Humor to Support the Disabled

After searching for an interesting topic to discuss in this weeks blog, I came across an article in the New York Times that talks about their "public service announcement" that is targeted to help employers employ disabled people. Unfortunately people are judged not on their skills but on their outward appearances, and these advertisements poke fun of peoples misfortunes that don't affect their work. There is a advertisement of a girl wearing many different clashing patterns an labeled across her forehead is a sign that says "Pattern Deficient". Just because she doesn't dress correctly, doesn't mean it affects her work.

People who are deaf, or blind or missing a limb or have a speech impediment are just as able to do the job who someone who is fortunate to not have anything particularly wrong with them. These clever, witty advertisements get people to think and look outside the box, because what makes you who you are isn't based on how you look, or how you speak. Whose to say that one person is better than the other based solely on their outward appearances?

"Just because someone moves a little differently doesn’t mean they can’t help move your business forward. The same goes for people with disabilities.” This is a statement that was taken off one of their advertisements. Above there is a picture of a man dressed professional in a nice suit, dancing ridiculously. Even though the man clearly has no rhythm it doesn't mean it will affect his skills in a job. So, to quote a librarian out there somewhere, I'm going to say "Don't judge a book by its cover", because you never know whats inside or what a person is capable of simply by looking at them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/business/media/29adco.html?scp=21&sq=advertising%20and%20marketing&st=cse

Apple Bans Hackers

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/16/apple-bans-hackers-from-app-store/

Apple has been banning hackers from accessing their App Store on their iPhones due to security reasons. If I understand this correctly, it means that Apple is putting a stop to iPhone thieves. The bad thing about having an iPhone is that their is no insurance for it, which is mainly the reason as to why I do not have one yet. I am much too irresponsible when it comes to my cell phones, so there is no way that I could get a phone that doesn't have insurance. Apple is basically blocking people from accessing other peoples accounts, which is good.

It isn't likely that someone is getting denied access from their own account because they forgotten their passwords, or exceeded their limit, if that were the case iPhone users would be able to access an App called iForgot that allows them to get it again. So if it really is your iPhone and Apple ID that is being denied from Apple, it is because they are trying to protect your personal information and I'm sure they realize that there are hackers that could figure out a way around this, but it just makes it that much harder.

I think that Apple and At&t should spend less money on ads (which is roughly $500 million a year!) and figure out a way to make cell phones, like their blackberry's and iPhones harder to steal. Hackers make it their goals to get into the system, and other peoples personal information. At&t has a major flaw, in my opinion because they make it all the easier to steal a phone from someone because all it takes it for you to put your sim card in another sim cards slot. I think they did this for the easy access and less hassle it allows us buys to have, and being a At&t user I do agree, however I have had my phone stolen one time too many and the fact that I know that someone just got a new phone, without hassle or any problems really makes me mad.

Ads within Video Games

I'm not much of a video game player, even though I do like the casual Super Mario Brother's session now and again. Now a days video games are so realistic that it actually looks like you are watching a movie or you yourself are in the scene. I wont at all be surprised when they come out with 3-D video games (which if I may say would totally be awesome). Some of the most popular games throughout the last couple of years, keep coming out with new and improved udated versions from the original, like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Zelda. A couple of years ago NewsWeek printed an article called The New Ad Game by Jessica Ramirez which'd talked about how the companies are now paying for or are thinking about putting their logo or product to end up in a video game via an advertisement. Not only will these companies open up a different target market, it will also give them a differnent more modern way to get their name out there.

Xbox 360 and Playstion 3 were just about to be released when this article was released in 2006. No one could have predicted what system was going to do better, or which games were going to be more successful by selling, yet companies were still interested in advertising through them. Companies risked their money and started to advertise within video games such as "Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, DaimlerChrysler and Honda". I don't know how I necessarily feel about there being real life products advertised in a virtual, fake world. I do know that it doesn't really make much sense to me, because my thought process is that people participate in video game playing to basically escape from their everyday reality only to be sucked back in with an ad. Whatever technology you seem to go on, there are ads everywhere.

"I don't want to play a medieval game and see a McDonald's" a video gamer named of Joshua Robinson says. I understand that video games, aren't generally supposed to make sense and be real life, but the people who spend all their time and energy playing them, I bet would disagree. Playing a video game that takes place in medieval times such as 2007's Assassin's Creed, there just wouldn't be a McDonald's or Coca Cola company advertisement to advertise yet. If I were to put myself in those peoples shoes, I believe I would get distracted and could potential endanger my life or my fellow gamers and have been in the presence of people who are completely into that, they would be completely thrown off and offended.

Another issue, I along with the article have with advertising within video games are the success that advertisement actually has, and if anybody actually noticed it or not. The ad could be in or on any number of places, located far away or so close that it appears blurry, so who and what determines the cost of the ad? We all know that the gaming company wouldn't allow them to advertise without a heavy price. The questions I am asking, are questions I'm sure other people are questioned as well, that is why I believe they came up with a code that allows them to figure out how and at what angle the product was noticed. "They can tell you down to the nth degree how long your ad was looked at, from what angle and who was looking at it." " Basically this means that the video game makers will be able to tell how much of a success another company's advertisement. This will either persuade or discourage companies to invest in this new, high tech way of advertising.

Long Tail

After reading about "Long Tail" I really got different sense of understanding today's society, and current and past book favorites, music albums, and movie sellers. For example, a man wrote a book about his near death experience with mountain climbing and entitled it: Touching the Void, it was a short lived seller back in 1998. Then another person wrote a book about their mountain climbing tragedy and called it Into Thin Air. It was a huge success, which lead people to read other near death tails on mountain climbing which brought back the sales of Touching the Void. This brings me to relate what's popular in current book sales today, which is vampire love stories among teens and woman. Authors are writing more and more about vampires, which cause older books to be brought back in the lime light. (I myself, am a little embarrassed to say that I have found my self reading other vampire stories after reading the Twilight Saga, and am now looking for older and current similar books).There is an entirely new way to view movies, listen to music, and read books, which all never existed a mere 10 years ago. With the introduction to Netflix, Pandora, and the brand new Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Nobles Nook, it is getting even lazier and easier view the things you enjoy. Most of these new gadgets are making it almost impossible for poeople to venture out past their comfort zones. For example, we have Pandora, where you simply have to type in an artist you enjoy and it somehow manages to find multiple, similar artists with similar sounds. Although, these new trends are amazing, it just means that people are less likely to go into a music store and manually search and listen to music. Also, a lot of great movies get made each and every year by great production companies, yet they are not advertised or even shown because like Long Tail said "an average movie theater will not show a film unless it can attract at least 1,500 people over a two-week run". So even if people do want to rent a movie, even the video stores have that same mind set, and same goes for music shops and book stores. Juke boxes do some justice, I know a local restaurant that I attend almost every week with a group of my friends, and because the restaurant doesn't play music regularly we are almost forced to put our money into the juke box just have some sort of background music playing. The upside in this, is that we (along with other patrons) are able to pick and choose what we want to hear, and sometimes sitting at the table I hear songs I haven't heard of or haven't heard in years. We are basically paying for a type of radio, not once have I heard of anyone going up there and requesting a song and not being able to play it. Yes, it does get costly after week after week, but entertainment comes at a price. This type of juke box in restaurant after restaurant, and bar after bar and I whole heartily agree with Kevin Laws, when he says "The biggest money is in the smallest sales." At .50 a song, play after play, there is bound to be a great bundle of revenue to be made. If we just listened to the simple rules, I believe we could go somewhere by "making everything available" and "cutting the price in half, then lowering it".