As prices fall, laptops grow in popularity

The laptop computer has come of age.

Once the more expensive, less powerful cousin of the desktop computer, the notebook PC has surged in popularity with lower prices and increasingly attractive features.

In one week earlier this month, U.S. retailers sold 54 percent more notebook PCs than they did during the comparable week last year, according to research firm Current Analysis.

The computer industry has embraced the move to laptops, since they’re usually more profitable than desktops.

But notebook prices are dropping quickly, giving consumers better bargains and even leading to price cuts in desktops. Analysts credit those prices, along with wireless Internet technology, lighter weights and longer battery lives, for the public’s embrace of the mobile computer.

By this year’s holiday season, prices for notebook computers could be virtually the same as prices for desktops sold with flat-panel monitors, said Roger Kay, president of analysis firm Endpoint Technologies Associates.

Media influence

The most influential media sites on the Web are those of well-funded mainstream media companies, according to Dave Sifry, founder of Technorati, a company that tracks the postings of almost 15 million blogs.

Sifry measures influence by monitoring the number of Web logs that link to a source. “The more people who link to a site or a blog, the more influence it has on others,” he wrote on his site.

The top five include, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, the BBC and the UK’s Guardian. “Blogs like Boing Boing, Daily Kos and Instapundit are highly influential among technology and political thought leaders,” Sifry added.

Quality Web time

It’s no secret that men and women tend to spend their time online quite differently.

But British researchers suggest it’s not just a Web site’s subject or function that determines whether it will draw more men or women. The appearance of the site also might play a subtle role.

In a recent study at Glamorgan University Business School in Wales, test subjects rated the personal Web pages of 60 people for usability and aesthetics.

Not surprisingly, male subjects tended to assign higher ratings to pages designed by men, and females preferred sites made by women. But the researchers said they gleaned important tidbits by looking more closely at the ratings.

Women seemed to like pages with more color in the background and typeface. Women also favored informal rather than posed pictures.

Men responded to dark colors and straight, horizontal lines across a page. They also were more pleased by a 3D look and images of “self-propelling” rather than stationary objects.

With those standards in mind, the researchers checked out the Web sites for 32 British universities and determined that 94 percent had a “masculine orientation.” Two percent showed a female-favored arrangement.

Gloria Moss, a Glamorgan research fellow, said the project should be instructive for organizations that aim for wide audiences. The research — which was repeated in France and Poland to rule out British cultural bias — is being published in European journals on consumer behavior and marketing.