Linkpile

[NOTE: There is no Consumed column today, or next week. I’ve been on vacation (or my version of a vacation, anyway). The column returns August 30.]

• Reified design: “Designy-ness is an ideological sheen on consumerism, redeeming commodification while furthering it, permitting mass-distributed designy-ness to supplant genuine heterogeneity.” I would really like to see the design blogs pick up on this and respond to it.
• Denim sales still going strong: “Sales of premium brand jeans grew 17% during 2008 and 2.3% from December to February 2009, according to market research firm NPD Group.”
• Blowin’ in the Phone: Studio 360 piece. “The blockbuster iPhone app called Ocarina lets you play music by blowing into the phone. Its inventor, Ge Wang, thinks that the more people playing music, the better; but even he is a little nervous about the impact of technology on people’s lives.”
• Michael Eisner: Interview transcript: “Eventually there will be something on the Internet that is a cultural phenomenon that’s not available anywhere else, that’s not available on television broadcasts, that’s not on cable, it’s only on some Web site.” Well, there are plenty of cultural phenomena that happen on the Internet, cross over in the form of news reports about the phenomena, or follow-on media products. LOLcats, for instance. Or Twitter, for that matter. So I don’t really get what Eisner is talking about. Does he just mean a TV show that’s on a Web site?
• Wall Street fears U.S. consumers won’t spend: “What was a surprise was the record number of consumers who said their personal incomes have worsened.” Really? Why is that a surprise? Unemployment is at like 9.5%. What did they expect? And isn’t it fairly obvious that consumer spending is going to lag while big chunks of the population are jobless, or have taken pay cuts or forced furloughs, or are afraid they’ll be in those situations soon?

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