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Apple Targeting Social Networking and Product Sales Predictions in Shopping Environme

freiheit said:
The best products for me are typically not what "the masses" are choosing. How horrifying to want to be just like everyone else; a faceless drone doing and buying what someone else tells you is cool.
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It is your right to be atypical, but someone -- somewhere -- wants to know what even you are buying. Analysts get paid bazillions to stand around in malls and literally watch what people are buying. And then they get paid bazillions more to stand around in malls and watch what people are returning. Information on buying habits is absolutely priceless to those who care about it; your pals on your social networks might not care, but whose to say Apple isn't going to take this information and sell if off to people who do? They're in it for the bazillions of $$ afterall.

Not to mention word-of-mouth is among the cheapest and most effective methods of advertising. If I'm looking for a new product -- say an iPad or whatever -- I might, just might, take to heart what my good friends think about it. And I might be interested in whether or not they actually bought one, where, and why.
 
tod said:
All of this social buying stuff is stupid. Who cares what other people think about what you might buy or did buy?
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Could not agree more. If I need advice I go find a friend, or family member, someone who already owns the product or has owned the product and ask them.

I often put bogus info in reviews and what not, especially any form digging for info, so if I do it, I'm sure others do.
 
I have seen my wife do this. She'll see a purse in a store, take a picture of it with her iPhone, then put the pic on Facebook and wait for a friend to reply.

I am the opposite. I won't set foot in a retail establishment, unless I know exactly what I want. I go in, get the item, pay, and leave. If someone takes an item I regularly buy in the grocery store and put it on an endcap, I'll never see it and assume they are out of stock. If I go in for beer, and the beer I want is not in stock, I leave the store.

Being stuck in a mall surrounded by my fellow man is my own personal perception of Hades. ;)
 
This is one of the delicious ironies of Apple. They have by far the most loyal fan-base compared to any other technological company, but that loyalty is based on them offering something special, aloof, and aspiring (at least in marketing terms). When they try to out-google or out-facebook the competition it seems a little desperate and a little grubby.

They're getting closer with the iDevice walled-garden, and a lot of fans still seem to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to customer profiling and targeted advertising. Sadly, this ties in with the downgrading of OSX as an alternative platform, and the introduction of the first stages of an OSX walled garden with the soon to be launched app store.

If this were an open-source project it would already have forked, but as Apple are still a company that makes wonderful hardware (and increasingly less-wonderful software), where else is there to go? Ahh - of course, thank god for Google :D.
 
freiheit said:
The best products for me are typically not what "the masses" are choosing. How horrifying to want to be just like everyone else; a faceless drone doing and buying what someone else tells you is cool.
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Couldn't agree more. I always want to use the best, not the most popular, and that's why I'd take an Audi over a BMW any day, or an Archos over an iPod, or a Mac over a PC.
 
Apple has many interesting patents, but let's not forget. Very small fraction of these patents become real products or features.
 
This is dumb!

I can imagine it... Oh, Suzi, should I get a skim milk latte or a frappucino? What do u think? Help!

As if people weren't already identity-free, this crap is gonna make them stop thinking all together...
:p
 
lifeinhd said:
Couldn't agree more. I always want to use the best, not the most popular, and that's why I'd take an Audi over a BMW any day, or an Archos over an iPod, or a Mac over a PC.
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I drive a 2011 Audi S5 Cabrio, have a Mac Pro and have 3 iPods and an IPad.
Archos? Hello? :p
 
freiheit said:
The best products for me are typically not what "the masses" are choosing. How horrifying to want to be just like everyone else; a faceless drone doing and buying what someone else tells you is cool.
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Now why does that sound like an Apple shopping experience...?
 
dscuber9000 said:
Here comes all the "I hate social networking" crowd. Maybe they should get a network going? :D
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I don't hate anything about social networking, however I can't see any advantage for it while shopping for anything except clothing...then the only network I need is between me and the clerk that knows me and my tastes.

Think about it. What does networking bring to the clothes shopping? For me, I want to feel confident that I look good in what I buy. I want to feel confident that it fits me well and hangs on me correctly. An experienced clerk that I trust gives me that confidence.

Do I want to look like a photo copy of what my friends are wearing? Do they want me ripping off their "look"? Are we to be a mindless heard of social lemmings?
 
so sick of this big brother crap, and I think these idiotic ventures will ultimately be rejected by an ever increasing cautious public who will be unwilling to have their every move tracted by corporate marketers and the other greedy seedy folks out there seeking to seperate us from our do re me!

be ware of the fickleness of the consumer.
 
Jayomat said:
I don't like where apple is going..
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Personally I like that Apple is exploring all kinds of ways to make iDevices more and more integral to their customer's lives. I like the option of picking and choosing from a wide array of ways I can use my iDevices.

Some, like using my iDevice to shop for clothing seems like an overreach, but until you think outside the box you don't know where the edges of the box might lie.

I do think one of the other shopping ideas Apple has researched involves being able to scan the UPC on a product in a store and instantly determining if the local price is competitive by automatically searching the web.

To each his own, I suppose. I grew up going downtown to main street to shop, later I was directed to the shopping mall for such shopping. Then it was to go to a big box store, and now it's moving to the internet.
 
SandynJosh said:
To each his own, I suppose. I grew up going downtown to main street to shop, later I was directed to the shopping mall for such shopping. Then it was to go to a big box store, and now it's moving to the internet.
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Men may get involved, but just check out what women's shopping habits are like. Shopping is an event for them with a lot of different dynamics behind it. Shopping from a phone or computer is not something that most mainstream feminine women do. Not even close.
 
Aeolius said:
I have seen my wife do this. She'll see a purse in a store, take a picture of it with her iPhone, then put the pic on Facebook and wait for a friend to reply.

I am the opposite. I won't set foot in a retail establishment, unless I know exactly what I want. I go in, get the item, pay, and leave.
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See, that's the "hunter" in you. You want to go out and kill something and drag it back to your cave.
Women, on the other hand, are "gatherers." The need to dig up each tuber while in the company of fellow gatherers and ponder and discuss whether they should bring it back to the cave, discuss the merits of tubers found in this valley or the next one over the hill, and compare it's size and color to tubers other gatherers have found, and only after much ado leave it behind and look for a better looking tuber.
 
freiheit said:
The best products for me are typically not what "the masses" are choosing. How horrifying to want to be just like everyone else; a faceless drone doing and buying what someone else tells you is cool.
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I see what you're saying but this could be a powerful tool if done right. In the last month alone I have done something similar twice. The first time I was shopping for a washer and dryer with my wife. The prices and array of features was overwhelming (for me anyway).

I excused myself from the salesman, whipped out my iphone and searched for reviews and prices. It was great, I came back to the table armed with much more information and struck a good deal on a good rated product. Could I have done the same without checking?...sure, but I felt much more comfortable. I did a similar deal with an HP printer too.

Think of this as a tool, not an invasion of privacy. Again, if done right, this could help with anything from automobile to house purchases. The more information in the hands of the consumer the better.
 
freiheit said:
The best products for me are typically not what "the masses" are choosing. How horrifying to want to be just like everyone else; a faceless drone doing and buying what someone else tells you is cool.
Click to expand...

I have a friend who refuses to see popular movies just because they are popular. No other reason at all. Then in ten years when he finally sees the film he heralds it as a victorious personal discovery.

Just sayin'. ;)
 
Popeye206 said:
Heck, pretty soon we won't even have to go shopping or care. The computer will figure everything out for us and stuff we don't even know we want yet will just show up! :D
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" I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."
 
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