Japan’s Smile Scanners a Classic Misuse of Technology

As pointed out on the Freakonomics Blog:

Japan’s Keihin Express Railway Co. has set up “smile scanners” at 15 of its stations, where railway employees have their smiles assessed by software in the hopes of perfecting a customer-friendly look.       LINK

This is such a classic misuse of technology by a corporation.  The goal of the company is to provide more positive and friendly customer service but their technique of using a “smile scanner” is going to have the opposite effect.  Nobody likes to be forced into happiness and the employees will end up resenting the scanners, their bosses for making them use the scanners and the customers for expecting them to smile.

Instead, a smart company would try to figure out how to make their employees genuinely happy so that they smile because they want to smile.  This would create endless positive outcomes for the company, the employees and the customers.

Sometimes technology can look like it provides a quick fix when, in fact, it is just an illusion.

Celebs Should Just Out-Pap the Paps

There is an article in today’s NYT about the pictures and video posted via Twitter by Ashton Kutcher and Demi more during and after the Academy Awards last night:

While watching the Academy Awards on TV Sunday night, Hollywood couple Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore sent text updates to fans via Twitter. At a post-Oscars party afterward, they also uploaded several grainy photographs using TwitPic, an application that allows users to post pictures taken with their mobile phones to their Twitter accounts. Mr. Kutcher posted two low-resolution photos: a blurred image of producer Sean Combs along with the note “Diddy throws up oscars” and one of Mr. Kutcher himself clutching an Oscar, accompanied by the text “Me and penelopes oscar.” Ms. Moore turned her cameraphone on herself and Mr. Kutcher decked out in their postceremony party gear, garnering thousands of hits in less than a minute.

I’m actually surprised more fans don’t take more control of their public exposure.  All they would really have to do to get rid of the Paparazzi is to release floods of pictures they (or their friends) have taken – give them away to the media orgs for free and just put the paps right out of business.

Considering the level of access the actual stars have it is impossible to imagine a professional paparazzi being able to compete.

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New York Times Helps Movie Studios Spread Lies and Fear

New York Times writers By BRIAN STELTER and BRAD STONE (full disclosure: Brad interviewed and quoted me for his article on $200 netbooks and I think he seems like a real nice guy) seem to have been drinking a bit too much of the movie industry’s KoolAid.

In an article in today’s paper they write the following:

But if media companies are winning the battle against illegal video clips, they are losing the battle over illicit copies of full-length TV episodes and films. The Motion Picture Association of America says that illegal downloads and streams are now responsible for about 40 percent of the revenue the industry loses annually as a result of piracy.

The problem here is that this 40% figure is completely mythical and the reporters neither back up this outrageous claim or offer any subtantive basis for it being made.

The truth is that Hollywood revenue was up year-to-year and there is little true corellation between rates of piracy and Hollywood profits.  The concept that every “pirated” viewing is lost revenue is simply absurd.  It is wrong to assume that people who watch something for free would be willing to pay instead if the free version were gone.

I might watch “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” on a pirate stream for a few minutes but I will not pay $12.50 to go see it on a big screen.  If the pirated version isn’t available I just won’t see the movie at all.  However, if it is a great movie I want to see on a big screen I will cough up the coin.

The overall tone of this article makes it seem like this piracy is a massive crimewave instead of a rational response to an industry that refuses to evolve with the times.  There is a reason that the studios are losing this war: they aren’t changing to meet their customer’s needs and so their customers are going elsewhere:

But many industry experts say the practice is becoming much more prevalent. “Streaming has gotten efficient and cheap enough and it gives users more control than downloads do. This is where piracy is headed,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. “Consumers are under the impression that everything they want to watch should be easily streamable.”

Of course they are under that impression – it’s true.  Where studios and TV networks are losing money is by not finding ways to offer a similar service at a reasonable price.

When they do make the effort, like with Hulu.com, they see great results.  Viewership goes up immediately.

Why they don’t simply release copies to torrent sites with ads embedded is completely beyond my comprehension.  With what they waste each year trying to “fight” piracy, they could develop and distribute a new business model that would make pirating basically obsolete.

Instead, they risk going the way of the music industry and suing their way right out of business.

Meanwhile, I am baffled as to why the New York Times seems to be siding so heavily with “Big Hollywood.”