Universal Appeal

Gap acquired Athleta, a womens sport and active apparel brand last fall. While I have been working out a lot more lately, this new line extension probably wouldn't have caught my attention, save for the fact that last week Athleta became the fifth tab in Gaps "universality" website function. If you go to any of the company's websites, Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime and now Athleta, you are brought to their universal site which enables you to shop from any of the stores using one shopping cart and are charged one flat shipping fee.

While Amazon has been integrating sales from multiple sources for some time, it is really more of a go-between for individuals and other ecommerce stores. Gap has done something a little different with its brands, creating a portal that hopefully engages consumers and incentivizes them to shop multiple stores at once to their benefit. Of course it helps that there is audience overlap for these brands, though their styles and price points may differ somewhat. I wonder if the same concept could be applied to the Urban Outfitters brands, Urban, Free People and Anthropologie - my guess is no. Those brands are more life stage-targeted, though some of their items have a similar aesthetic so there would be some customers who shop at more than one of these stores.

Though I recently swore off online shopping in favor of going to the store, I know I can be easily swayed, so a one-stop shop is certainly pretty enticing.

Kindle Update

Last weekend I headed up to Maine to visit with friends and hit the slopes. I had been looking forward to getting in touch with nature, but was a little nervous because I knew I was bound to have no service on my iPhone. I dreaded the inevitable separation anxiety, but figured it was probably for the best. I'm sure by my prior dependence-heavy posts you will agree I needed a little time away from the ol' girl.

Still, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had service for most of the 8-hour (yes, god help me) car ride, and pretty much over the moon when a bored search of the app store bore the most incredible fruit. Just when I thought the iPhone couldn't possibly get any better, it gave me Kindle, or at least a pretty acceptable approximation of it. If you recall, I was practically drooling over the Kindle in a prior post, but lamenting the high price tag.

The Amazon app allowed me the same access to digital books that the covetable Kindle does, and though the screen is probably brighter, definitely smaller and sometimes a bit reflective, there I was, clicking to purchase David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed in Flames. And thanks to Amazon's Whispersync technology (no idea what that is, but it sounds completely cool) I was reading it about two seconds later.

The text appears large enough that I do not squint at the screen, and turning pages with the swipe of a finger is pretty darn easy. It also remembers the page where I left off so I can pick it right up again, no problem. As I mentioned, it is a little brighter than my ideal, but I can certainly make it work, especially when it allows me to have any book I want at my fingertips at a moment's notice.

So once again, yay iPhone, and also yay free wifi once we got to our condo. Though my phone service was a little spotty, leaving me to check my messages up on the lifts, I was never once without Facebook, Gmail or Twitter updates. Sorry nature!

UnKindle My Heart

I am what you might call a "reader." I put it in quotes, because I know to some it is a dirty word. While I read all kinds of digital musings all day long at work, that is not what I call real reading. Real reading is analog - curled up on a couch, lounging in bed or piled into a favorite chair, holding a real live book in your hands, flipping the pages and digesting as many words as possible. On-the-go reading of actual books is also acceptable, but I find it more distracting, especially when I am so wedged into a subway car that I can only open my book at a 45 degree angle.

However, I am also a New Yorker with limited apartment space and my book shelves have been seriously sagging lately. I try to get rid of books I know I won't read again, but I really like being able to refer back to my collection or pass a favorite book on to a friend. I could simply start getting my books from a library, but strangely enough I actually want to pay for books for the same reason I like to pay for my music - I want the people who create them to stick around and keep entertaining me. I'm not so self-righteous that I would turn down a freebie, but I still like to do my part.

Last year I caught wind of the Amazon Kindle, a digital book reader that has been so in-demand that very few people got it under their Christmas tree this past December. Of course, that was mostly because Amazon was gearing up to release the Kindle 2. If you've been to Amazon any time this week you've no doubt seen it.

While I relish my analog experience, I can see the benefit of a gadget like the Kindle. Unlike other small screen experiences, the screen is not glossy, so it is easy to read the words, which are also bigger. It really tries to mimic the book experience. I know this because whenever I come across someone reading from one on the subway my head is practically perched on their shoulder.

It can hold my entire library! Instead of writing down endless lists of books I want to read I can download them instantly! If those two features weren't reason enough, the device can also carry your documents, deliver your newspaper subscription, read out loud to you, bookmark, annotate and make your coffee in the morning. Just kidding on that last one, but come on, how far off from that is it really?

I'll admit that I really want to buy it and love it and make it my own and read to IT. But am I really Jay Gatsby looking out across the water at the beckoning green light? Do I really need a $359 book reader? My sensible side says no...at least for now. Sigh.

"I am a weapon of massive consumption,

...It's not my fault, it's how I'm programmed to function." So says Lily Allen in her new song "The Fear" which I am listening to as it streams on her MySpace page. The song, an ode to crazed consumerism, seems timely for the mess we're all caught up in at the moment, though it has a cheery pop quality that is kind of disturbing for the subject.

The Fear video


Allen just released her second album "It's Not Me, It's You" yesterday. Since I was keen on her first album a few years back (you may remember the equally cheerful song "Smile" about relishing the pain of a lover who jilted her), I am sampling the new album from her site's player. Allen virtually made her career thanks to MySpace, developing her following, allowing listeners to sample her music and publicizing her tour dates.

The current experience is a little frustrating because there are frequent interruptions as Domino's ads appear and have to be clicked away before a song will continue - major annoyance. Still, I can't help but admire how the singer has harnessed the power of her social network to get her message out. She is even performing 3 free "secret" MySpace sponsored concerts. The first one is tonight at Bowery Ballroom in New York.

Music seems to be the only area where MySpace has been able to continually beat it's eager little sibling, Facebook. I wonder how much longer that will be the case as sites like iLike are building an audience separately and within Facebook - will it trump MySpace? Though I have never been a serious MySpace user, to me iLike is a better version of the artist's "megaphone," broadcasting every little detail about their goings-on to fans. The experience is much more organized and customizable, though graphically inferior. Still artists have been loyally creating elaborate pages on MySpace for years, some even cooler than their own dedicated websites.

Today's fickle music fans are demanding more of their favorite artists, and thanks to technology, can find ways to get their music free. So the musician-consumer relationship has really been turned on its head. Musicians have to be more creative in their marketing, using all the available resources to catch the audience's fleeting attention and harness it into iTunes or Amazon song sales, or even concert tickets. Free underground shows are not only great for publicity (for both Lily Allen and MySpace) but a necessity to show fans that you love and appreciate them as much as they are into you.

The next logical step? Personal emails ala Barack Obama. I can't wait until I get that email from Beck telling me he hopes I liked the new album or asking me to come out for his concert when he is in my hometown. Depending on how it's done, it could be awesome.