ipod

When President Barack Obama met Queen Elizabeth II he brought a gift with him… So what would you get the Queen? Well Obama gave her a personalised iPod. (ABC News)

My first thought was – How Cool! And I immediately began thinking of which playlist Obama would give the Queen. Which artists would he think that she would like to listen to?

But my imagination was brutally crushed when I read that “A palace spokesman said the MP3 player was loaded with footage of the Queen’s 2007 visit to Washington and Virginia.”

How exciting. And in return the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh gave the Obamas signed portraits of themselves.

Yeah! The spirit of giving. It’s all about giving each other trash that you don’t want or what? Do you think Mauss deals with these kinds of gifts?

Update: Obama’s gift may have broken the law.

When Apple started selling iPods they also offered personalization through lazer engraving. Naturally you could not do much but you could engrave a small message on the back of your iPod. Surprisingly the discussion at the time was not about the illusion of individuality in a mass consumer society. The main annoyance seemed to be about the words which were not allowed to be engraved on the iPod.

Now there is an alternative reason why companies are keen on allowing us to personalize our stuff. The Consumerist reports:

Ever wonder why some places will engrave your electronics for free? It’s so you can’t return them. Really. That’s the reason. Returns of perfectly good, non-defective merchandise account for 95% of returns and “free engraving” is a cheap, easy way to ensure that that item won’t be coming back.

Cool! It’s nice to see that there is an underlying evil reason for this seemingly friendly gesture – it restores my faith in the world.

Actually on the issue on personalization I must admit to engraving my last two laptops. Pics on Flickr.

Exchanging Gifts

Personalized tech or why the fuss about engraving