Mobio Networks is touting a new service that “provides instant access to hundreds of thousands of recipes anytime, anywhere” on your cell phone or gadget of choice.
Now, regular readers may remember that I’ve poked fun at high-tech recipe-delivery systems in the past, but I’ve given the matter additional thought and come up with five scenarios under which I could see a service of this nature making sense. Here goes:
1. You’re on the subway listening to a pair of thugs argue about who makes the best chili. They lob increasingly venomous insults back and forth for three stops, jostling strap-hangers with their arm-waving and chest-thumping. Sensing a teachable moment, you step between the warring parties, present your recipe-enabled cell phone and say, “Gentlemen, allow me to show you why you’re both wrong.”
2. You’re at your in-laws’ place for Thanksgiving dinner. Dreading the annual assault upon your senses that is this household’s giblet gravy, you flip open your phone, hip-check your wife’s mother away from the stove, dump her vile sludge down the disposal, and commence whipping up something that won’t look like it came from a Jiffy Lube. (File icy stares under small price to pay.)
3. Your travel department has sentenced you to three days in a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Piscataway where the nearby dining options are open around-the-clock not so much for convenience as to guard against the ever-present threat of a grease fire. There’s a 24-hour 7-Eleven across the street, naturally, so wouldn’t it be great to be able access “101 Sterno-ready Recipes for the Road Warrior” on your cell?
4. You’re tailgating with the guys; first-time invite, go figure. Steaks, brats, baked beans, spuds the size of footballs, tubs of sour cream and butter to beat the half-time band. You and your phone: “Hey, fellas, did you know that the American Heart Association has all these wonderful low-cholesterol recipes?”
5. Finally, who doesn’t need another pleasant diversion from the tedium of watching the road while driving?
Do you know what your CEO drives?
We’re talking just the make of the car, nothing more detailed.
I ask because an otherwise unremarkable story in last Monday’s USA Today – hey, did you know that most rich people drive fancy cars? – cites a survey result that I find difficult to believe:
“How the boss gets to work might seem a relatively innocuous thing. But people pay close attention to what their CEO drives. Only 10% of nearly 3,000 people asked didn’t know what their chief drives, according to a survey by TheLadders.com, a job-search site for those making $100,000-plus. While that might not represent the typical employee, it shows that there is a keen interest in what kind of wheels the person at the helm of the company has.”
The $100,000-a-year caveat is important, obviously, but I’m still not buying that it’s enough to validate the idea that nine of every 10 such employees cares enough about what the top dog drives to find out and remember. I smell a Web poll (they never responded to my inquiry), which, as we have noted here many a time, are useless for any purpose other than simple amusement.
Of course, it’s possible that I’m projecting my own lack of interest here. I do not know what Network World CEO John Gallant drives, even though I’ve been inside of the vehicle on a number of occasions. (How’s that for a journalist’s keen powers of observation?)
I simply couldn’t care less.
You can register your thoughts and vote in our utterly meaningless online poll.
