One of the things that makes Apple’s product experience terrific is the first couple of minutes you interact with whatever shiney new thing you’ve just purchased. Clearly, Apple spends a lot of time engineering a dramatic and rewarding box-opening for consumers. In fact, I’d guess that Apple spends more time thinking about a consumer’s first interaction with a device than most companies do on their product’s entire user experience. It’s all part of the Apple show and is one of the reasons you see so many box opening ceremonies recorded online in step-by-step photo albums the moment the new goods hit the street.

Contrast this with my recent experience buying a Palm Treo 755p. Not only was the packaging all Sprinted-up (yellow…who picked yellow as their corporate color?) and totally utilitarian in nature, but the phone geek behind the counter got the privilege of breaking my phone’s seal by ripping open the box, turning it on for the first time, peeling all the protective plastic off, and basically manhandling the poor thing and mashing down all its buttons for 10 minutes before handing it over to me. I mean, it was warm and a little moist when I got hold of it and it was brand new. Can you imagine something like that happening in an Apple store? Who wants to get a brand new iPod all smeared up with someone else’s fingerprints before you even leave the store? Nobody.

In my opinion, Apple will need to figure out a new way to sell cell phones if they want to maintain their product’s mystique. I predict they’ve worked out a way to sell and activate their phones through AT&T that only entails the scanning of a bar code on the box. Everything else will happen automagically as soon as you boot the thing up. Anything less would not be a good show.

Now this is an Olympic logo. Beautiful work.

I noticed in iTunes this morning a little graphic promoting the StarTribune’s gardening podcast. It got me wondering. Seems as though Apple is geo-targeting with iTunes now. I doubt somebody in Atlanta would be shown a promo for a Minneapolis paper’s podcast for green thumbs. This should be really easy for Apple to do since they know where I live, right? Does it mean Apple is selling that placement to the Strib? If so, what’d they pay for it? What’s a reasonable amount to charge for preferred placement in the largest podcast directory in the world? Or is Apple doing this to 1) make my experience better and/or 2) prepare themselves for eventually selling the spot?

So many questions. Apple’s position as the largest directory of podcasts and the nascent nature of the developing podcast business model makes the answers to them fairly interesting.

The graphic designer(s) responsible for the new London 2012 Olympic games logo should be dragged out of their office(s) and drowned in the same vat of 80’s nostalgia they drew from when creating their abomination. Oh. My. God. It’s ugly.

Via Daring Fireball.

My prediction of the three things pundits will decry when reviewing the iPhone:

1. Short battery life.
2. Wiggy keyboard.
3. Lack of Exchange support.

Bonus item: Small internal storage.

Mind you, I love the thing and will most likely buy one when version two comes around. Assuming no one else I know gets one first…

Check out the damned sexy video.

Effective in branding itself as the low cost leader, Wal-Mart’s efforts to attract purchases of higher end merchandise have not met expectations according to a leaked report to The New York Times. Brand perceptions take years, if not decades, to craft and the report showcased a disconnect with Wal-Mart’s approach to reach new audiences. A key takeaway is that consumers are looking to the overall values of what the brand represents – not just “lowest cost”.

Special call-outs were made to local firms Target, BestBuy and Kohls on how their differentiating brand strategies have been successful in reaching new consumers.

All was not dire for the Bentonville crowd, they do take a leadership role in what is termed the “zero-time”shopper:

That [Wal-Mart's] environment is conducive to “zero-time” shopping, in which a customer spends just a few seconds thinking about a product, like a new bottle of dishwashing soap. “But people don’t buy electronics, home décor and apparel in zero time,” the report says.

Of course, I have to feature my favorite loyalty program to address zero time shopping. It’s all about the brand perception at the point of purchase while consumers are making the on-shelf decision.

Via The New York Times

Three things Al Gore and I have in common:

1. A shocking disregard for organization and/or filing. (Shanon, are you reading this?)
2. A fondness for computer hardware with images of partially eaten fruit laser-etched into them.
3. Neither of us are running for president.

Photo via Time.

From Slate.com, regarding the USPS’ new “forever stamp” that you can buy today and use whenever you want regardless of what happens to postal rates in the future:

The 20-cent stamp from 1981 would be equivalent to 45 cents in today’s dollars—which makes today’s rate 10 percent cheaper than it was 26 years ago. Should this historical pattern hold, you’d be paying more for today’s forever stamps than you would for any stamp in the future, no matter how high the rate goes.

So how long until postage is free? Had I been paying attention in school, I could answer that.

Via Kottke.

indexed: my favorite website for the next fifteen minutes.