About the market in Venezuela
Even Venezuela is a poor crapy country (politically talking), and I represent the 5% of the middle class population, there is a interesting phenomenon about our way to buy things here.
Just because of the fact that everything cost at list 30% more (over the list price), plus 14.5% , than in the US. Down here the people is very (and I mean very) objective when the buy something. An analogy:
You get about 200 different movies and who knows how many new tv shows during the year.
We, down here, whatch the 10% of the movies and the tv shows. Usually we get the best programing, just 2 seasons later or a month later (in the case of the movies). Just because we are not going to pay for something that is no really good. For example. We watch, Sainfield, Friends, That 70's Show, and 3rd Rock From the Sun during the day. You got all that plus Buffy, Dowsons Creep (or what ever), the re-runs of Cover Up, Facs of Live, and may be Punky Brewster and who know what other tv shows.
Talking about cars, we got Toyota, Ford, Crevrolet, Fiat, and the rest (Ferrary, Posrche...). We just got the best of what the US produce (I know Toyota and the others are not US made). The same thing with computers, if something really work some one is gonna buy it here. We are very practical about it because we do not have that much money and such big market to choose from. That is why I got 2 Apple computers, because they last and they are reliable, even they are a bit expensive, in a year you realize you got a good product. I got my G4 400 with lots of ram ,and my Pismo 500 with lots of ram too. If you offer me a Dual 800 I would say "no", to spend more money when I have something that works great with 400Mhz (depending of my work, if is video I may take it). If you offer me a TiBook I really would say NOOOOOOO WAYYYYYY, too expensive, no upgredable, no CD burning or extra batery or zip option...
An that is why iPod won't be a big hit here, the unit is overated, it is good but it is not a product for the masses, because is a luxery, it doesn't resolve a problem. "MHz" resolve problems, "Ram" resolve problems, "Portable" too, "Expandable"... but iPod? I would like to have one, but over priced?, not EQ, not audio imput. I'll pay the amount for the EQ/ Audio Imput version. It doesn't matter the color LCD.