sábado, diciembre 17, 2005

¿Qué es lo "cool"?

Hace días compré un iPod Nano color negro (un regalo), y wooow, ¡qué hermoso aparato es!

Leo en el blog de Virginia Postrel (experta en la economía de lo "cool") que Steven Levy, el editor de tecnología de Newsweek está preparando un libro sobre el iPod, y vaya que este artilugio de Apple lo merece.

Levy le pregunta a Virginia porqué el iPod sigue siendo cool aunque ya es ubicuo, suponiendo que lo cool se desprende de su escasez. Ella la contesta que ese es sólo un aspecto:

"That's one kind of cool. There's another kind that depends on the intrinsic aesthetics of the product. An intrinsically cool product doesn't have to be expensive or hard to get to stay cool.

It's easy to think of cool electronics. Flat-screen TVs are cool. So is the Motorola Razr. Come to think of it, flatness is simply a cool feature in electronic products. Their cool factor doesn't depend on who owns them. That doesn't mean flatness will always seem cool. It could easily become normal and boring. (I remember when silent light switches seemed incredibly cool.) If we get used to the looks of something, if it starts to fade into the background, it loses its cool factor. But it's a mistake to confuse freshness with exclusivity.

Steven Levy asked me to name some non-electronic gadgets that are intrinsically cool. I'm terrible at answering questions like that off the top of my head, especially with no pictures. But here are some examples..."

Para ver los ejemplos a los que ella se refiere vayan a su muy bueno blog.

1 comentario:

Merboy dijo...

Por fin le hacen justicia a todo lo que tenga que ver con Apple.