Comparison of video size, iPad and iPod Touch

As far as tech toys go, I’m a late adopter.  I like playing with free betas, but when it comes down to handing over money, I become very conservative.  I like at least one Service Pack on my new OS, a critical mass of my friends on social apps, a solid couple of months post-release on a massively multiplayer online game, and a stalwart recommendation from my IT friends for new hardware.  I delayed my purchase of my Xbox 360 for almost two years; then shortly after I bought it, they announced the big price drop with the addition of the Elite model (shoulda waited longer!)

But this time, I threw the dice and pre-ordered a 32 GB Wifi-only iPad.  I even threw in a Mac Bluetooth keyboard, the dock, and a case.  There’s no super feature that made this the penultimate gadget for me; my desires were based around a great experience with my iPod Touch, a slowly growing interest in e-books (much to the dismay of my library card) and the ability to have a “one-stop-shop lite” computing device.  I game some, I email a fair amount, I watch videos while I travel or work out (no more tiny iPod on the treadmill – huzzah!) and I’ve been using the iPod Kindle app when I fly. Read more…

I spent half of my March trying to convince journalists, thought leaders and academics in Boston, New York, and Washington that “something was in the air” on our end of the country.  It’s a hard sell in a region that has so many powerful, rich, entrenched institutions (from the media capital, to the federal seat of power, to the Route 128 Corridor).  As someone who built my career in the northeast, I always had the sense that they had it “figured out.”

But the digital media revolution, combined with the Great Recession has turned a lot of what we once considered self-evident, upside down.  What was once bedrock has been shaken to the point of crumbling — old business models of mass media, faith in Wall Street’s unbridled approach to capitalism, impregnable university endowments.  Suddenly, as an ambassador of a self-sustaining graduate program within a state-funded university, far, far away from the corridor of power, I had an opening.  I spoke of my own transformation from corporate media journalist to independent storyteller, of how we were partnering private and public entities in our region with our students to produce groundbreaking work (which we call “community scholarship”) and how we were pioneering collaborative methods of education through a re-imagination of the classroom (the “Media Space” — we have a name for everything).

And I spoke of our desire to embody what we stand for in our upcoming event, TEDx Seattle.  I’ve always wanted to position our MCDM program at the heart of our community, and its values.  I was recently inspired by a blog post by the founder of Seattle startup Knowledge Mosaic, who said:

The most interesting and vital businesses understand and embrace the idea that where they come from determines who they are.

Read more…

I own Apple stock, but I’m not lining up at my local Apple store this weekend or waiting with bated breath for the UPS or FedX guy to show up at my door. Why not? Read more…

It’s hard not to notice social games. Every time I log into Facebook, I am flooded with requests to play games with friends. Given that I’ve had an aquarium on and off since I was three, the allure of a virtual Facebook fish tank finally became too much: FishVille was going to be my game of choice. (Apparently, I’m not alone, as the game has more than 23 million monthly players.)

Like other social games, FishVille, developed by Zynga, leverages your social network for gameplay. Your friends help you obtain items and take care of your fish, and you help them in return. In that way, social games are more collaborative than other game genres. Social games are also built around the idea of playing regularly. Just like you feel compelled to check Facebook, you feel compelled to check on your fish tank or your farm. I decided to play FishVille for 17 days to see if it could keep my interest for the duration.

Read more…

AFP reports that the Wall Street Journal plans to charge $17.99 a month ($216/year) for an iPad subscription. This pricing model is hard to explain, given other WSJ subscription plans. And I worry that such extreme subscription plans could cloud the iPad debut and doom product adoption.

Read more…

South by Southwest 2010 Logo

Hola devoted readers! We’ve been remiss in bringing you the dish from the south — not to mention from the South By Southwest Interactive Conference — in a timely manner. But have no fear, your gossip needs are going to be satisfied beginning … right … now !

Read more…

It’s been a bonanza for public relations folks who can dream up zany stunts that feed the our news media’s thirst for “man bites dog” stories. Google reported Friday that they had received more than 1,100 community responses to the broadband fiber request for information (RFI) and more than 194,000 responses from individuals.

The company dashed a bit of cold water on those hopes when it reminded us that the goal of this experiment is to “reach a total of at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people with this experiment.”

But what city/cities should really win Google’s broadband challenge?

Greenville, SC Creates Google Logo With More Than 2,000 People Holding LED Glow Sticks; Photo by Michael Bergen, AidJoy.org

Read more…

Over the past 13 years, Eat the State! (ETS) has provided Western Washington with left-leaning political commentary as a free bimonthly print journal. However, the weak economy has forced the paper to rethink its business model, and many other small publications are in the same boat.

Last month, after having difficulty meeting a $6,000 fundraising goal, ETS recognized that its current publication model is not sustainable. In the future, ETS will only print endorsement issues around elections. The paper’s last regular print edition will be released April 1. Read more…