I like to watch

Sitting here as I do on the poop deck of the Titanic, as is my wont, I was intrigued by this article in Slate about the declining watch industry. It seems that now that humans have cellphones, computers and iPods more or less permanently attached to their orifices at all times, there's less of a need for wrist watches. What does this mean?

As in many other consumer areas, the middle is getting squeezed. According to Deborah Rudinsky, merchandise manager at the Doneger Group, sales of moderately priced watches—time pieces that retail for under $200—were probably down about 10 percent in 2005.

The purpose, or unique selling point, of watches used to be that they could provide you with information (the time) that was inconsistently available otherwise. There's nothing unique about watches as a time-information delivery device, apart from cultural associations we've built up around them. If other devices can deliver the same information as efficiently, they got nothing. And unlike the information contained in, say, newspapers, the time is not complex or nuanced in any way; it cannot be branded, personalized or shaped to give it added value. In fact, 'good' timekeeping is based on the fact it's standardized across the whole world.

So what's left for poor old watches? According to this article, the high end, the low end and niche markets.

"The customer is buying a fine watch more as a jewelry piece and less as a timekeeper," said Doneger Group's Rudinsky. Women are drawn to watches that help accessorize different outfits. Men are drawn to high-tech gadgetry. Fitness geeks of both sexes opt for souped-up digital watches equipped with heart rate monitors and GPS technology. "To capture younger customers, watches today need to have much more of a fashion nuance," said Rudinky.

Watches will probably be around for a while yet (much like newspapers). By the way, I looked up watches on Wikipedia and discovered this gem:

Because most watches lack a striking mechanism, such as a bell or gong to announce the passage of time, they are properly designated as timepieces, rather than clocks.

You just know some pedant tediously insists upon this distinction to the profound irritation of his friends and family.