COOL
Posted on 09/25/2012 6:20:40 AM PDT by markomalley
The concept of “cool” is, appropriately, like a snowball. Just when you think you’ve got a grasp of it, it melts away. Still, cool is the most resilient of slang words. While other terms have become cringeworthy from overuse, cool has stayed firmly within the lexicon. Cool is put in service to describe a galaxy of objects and incidents – from fleeting moments to multi-billion-pound brands. It's the beatnik's curse.
Whole industries exist to tell us what's cool now, what will be cool next and when the cool evaporates. The annual CoolBrands survey, published this week, is just one small outcrop of the cool industry, a pseudoscientific barometer of the brands the British public considers desirable.
(snip)
The problem with apportioning cool rankings according to the whims of a panel of 39 experts and a 200-strong sample from the general public is clear when you dig into social networking data. Figures supplied by the social media monitoring agency Brandwatch reveal Apple's "cool" is a more complicated concept than you might think.
On average, 10,000 people a week tweet about Apple and its products being cool, compared to just 4,000 saying the same for Samsung. But closer inspection reveals that the percentage of positive tweets about both brands is roughly the same, while more negative sentiments are expressed about Apple’s products. Cool can only get you so far.
Similarly, Virgin Atlantic – which came in at number eight in the top 20 –is at the heart of a disconnect between its apparent cool and the public’s response. Brandwatch’s analysis suggests Twitter users are more likely to discuss it in negative terms than rival carriers British Airways and Emirates.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
I really do wish we had a capable APP though.
I’d help donate to pay for development of a strong one.
Sorry my Galaxy..I used have the Gravity...slide out keyboard...how 2009
I watched a Korean show with subtitles, ROOFTOP PRINCE, and it seemed like every character had the Samsung Galaxy Note.
Talk about using a show to advertise.
The phones seemed really cool though. Great show too.
Are there any similar apps out there that could be stripped down and applied to this site?
2. Virgin Atlantic introduced incredibly high levels of service, elegant use of space, and affordable luxury in the transatlantic market while lumbering unionized fossilariums like United and TWA were still flying dingy, boring and expensive airplanes that were out of date and falling apart. The most fabulous trip I ever had was in Virgin Upper Class after Air France overbooked me in Business Class and I demanded they find a business seat for me.
There, Free Marketeers of Free Republic. That's why people pay a premium for Apple and Virgin products: because the value is there.
People think value is cool, because you don't end up looking like a schmuck when you buy something like that.
And hipsters are all about image. The image you get from buying these products and services is that you're a smart person who may spend a fair amount of cash, but you get what you paid for, and maybe a bit more.
Maybe, just maybe, Steven Jobs and Richard Branson got that.
And your maps app actually works!
I wouldn’t know, this is the only message board I use.
American Thinkers app is good, but that isn’t really a discussion site or app.
No I buy Apple because for me they’re the best products on the market. I love my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook, they just happen to be cool while being very highly effective.
As an engineer, I buy Apple because it works.
And works well.
If I want hobby ware, I’ll go back to Microsoft.
You said it all. The whole Apple aura is pathetic and the hipsters& gays & techno-challenged women that form its targeted buying demographic is pathetic.
That’s odd. My home built Win7 computer. Quad core/8gb ram works flawlessly. Apple would rip me off for something like $2000 for the same horsepower but with OS/X which I don’t want or need.
Apple 15” laptops start at $1,799.00. Only a fool spends this much on a 15” laptop
Agree with you totally.
I buy Apple products because they best suit my needs, I fly whoever has the cheapest ticket at the times I want to go.
I do not need these thing to feel ‘cool’ either you are or you are not - I am.
Me too, and for ease of use. It makes me laugh every time I see a help thread on FR by some PC user. You could probably publish a book with them all.
I recently purchased a Nexus tablet. Very inexpensive, fast, and more than meets my needs. Is it cool? Who cares?
Yep. Living as a free man or woman is the ultimate cool. The Founders were cool as is the Constitution. The other side is loaded with lack of self assurance and needing affirmation from others.
No, I buy Apple products (laptops only) because I find OS-X (and MacOS before it) to be superior in terms of stability and user-friendliness to any version of Windows. Were I in the market for a desktop computer I’d buy Apple for the same reasons.
At my office, where I had a choice of Windows or Ubuntu Linux, I chose Linux for the same reasons.
If I ever get a tablet or a smart-phone, I may or may not be willing to pay a premium for Apple’s very nice consumer product design (”coolness”), but certainly won’t if I’m convinced that an Android device offers superior stability and user-friendliness.
The most annoying person I have known in my life is an Android freak. Just sayin’.
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