CrapHammer

iPad - Stemming the Flow of Complaints

I'm quite amazed at the whiplash from the tech-heads and geeks around the iPad.

Is the name unfortunate?  Yes.

Does it do everything under the sun?  Hell no and thank god!

Will it be a game changer?  Yes.  No question.

But, Sean, "It's just a large iTouch!!!" 

I hear this over and over.  In fact, I predicted it would be a large iTouch.

So here's what I say back to all the geeks.

"Boo Hoo."

Because what people are really saying when they complain about this is "I wanted something new that was alien and inconceivable."

"I wanted to be surprised more!"

The iPhone was not alien and inconceivable.  We all knew it would be a phone and iPod with applications.

What made the iPhone so wonderful was the focus on design and the experience of using it.

I believe and predict that the iPad will be a game changer and here is why.

It is what we all needed and the industry was waiting for.

But no one had ever produced it.

Amazon came close with the Kindle.  But it failed to allow for further innovation by third parties out of the box.

Amazon also failed miserably with rolling out their device internationally.

Let's also keep in mind that the publishing industry is in need of some serious innovation here.

The content industry is still reeling from the financial shocks they have had to endure. 

And to date there has been no easy way for traditional publishers to reach a global audience while also adding unique value.

With the kindle, every publisher is the same.

This is assuming publishers don't make the same mistake as NBC and publicly state they will never be on iTunes (which NBC then had to take back many years and lots of missed dollars later).

The iPad will see a global increase in purchased consumption of eBooks and rich publishing content.

Will publishers make as much per title as they want?  no.  But it will drive revenue.

And yet the savviest amongst us are shouting out the perceived faults of this device as loud as they can.

So let's look at these complaints.

One of the biggest complaints is the lack of multi-tasking.  You can only run one application at a time.

Geeks are aghast.

"Boo Hoo," is all I can say back.

The average person won't care.  Nor will they care that the bevel is "large" or that there is no camera on their media reader.

Now... no flash sucks... but that's not a deal breaker.  That's just Apple being stubborn.  Again.

Here's the kicker.

The geeks clearly have their pocket protectors in a wad over this.  But mark my words, almost all of them will have one of these.  

They will all own an iPad.

Or they will go and buy a Sony Reader and we can all sympathize with their sad, poor little ebook content.

So let's assume it's just a fanatical few who are up in arms.

What will people care about?

That's easy.  The battery life, the responsiveness of the unit, and the experience of using it.  The experience being tied to the content available.

Design is a hard game.  It is a game of constant restrictions and constraints.

You can't have everything.  You have to make intelligent compromises.

Note:  you can have everything with bad design.  Tried to use an alarm clock recently with 325 functions but only 3 control buttons?  It's three years later and I still can't operate my alarm clock reliably.

Apple made the right choices.  10 hours of batter life together with a form, size and weight that is f'ing amazing.

So I believe quite strongly that the iPad will be a game changer. 

I have long stated my belief that piracy will not go away.  In fact, it will get worse.

The only solution for the publishing industry is to make their content ubiquitous to the user (digitally) and easy to purchase.  Easy, easy, easy!!

I spend quite a bit of money a month through my Apple TV because it's the highest quality HD content and it's one easy click with millions of titles at my fingertips.

But when something isn't there... hello torrent.

Remember this presentation from Sports Illustrated?

We all thought of it as science fiction.  Who in their right mind in the publishing industry would pump this kind of money into something this risky?  Only a moron looking to do a Kliavkoff. [edit: correction to name made]

Only now, the hardware exists to exactly enable this vision.

The iPad.

Sport Illustrated just has to write an app.  No hardware risks.  No crazy licensing deals.

Anyone can take their publishing vision and move it onto a platform that will have a global rollout and support.

I would like to applaud Jobs and Apple.

This larger than life iTouch may just change publishing.

Something has to.

Image source: yaunus

Death of the URL Bar

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Prediction:  The URL bar will go away (as we know it.)

We do not need two bars on our browsers.

More users are using the search bar for everything.  Because it always works.  Type in a search term and bingo, you get the results you were looking for.  Type in a URL and bingo, you click on the first link that comes back.

The URL bar is dying.

The day the Google search bar automatically takes you to a URL is the day the URL bar will become extinct.

What Spammers Know That We Don't

We are all working like mad to develop location based services and technologies. Phones that know where the nearest cool coffee shop is, discount coupons that apply to a store you just snubbed and walked past.  I believe it is considered to be a multi-billion dollar opportunity and the salvation of the mobile industry.

But frankly, we are sucking eggs and doing next to nothing while a few key individuals are proving you can mine for location based gold today with free or near-free resources.

Spammers Innovating Faster than Hi Tech:

The Real Estate, Online Pharmacies and Porn Spammers have once again proven they are leaders in adapting new technologies to their annoying purposes.

I tweeted the following:

And within minutes I received a follow from KatyFStewart.

She offers one link on her page.  To this site:

 

Should I be promoting her Twitter account?  Should I have clicked through on a link from a semi-naked nubile photo?  No.  Of course not.  But will I be alone?  Nope.  Guaranteed.  Not only that, I would bet that many a media person would cry to get even 1/10 of the clickthrough and conversion rates these people are achieving.

Not Just Porn:

Tweet the name of a city and you will undoubtedly get a sudden increase in followers.  Why?  Because the real estate industry is not about to be left behind by the porn industry.  Quite a few real estate agents appear to be using auto-subscribe services to add you as a friend in cities they do their work in.

These are services that listen for a set of keywords and once it finds a match with any twitter user in the world, it sends that person a follow request on your behalf.

Let me be clear. I hate auto-subscribe services.  It's like paying someone to get you more friends.

That said, it does make me wonder.  Do we really need fancy and expensive GPS and high tech solutions or could we just better monitor and respond to the contextual content people are providing in their tweets and status updates?

Brilliance:

What I love about [what] Ms. Stewart is doing (real name likely Amanda Hogsbottom) is that they are using simple, free and contextual tools to mine twitter and facebook.  Then they are doing simple (and free) IP sniffing from their website to provide an end to end contextually relevant and highly personalized (location based) solution.  Something the big brands are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve with likely far less success.

Naked 3 Minutes, Episode 1

I'm back.  New job is crazy but I'm starting to find my footing and some time to participate once again.  Way behind on my reading.  So rather than give you all some reading, I thought I would take my first stab at a naked show.

Apologies for all the "ums" and "ahhs", but hey, I'm naked.  I think I deserve some leeway.  ;)

[embedded naked video below]

Craphammer Naked 3 Minutes, episode 1 from craphammer on Vimeo.

Exposing Marketing in the Conversation Age
http://www.onedegree.ca/
Wonderful new design to One Degree (one of the top 10 marketing blogs in Canada according [to] Marketing Magazine.)  Be sure to check out Kate's wonderful post on twitter and microblogging.  Perfect for client-side and agency-side marketers alike.

Exposing the Future
http://tinyurl.com/32sadb
Communities Dominate Brands and their ten predictions for 2008.  Here's some wonderful quotes from their document.  Alan Moore and Tomi Ahonen have created one of the most impressive sources of emerging mobile trends and data on the web.  And if you haven't read "Communities Dominate Brands" yet, then it's time to go sit in the corner.

Exposing her Marketing Brain
http://leighhimel.blogspot.com/
Taking risks is par for the course for Leigh Himel.  I'd like to call specific attention to her An Ecosystem Approach to Marketing in the Digital Age.  Brilliant application of not just system thinking, but environmental assessment criteria to communications.  Give us part two, Leigh!

Most Exposed Blogger (this week)
Connie Reece:  http://www.everydotconnects.com/
Frozen Pea Fund:  http://frozenpeafund.com/
Her ability to extend her persona into the digital world is amazing to behold.  And her work to support Susan Reynolds with the Frozen Pea Fund is both inspiring and empowering.  They have raised well over $3500 to support Breast Cancer research and I encourage everyone to participate.

(Note:  I'm looking for a logo and music for this crazy little "show".  Feeling creative?  Fire it my way.  I'll use it.)

Digital in context of experience

"media are not extensions of ourselves but interfaces with experience"

Michele perras twittered the above statement over to me the other day.  Yup, just me (and her other 300 followers.)  What struck me, beyond the insight of the statement, was that the source of this thought was not a philosophical marketing, advertising or brand debate.  Rather it was a look at "Prosthetic Technologies as Interfaces".

This is something we have been talking about this week at Lift Communications.  Experiences are becoming the cornerstone of engagement and it's impossible to build a strategy of engagement without considering context.

Digital is just that:  a context.  It's an extension of our being.  Cell phones, PDAs, laptops, YouTube, portable entertainment devices, nike plus, etc.  So many of these tools are akin to cyber extensions.  They have become interfaces with experiences we are having or desire to share.

David Armano speaks on AdAge's announcement that digital agencies have failed to prove they can manage brands strategically.  And he concurs with AdAge's assessment, but in typical Armano style he paints a clear picture of a path forward.

And I think we can agree that it's not just digital shops that have to pay attention.  Many traditional agencies are so focused on the "Ad" as the ultimate expression and vehicle for a brand idea that they are missing the point.  Or rather, they are unable to interface with the very experience they wish to create.  ;)

Love and Lust

So.  You are riding a train and you see the "girl of your dreams."  She exits.  You tell yourself, "She's got a boyfriend," or "I'm not her type."  But a few hours later, you are running a fever, and all thoughts are still on her.  A day goes by and your friends refuse to hang out with you because you are beyond obsessing.  What do you do?

Well, this young man (if this is real) plays for keeps. Ya gotta check this out.

http://www.nygirlofmydreams.com/

Raises an interesting question of whether "love at first site" exists or if this is just lust in an obsessive/scary form.  There are so many things we lust after that once we get them we find we don't really want them anymore.  Whereas, once in a while, true love forms between two entities and a relationship is born.

I think that Love and Lust are important concepts when it comes to new media.  So many new tools are erupting onto the playing field every few minutes.  New social marketing sites.  New technology.  Who doesn't want an iPhone?  Or a Joost?  Or a Seesmic?

How much of this is Lust?  And how many of these companies are setting the stage for true love?  Or at least a relationship that goes past a one night stand?

Take away the porn!

I've been tagged.  Net Neutrality in Canada is an issue.  One that has been quiet for too long.

Mark asks... "[W]hat about the thousands of bloggers who benefit from the free, open and un-throttled internet we’ve become accustomed to?"

Here is a news piece on it.

And here is my old post from our friend the Ninja.

But I think we are taking the wrong tact here.  Someone just has to launch a scare campaign that the big bad internet providers are going to take away our PORN and I'm sure we will get the public outcry we are all looking for.  ;)

Peer to Peer Television

Joost rocks and I've taken WAY too long to post about it.

The idea is to legitimize Peer to Peer.  The way Skype did to free peer-to-peer phone services.  And it's by the same two dudes.  The content is legitimate in that it is from a central source as opposed to user generated or stolen content like on YouTube or other peer to peer services.  I watched the funniest music video yesterday by Basement Jaxx titled "Oh My Gosh."

The question is, if Rogers and Bell can limit the sites on their networks (see net neutrality, above) then what is to stop them from blocking the ports required by Joost?

TheGoodBlogs

I love TheGoodBlogs.  Vernon has done an amazing job.  You may have noticed a little widget on the right side of my blog.  Okay.  I have a lot of widgets.  Here it is to the left.

TheGoodBlogs take my stories and shares them on all the other blogs in my group (Marketing) that have deployed the TGB widget.  In turn, I showcase the stories from other bloggers on my blog.

You may have notice that one of the items in the widget has an orange dot next to it.  This is because I have launched my own personalized "channel".  And I've put the blogs I read a lot in this slot.  So I'm even able to control who I syndicate.  Brilliant.

Tags: netneutrality, canada, swarm-it, TGB, thegoodblogs, joost, p2p

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The future of touch screen interfaces is almost too Sci Fi to believe.

Wow.  You have to sit through the initial 30 second ad about some guy in an elevator with snakes.  But it's worth it.

Many thanks to Doug at The Mark of a Leader for this tidbit.  Doug is a client of ours.  New to blogging. Totally surprised me with this find.  Enjoy.

[embedded video]

Live Review of BlogTv.ca Beta!

Last night I was invited to the launch of blogtv.ca.  Was a nice launch event.  Lots of machines to sit and play and really no pressure, no long speeches and no annoying hosts.  Met some great folks I haven't seen in a long time and had a great time.

[click to see the first episode of craphammer on blogtv]

The interface takes a little getting used to.  But it's pretty sexy.  I like the chat window and moderation features a lot.  The ability to have two video hosts is also a really nice feature.

Check it out for yourself at blogtv.ca!

It's a potluck blog-dinner!

Think sex sells?

brandsizzle would disagree.

Now run, don't walk to this article at the Brand Builder blog. Back to the basics, baby.  A wonderful reminder  during the Holiday blitz that it's about inspiring dreams in our consumers.

Course, my dreams tend to be about sex...

Think you know how a 20-year old relates to technology?

Gavin over at Servant of Chaos wrote an article titled "Life beings at 40 -- Second Life at 20".  He raises the issue of a growing generation gap in how we use and view technology.  But he does so with poetic brilliance.  Take the following quote:

"We are not of the present because our victories are already in the past."

I dream of writing this well.  Keep it coming, Gavin.

Wrap it up

That's all I have.  What are you bringing to the potluck?

Image Credit: eleuki

Tags: technology, social media, generation gap