iPod research yields a book full of Bull - Valleywag Comments

iPod research yields a book full of Bull

mbull — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 07:15:04 PST

Dear Tim
You've misinterpreted my comments made on Wired News. The point was that the Apple executive was too stupid to recognise or understand any research that wasn't quantative and market driven.
I had the same experince with Sony back in 1999 when they weren't interested in research into the Walkman (book reference below) - look what happened to their market! My own research isn't aimed at selling iPods - qualitative research attempts to look at material in more depth - not merely telling us that 40% of people prefer white to coloured toilet paper for example!My own research looks at new technologies as a kind of prism onto the changing nature of our social world - more philosophical than most business executives are interested in.

The interview in Wired News was a truncated version of the interview given. The aim of the research was to look at how mobile technologies like the iPod change or impact upon how we construct our sense of the social - of how we relate to ourselves, others and the places we inhabit or move through - like all technologies they are placed on a continuum - so one of your respondents is partially correct in that the ipod is an extension of the walkman (see my book Sounding Out the City.Personal Stereos and the management of everyday life (Berg 2000)Yet the iPod permits a micro management of cognition to sound which is new. Ther book by the way also discusses how iPod users use their mobile phones and automobiles - everything mobile in fact. As to the results - best read the book and come to your own conclusions!

all ther best

Dr Michael Bull

mbull

iPod research yields a book full of Bull

raincoaster — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:52:10 PST

I want his agent.

raincoaster

iPod research yields a book full of Bull

Deprong Mori — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:22:44 PST

So let me get this straight...

He could have done the same research twenty years ago on Walkmans and basically come to the same conclusions, right?

Deprong Mori

iPod research yields a book full of Bull

NerdBrain — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:03:59 PST

I feel bad for the guy. Sussex is my almer mater, and I was there when his research first started and he was labeled "professor iPod". So this is what all those years of research have yielded? Shame. Only, I haven't given it a read as yet, so I'll try to give it a look in.

You make an interesting last point, though: "All the gadget makers trying to compete with Apple [...] seem to keep missing the obvious." I can't stress how true this is. I realised not too long ago that there'll always be opportunity to make money in business because 80 percent of those engaged in any commercial industry (in MHO) are incompetent. It doesn't take a brain surgeon, or indeed a professor, to see what makes iPod/iPhone so successful. And yet...

NerdBrain