Do you really need a 40 inch TV?

You walk past some people’s houses which are two up two down terraced, lovely little havens of peacefulness, but without the room in which to swing a cat and there, spreading across one of the entire walls, is this giant, cinema-sized plasma screen thing.

If it were any bigger, it may well take down the entire wall and next door’s with it. So why do people insist on buying TV screens, LCD etc., and systems which are bigger and better than ever before? What is the fixation for this craze that has swept the modern world?

Blame marketers for it if you like but hey, we don’t have to buy them. Yes we are told that if we buy one of these obscenely huge TVs we can have the life we’ve always wanted and we can watch TV in better definition and never miss our favourite programmes ever again – but no one is actually forcing us to go down to the shops and buy one – so why do we?

Are our eyes all really that bad that we can no longer see our TVs if they are under 40 inches wide? Why do we feel the need to recreate the cinema in our front rooms when we can watch a standard-sized TV perfectly well? Isn’t the message the same? Why do we need to see our favourite characters as outsized versions of the real thing?

Is it the kids? Are they putting us under pressure to buy them? Well, as parents, isn’t it our job to tell them to be quiet and ask for a colouring book instead? Or maybe it’s the parents who want these colossal screens attached to their walls so that they can strain their necks and watch the X-factor in HD, in order to keep up with their neighbours who have just gone one better and bought a 50 inch version.

Can these ever growing, surely ‘genetically modified’ abnormally large TVs be a healthy option for our children? I mean, we rarely go out of the house as it is these days without also encouraging our kids to sit in the house piling on even more weight through eating popcorn and sitting rigid for five hours on the sofa in a room the size of a bus shelter. Staring at these monstrous screens can also surely only be damaging their vision over a long period of time. We’ll breed a generation of visually impaired young adults if we are not careful, who can only recognise a loaf of bread in the shops if it’s 6 feet tall.

By bringing the fun of the cinema into our homes, are we not taking away the pleasure of actually going to the cinema and spending a day out with the family? We’ll be hiring virtual ushers next to stand in our hallways with torches and an ice cream tray, picking up the litter as we go to bed.

Does bigger always mean better? Why is it that we feel the need to go one greater all the time and make things as super duper as we can? Why can we not be satisfied with what we have and accept that the TV we have, which is already 28 inches, is perfectly acceptable and, for the amount of time we actually need it, is more than adequate.

Where will the craze end? Will we have to start raising the ceilings and strengthening walls in the building process of our homes in order to cater for the possibility of a full multi-plex in every room? No, not one in every room….surely not!

Copyright © Peter Moore 2009 - EzWeb123.com

F1ForKidz.com – Review

F1ForKidz.com is a new website resource for children, designed to attract lovers of Formula One everywhere. Just how good is it and will it draw in all those lovers of motorsport and FIA?

Well, to begin with, the domain name says it all which is a good thing. You know from first hearing the name to visiting this site that it is a website for children who love Formula One. So we’re off to an excellent start and in pole position already.

The landing page has a look and feel of F1 about it with use of black and white colours to match the F1 chequered flag and there is a video clip of Jensen Button on there. The video clip is a great idea as it adds another dimension to the site and makes it immediately interactive. The site actually has a look of the official F1 site which is in keeping with the overall image.

The site is not sending out ambiguous messages and it is clear so far. It is laid out well and it has a simple look about it with clean lines. However, should it be more childlike on first glance or is it just about the right pitch for today’s sophisticated youth?

The menu options are very clear and it is immediately obvious where to go for everything that you need, although the font size of all the text is quite small. An option to increase font size if required might not be a bad idea. Another plus point is that the visitor is not bamboozled by ‘walls of words’ on the home page which is a great thing for any site. Having said that, perhaps the page is a little too ‘cold’ at the moment and not quite as inviting as it could be.

The potential for the pages to be filled with detail and activity is huge and the site certainly functions well. It possesses all the key features of any other website and is what one would expect, with the option of adding on extras if required. Some of the pages do obviously still need some work on them as the text looks a little sparse and not as easy to read as it could be with the scroll down action; such as on the F1 history page.

It is always good to have a forum area these days, especially for kids, because they love to interact and chat with one another – fill this page with lots of topics to choose from and make it a hive of activity. The forum page could benefit from being a little more visual with added graphics to bring it to life.

It is a crisp, clean looking site which fits in well with F1 but it is designed for children and so perhaps needs a few more flashing images and a bit more excitement adding to it. Apart from the home page, it is all quite static.

In terms of business potential, one would have to ask where a child would go if they wanted some F1 fun. Are they more likely to go straight to the F1 official website to begin with or do they want their own site? For the F1ForKidz.com site and for business to grow, the site needs to become far busier. Children are very sophisticated nowadays but they still thrive on fun and they need to feel that this site is a place where they can go to that grown ups can’t! It should have an exclusive feel for children about it; like a club or a gang. Once children are in that gang, they will almost certainly want to stay and chat with other F1 lovers.

What do you think? What are you views on how to make this website a place for serious young petrol heads to visit and catch up on all the latest Lewis Hamilton gossip? What features would you like to see on there if anything was possible? How could this site become the children’s Number One for F1?

Copyright © Peter Moore 2009 - Co-Founder of EzWeb123.com