In the Western world, Christmas has become an arena where hardcore Christians (mostly Catholics) battle non-Christians (mostly Jews) in “the war on Christmas”. Their message is “feel guilty!” (though to be fair, that’s the message of most religions), hence the appearance of “the Festivus for the rest of us”.
But that wasn’t always the main narrative.
Back in the 80s, before Wall Street took Milton Friedman’s ideas and put them in the mouth of Michael Douglas, as Wall Street, like an evil Santa, was only getting started on the great balloon that was going to be deflated in 2008, Christmas was a time to think of those less fortunate, and that included drunk Santas. This was changing, as Wall Street was gaining more and more traction; much like most fundamental Christians have either not read or not understood the Bible so did neocons not read Adam Smith.
If we go even further back, we discover that Christmas was elevated to its premier commercial event of the year status almost solely through Coca-Cola advertising (yt-cc). Yet the tide is turning: since sugar water is so bad for you, does it not make more sense to switch to beer?
That’s especially true in Romania, where this Christmas Eve will finally be the night that Santa Klaus came twice. : – )
You can watch Trading Places (which turned 30 not long ago) in a list of 10 clips. Or see start, belt, BadSanta, zeta chi, oil, bookies, WTC, nonpublic, jail, train, Inga, WhereNow, Siskel, end. And since you’d be watching one of the best comedies of all times, which manages to be funny while discussing racism, prejudice, white privilege, investing, capitalism, success, minimum wage and so on, why not enjoy it with some limited edition Christmas beer from Tuborg?
Sources / More info: imdb-tp, TuborgSound, yt-cc
LE: You can follow this campaign unfolding on Twitter: #ChristmasBrew and #ChristmasTaste.
Din pacate, desi din scrisoarea publicata (de altfel foarte trista) am inteles ca nici spitalele nu erau o optiune prea grozava, tratamentele naturiste distrug anual mai multe vieti decat pretind ca salveaza.
ReplyDeleteThe excessive bureaucracy and taxation discourage local entrepreneurs (those who conduct their businesses legally). Also, due to the lack of infrastracture, around 90% of them are concentrated around Bucharest.
ReplyDeleteStill working on an alternative :) ? Also, Whatsapp is about 5 years old (a period in which I've tried and abandoned the service a few times).
ReplyDeleteNo Google Street View? That's surprising...
ReplyDeleteStill, decrypting jokes takes time and if someone does not have the patience to invest it, he or she might not be that interested in your companionship :)
ReplyDeleteYes, but that is pretty much known. What is less known is how the medical system in Canada is fundamentally unworkable and how terrible many doctors are.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of infrastructure is a reality, but isn't it also an issue of network effects? Then again, with the new president, maybe Sibiu will become a second capital :)
ReplyDeleteIt is old, but how does that play into the decision to use it other than positively?
ReplyDeleteI thought it's general for Bucharest; isn't it?
ReplyDeleteYou've just hit on my deepest fear! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd not only in Canada...
ReplyDeleteSibiu can be considered a model, but that's all. It's still a medium city from the province.
ReplyDeleteIt's just that it didn't need such an indepth review :P
ReplyDeleteNo, Street View is available for most places in the Capital.
ReplyDeleteWhat irks me about Canada though is the massive difference between general image/expectations and reality.
ReplyDeletethe presidential court could easily move into a "curte" with high fences, enabling certain teachers to continue to walk to school :) - it would be like Brasil in Brazil
ReplyDeleteIt's my experience and my frustrations. Most importantly, my point is that there are alternatives and as good as it is, the app is useful only insofar as you are not aware of alternatives.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the places where it's not. Maybe it's the "defense ministry" - after all, that's where many who work for Deveselu live. Or maybe Dick Cheney moved his "undisclosed location bunker" there.
ReplyDeleteThe comments invisibly sync'd by Google here belong to the previous 4-5 articles.
ReplyDeleteNeah, I think some streets were simply too damaged for the car to explore them.
ReplyDeleteSince it's the most used, it's probably the better alternative.
ReplyDeleteYes, but what would you do with the hundreds of MPs :P ?
ReplyDeleteThat's why it's good to have little or no expectations, wherever you'd go :)
ReplyDelete..and learn the language, so at least you can understand some early warnings :)
ReplyDeleteFind them useful employment. For instance, some cities are rather dirty.. :)
ReplyDeleteNetwork effects, again. Or is it the lack of infrastructure (knowledge of alternatives)? :)
ReplyDeletePossibly. :)
ReplyDeleteAlthough that area was never really cheap, so money was allocated.
Soon enough - Google Drones!
Cheap? No. Dirty and overrated? Yes (especially since the subway development team literally took over).
ReplyDeleteThe app market is the kind of market where the ''first come, first served'' principle works (most of the time, anyway).
ReplyDeleteAlso, Romania is in dire need of dog catchers (and they're all experts in barking).
ReplyDeleteI know. I have this one, @Blegoo, on this very blog :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not very familiar with WhatsApp history, but hasn't Skype or even Google Voice (or even Twitter) been around longer?
ReplyDeleteNot sure what you mean with the subway: is it heavy construction or too many delays?
ReplyDeleteDrumul Taberei of my childhood was not dirty and overrated, unless compared with Zurich, Barcelona or some other place like that. Primaverii was better only insofar you wanted to live in a house - not my case.
Are you saying that it became worse recently, or that other quarters improved markedly?
The subway helps maintain overcrowded junctions, while the dirt and lack of a decent mayor (for about 12 years now) have turned it into the kind of place everybody wants to move in...then quickly wants to move out :) - I lived for about three years there and the final answer is: NO :P
ReplyDeleteSkype has been around way longer than WhatsApp. So has Twitter. Google Voice/Hangouts is more recent (their succesor, Google Talk, was older), but it's also less succesful.
ReplyDeleteWon't work. He's too smart for regular catchers :P
ReplyDeleteyou know what they say: make a dawg catch-proof, and they'll make better catchers :)
ReplyDeleteIf only sex and love worked like the app market. Seriously, does this make any sense to you? First, a Bangladeshi thinks I'm someone else, then an Indian guy. It's true that my name is Indelible Bonobo, but how could they confuse me with someone else - I've a monkey photo?! Are there other people who go by this name? Is there a factory of replicants in India or China? I only see people I know in my WhatsApp contacts.
ReplyDelete(See also my reply above.)
ReplyDeleteSo if Skype and Twitter have been around longer (and do arguably more), why did WhatsApp gain such market share? Why would so many people prefer it to Skype when Skype does so much more? Why keep another app that drains your battery and uses up memory?
You mean the lack of subway? Not an issue for me, it took 15-30 minutes (depending on traffic) to get from Favorit, where I lived, to CNSS (my high school, downtown) with 368, a rapid bus.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, Drumul Taberei had high density but also lots of trees and parks and it often felt like an oasis in a Bucharest always in construction, with dirt and dust and empty structures and cranes everywhere.
Because those are completely different apps, catering to different needs, for different audiences!
ReplyDeleteSure, you can use both Twitter and Skype to send PM's, but you can't use them as an SMS substitute (Skype could only recently send messages by phone - its model was VoIP + Instant Messaging). Twitter still can't do any of those things and I don't think I've sent more than 20 direct messages on Twitter since I first used it :)
At this point, Drumul Taberei is a combination between an old people's home, a garbage can and a construction site. The park has been demolished for 2 years (for ''renovation purposes'') and most of the trees have been removed to make room for the ''subway stations''. It was an oasis (an isolated and overrated one, even then), but now it's a construction site :P
ReplyDelete368 can get stuck for half an hour (literally) at Razoare and so can its peers (many trams have been removed due to the subway thing so the buses and 41 carry most of the load).
These are just some of the reasons I moved away (also, the stray dogs - some of them were removed after the recent media scandal).
I suspect you find old people everywhere, except perhaps in student residence (and even there). As for construction site, so is Toronto - apparently, 60% of the North American cranes are here and there's more construction than anywhere else in USA or Canada. The question is to what extent there's more in Drumul Taberei than in the rest of Bucharest - as I recalled, those "in construction" dilapidated structures endured for decades. Where do you live now, and is it really better?
ReplyDeleteI don't follow. How's WhatsApp a better "SMS substitute" - they all (WhatsApp, Twitter, Skype) allow messages to be sent to another subscriber via Internet. Are you saying that WhatsApp would send SMS for free to someone who is not a subscriber? Only Google Voice, TextPlus and HeyWire would do that (with limitations - see in text).
ReplyDeleteWhatsapp allows you to send messages to another user who owns the app, by only using his phone number and that's all there is (or was, for a while). No accounts, no friend requests. Just like a real SMS service. That's its positioning and for a long while, it was the only product with this positioning.
ReplyDeleteSwitch back to 2009, when I first used Whatsapp. Nothing, nothing on the market did that without spaming you with crap or making you opt in for unnecessary services. It was the only thing which you could install, understand and use in a flash. Again, that's how the market works like. If it didn't, we'd all use Facebook and its messenger which, at this point, do a better job than most social media websites and instant messaging apps.
Bucharest has gone a long way in the past seven years. If you haven't seen it for a while, you should. It's a whole different city, especially sectors 3, 4 and 1 (the central areas of this sector, where the city mayor had a say). Drumul Taberei is now more crowded and dust filled than those areas, unfortunately :(
ReplyDeleteThe old people crowd the buses and can be incredibly noisy and annoying at times. This is not their fault, since they have almost nothing to do (no "clubs", no opportunities, and a narrow cash flow).
Again: Positioning. It's what you associate the app with.
ReplyDeletePhone number association :)?
ReplyDeleteI've heard this old people theory before but I find it hard to believe. Why wouldn't they just walk on the street or take a walk in the park?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I passed through B, but can't even remember when was I there last. Whenever I make it there I don't usually get to see Drumul Taberei. I saw it once and it was completely changed, hence I'm not so keen on seeing again. Unless I get a bicycle in the summer :)
The trick was obvious and transparent all along, though (i.e., Internet transport under the guise of SMS). Back in 2009 there were all these instant messaging platforms that were quite popular, no tricks required or implied. Google Voice was launched in 2009 as well.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this trick was a selling point only if you didn't get how the service worked.
It's true that I have a few phone numbers, but they haven't changed in a rather long time (years). So I don't think that's it.
ReplyDeleteThis trick was the selling point. Add the ease of use and the fact that the app was free (there was no annual fee and you could sign in instantly) and you had a winner! That's simply how the market works. If you can adapt and find new uses for your app, without changing your positioning, you have a winner!
ReplyDeleteThe ''reasoning'' behind any of this is of no use. Nobody chooses apps or buys products by using reason (and trust me, it's my job to sell them). Post-reasoning and the cognitive dissonance adjustment give us the impression of rationality. However, peer pressure (you called it ''network effect'', but it's still peer pressure) and purely emotional reasons make us choose ''that app'', even if features some Indian guy trying to lure us to his van. For all of this though, you need a clear positioning: this app does that! The emotional part will simply tell you it's the best app that does it :)
I've asked a lot of them what and why they were doing it. The first reason is that most of them can travel freely on the public transportation network. Secondly, some of them claim the best ''farmer's market prices'' can be found in the morning, which is reason enough to jump into overcrowded buses. And thirdly, most of them do regular health checks, whether they need them or not, since they do them for free (within the public health system). This also means they have to queue for hours before going in.
ReplyDeleteDepends on which one you used on WhatsApp :)
ReplyDeleteThere is no actual trick (I used an improper term), it's how app marketing and how the selling funnel works. Pretending people would simply analyze each app, continue to use it for a while, and then settle for the best alternative is a nice bit of fantasy and probably good debate fodder, but it has nothing to do with how the market works. It rarely works like this in any other domain, however passionate you might be about the subject. In 99% of the cases, the final choice will not be an overthought one.
ReplyDeleteYou need an SMS substitute (Android messenger app) => You see which similar app your peers use => If you don't get any solid recommendations, you check the app list which clearly recommend themselves as being SMS susbtitutes => You get the highest rated one. If it's too expensive, you check the next in line. That's it.
There is no Twitter or Google Voice on that list and never will be, since that audience is not their main focus.
Interesting. I guess when you fought all your life to stay alive (aka living in socialism), it only comes naturally to do so in the old age.
ReplyDeleteI am not disagreeing with you (maybe on some small nuances, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect ) but generally we are in agreement that this is the situation. My point is that it's bad and it needs to change.
ReplyDeleteThis is also how people vote and why Macovei has never stood a chance. And I voted for her knowing that she has no chance and that people are still influenced by "voter intention" surveys and all that BS.
The way people are making buying or voting decisions drives me nuts. It means that a high quality newcomer, a game changer has a much tougher way to the top (and often never gets there). I don't think it's just me seeing it this way but rather anybody unhappy with the status quo.
I used the Google Voice one which I had at least since 2010 if not 2009. Seriously, it's not that. I think they searched for names they found interesting, or it was the staff trying to figure out who's hiding behind the "Indelible Bonobo" moniker.
ReplyDeleteBefore, they had nothing to buy with their cash. No, they have no cash to buy everything around.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with the network effect, although it's a fake network effect most of the time (a "pushed" app is not necessarily a "used" app).
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this won't really change since this is not an after effect of marketing, but rather a convenient way of exploiting certain tendencies our brain already has (minimising effort, poorly estimating statistics, taking the beaten path etc).
And yes, for a long while, Whatsapp did not really need a subscription :)
ReplyDeleteThe ''spies'', man. They're everywhere :)
ReplyDeleteAnything can change - some things are just harder than others. "Network effect" is a convenient way to rationalize "peer pressure" - i.e., you can rationally justify purchasing or using something due to "peer pressure" and that's why I installed WhatsApp (also b/c I got a new phone and was testing the batter standby numbers).
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, most of the time it's false, but as long as you create the appearance, the effect is the same, thus the appearance becomes reality.
9/11, 9/11! :)
ReplyDeleteI belive that they are both more visible and more aggressive, but none of these phenomena is (only) their fault.
ReplyDeleteNo, they can't. That's just how human nature works and has worked for ages. You are not a rational ''chooser'' and neither am I, no matter how much we'd insist on this on our blogs. This is a discussion about cognitive dissonance, if anything. Everything we've discussed above was valid 50 years ago too, although apps wouldn't have been our focus.
ReplyDeleteRATB Gerontocracy :)
ReplyDeleteYou say "no they can't" and then proceed with what I expected to be a rebuttal of sorts, but what you're saying is something I also agree with and doesn't negate what I was saying earlier (i.e., that 1) anything can change, 2) NE is a rationalization of PP and 3) appearance becomes reality. If anything, you are re-enforcing 2) and 3).
ReplyDeleteAt least, I don't see how is that a rebuttal.
Well put, actually.
ReplyDeleteI'm saying the system is a byproduct of the people and their mentality, not the other way round :)
ReplyDelete