elegance

I got this interesting note from a reader regarding my assertion that HD-DVD has the edge on Blu-Ray, unless things change. This simplistic but elegant argument may actaully be all that is at work. I found it amusing.

Dear Mr. Dvorak,

In your recent column piece: The Practical Superiority of HD-DVD, you mentioned factors that you believe will determine HD-DVD’s success over Blu-ray DVD.

I think the names of the competing technologies are a factor too. HD-DVD sounds practically superior. The all caps in the name makes it BIGGER than the mostly lower case Blu-ray DVD, and HD-DVD tells you what it is just by looking at it: it’s High Definition DVD (Blu-ray is what?). Acronyms also seem to win out over personalized names (VHS vs. Beta, Wi-Fi and USB vs. Blue Tooth) perhaps because the acronym is neutral which at a subconscious level empowers the user to take ownership whereas Blu-ray, Beta and BlueTooth are self-interested reminders from the powers that be. PC still stands for personal computer– I think the public wants to keep it that way.

What’s in a name? Everything.
Sincerely,

David Freire



  1. gquaglia says:

    I agree. A name is a powerfull thing. And blue ray sounds kinda goofy.

  2. David Epstein says:

    An imporant thing to remember might want to mention is the porn industry and how they will be an imporant part in the decison on which technology is adopted. This might be the vhs vs. betamax thing all over again. Here is an interesting article about the vhs vs. betamax issue. http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v49/no1/johnson.html

  3. Jim says:

    We has a current events class in Jr. high school. One lesson I remember is about branding. This was before the PC, which we later learned was IBM compatible. Then once I got a IBM compatible PC, I gave OS/2 Warp a try. The whole world turned upside down. I guess that is why I wrote off anything software from IBM. I went back to MS-DOS/Windows and then WIN95 and WIN98. Then came WINME and then WINXP with SP2. SP2 reminded me of OS2. WIN won, I guess it was the term WINTEL that created buzz. MAC is easy too. Like Big Mac. Then there is MAC-OSX. X is always cool. Xbox, Xray, Xwife and XOS. It’s all the same. Why cant Linux be LINX? Drop the U, it’s simple and you got a 4 character brand. Maybe MS will then start WINX. Avoid OS/2 . Maybe it was the slash. between the S and 2. G should start the trickle into other things. It’s the Google name dynamic. The next thing you know you got Gstring, Gwiz, Gpod, Ghad, i was the old standard. Look at W as in www. The solo W became the chant of the election. W stickers on almost every SUV, more likely on a Hummer H2 that is, it’s status baby. Maybe the next big product will just be one letter. Z is cool. Thanks Zorro. F, remember F-Troop? All the problems seem to start when the numbers and letters get mixed together. With cars this works fine Z28, H2, ZR1 etc. Three letters might be the best solution. You have your GTO, FBI, IBM, COM,ORG, GOV. The airlines did this with TWA and it seemed to work. I still remember TWA. TWA ran out of MONEY. UAL isn’t looking too good. Fly GO, the airline name you know. W won. Was he also a Taxas Ranger?

  4. An important thing to remember might want to mention is the porn industry and how they will be an imporant part in the decison on which technology is adopted. This might be the vhs vs. betamax thing all over again. Here is an interesting article about the vhs vs. betamax issue. see link

  5. cobra13402 says:

    An imporant thing to remember might want to mention is the porn industry and how they will be an imporant part in the decison on which technology is adopted. This might be the vhs vs. betamax thing all over again. Here is an interesting article about the vhs vs. betamax issue. see link

  6. Jim says:

    Porn is a big factor. XXX, I forgot. I worked at an airport. Porn all over the place. The people were more worried about sexxx than anything involving aircraft, keeping the machines oiled or job security. The technology suffered, the airlines suffered, it all turned out as I believed it would. I tend to think that any technology driven by passion is doomed by practicality. If one company is driven by people who spend the day wrapped up in consuming porn, while they should be selling and doing business and the competition is using the same time doing data entry, generating reports and the other stuff a business requires. You know who wins. Even if you are in the porn business, you can’t endulge too much in your wares. It’s like a guy who sells coke and spends all day doing coke. He ain’t going to last. Porn is mainstream, but without any mainstream brands. We have a local adult gift shop. It’s nondescript, plain jane sign, decal covered window say it all. A low key operation, but I’d guess the guy does a good business with the airport people who are always crying about going broke, this and that. The joint might make more money than the airlines at our $2 billion airport. It’s one of those things. Porn piggybacks on other technology and feeds at the bottom. Porn has sharks that will feed on anything. What business doesn’t? I’m sure these modern search engines are busy serving up the porn, but theres a buck in it so you get to grow. It’s profit, capital in motion and the blogging doesn’t pay. Pay television, subscription rape and vices it’s all the same. The economy is shitty, the politics is rotten, the threat of terror and who cares if some wannabes made 20 billion making porn orderly and indexed. Finding porn is easier than finding a nice woman. What would most men rather have? When the adult gift store calls it quits and folds, I’ll know things are bad. I tend to think the airline will call it quits and fold first, and they have have a brand name corporate image and $50 million jets. Maybe the porn operators are more honest and moral or just better business leaders than the CEO’s operating our nations airlines. Just a thought! Maybe XXXAirways is a good brand name.

  7. david says:

    Jim wrote:

    >Finding porn is easier than finding a nice woman. What would >most men rather have?

    The fact is that men need sex a million times more than a woman does which is correlated to the number of gamete (sperm) a man produces in a lifetime to the number of female gamete (400 eggs).

    Most men would rather have sex with a woman but since women hold the MONOPOLY on pussy, we are doomed. Thank god, someone invented lying.

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