iPad = iWant = weNeed

Laptops are cool. But just a bit too delicate. If you pay all that money and store so much personal info on it, do really want to carry it all over the house or dorm and risk losing everything you don’t have backed up somewhere?

The TV is still king, but I can’t take it to the can and get my Al Bundy on (keep it real; if you need video, etc, on your phone, no way your gonna let that QT pass without checkin’ a few must see clips). And the iPhone is cool, but I don’t really want to watch or read anything on it if there’s a bigger screen around.

The iPad makes up for all that. Really, it does what the Macbook Air was supposed to. I mean, you can’t do much but view web pages, check emails, watch movies & listen to music on the Air anyway — which is why Apps are so important. The cheapest Air would cost you $1,500+. What’s the difference? A keyboard & processing power used for applications that are now, for the most part, web-based? Air has an audio out, which isn’t much different from the iPad’s headphone jack with the right peripheral, and not much more.

But, how many people bought the Air? Don’t recall seeing news clips of anyone sleeping in line for that one. Who really needed a laptop so slim, so expensive, but capable of doing so little?

Geeks like me that bought the Sega Saturn on release day (read = not enough to keep the lights on), most likely.

This is why we need the iPad. We need the net with us at all times, and we need it in a form factor that’s easy on the eyes and handled with two hands. Add geo-location & apps, and the iPad suddenly becomes much more powerful than a laptop to the majority of the consumer market.

Remember, computers are tools, like hammers & screwdrivers. But thanks to a lack of intermediary machines like the iPad many folks have been buying jackhammers & powerdrills. Now, for a couple of hundred dollars you’ll be able to do all you need.

It’s ok to leave processing power & drive space concerns to people who pay more for software suites than most HP or Dell laptops cost.

Think about ;-)

12:47 am  •  5 February 2010

New Media Ideas Mismanaged

Many newspapers haven’t been managing their businesses right. It’s how the net crept up and killed most of them. So now ereaders are on the market and many newspaper heads think their savior has arrived. :-(

Who really thinks a consumer would pay for multiple ereaders to read multiple papers? Isn’t that like Aol creating a machine to access Aol sites?

Old media heads think consumers must be locked into an experience for it to yield results and profits. Buy our ereader to read our stuff (written by a writter who doesn’t need them now that the net provides distribution). Buy our console to play our games (created by developers who won’t need the consoles for much longer. And now, you like The Globe? Buy the ereader, and pay for issues … and a an upgraded device every two years or so, if not sooner.

Getting a consumer to buy an ereader isn’t going to make them buy the papers they’ve stopped buying. The papers need to reevaluate how they provide value in an unimaginably competitive media world.

What’s the real strength of professional journalism when compared to blogs delivered to your hip via mobile device if most newspaper content is written at a grade school level?

And maybe that’s the bigger part of the problem — education. The WSJ is having considerably less issues than most papers. Could it have something to do with an educated niche willing to pay for educated content?

It’s been accepted that most journalists don’t make the big bucks. Ashame, when they go to expensive schools & keep (or kept) us all connected by reporting on the world around us. But if the newspaper product is at a 6th grade level, how much value would we expect a 6th grader to find in anything?How loyal do you think they are to any info source or platform?

I mean, how much different have NY Post headlines ever been from blogs? If they don’t use their resources to make their products & experiences markedly different why should they get special treatment? The only answer is the people, journos that have kept their businesses afloat for years.

(written while waiting for waaay too much paint to be mixed at home depot)

9:08 am  •  8 January 2010

Distribution WAS a Business

So after the Farewell to the Physical post I started thinking about what most physical products really were. Turns out that most are nothing but distribution methods for data, and no longer necessary. It was funny because the first thing that came to mind was Stalone & Snipes in Demolition Man. Remember the Utopia the two were unleashed on? That future could be ours.

What happens when music labels wake up & realize that a small investment (let’s say a Grammy winning artist’s budget) in digital infrastructure & servers etc, would eliminate the concept of the music store & generate more revenue? Or movie studios go for simultaneous release? Or laser-cutting fabrication machines create most products in home after purchase?

While millions of jobs will vanish, I’d rather think about the millions of man hours that will reappear. In Demolition Man people seemed bored. Not that I think we’ll be sitting around waiting for a murder-death-kill, but rather we’ll have to reorientate ourselves with real physical communication, not to mention become smart enough as a society to fill new jobs in an information economy. What if 80% of US citizens worked on virtual jobs, with food, fire & police, health & beauty being the few physical jobs (obviously a few more would exist)? What would we do with all the space currently taken up by strip malls & warehouses?

Media becomes even more valuable in a world like this. The dominant socializer, so to speak. ‘Cuz if there’s less work we’d need really goog info to fuel the arguments we’d sit around and make all day. LOL

(all written on a train ride to Queens that took waaay to long)

9:00 am  •  21 December 2009