations can get the ten largest ISPs to block it, it won't get critical mass. That is the point that a lot of people are missing. No matter how good the technical fix, as long as most of the ordinary people on the Internet are controllable, then any behavior can be kept far enough at the margins that it won't ever be a threat.
Companies do market research. There are many market research firms out there who are very, very good at answering questions like "what is likely to be popular with our target audience."
Typically what will happen is the company will identify what its target market is. Perhaps in this case, the game maker will tell the market research firm that they are looking for people who spend a certain number of hours per week playing computer games.
Then the market researchers will find people who fit the criteria, form a focus group, ask them lots of questions and analyze the responses, and the company will base marketing decisions on this.
In this case, if most of the people who play games >= x hours a day are male, then the focus group will be predominantly male, and the answers will reflect some degree of (perhaps subconscious)male bias.
In short, it is perfectly plausible that a company would have concrete data supporting a marketing campaign that attracts adolescent boys.