Less pink, more tech

By Maura Welch  |  September 17, 2007

"What do women want?" As far as technology goes, the answer is "less pink, more tech." A new study reveals that only 9 percent of women want girly-looking tech gear. "The remaining 91 percent seek something sleek and sophisticated, more boardroom than teenage bedroom." Women, it turns out, ‘"adopt technologies -- such as WiFi -- at a faster clip than men." Bottom line, if you want to create technology women really want, have it "work flawlessly the first time out of the box and every time thereafter." Get simple. And goodbye Kitty.

Some of the most memorable Super Bowl ads last season were created for Doritos and Chevrolet by viewers, something that wouldn't have ever happened if it weren't for the advent of sites for user-submitted video such as YouTube. So what if you want high-quality ads but you want to skip the expensive ad agency? Enter CommercialCreator.com. They say that "with only a few hundred dollars and an idea" you can create your own television-quality commercials online, using their Web-based tools.

There are issues with the junk we import from China: lead paint, tainted food, etc. "But those container ships aren't heading home empty." We fill them up with junk (literally) and ship them back. Chalk it up to "macroeconomic karma" - materials we throw out (broken-down auto bodies, old screws and nails, paper) that "accounted for $6.7 billion in exports to China in 2006, second only to aerospace products." The scrap market is a $65 billion industry that employs 50,000 people. Ravenous Chinese factories "hoovered up 42 percent of US scrap exports in 2006." The practice won't do much to combat global warming or tip the US-China trade deficit, "but it will make a dent in the mountains of trash that pile up."

In the tech business sometimes people use the word community and network interchangeably, even though they're different. Nussbaum comments, "Communities are bound by emotion and passion. Networks are simply communication linked among people with something in common." So Linked in is a network, but CarePages, where family and friends communicate when someone is facing illness, is a community. What about Facebook? Community, network or both?

New research reveals that in Britain there are now more mobile phones than people. The numbers are kind of astounding: "45 million adults in Britain share 70 million SIM cards and 71 million handsets." Apparently "one in 10 people actually [possess] up to four phones." I could see having two phones, one for work and one for home. But four? I'm guessing that it's parents getting phones for their kids.

Aussie company Markitcart "has developed an award-winning alternative to the traditional shopping cart, aimed at improving the concept not just for consumers but also for retailers and advertisers." Made of recyclable plastic, the carts can be colored and branded for the store they come from. They can also carry interchangeable ads. They're lighter than traditional carts and carry more stuff.

The iPhone went on sale a little more than two months ago, and already Apple has reported selling 1 million of the coveted devices. Steve Jobs crowed, "It took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod." If you bought an iPhone early, you paid dearly for it. Now, Apple has cut the price by $200, making the 8GB model "only" $399. When early adopters complained, Apple offered existing users a $100 rebate. But of course, that just brings them back to the store to buy more stuff. Jobs really is the new Gates.


Today I got an e-mail invitation designed for parents to come and watch "six regular moms . . . getting a behind the scenes look" at how McDonald's hamburgers are made. A wholesome, diverse group of moms blog and appear in videos. They flip burgers behind the counter and take notes at the meat-processing plant. This is not your mother's McDonald's ad. Just another indicator of how radically the terrain has shifted now that food, especially fast food, is the new smoking. Personally, I want to see the mom squad tour how McDonald's makes "chicken."

To contact Maura Welch, got to boston.com/businessfilter.