David Pogue and Yahoo's "Normals" Problem 213
Nerval's Lobster writes "In a keynote talk at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, David Pogue (Yahoo's freshly minted technology columnist) suggested that the new 'Yahoo Tech' Website — a key part of the company's latest rebranding — would be targeted at 'normal' people as opposed to 'gearheads.' Based on a map that flashed on the giant screen behind him, which showed the 'normals' clustered in the middle of the country and the 'gearheads' restricted to the coasts, it's clear that Yahoo has embraced a divisive strategy that tries to equate Yahoo's brands with some sort of mythical 'middlebrow' audience that exists within clearly defined borders. (During his presentation, Pogue also flashed a slide that made fun of competing tech-news brands: The Verge was rendered as 'The Urge,' for example, while Gizmodo became 'Gizmoody.') The problem is that rigid audience of 'normals' doesn't exist, at least not in the way that Yahoo envisions. Large numbers of well-educated technology consumers — 'gearheads,' in Pogue's parlance — exist all over the country; to say otherwise is like suggesting that Wyoming is 100 percent Republican, or that everybody who lives in Florida hates snow. In other words, Yahoo's approach to tech content isn't merely schismatic; it's willfully unaware of the variety that exists among technology fans."
Lol. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
Not just him. Go to that website:
http://www.yahoo.com/tech/?ref=news [yahoo.com]
It's wall-to-wall crap and ads. Literally wall-to-wall. It fills the page with graphics slammed up touching to each other. Up-down-left-right.
It's what you would get if a douchbag spec'ed out a site.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of Windows 8, actually.
Re:Just catering to their demographics (Score:5, Funny)
Actually the amount of vile idiots in the comments of the mainstream news sites is about the same. 95% CNN, MSNBC, and FOX comments are total dung heaps. Frankly they all make Slashdot look like a bastion of polite, openminded, and levelheaded people.
Re:More Yahoo nonsense (Score:5, Funny)
No, the big boxy thing is the hard drive you dolt!
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
Uses my whole 27" screen? Check.
Shows more than it would on a phone? No.
Is it usable? No.
Does it have any noteworthy content? Not any that I saw before my eyes started hurting and I closed the tab.
Re:I'm both. (Score:5, Funny)
I don't even want to know I live in a world where people like you are alive!
I rooted my car, looked under the hood of my tablet, fiddled with the color settings of my CPU and overclocked my TV. And I make my own test equipment, thank you.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Funny)
You know what a Yahoo is? (Score:4, Funny)
A Yahoo is a legendary being in the novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift.
Swift describes them as being filthy and with unpleasant habits...the term "yahoo" has come to mean "a crude, brutish or obscenely coarse person".