Mother's Day gifts: Boys, you know you need this
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By Tim Mullaney, Special for USA TODAY
Gentlemen.
We are among friends. You know you haven't shopped for Mother's Day yet, just as I know I haven't. It's too late for all but the most desperate online measures. And yet, since this is a tech blog among tech blogs, as you are a man among men, we are here to help. Mom needs gadgets. Mom wants gadgets. We men know this. But do you know what gadget Mom needs?
If you are man enough to buy your Mom, or your kids' mother, a manly gift, there are literally 35 million hits as I write for a Google search on `Mother's Day Gifts Tech.'' GigaOm advises you to give Mom an app this year, though it sticks close to the real world by suggesting gift cards for Amazon.com's Kindle books, Netflix movie subscriptions and songs from iTunes. ABC News recommends cameras, e-readers and a smart "digital trench" coat with 18 different pockets for gadgets. Best of all, ABC's piece was written by an actual girl, so you -- er, we -- have a chance of getting away with one of their suggestions. There are millions of ideas -- we kind of suggested this post to each other at USAToday.com as a joke, and were shocked to find out how many news outlets actually did a story about Mother's Day technology gifts. Hey, it's an angle.
Whether there are 35 million good ideas is another story. PC World's Tony Bradley argued with a straight face that ``next to a bouquet of flowers and a card, the gift of tech support may be the most thoughtful thing you can give your mom on Mother's Day.'' His point -- he did have one -- was that most of his audience ends up troubleshooting Mom's gadgets anyway. Maybe, though tech support never got the candles lit where I live. Remind me to ignore Tony on Valentine's Day.
I brought this up to Paran Johar today, when he mentioned in an interview that he's a new dad. The chief marketing officer for a mobile-Web advertising network was dubious that his wife would want a gadget for her first Mother's Day. (He confessed he hadn't shopped yet either, warning, ``you're getting me in trouble''). But when I mentioned that my own wife had told me I could get her any gadget I wanted as long as it was an iPad 2, his voice brightened noticeably through the telephone line.
``An iPad would be great,'' he laughed. ``Even the baby could use it.'' See you at the mall, boys.
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