My Mobile Narrator is *not* my Mobile Phone

After experiencing the very preliminary demo of our Mobile Narritive Phone yesterday, I was struck by the contrast between my positive feelings for the Nokia-Phone-As-Text-Narrator (nice sharp screen with just enough text/story about the topic and fits nice in the hand and is lightweight and yeah, I would carry this around to read its stories) and my prior hatred of the Nokia-Phone-As-Phone (stupid keyboard layout with bad tactile feel, cheesy cheap housing and uncomfortable to hold to the ear). It reminded me of some other work:

"Nass' and Reeves' work considers to what extent people react to technology as if it were more real than it is," Perry said. "They have found that to a very considerable extent people treat their computers and other computer-driven technology in the same ways that they treat people - as if the computer possessed reason, feelings, etc. People also treat pictures on screens as real objects, rather than as representations of real objects. This is relevant to anyone who wants to design technology or content that is as effective as it can be," Perry said.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/95/950106Arc5423.html

While seemingly elusive, seduction can be achieved through the careful integrations of functionality and visual design to create products that go beyond a user's expectations for the task at hand...Seductive experiences are often multisensory and use broad, rich, sensory media.
http://captology.stanford.edu/Key_Concepts/Papers/CACMseduction.pdf