iPod Changed My Life?

My friend Claire recently commented to me that she thought Apple might be running some subtle marketing campaign, as everywhere she looked she saw people walking down the street with the iPod’s distinctive white headphones in their ears. Since then, I’ve noticed it too. The press have been keen to pick up on the iPod’s success, with it being labelled ‘cool item of the year’ almost everywhere.

Lecturer Michael Bull at Sussex Uni wants to look a little deeper into the phenomonen though, seeking answers about its ’social impact’. He’s writing a book (which has already received a ton of pre-publicity) and wants people (particularly women) to partipate in his research (through that age-old method of a questionnaire).

I suspect he’ll get a lot of responses from people raving about how it’s great to have all your music with you and be able to listen to music on the move. What will be interesting will be his thoughts on how people listen to their iPodded music? Do they listen by album? Randomly? By artist or genre? How about fancy selections like by year or ‘not listened to recently’?

I don’t have an iPod, but I wonder whether they are used as peer-to-peer deviced yet? Can people swap music simply by plugging one iPod into another? And would this change how people discover music?

Lastly, I’m really suprised that there hasn’t been a wave of stories in the press yet about how iPods are the new mobile phones in terms of items sought out by muggers? With those headphones you could spot someone carrying one of these £300-odd devices a mile off…

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