manage to experience

Cynical devices

"The iPad is an attractive, thoughtfully designed, deeply cynical thing."

Apple appears to be cheerleading a fundamental shift in personal computing: A narrowing of options. They're creating a universe of DRM, and strict control over software options and availability.  

To echo Alex Payne's point, Apple is selling consumption, not creativity.

iPad as an idea that's better than the device

Frog Design has an interesting take on the Apple iPad:

"The iPad is the beginning of a new category — one that is hyper-convergent and humanistic."

It's an optimistic assessment – and one I'm sympathetic to – of the idea that the iPad represents. It's mobile computing that non-geeks can embrace. On that level, it's easy to forgive the lack of features we expect in entry level netbooks. 

From my perspective, there are three deal-breakers with the current model:

1. 10 hour battery life. For a device promoted as a new wave of e-reader, that's disappointing performance. A minimum of 30 hours would be more like it.
2. 2000-era data plans. $15 for 250 MB of data? 
3. Lack of a built-in HDMI output, for sharing video on an HDTV.

To be fair, this is version 1.0. It's a solid idea. And I'll be interested to watch the evolution of the device.

Apps and the cloud

This article by Louis Gray reflects my current thinking about application choices, and benefits of cloud computing.

I'm increasingly wary of both Microsoft's bloated Office apps and Apple's apparent interest in increasing complete control over my "experience." Neither is attractive. 

My response has been to turn to Web-based apps – starting with email, and calendar and contact management – that offer sufficient functionality without locking me into a specific platform. It'll be a while before I can move away from Office and a few other select applications (I don't see a good alternative to the lovely OmniGraffle Pro, for instance) that live on my local drive, but I'm making solid progress toward living in the cloud.

The state of e-readers

I've been closely following the evolution of e-readers, and even came close to pulling the trigger on a purchase myself. But this post at jkOnTheRun zeroes in on why I haven't' bought a dedicated e-reader, and why most folks shouldn't. 

I love the idea of a single purpose e-reader (and no, an Apple tablet with limited battery life doesn't fit the bill for me), but until publishers and hardware sellers agree on a consumer-friendly distribution model (no time soon), I won't buy one.

Mag+

Most of the energy around e-readers seems to go into controlling ownership and distribution of content, rather than the experience of reading. This interesting video puts the focus back on the experience and offers a glimpse of what reading on a digital device can be.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Augmented Reality (AR) – an interesting application

A simple, useful application of AR by Samsung.

Square: credit card payments, simplified

This caught my attention:

Face-to-face commerce is accelerating away from cash and checks, leaving some smaller vendors out in the cold. Square provides a simple way for vendors to accept credit card payments using mobile devices. 

Getting past "free"

Douglas Rushkoff on relearning how to exchange value.

Same As It Ever Was. Only Faster.

To quote Yogi Berra, it's like deja-vu, all over again. These days I'm having the same conversations I had with clients nine years ago. Then, the subject was email. It seemed to be an ideal solution to the need to make communication with customers nimble, relevant and inexpensive. The majority of my conversations at the time seemed to revolve around helping marketers understand email and how to implement it as a marketing tool.

Today, those same conversations focus on social media: What it is. Who uses it. And how to implement it in their businesses.

A little bit of perspective
A smart advertising guy once said, "The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interest them, and sometimes it's an ad." The same can be said of social media. People care about ideas, not that they read them on Twitter. So hopping on the social media bandwagon doesn't get you nearly as far as great ideas communicated in a creative, compelling way.

What has changed
Social media has changed one thing: Conversations between the people you care about happen faster, through multiple channels. And the pace is accelerating. Marketers can quickly find themselves playing a game of catch-up or they can devote resources to monitoring, then joining, social media conversations about their brands. Want to build credibility in the social media arena? The latter approach is far more effective.

The bottom line
1) The channels we use to communicate will continue to evolve. 2) Good ideas and creative communication are a constant. 3) The pace of communication will continue to accelerate. As marketers, we have to focus on numbers 2 & 3, while continuing to adapt to emerging media.

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From August Insights, August Communication Consultants' newsletter for people interested in the intersection of marketing and technology. You can subscribe at www.augustcommunication.com.

More on manipulating the Long Tail

Even if you don't subscribe to Netflix, I recommend reading Nicholas Carr's take on a recently released study (PDF) of the popular video rental service's distribution of demand. Carr points to conflicting interpretations of the study (the authors claim it refutes the idea of a Long Tail), but his most interesting point is that the data isn't an accurate reflection of consumer demand. Why? It's skewed by Netflix's recommendations, which seem to be designed to reduce demand for more costly titles:

"By manipulating the movies it suggests, and by restricting the number of copies of new and popular movies it offers, Netflix shifts demand away from current hits and down the long tail."

Carr's experience should be familiar to any Netflix subscriber. The Netflix Web site tends to highlight what I would call second tier movies, forcing a deeper dive into the site to find current hits.

A couple more thoughts about this:

The study's authors use the number of ratings as an indication of rental distribution. I have no idea of what percentage of subscribers participate in the rental review scheme, and how this affects the outcome. Anything I can offer on this front is a wild guess.

And, recent rating stats have to be influenced by subscribers who use Instant Streaming. I'm curious as to whether this skews the results, and am inclined to think that it has an influence similar to what Carr describes. Instant Streaming, of course, seems to be an even more unreliable indicator of consumer demand because of the spotty availability of current hits.