Wednesday, September 12, 2012

One Thousand Posts --- the bottom five

Fair and balanced. I'm marking the 1,000th post to Off Topic'd with a look at our five most popular posts, and also our five least popular.

5) A Class(ical)-less City
Back in 2006, strange thing was about to happen in the nation's capital. Public radio station powerhouse WETA had dropped its classical music format in a bid to grab some rival WAMU's news/talk audience (and the $$$  that audience pledged). In the meantime, commercial WGMS was about to switch formats and drop classical music. Which meant in the capital city of the world's most powerul nation, there would be no classical music on the airwaves. It struck me as a major cultural disconnect, and it turned out to be one that didn't last long. Fortunately.

4) How do you measure "Good?"
Bose is a lightening rod brand name. People either love or hate the company's products -- but no one's neutral about them. Back in 2006 Ken and I were still writing "CE Conversations" as a consumer electronics blog. Ken addressed the issue of giving advice based -- not on what the person prefers -- but what best suits the asker's needs. And that question involved Bose.

3) Collecting in an Electronic Age
This 2006 post was also written by Ken Nail, the original co-author of this blog. He looked at his first-hand experience with eBay, and how it impacted the values of his beer can collection, and collecting in general. Six years later, his observations are even more insightful.

2) Even the Times Says So
In my very first post (back when we thought this would be a consumer electronics tech blog), I posited that MP3 players would pull younger listeners away from radio. This 2006 follow-up post presented a New York Times article Changing Its Tune that supported my claim. The digital music revolution continues apace in 2012, and over-the-air radio seems even more archaic.

And the least popular post of all time:

1) Tivo and Me
This post was part of a back-and-forth debate Ken Nail and I were having about TiVo and who was using it (and why). Our thoughts on time-shifting technologies from 2006 seem rather quaint, now. No wonder it's not read much. Perhaps someday it will be of real historical interest. And these kind of posts were one of the reasons we moved away from consumer electronics topics (and perhaps why Ken moved away from this blog).

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