journal features

manufacturer links to its retailers—at last!

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2011.10.23

You know, this is such a no-brainer that it really shouldn't have come as a (pleasant) surprise.

But I think this is the first time I've ever seen a manufacturer's site actually link directly to the product pages where their product's being offered (for pre-order, no less). It sounds stupid to have to say it, but I honestly can't think of another example of this.

It's a camera (what else would I be looking at?) offered by Fujifilm. Of course, one or two links have misfired, but so it goes. Fuji's now claiming that they're the number two camera manufacturer by market share in this country, and that comes as a big surprise. But little details like this must be helping. Also, it helps that their products are intriguing.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton