Friday, February 18, 2005
The Top One Hundred Gadgets of All Time. "[L]et's lay some ground rules before we get started. What defines a "gadget" anyway?
* It has to have electronic and/or moving parts of some kind. Scissors count, but the knife does not.
* It has to be a self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device. The flashlight counts; the light bulb does not. The notebook counts, but the hard drive doesn't.
* It has to be smaller than the proverbial bread box. This is the most flexible of the categories, since gadgets have gotten inexorably smaller over time. But in general we included only items that were potentially mobile: The Dustbuster counts; the vacuum cleaner doesn't." (Via Boing Boing.)
As it happens, we're looking for gadget suggestions for the paying gig we have with "Buffalo Spree". What is something that fits into these definitional criteria that you would put on the list? Alternatively, what are some duds? We are thinking of a column of all duds, like this hilarious "Miss A Utility Knife". If men were women, they would like stuff like this-- it is a good example of a terrible gadget, because it has next to no appeal for its target audience. Think about it: the point of a Swiss Army knife is that it combines a blade, a corkscrew, a screwdriver and a couple of other things into a pocket-sized tool. Now think about the "Miss A": it combines a bunch of stuff that women carry in their pocketbooks into one unit. Why? It does not do any of the things that it does as well as the things themselves do-- and women have a system for carrying all this stuff around already. Guys reading this clicked on the link and thought "Cool-- that'd make a nice gift!" Women looked at it, trust me on this, and thought, "That's stupid". As with vacuuming robots, my recommendation to you, gentlemen, is to avoid stuff like the "Miss A Utility Knife."
* It has to have electronic and/or moving parts of some kind. Scissors count, but the knife does not.
* It has to be a self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device. The flashlight counts; the light bulb does not. The notebook counts, but the hard drive doesn't.
* It has to be smaller than the proverbial bread box. This is the most flexible of the categories, since gadgets have gotten inexorably smaller over time. But in general we included only items that were potentially mobile: The Dustbuster counts; the vacuum cleaner doesn't." (Via Boing Boing.)
As it happens, we're looking for gadget suggestions for the paying gig we have with "Buffalo Spree". What is something that fits into these definitional criteria that you would put on the list? Alternatively, what are some duds? We are thinking of a column of all duds, like this hilarious "Miss A Utility Knife". If men were women, they would like stuff like this-- it is a good example of a terrible gadget, because it has next to no appeal for its target audience. Think about it: the point of a Swiss Army knife is that it combines a blade, a corkscrew, a screwdriver and a couple of other things into a pocket-sized tool. Now think about the "Miss A": it combines a bunch of stuff that women carry in their pocketbooks into one unit. Why? It does not do any of the things that it does as well as the things themselves do-- and women have a system for carrying all this stuff around already. Guys reading this clicked on the link and thought "Cool-- that'd make a nice gift!" Women looked at it, trust me on this, and thought, "That's stupid". As with vacuuming robots, my recommendation to you, gentlemen, is to avoid stuff like the "Miss A Utility Knife."
// posted by Bill @ 3:52 PM 
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