Always connected
Sitting in the Coffee Zone, slurping some Rocket Fuel, connected to the world. The way it was meant to be. In all fairness, I rarely lugged my Thinkpad around. Just too heavy. Not IBM’s (at the time) fault. I bought one of the heaviest models they offered. No idea why. But on the few occasions I took the thing on the road and attempted to connect wirelessly, it was usually something of a chore. Again, probably not the fault of Microsoft or IBM. I just never took the time to learn how to make it all work. It was too much trouble.
This morning I fired up the new Mac…it saw the open hotspots…I picked one…and here we are. All things in life should be so easy. Why wouldn’t a boy just keep his laptop with him all the time? Stay tuned.
One in five say web ads most effective
More than one in five U. S. adults, or 22 percent, say the Internet is the most effective way to grab their attention about a product or service, according to a report released this week by Burst Media. The report, based on a March survey of 3,700 adult Web users, also found that magazines, newspapers and radio lagged behind both the Internet and TV, with 12 percent, 10 percent, and 6 percent, respectively. [Online Media Daily]
I guess I’m more disturbed by radio’s ranking than the overall validty of the research. The part I have no trouble buying is 57 percent of respondents saying that the Net is where they turn first to research products they might purchase. Absolutely.
Now that I’m thinking about ads, here’s something I wish I had time to try: record all of the commercials on one of our local radio stations between say, 6am and 9am. Then just mash ’em up in a montage of 10-15 seconds per spot. Just to get a gestalt of the commercial messages. Maybe I’ll do an hour. Somebody remind me.
Everyman Journalism
In a recent interview by Rocketboom, Dave Winer talked about making an introductory course in journalism a requirement for college students.
“Journalism is the new practice for Everyman, it’s what we all will be doing all the time in this new century. As the professional media pulls back, the citizens, you and me, need to fill in and replace every pro with 100 of us, to cover every school board meeting, every planning commission, defense contractor, civic organization. It’s like the Second Amendment for information and ideas. We need a well-informed electorate to make the tough decisions n our future.”
I’m not sure why professional meda would “pull back,” but I like this idea and see no reason why those of us that didn’t go to J-School can’t help cover some events that would otherwise go unreported. During my dozen years at KBOA, I covered every kind of event. Took my little cassette recorder, interviewed folks. Edited the audio. Wrote a little story. Put it on the radio. Could my reports have been more “professional.” Sure. But the listeners to our little station were just happy someone covered the event and reported it.
For my money, we could drop the Algebra requirement and replace it with Journalism 101.
Christmas Morning Plus Two
I’m up and running on the Mac but it hardly seems worth mentioning. I commented on the “Mac Lust” post that I will –by popular demand– file progress reports from time to time. First observation: There are enough presents under this Christmas tree to (further) cut into my blogging. Right now I’m opening up the train set and playing with that for a few minutes…then ripping open the Erector Set and spreading the pieces out on the floor… and then… well, you get the idea. Got me a book that Henry assures me will make the Windows-to-Mac transition easier. I keep insisting that I will maintain dual citizenship (Windows AND Mac). Be interesting to see what my at-home computing habits are 6 months from now.