← Jay-Z’s Marketing Power Decoded

2-way-pager

By Anslem Samuel | Published January 26, 2011 | Full size is 500 × 320 pixels

MOTOROLA 2-WAY PAGER: On 2000’s “I Just Want To Love You (Give It 2 Me),” Jay-Z rhymed, “Only way to roll, Jigga and two ladies/I'm too cold, Motorola 2-way page me.” At the time, the Motorola 2-way pager (specifically the PageWriter 2000x and Timeport P930 models) was the communication tool of choice for the hip-hop generation. While Motorola’s profits were large in the late ’90s, by the early 2000’s the company fell victim to the tech sector’s decline, reporting a $1.2 billion dollar quarterly loss in January 2002. That was the same year T-Mobile debuted the Sidekick, which Jay-Z featured prominently in the video for 2002’s “Excuse Me Miss.” In a 2009 interview with New York radio personality DJ Clue Jay-Z declared that “Sidekicks are for girls.” Officially kicked to the curb, the trendy mobile device has since been replaced the BlackBerry, Android and iPhone, among other smart(er)phones, which, according to Nielsen Wire will dominate the mobile market by year’s end.

MOTOROLA 2-WAY PAGER: On 2000’s “I Just Want To Love You (Give It 2 Me),”…