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Hughes, for her part, favors gadgets with multiple functions. "A phone that can do music, video, digital photos...that's ideal, because you don't have to carry all the gadgets in your purse. You only carry one."
Which leads to Card's gadget wish: better toting options. "There's still work we can do on...incorporating into purses and bags good ways to use and store our cell phones and our headphones and our headsets," she said.
Female gadget fans, of course, are hardly a monolithic group, and they have mixed reactions when it comes to the girliest of girl gadgets--devices like the pink Motorola Razr, pink Nintendo DS Lite and the veritable litter of Hello Kitty-branded cell phones, laptops and USB hubs.
"It's amazing how many girls like girly things: People love pink, they love Hello Kitty," said Terry Stone, a graduate student in broadcast design at New York University, who started the blog Chip Chick. (Indeed, in the first two days after it was released, the pink Razr outsold a month's worth of other popular wireless phones on the Cingular Web site, according to Untangled Life.)
Still, lest gadget makers think that all it takes to float women buyers is a cloud of cotton candy-inspired consumer electronics, they'd best think again.
"Women are looking for style and substance and class that doesn't look masculine, but they're not necessarily looking for the pink and the flowery," Stone said. "There's a big demand for something cute and fashionable and hip that isn't part of the female stereotype."
That applies to advertising as well.
Lewis points to advertising by Iqua, a consumer-electronics manufacturer out of Finland, as an example of female-oriented marketing that doesn't condescend. The company made its U.S. debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, showing off Bluetooth headsets sporting sleek designs and bright, funky patterns.
"Iqua is focusing right toward women, their Web site (shows) a woman in a car on a hands-free phone. All pictures are with women; all the designs are for women," she said.
Lewis seems less impressed with the way gadgets are marketed to teens and young women. She said ads featuring a girl wearing a trendy shade of lipstick with an iPod in her pocket show that consumer-electronics companies are trying to market MP3 players as another accessory, just like a cute purse or belt.
"They're trying to get it into the fashion world, but the fashion world and the tech world don't really have a conversation right now....If you're going to do that, you have to change it up," Lewis said. Gadget makers "are trying to appeal to females through fashion, but I haven't seen anything really revolutionary. (In one ad) the girl's wearing a cool outfit, and she has a cell phone in her pocket. OK, that's not going to sell me the cell phone."
More likely to do the trick, according to Card of Swapsets, is an approach that takes into careful account women's desire for style balanced with functionality."My best advice would be to not condescend to women, to really think about what it is women do on a daily basis," she said. "Women are tough consumers. We shop around, we know what we want, and we're not really likely to fall for something that hasn't been thought through."
CNET News.com's Ina Fried contributed to this report.
See more CNET content tagged:
women,
gadget,
consumer electronics,
girl,
headset
After reading that in the first paragraph and then we're supposed to think what? As usual seems like the marketing departments are doing a great job. Must be the same guys that convinced stay at home moms that they needed the big SUV's (a higher profit vehicle for the automakers) to look "cool" versus the soccer mom minivan (lower profit vehicle).
After reading that in the first paragraph and then we're supposed to think what? As usual seems like the marketing departments are doing a great job. Must be the same guys that convinced stay at home moms that they needed the big SUV's (a higher profit vehicle for the automakers) to look "cool" versus the soccer mom minivan (lower profit vehicle).
And in the mean time, the rate of women going into Computer Science programs at Colleges and Universities across America continues to plummet. So women are excluding themselves from the science field and industries, but that doesn't mean as much as women buying gadgets huh?? Women will buy anything, the only thing this article does is to verify that women spend more money than men. GOOD JOB!!!
And in the mean time, the rate of women going into Computer Science programs at Colleges and Universities across America continues to plummet. So women are excluding themselves from the science field and industries, but that doesn't mean as much as women buying gadgets huh?? Women will buy anything, the only thing this article does is to verify that women spend more money than men. GOOD JOB!!!
To another person's point, gadgeteer and technologist are two different things, and since I lean towards the later, I do hope future stories highlight women who talk about or work in technology more directly.
To another person's point, gadgeteer and technologist are two different things, and since I lean towards the later, I do hope future stories highlight women who talk about or work in technology more directly.
www.voguecomputing.com
www.voguecomputing.com
It's also why Windows is dominant. There's your proof.
- Man smart, woman smarter
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by technewsjunkie
July 15, 2006 7:55 AM PDT
- Testosterone is the root of all stupidity.
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See all 44 Comments >>It's also why Windows is dominant. There's your proof.