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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
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"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Thursday, September 08, 2005
How to Make a Reality Distortion Field
Here's a post I submitted to the Business 2.0 blog:
Today's launch of the iTunes phone and iPod Nano may have disappointed many who were expecting greater things from Apple (like an Apple-branded Podphone or a VidPod). But there is no such thing as disappointment at an Apple media event. From the moment you get the coy email invite to the moment you file out accompanied by triumphal pop standards, every second is carefully crafted to make you feel like you're witnessing the greatest technology launch in history. What happened today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco was a pitch-perfect example.
Hundreds of journalists, bloggers, Apple employees and assorted boosters were duly summoned with a message that contained no more details than the tantalizing statement: "1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything. Here we go again." Here we go again indeed. We dutifully registered, then filed into the auditorium lit almost entirely by a giant glowing Apple logo. A fifteen-minute wait followed, just long enough for the buzz to build and for everyone to notice that former Vice President and Apple board member Al Gore was glad-handing everyone in the front row. Then the lights dimmed, cheers went up, and we all turned expectantly towards the giant Apple for the arrival of the Glorious Leader.
Steve Jobs was long ago accused of possessing a "reality distortion field" inside which you were lulled into sharing his enthusiasm for every one of his "insanely great" products. Jobs' personality may have mellowed with age, but his reality distortion field has grown larger, and acquired a titanium shell. Here's how he does it:
1. Start off very low-key. Introduce favorite celeb friends in the audience (Gore doesn't rate a mention today, but Yo-Yo Ma does).
2. Move quickly through a series of increasingly important announcements. Conspiratorially share tidbits of new data (number of iTunes users, never before revealed: 10 million), ensuring we feel grateful for them. Announce product upgrade: iTunes 5.
3. Dazzle with celeb endorsements. J.K. Rowling has put all Harry Potter audiobooks exclusively on iTunes (and you can get an iPod engraved with the Hogwarts school crest). Madonna has put all her albums exclusively on iTunes, too. "How does she feel about that?" asks Jobs. "Well, let's call her!" A ripple of excitement goes through the crowd as Jobs initiates a cozy video iChat with the Material Girl, live in London.
4. The first new product announcement, downplayed a little: "you've probably already heard about this." Which is true - the Motorola iTunes phone has not been Apple's best-kept secret. It's basically a hundred-song iPod shuffle built into a phone. But by the time we've heard from Motorola and Cingular executives and watched four "sneak peeks" at TV ads for the new phone, all of which is cheered wildly by the employees, our resistance has been beaten down. Some journalists start applauding along with them. Amazing what a room full of peer pressure can do.
5. A teaser for the really big product announcement: Jobs tells us he's killing the iPod mini. A chilled silence descends as he lets the full impact sink in: the world's bestselling digital music player, and they're going to stop making it? Is he insane? What could possibly justify such a move? A final tease: on the jumbo screen, a close-up of Jobs' jeans. "Ever wondered," he says, pointing at his change pocket, "what this pocket is for?" Not change, evidently. Levi Strauss had no idea, but he was actually making an iPod Nano pocket.
6. The money shot. Jobs produces a Nano from his jeans, and the reaction could not have been greater at the foot of Mount Sinai if Moses had yanked two stone tablets out of his robe. Product reviewers in the audience know their greatest task today will be explaining just how small the device is with reference to an ordinary household object, but Jobs has them covered. "It's thinner than a number 2 pencil," he says. On screen, just in case we missed it, an animation of a pencil eclipsing the Nano plays three times. Jobs compares the Nano's size to that of competitors' products, giving us the exact percentage difference each time. In the digital player world, size really does matter.
7. The final celeb endorsement. Just when some of the skeptics among us are thinking "that's the big announcement - a smaller, slimmer Flash-based mini?" Jobs offers a diversion in the form of Kanye West, probably the hottest recording artist in the world right now. West raps his way through a couple of hits as if he's at the MTV music awards. The audience gamely taps its toes. Gore looks like he's listening to a Senate speech. Perhaps he's wondering what Tipper will make of West's highly explicit lyrics.
We were invited to test the phone and the Nano on our way out, and that was that. We all shuffled out of the presence of the technology era's ultimate showman, too dazzled to be disappointed. After all, there's plenty of time --- and trade shows -- left this year for bigger and better Apple product announcements. Is Motorola's iTunes phone an early prototype for a bigger and better Podphone? Will the VidPod ever make an appearance? Here we go again.
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