This issue I take a slightly derogative view of the fanboy movement and am running out of ideas for articles that should get feedback, so someone please comment.
Fanboy - Spamboy
Fanboy (n) - A person who has an unshakeable belief that the team/show/thing he/she is a fan of is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Fanboys have existed for years in various guises, and the most obvious place to find them is sports competitions. In recent decades they have appeared in the computing sphere, and now in the phone & PDA areas. The problem with Fanboys in technology is that they generally ignore all the flaws in their machine and put forward it's good points to all and sundry, even those who have better machines in an attempt to persuade people the equivalent of the sky being green.
The more recent Fanboy things in the symbian world I can comment on now are the Pocket PC Thoughts people and their belief that M$ invented the Smartphone, and even have the technology that's been standard on phones for years. Arguments such as the SPV being better than a Cray Super Computer are the sort of thing that wouldn't be unexpected in some cases as people seem to forget all the reasons why the SPV isn't selling. Closer to home we've received lots of mail regarding Ewan's review of the P800, not saying he's spot on (even though he is and more important people than the Fanboy's agree) but the Fanboys have responded in force defending their Smartphone in the face of adversity and a review pointing out what's wrong with it.
The major problem with a Fanboy is that dispite the ability to talk the hind legs off of a horse, they cannot accept and objectional review of their chosen device, it's superb in every respect and they refuse to listen to bad points or just suggest what is good about it to take your mind off of the problems. I cannot stand innocent of this either, in the late 80's early 90's I was there for the Atari vs Amiga Fanboy wars, staunchly telling Amiga owners how crap their systems were for their lack of a MIDI interface, the fact that the computers despite minor differences were on a par with each other was neither here nor there, it was justifying that yours was BETTER. A lesson learnt here was that Fanboys can help increase sales by convincing the people on the fence to buy your product, but you lose your Fanboys when something is blatently better than what they had, which happened when the IBM Compatible PC discovered sound cards and high-res high-colour graphics cards, and the majority of Amiga and Atari people jumped ship.
Personally I'm dissapointed with Fanboys now, I realise I was the same, but we need to listen to arguments against as well as for devices. The only way the companies can get good feedback from us is if we tell the truth rather than gloss over the bad sides. Because some people think the P800 is the greatest thing since sliced bread with no faults they should have presented a counter argument for the letters rather than saying that Ewan was wrong. Arguments from the pro-M$ camp that their devices are better because of the MP3 and video playback, seem to forget that people may wish to do something useful with a device, but their only argument is silly features and not usefulness. At the end of the day Fanboys need to realise that although they support something wholely that there are flaws and that by acknowledging them they can help companies by explaining problems, they can stop themselves sounding like idiots arguing that black is white, and they can allow people to give opinions that may lead to people looking at things in a new light and possibly solving a problem.
Posted by Switchblade at June 23, 2003 01:03 PM