Psychology

Is Apple using scarcity to hide iPhone quality problems?

Posted in Analysis, Apple, Business, Consumer Electronics, Gadgets, Hardware, Marketing, Psychology on July 28th, 2008 by leodirac – 9 Comments

Here I propose an alternative explanation for iPhone scarcity: the difficulty in obtaining a new iPhone keeps people from complaining about problems with it. I will explore this sophisticated marketing technique that Apple may or may not be employing to cover up quality problems with the new iPhone 3G. Even if Apple is not doing this deliberately, I assert that it is a valid and potentially very useful technique if your product is lucky enough to have the prerequisites. New iPhones are hard to get The blogosphere is full of speculation about whether or not Apple deliberately made the iPhone…

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Social mixing at foo camp 2007

Posted in Community, Ego, Psychology, Technology on June 25th, 2007 by leodirac – 1 Comment

I just got back from foo camp, a small unconference-style event held on the Sebastopol campus of O’Reilly. FOO stands for Friends Of O’Reilly. (The name came out of a joke about having a “foo bar” at a conference. This bar served me too much wine over the course of the weekend.) Tim O’Reilly likes the conference because it helps him spot upcoming trends early, which is an important part of O’Reilly’s business both as a publisher of technology books, and as an organizer of large public conferences. The conference is small and invitation only, and pretty much everybody there…

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