The other night a few friends and I were having a conversation over dinner, which eventually turned to the subject of technology, and of course the introduction of Apple's latest 'must-have' object came up.

I won't rehash my opinion on the subject but during that conversation this came to mind:

"In 1975, Gary Dahl working as an advertising executive at the time, launched the sale of the pet rock which quickly transformed him into a multi-millionaire."

I found this part in particular to be apropos to the iPad:

"Part of Dahl's marketing strategy was to state that pet rocks give us more pleasure than we know. He convinced the consumer that these pet rocks support this argument through their very existence, and clearly display that it is not an actual item that brings joy to the child in the human mind, but merely the idea of the item. The pet sits in a niche in the mind, created by the power of the owners imaginations. It is in the actual exercise of the mind that such pleasure is found."



The Pet Rock