Technically Incorrect

May I begin with a message to the Federal Trade Commission, which is demanding that bloggers now reveal if they have been paid or incentivized by a company they are reviewing?

I have not been given any money by Amazon. I have not consulted for Amazon. And the only thing that Amazon has ever given me for free is free Super Saver shipping when I clicked that very button on the checkout page.

There.

So please now let me tell you about a certain experience with the Kindle-bearing online seller.

While traveling through Europe over the last month, I decided I needed some books for my flight back to the U.S. So I ordered a couple from Amazon, the sort of tomes you can't readily get in the U.S. You know, like the seminal cultural work "Englischer Fussball" by Raphael Honigstein.

On the little Amazon form, I asked them to send the books to my friend Ed's house. Ed lives in London with his wife, Sarah, and has chickens in the back garden, two of which have recently been murdered by those SVPs of animal vileness, foxes.

While I was in Croatia, the British Royal Mail duly arrived at Ed's house with the seminal works dispatched by Amazon. Ed and Sarah were not at home, so the mailman left a note.

(Credit: CC Aurelijus Valesa/Flickr)

On my return to London, I experienced an uncommon desire to acquaint myself with my "Englischer Fussball."

However, Ed explained that he had been to the Post Office and they had told him they had lost the package. The Royal Mail had been on strike, you see, and one supposes that a book about English soccer written by a German was all too tempting a punching bag for an aggrieved striker.

Never having really needed to contact Amazon's customer service chappies before, I wrote an e-mail, explaining the depth of my hurt and the fact that I was shortly returning to the U.S.

Four minutes later--and this was a Sunday morning--Ed wanders up to me, clutching his phone.

"It's for you," he said. Why would anyone be calling me at Ed's house? I have my own cell phone.

"Hello, it's Doug from Amazon," said the person talking through Ed's phone. Now I can't swear his name was Doug. But I can swear to the fact that he sounded just a little hung over. Did I mention this was Sunday morning?

Still, it was like talking to someone you'd met the previous night at the local pub. I told him when I was leaving for the U.S. There was no time for Amazon to resend my order and get it to me in the U.K. So "Doug" suggested they immediately send a re-order to my U.S. address, so that the books could at least be there on my arrival.

This was all so stunningly reasonable, efficient, and customer-oriented that I couldn't believe it was happening in, well, England.

In an era in which so many companies are trying to get their customers to do all of their work, so that they can charge those customers for their own time, there was something quaintly heartening about an online seller reacting so swiftly and with such plain sense.

On this evidence (and I accept that some people may have had bad experiences with Amazon, such as those who ordered an interesting edition of "1984"), Amazon might be able to teach certain companies about treating people well.

The first "certain company" that comes to my mind is the cell phone provider who, when I canceled my contract and told them their handsets were as putrid as a raccoon's breakfast and their customer service resembled that of a Minsk hardware store circa 1973, said to me: "Oh, OK. Well, would you like to pass your phone service on to a friend?"

There are some people of means who are desperate for everyone to know they are people of means.

They (men and women) wear gold chains to adorn their leathery necks. They (men and women) wear earrings that sparkle like the eyes of an orgiastic llama. And they (men and women) have the undoubtedly enterprising Austrian jewelry designer Peter Aloisson to make gadgets that might remind lesser beings of trinkets from the artist formerly known as Saddam Hussein.

The latest of Mr. Aloisson's creations is a $2.5 million iPhone. May I quote some of the forbiddingly florid language from Mr. Aloisson's alluring Web site: "Made of solid 18-carat yellow gold, white gold, and rose gold. A fabulous combination. The white gold line is encrusted with a total of 138 brilliant cut diamonds of the best quality."

(Credit: aloisson.com)

But wait, this touching work of art has a unique feature. No, it does not polish your shoes while you talk on the phone. And no, it doesn't have a built-in vibrator to massage your ear. It does, however, have a "home button" that carries a rare 6.6-carat diamond.

The Web site gushes that this button is "integrated in the design, as if this diamond has been made for 'taking you home.'" In order to make you understand that this phone is probably not for you, Mr. Aloisson has dubbed the device the "Apple iPhone 3G Kings Button."

I accept that many things are not for me. A Bentley, for example. When I see one floating down the street, I think to myself: "Hmm, well, the driver's dyed his hair out of a bottle, but that's a tastefully designed vehicle."

However, when I look at the iPhone 3G Kings Button, I think: "Wears shoes from a crocodile, smiles like a reptile, and makes love like a cockroach. Oh, and dons Aramis cologne."

Who knows why I think this? Taste is a highly subjective thing. And you might think that Mr. Aloisson was having an off-day when he designed this homage to catatonia.

Somewhere behind me, a baby girl was crying a Ganges river.

Her parents, strongly resembling Lucy Liu and Ted Kaczynski, appeared unable to administer the appropriate gag. This was the 9 a.m. American Airlines flight out of JFK, heading for San Francisco. My eyes were as bleary as a bailout document, and my head throbbed from a mixture of lack of sleep and some bad, loud company the night before. Yes, Knicks fans.

Rummaging in my seat pocket, I suddenly discovered that this flight was equipped with Gogo, American Airlines' new Wi-Fi service. Intent on at least googling some institutions that might be happy to adopt loud children, I got out my MacBook.

Logging on to Gogo couldn't be simpler. It costs $12. Yes, it's cheaper than checking your golf clubs. The speed was impressive, even if I could find no trace of the World Decibel-Reducing Adoption Agency. In any case, the minute I got online, the baby girl suddenly entered a deep sleep. Or perhaps I had somehow frightened her into pretending.

However, after about 20 minutes, something odd occurred. Just as I was about to check Hotmail, the laptop screen went dark.

This band is called the Gogo Ghouls. Might they have been responsible for my outage?

(Credit: CC Habi)

Please let me explain at this point that my heart is not technical. I represent the proles (and the Poles) who, when it comes to gadgets, just try to get by any way they know how. So try not to get mad, OK? But my MacBook was clearly dead. No lights, no sound, no picture.

Given its lack of life, I put it away, thinking that I would ask someone with a brain appropriately wired to solve the problem in the Bay Area.

When I got home, I opened the MacBook again. It began to stir, and I stepped back, thinking that some nefarious beings might have tampered with it.

The screen came to life again, and it busily resumed its attempt to load the Hotmail page I had been trying to access on the plane five hours previously. But, you see, I hadn't turned the MacBook on. I'd merely opened it.

Is it possible that it was the Gogo that had put a stopstop to my MacBook? Might the signal have suddenly bemused my configuration to a coma? Or should I take my MacBook to the nearest Genius Bar, where a 14-year-old will tell me I should not, under any circumstances, put money down for cryogenics?

The first blow deafened my ear as if a thousand Woody Woodpeckers shouted at me all at once.

"You've been writing about piffling frivolities!" screamed my CNET handler, cuffing me like a pekingese who had just piddled on his presidential rug. "Can't you just do something serious for a change?"

Then he threw a book at me and shouted: "Read this. You might learn something." The book was Malcolm Gladwell's new bestseller "Outliers." Subtitled "The Story of Success," it is a pithy commentary on some of the entirely understandable (when you think about them) whims that contribute to huge successes.

The Canadian hockey team, for example, is comprised of people born in the early months of the year because they were physically advantaged when they were but little pucks. Bill Gates was fortunate to have access to just the right equipment at just the ripe young age to hone his skills and put him ahead of those who didn't wear glasses and didn't want to make a fortune.

Even The Beatles were lucky to be shunted off to Hamburg, Germany, where they were forced to perfect their pop ditties for more than 10,000 hours.

"It's not enough to ask what successful people are like," writes Mr. Gladwell."It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't."

(Credit: CC Nimbu)

It is a fine book that takes you many fewer than 10,000 hours to read. However, it is, perhaps, the most misnamed book of all time.

"Outliers" is not the story of success. It is the story of failure. Most of us, when we analyze our lives on cold, damp bar stools, fail. If we didn't, there wouldn't be shrinks. Or tequila.

And Mr. Gladwell's book is perhaps the most reassuring of any that has ever been written for those whose lives have vast holes of unfulfillment that only an extension of Google Earth called Google Soul (you think they won't try and create it, those googlies?) could identify.

"Outliers" encourages us to look for every single explanation as to why we didn't do what we hoped we would do. It tells us there are far more than we had ever imagined. It asks us to really analyze how the whole world is far more against us than for us. Except for a lucky few.

I would have been a brilliant left-fielder, you see. It's just that I was born in the United Kingdom. And my parents were foreign (it's their 55th wedding anniversary today. Do drop them a line). And English was my second language. And the nearest batting cage was, well, probably 3,000 miles away. And Joes Buck and Torre would NEVER have been able to pronounce my name.

See how easy it is? Try it yourself this weekend. It'll make you feel a whole lot better.

A few people came to my house today to watch the Baltimore Ravens steal an NFL playoff game with their usual display of vomit-forward video game violence.

When I say 'people', some, including my friend Ali, were not as fascinated with the game as with checking their friends' breast-feeding pictures on Facebook. So Ali grabbed my MacBook (black, seeing as you ask) with the intention of anti-socially networking.

She tugged at the power cable in order to plug it into the MacBook and seemed to be having trouble. After several attempts she was still not successful in making the magnetic connection with the cable port.

Because her frustration turned to grunting louder than that of Ray Lewis in Surround Sound, I turned to see that she was trying to put the cable into the wrong side of the machine. When I suggested she try the other side, she looked at me as if I was her parole officer. Then she declared my MacBook "stupid" and "discriminatory."

I confess I've never considered the plight of the left-handed laptopper, even though I have some left-handed tendencies myself. Ali said her PC had ports on the right and had never encountered such wrong-headed one-sidedness.

The hand of a depressed MacLefty?

(Credit: CC Okko Pyykko)

So in the interests of her satisfaction and the ability of several hard-working people to enjoy the game, I made her a cup of strong tea, took control of the MacBook and went online to examine the essence of left-handed computing. I found deep discussions about laptop left-handedness. I also found left-handed keyboards, and many examples of the left-handed mouse.

I was even reminded that golfer Phil 'Lefty' Mickelson is not, actually, left-handed. But I failed to find a MacBook with the holes on the other side.

Now I have no idea if many deeply creative, Mac-passionate left-handers out there secretly suffer every day of their lives with this spatial awkwardness. Could it be that some even suffer from a troubling form of MacLefty Tourette's? But perhaps readers might share their discomfort in this most curative of subjective forums.

I wonder if Steve Jobs left-handed or right-handed. I can't say I've ever noticed. I'll ask Ali. She's bound to know.

In the Apple TV spots, actor Justin Long plays a comfortable and lucrative role. He is cool, slightly superior, but ultimately just clever enough.

In the new movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Long plays a role many actors might have turned down. Moreover, many clients, on hearing the character their main spokesperson had chosen to play, would have attempted to prevent him from appearing in the movie at all. They might even have threatened to cancel his contract.

After all, here we have the most recognizable film personification of one of the world's most recognizable brands, Apple. And he's playing a gay porn star.

In fact, not only is he playing a gay porn star, he's actually advertising the iPhone while he's advertising his affection for his boyfriend's bottom.

Justin Long places products in a way they have not been placed before.

(Credit: CC Cessemi)

Zack and Miri is not a great movie. But Long's performance, as he adopts an unusually deep throaty voice and a passion for his craft as well as his man, is the inspiration for much of the ensuing carnal action. In perhaps five minutes of screen time, he shoplifts the movie.

So here's what you might be wondering. Did Apple approve Long's participation in this endearing love story?

How could it not?

The plot pivots on Long revealing that he has seen Elizabeth's Banks's (or rather her charater's) large underpants on YouTube (Yes, it's a date movie). He proves his devotion to the pirated movie featuring her bepanted behind by brazenly playing it for her on his iPhone at a High School reunion.

Could anyone really imagine that Long would risk losing his Apple contract to play what is, at least in screen time, a highly secondary role in an R-rated movie?

Which might leave you with one small but important thought as you head for the voting booth. Some people were surprised when Apple came out strongly against California's Proposition 8, a proposition designed to outlaw gay marriage.

Yet here is an example of Apple putting its brand where its mouth is, supporting with its signature product its own famous spokesperson in his role as a gay porn star.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that, in a movie in which Seth Rogen has to boot up an old original iBook by slapping it very hard, Apple is one of the most confident brands in the world.

Perhaps it is also one of the most sophisticated when it comes to product placement. Product placement isn't about shoving your product into a TV series or a movie.

It's about having it play a role just like any of the actors. Even the actor who's your gay porn star spokesperson.

My MacBook and I are at a difficult stage in our relationship.

We've traveled the world together. We've written heinous insults together. And we have refused to countenance entreaties from sites of ill-repute together.

But something is now coming between us.

It's that little Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy. You know, the one that tells you, well, what is it supposed to tell you exactly?

The first time I saw it, I had no idea what was going on. It whirled away on my desktop just like a dog that is trying to communicate with you and, in its frustration, begins to chase its tail in circles as if this will somehow make things more obvious.

(Credit: CC Cessna206)

This little Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy might have been a bug. Or the introduction to some errant and very nasty computer game.

I even wondered if it was about to burst open and turn into a dancing leopard or wriggling worm.

The most I have ever comprehended about this anomic apparition is that it is somehow meant to signify: "Hold on there, mate. I'm not entirely sure what's going on. The ole' system's playing up a bit here and I'm trying to get it sorted out."

In other words, it's like a plumber perched beneath your sink, his upper bottom portions waving to the sky and his voice telling you: "Hmm. Aha. Uh-huh. Aha. Hmm."

Well, except for the dialogue part.

The Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy never, ever tells me what's going on. Or how long it will be chasing its tail around my desktop.

It arrives and disappears as suddenly as a drunken gatecrasher. At times I confess I lose my patience, take out the battery and start my MacBook up again. Without fail, the Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy will be gone.

I would therefore ask the core of superlative minds at Apple to please find me another plumber.

I would like something that talks to me, that gives me at least a clue about what is going on.

You know the kind of thing: "Your trash is fuller than Meg Ryan's lips and the Big Lebowski's belly. Empty it, you moron."

Or perhaps: "I can tell you've got no idea about tech, so just do what I say. Go to the cache and click on the third choice down."

Or even: "This MacBook is wasted on a bonehead like you. Get yourself a PC and like it."

comScore has done a wonderful job. Of marketing comScore results.

If the Internet abacus company sees its readings suggest a significant conclusion, it releases the information in an interesting and digestible form.

However, I understand that both comScore and its frats-in-stats at Nielsen Online are having their audits audited by the Interactive Advertising Bureau after mlb.com declared that Nielsen Online's score for its site of 6 million was a "conScore." The real figure, according to mlb.com, was actually 19 million. (the results of the audit's audit are due at the end of this year.)

I try to leave discussions of numbers to intelligent people.

But there seems to be a big difference between 6 million and 19 million.

As I was thinking about this, a book wafted beneath my nose that tended to crystallize some human instincts about facts, something that numbers purport to be.

It's called "True Enough: Learning to Live in A Post-Fact Society" by Farhad Manjoo.

(Credit: misocrazy)

Mr. Manjoo performs an enjoyable analysis of some recent political controversies, such as the allegations that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen by devious and surprisingly organized Republicans. (His conclusions seem to suggest that Mr. Gore was hard done by, Mr. Kerry was not.)

The book is at its strongest in describing just how deeply most human beings want to find information that most closely confirms their own prejudices. And how they shut out information that counters those prejudices.

What prejudices do research companies have? Is it, perhaps, important for them to have their research come up with newsworthy results? Are their methodologies actually primed to achieve that?

There are allegations that comScore's and Nielsen Online's figures tend to discriminate against, for example, foreigners and MacOlytes.

Why would the research companies allow for this sort of speculation?

Why would they allow for the perception that someone on a Mac in Krakow, Poland, is nothing more than a hanging chad?

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's CEO, Randall Rothenberg, these companies are "still relying on panels, a media-measurement technique invented for the radio industry exactly seven decades ago, to quantify the Internet".

Wait a minute, they're using panels? Does everyone know about this? Do the people who use their numbers know about this?

For so many people in the advertising business and beyond, who have their prejudices too, it is the headline that matters. They present in headlines. They talk about themselves in headlines. They need news.

Being 21st Century humans whose budgets are shrinking, attention spans are short and careers even shorter, they sometimes eschew analysis for today's news currency, the soundbite.

comScore and Nielsen Online are in the business of creating some very soundbiting headlines indeed. (FACEBOOK OVERTAKES MYSPACE!!! OHMIGOD!!! I NEED TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT THIS!!!)

Which leads me to the headline of this post.

I have no reason to believe that the folks at comScore and Nielsen Online are anything other than well-meaning, dedicated but imperfect professionals.

But what if the conclusion of the IAB audit is that the figures from companies such as these have been wildly inaccurate?

What would their PR people do with that?

Would they publicize these findings, as a declaration that they need to work harder, to find better methodologies in order to reveal more accurate truths? (Oh, there are so many inaccurate truths out there..)

Or would they decide that wouldn't be good for business?

I'm just asking.

You see, I only have a MacBook and I'm feeling ignored.