The new arm race: Samsung Galaxy Gear, the Pebble and the Sony Smartwatch 2.[/caption]Before cellular phones in the 1980s, pagers were the popular mobile device with professionals: little devices with tiny alphanumeric readouts that notified you when someone called your land line. Remember? No? Ask an old person, or a healthcare professional.
Cell phones made pagers obsolete over 20 years ago, but they're back again, retooled for the social media of the 21st Century and the irony?
The simple dumb phones that killed pagers, evolved into the complicated smartphones that are giving them a new lease on life.
Today's pagers still notify you of calls to your phone number; they also notify you of incoming SMS text messages or email or any social media nods -- they're all over Twitter and Facebook notifications. Most of them can "dial" your phone, and many of them can play MP3 files, and all of them can tell the time.
And "pagers" was so 20th Century -- they've changed their name to "smartwatches."
Shiny! Click on the image to go to the original Google Maps Street View.[/caption]Budding entrepreneurs take note! Study the mesmerizing lightbox signage proclaiming "FUTURE SHOP" on the business end of the store on West Broadway, where the money goes in. Now consider the same building viewed from the back alley. We can see that the loading bay also features signage, but perhaps not so fancy.
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Illiterate boobs with a back felt marker, or strategic allocation of resources. Click the image to enlarge it.[/caption]The Future Shop at West Broadway and Vine is a "big box" retailer. A steeply-graded escalator takes you up to a veritable candy-land of personal, and home electronics -- and DVDs, and vacuum cleaners, and washing machines. It's where you go these days to buy your standard of living. Filmmakers have a truism to the effect that you have to put the money on the screen, where people can see it. Future Shop isn't a movie (they do sell movies), but they sure didn't get to be a big Canadian chain store (American-owned since 2001) by spending even a dime out of the sight of customers. They've even saved money by cutting back on the number of letters.
While I was working on this post, last night, in the foyer of a West Broadway business, a Vancouver Police cruiser glided to the curb. I continued to play with embedding a Google Maps Street View. "How are you this evening sir?" One of the two officers had emerged from the cruiser. "I'm fine officer," I replied, turning my full attention towards her. "What are you doing?" she asked. "I'm working on my blog." "Your blog?!" she exclaimed, with her entire face. "And that's your computer," she told me. "It is," I agreed. She asked me if I had anything sharp, aside from the obvious utility knife clipped in my pocket -- I didn't. I supplied my birth date, and name, reciting the little stock phrase I've used forever -- "double you, oh, oh, dee. Vee as in Victor, eye, en, ee." She went back to the cruiser to run my name, and returned just long enough to wish me a good evening, and a happy Birthday. Wow, out of the mouths of babes -- I didn't even hear the calendar click over.