How High-Tech Gadget Trends Differ By US Region

Ant writes in with news of a study revealing differences in gadget preferences by US region. The survey is not rigorous, based as it was on 7,500 online questionnaires submitted to Retrevo, a website for tech shoppers. The company plans to run the survey annually. "...in the smartphone category, the state of Maryland came out on top with 48 percent more households owning at least one such handset than elsewhere in the country. ... In iPad use, the state of New York took top honors. According to the survey, 52 percent more households have at least one iPad in the Empire State. ... Massachusetts beat out the rest of the nation in e-reader adoption..."

California the greenest

[deapbluesea]

The San Francisco Bay Area was also duly noted by Retrevo for being the greenest region with the most energy-efficient consumer electronics.

Which explains why my lifestyle reverted to 1999 post-tech bubble standards as soon as I moved from Colorado to here. Of course, it's easy to recycle when you get a 70 gallon recycling bin and a 20 gallon trash bin from WM. Suddenly a lot more trash looks recyclable....

Check the tech toys on Woot!

[Rob the Bold]

A fun graphical view of this is to read the discussion thread of the daily Woot! item, you'll see a gradient-shaded US map with the 50 states indicating the purchase rate. Today's item, a pair of pedometers isn't particularly high tech, so not a great example. But they are selling well in Utah, poorly in Alabama, Alaska and North Dakota. I've never checked to see if this is scaled by population. Almost everything on Woot! sells poorly in West Virginia.