Comments on: The Importance of “Dead” Technologies http://blog.postful.com/2007/03/25/the-importance-of-dead-technologies/ The OFFICIAL Postful.com Startup Blog: Distrust All Imitators! Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:43:00 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Edward Vielmetti http://blog.postful.com/2007/03/25/the-importance-of-dead-technologies/#comment-2686 Edward Vielmetti Sat, 31 Jan 2009 06:25:38 +0000 http://postful.wordpress.com/2007/03/25/the-importance-of-dead-technologies/#comment-2686 I quite prefer some dead technologies to the current ones, for the right purposes and uses. The postcard is one example of this. Commonly used, it is a cheap way to send mass produced advertising. But if you create one-off cards with a bit of creativity for each addressee, you get a nice little preprinted bit of cheer that's suitable for tacking to a fridge or a cubicle wall. Same nostalgia for VHS tapes (the perfect way to watch the video of the late 80s and early 90s, and suitable for use by a 3 year old), and cassette tapes (mix tapes, and good for car use). There's lots of "dead" technologies which are really analog technologies, and a characteristic of them is that when they start to fail they fail gradually. A folded photograph is still a photograph, but a folded CD-ROM disk is a piece of scrap. I quite prefer some dead technologies to the current ones, for the right purposes and uses.

The postcard is one example of this. Commonly used, it is a cheap way to send mass produced advertising. But if you create one-off cards with a bit of creativity for each addressee, you get a nice little preprinted bit of cheer that’s suitable for tacking to a fridge or a cubicle wall.

Same nostalgia for VHS tapes (the perfect way to watch the video of the late 80s and early 90s, and suitable for use by a 3 year old), and cassette tapes (mix tapes, and good for car use).

There’s lots of “dead” technologies which are really analog technologies, and a characteristic of them is that when they start to fail they fail gradually. A folded photograph is still a photograph, but a folded CD-ROM disk is a piece of scrap.

]]> By: The Medium Isn't the Message « Postfully Yours http://blog.postful.com/2007/03/25/the-importance-of-dead-technologies/#comment-4 The Medium Isn't the Message « Postfully Yours Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:10:50 +0000 http://postful.wordpress.com/2007/03/25/the-importance-of-dead-technologies/#comment-4 [...] touched in passing yesterday on the recent discussion about the death of the newspaper. Much of the discussion on this [...] [...] touched in passing yesterday on the recent discussion about the death of the newspaper. Much of the discussion on this [...]

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