Your guess is correct. And ITavisen - "the IT paper" is indeed IT centric. Of course, IT centric means that it will attract all the 14 year old fanboys. You find them at Engadget, digi.no, tek.no, everywhere there is IT news. There is a limited number of norwegian IT centric news sites, and like it or not, ITavisen, despite it's quality, is one of the biggest. I am an IT professional, and all the IT professionals I know, read ITavisen.

And we laugh at the comments. Even so, the comments and flame wars reflect the consumers. The vocal ones end up being the people who Joe Average ask for advice.


I'm not worried for my own sake, I still believe that Maemo 5 will have sufficient good software to keep me happy as long as the N900 attract as many people as the N810 did. And it will. But in the long run, I'd want to see Nokia make money on Maemo. I would rather that non-tech people didn't hear about the N900 than they all heard about it and hated it.

Hi.

Of course I can't speak for other countries but, here in Portugal, we have 10 million people and even more mobile phones (average is 1.x phones per person). Although the iPhone is considered [here] to be a luxury/stylish phone, Nokia phones are still the prefered brand. I only know 1 person with an iPhone. On the other hand, most of the people I know have Nokias. Of course this discussion isn't about ordinary nokias but the n900 and why would Joe Avarage want it. Well, it's a Nokia and it's expensive [and good]. The rest will come later. We, technology people, make serious considerations about purchasing an equipment. We make researches to determine if it is what we want. Joe Average will buy it if others have it. Why will others have it? Well it's a Nokia... And it's expensive so... I want it.
Remember, the iPhone fever is gone...

i think people under estimate how tech savvy the average Joe is these days, the average Joe in the US might not appreciate it purely b/c they are brainwashed by media hype and will probably never hear of the N900.
but the average Joe in Europe is way more open minded and willing to take a stab at the unknown and adapt.

It seems that the amount of tech heads is increasing all the time. More and more people seem want something fancy from their electronics. Even people who really don't understand or know how to use the advanced features in their gadgets.

It's something like old sci-fi movies and blinking led lights. They just have to be in there. Otherwise it just doesn't do it

This is precisely the point!!! For me Nokia have some wonderful technology but usually presented in a way that is hard to 'the average user' to understand or use. Nokia needs to learn from (god forbid) apple to make their applications easy to use, bug free, so they talk to each other and MARKETING - all it takes is a shift of focus on usability and a holistic approach. For the N900 to be mass market (because it definitely could be) it needs to use its great tech heads AND think for of the average consumer.

I see so many people try to 'understand and predict' how Joe Average thinks here.

I just have one question for you...

Have you personally observed one, or are y'all just pulling these templates out of your own you-know-what?

Cause I've never seen so many ignorant elitist comments thrown together in a thread that would've been a great discussion.

You are rigth. I am also an IT-professional, and all the IT-professionals I know also read ITavisen, because all it does is basically aggregate the interesting stuff from engadget, slashdot etc. So basically it's just a translated aggregated RSS-feed with entertaining comments from fanboys. My point was that the comments on this particular site does not belong to IT-professionals (even though it may be the target audience for the website). Take Tek.no's forums as an example, which has an overall much higher quality.

When it comes to if average Joe will understand why it is special, I really dont think so. You will lose them as soon as you mention linux or open source. But he should still be able to appreciate the eye-candy and functionality of the nokia and ovi-store apps.

The true potential of Maemo will probably only be harvested by the good people here at maemo.org and the likes. I honestly cant wait anymore....

I was coming into work on the bus this morning thinking the same thoughts. It is really too bad.

As for me, I am to an extent rather an AJoe. Qualify this with a good education, some prospects, and a good job. Some AJoes are different, some with more money (I have kids, how can I have money). I get excited about shiny things, and have a knowledge about how they work.

Okay, so I'm a computer scientist. Has anyone considered that people in other professions may see geeks as average Joes with respect to their profession? I have no clue about car mechanics, or laser surgery, beyond the bare basics. I hope they don't belittle me (too much, I can take the ribbing) accordingly.

I see the problem as this: we have here a potentially powerful device that's a phone and a computer and is hopefully not bad at both. It's more than possible to see it as one and not the other. In fact, I'm willing to say I'll almost certainly use it as both, but probably in completely different contexts. I'm getting it as a complete laptop replacement (actually, an n810 replacement, cos my n810 has been my laptop replacement for nearly 2 years now. Never looked back). The fact that it'll also be my phone is a bonus.

Another AJoe may well just buy it as a phone. Perhaps do some facebook or whatever on it. I never touch facebook (I'm a security researcher, I know the issues) but if Joe2 wants to, thats just great. In his context, it'll work perfectly.

Another Joe, let's call her Joette, will get it and use it in lieu of her current Blackberry. Email, corporate network stuff. In that context, it'll do just fine too.

Joe doesn't need to understand the 'special' in the same way I do. For me, the 'special' is I don't have to lug a laptop through airports (oh, my poor back). For Joe2 the special is fast facebook access and a camera to upload his pictures. For Joette it's always on email access to corporate (I can imagine nothing worse, personally).

It's special because it can do these things, and because at the end of the day there's no such thing as an average Joe or Joette. We're all different, and the magic of the N900 is going to be the ability to accommodate those differences handsomely. You know something else? I don't think there's a device like it that can handle those differences so well. Yet.

One last thought - when I see a fellow commuter watching movies on his iphone, chatting on her blackberry, listening to music on his ipod, or writing a report on her laptop I get excited about the sheer potential to fill those niches that this device has. I'd be happy to show it to any of those people (when I get it) and watch the results. If they don't want it, it's not because they're dumb, it's because their particular niche their 'special') is already filled, thanks. Maybe when they move to a different job, or leave school and get a job, or lose a job, or whatever, that 'special' will change and they'll see the benefits of such an amazing device. We'll see.

Will I evangelize? Probably. I'll do it differently for different people though - through my years of educating people, I've realized that nothing turns someone off more than condescension (unless they're geeks AND my friends, in which case condescension is key).

Understand, show, tell, listen (without prejudice, thanks Texrat) and watch the lights come on inside. It's a nice feeling.

You just made my day!

I'm so tired of average joe understanding this and that, iphone appeal to the average yuppie and what they did good to obtain that, heck I begin to worry if I notice that I use devices that the average joe uses

As a psychology graduate student I can tell you first hand. Average is simply based on whatever sample you gathered. e.g. average joe on Maemo forums would be someone who posts but doesn't code.