Amazon's hot sellers - baseball bats are so now

It seems the UK population is tooling itself up ready to deal with the violence on the streets. A look at Amazon.co.uk's movers and shakers  (the biggest increase in sales over the past 24 hours) in sports and leisure has 10 of the top 20 spots going to baseball bats. The top baseball bat's sales increased by 36,856% taking it from a sales ranking of 8500 to 23 in a single day. The top seller however is a natty expanding police style baton which saw sales increase by a staggering 41,341% in 24 hours; a leap in sales rank from 7045 to 17. Another spot went to the Kubitan and another to the Pocket Shark pen which are both self defence weapons.

I assume it is the good guys buying all this stuff as the bad boys would just loot it!

Blackberry and the youth rioter market

With a third night of rioting and looting in the offing tonight across London, one thing I can be sure of is that I won't have to listen to any more idiots telling me how clever and strategic Blackberry have been at capturing the youth market. I've had various people tell me over the past six months that Blackberry's were the cool item and the youth had turned away from iPhones as being too mainstream. Of course the only word that ever matters to the youth market when it comes to communication is "freeness" and BBM offered that, so it was no surprise it took off.

Personally I was never that clear how a load of hoodies using a free service was going to build a future business model for Blackberry but maybe I was looking too closely at the users I see in London. I certainly wondered if they would be able to keep their credibility as a key tool for the business elite once every "yout" hanging round the bus shelter had one.

Anyway, now they have the youth market in their pocket it will be interesting to see how their PR department handles the fact the Blackberry is every rioters favourite accessory. I also wonder what co-operation they will offer the police in tracking down those people inviting everyone to head down to the local JD Sports and rob the place.

Fake Apple stores in China

There has been a lot of press about the story of the fake Apple stores in China. For anyone catching up this came up from a blog by a US national living in Kunming in China who walked into an Apple store and realised it was a fake.

One thing that struck me about the story was the fact the staff really thought they were working for Apple. Whether this is true or not it struck me as a great touch. Creating a fake environment and including the staff in the process. It's like something out of a Phillip K Dick novel. People working hard for "Apple" and taking pride in their jobs, telling their friends and families they were part of a huge global company when in reality they are slaving away in a bizarre alternate universe.

Of course now it seems they are all over China and I suppose that is the interesting point. Technology and the web creates the demand for Apple products but that same technology means once the secret is out the whole world knows about it.

As we are on the subject this is a good excuse to remind people about some other classic store fronts that have become international stories, the classic one being Hitler's Cross, the Hitler themed restaurant in Mumbai. Another favourite is the Ken Livingstone tea stall in Cochin, India.