A professor in Toronto named Markus Giesler is making news with what sounds suspciously, to my suspicious brain, like opportunistic mumbo-jumbo surrounding the iPod. I'm all for scholarly assessment of consumers technology use. But saying that iPod users are cyborgs by virtue of technotranscendence harshes my buzz and rings my bullshit alarm. The real problem with Giesler's work, insofar as it can be determined via his online research questionnaire, is that Giesler apparently regards the iPod as the only representative of the MP3-player product category. He asks respondents to compare the "iPod experience" with the Walkman experience, as if Apple's product were the only brand by which that comparison could be made. Please, professor, be a little more professorial, and open up your research to all MP3 players. MP3 is the big news of the last 10 years, not the iPod, as you surely know.
Markus Giesler's "Technotranscendence"
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Bullsh*t. The difference Aaryn (i.e., Markus) speaks of is purely illusory. The iPod isn't the only (or even the best, technologically speaking) representative of the MP3 category. Lots of people like their Creative Zens, iRivers, and Rio Carbons just as much (some, more). To claim they have a significantly different experience purely on the basis of the brand name is ludicrous. How would he account for someone who experiences technotranscendence while using (unkowingly) a counterfeit iPod? Would their experience collapse when they learned of its fakery? Likewise, the difference between MP3 players and Walkmen is similarly illusory. Remember, Walkmen were heralded as revolutionary in their days well (see Paul du Gay's Doing Cultural The Story of the Sony Walkman: Culture, Media & Identities from 1997) for a good treatment. The theoretical technobullshitbabble is just a smokescreen.
Giesler is a pompous, self-serving a$$clown. What kind of self-important person authors their own Wikipedia entry?
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Giesler
A counterfeit academic, thats who.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by frank
3. Bullsh*t. The difference Aaryn (i.e., Markus) speaks of is purely illusory. The iPod isn't the only (or even the best, technologically speaking) representative of the MP3 category. Lots of people like their Creative Zens, iRivers, and Rio Carbons just as much (some, more). To claim they have a significantly different experience purely on the basis of the brand name is ludicrous. How would he account for someone who experiences technotranscendence while using (unkowingly) a counterfeit iPod? Would their experience collapse when they learned of its fakery? Likewise, the difference between MP3 players and Walkmen is similarly illusory. Remember, Walkmen were heralded as revolutionary in their days well (see Paul du Gay's Doing Cultural The Story of the Sony Walkman: Culture, Media & Identities from 1997) for a good treatment. The theoretical technobullshitbabble is just a smokescreen.
Giesler is a pompous, self-serving a$$clown. What kind of self-important person authors their own Wikipedia entry?
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Giesler
A counterfeit academic, thats who.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by frank
1. If you knew anything about the marketing history of the iPod, you would have understood why Markus Giesler only did a study on iPods and not ALL MP3 players. Before you criticise his work, think about why the iPod has been so successful and why no other MP3 player has matched its sales. Then Giesler's research would make a lot more sense to you.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Aaryn