Annnnd… click. iPad pre-order

I assume I was one thousands Apple fans waiting in front of their computers to pre-order the iPad. I imagine a computer deep in the marketing department at Cupertino, with Apple execs standing around, watching a counter whiring ever-faster.

The iPhone had people standing in line. I can’t think of many products that generated such interest and demand. A few gaming boxes but they didn’t have the broad appeal of these Apple devices.

iPads will begin shipping April 3rd.

ShowMeGaming.com (3 years later)

Three years ago I helped my friend LeAnn McCarthy set up a blog to help with her communications efforts as Public Information Officer for the Missouri Gaming Commission.

Last week I sat down with LeAnn to see how the blog was working out. She talked about her target audience(s); content; response (internal and external) and other social media tools.

AUDIO: 10 min MP3

Books: Analog and digital

I love books. I love to read but I also love books, the physical object. Hardback or paperback, I love the way they feel in my hands… the way they smell. I like scrawling notes in the margin and highlighting passages. Reading is a very tactile experience for me (and probably for most).

In a couple of days, I will join millions of others in pre-ordering the Apple iPad. I’m looking forward to using all of features and apps (current and future). I can’t imaging giving up my beloved books for a digital experience but I’m trying to keep an open mind. It is possible I will enjoy reading on the iPad.

With that in mind, I’ve been making a mental list of titles I plan to put on my virtual bookshelf.

  • Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
  • Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
  • Complete works of William Gibson
  • 1984, George Orwell (haven’t read since high school)
  • Life After Death, Book of Secrets by Deepak Chopra
  • Mac OS X, David Pogue
  • The Religion War by Scott Adams

Some of these are books that I have read several times (or expect to). I assume I will be able to highlight, annotate and search passages of my digital books. It might also be fun to link from the text of the book to a website. I haven’t heard or read anything about such a feature. We’ll see.

Verizon, NFL to stream NFL draft, games

From Digital Sports Daily:

The NFL and Verizon wireless have struck a deal to put live games on mobile phones, the Wall Street Journal reports on Tuesday. The two companies will partner in time to stream the NFL draft which begins on April 22, on to mobile devices.

In addition to the NFL draft, Verizon will stream NBC’s Sunday night football, the NFL Network and the Red Zone channel but not games shown on FOX, CBS or ESPN.

The NFL Red Zone channel, which was previously only available on satellite and cable, airs live look-ins of every key play and touchdown from Sunday afternoon games.

Verizon Wireless will pay the NFL $720 million over four-years to be the exclusive mobile home of the NFL. The ability to watch every out-of-market MLB game on iPhone came last summer, making the NFL just the second pro sports league to show pocket sized games.

The games will be available on Verizon’s 3G network so users aren’t required to find a Wi-Fi hotspot to watch games. NFL mobile will then go to 4G network as Verizon replaces its 3G network by from this year to the end of 2013.

TED Talk: Time and gravity

Prof. dr. Wubbo J. Ockels is a Dutch physicist, and also the Netherlands’ original astronaut. He is a Professor of Aerospace Sustainable Engineering and Technology at the University of Delft.

TEDxAmsterdam: Wubbo Ockels from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.

Ockels explains how ‘time’ is created by human beings, as a way our brains can make sense of gravity. The speed of light is constant, because it is made by us: it’s the clock by which we have calibrated our existence.

“Depth but no conversation”

David Johnson (Poynter Online – E-Media Tidbits) offers some insight on how news organizations cover live events like the recent Health Care Summit:

“Big media and broadcasters can’t give lip service to social media and focus on business as usual because their audiences aren’t even listening with half an ear anymore. Instead, they’re increasingly talking amongst themselves as the tools for conversation and interaction become commonplace and easier to use. (And that audience is having a conversation that may be painful for traditional news directors and producers to hear.)

Speaking as a long-time radio guy, we always thought a wall-to-wall live audio feed was as good as it could get. My god, you got to listen to the entire debate/press conference/trial/etc live! What more could you want?

We’ll, “the people formerly known as the audience” want a lot more.

YouTube SimpleGallery

I love WordPress. I won’t bore you with all the reasons. But one very big one is: plug-ins. These are little add-on’s that add extra functionality to your blog/website. Today one of our sites needed a way to display multiple videos on a single page. I found several plug-in’s that looked like good candidates and settled on one called YouTube SimpleGallery. It’s free but I made a small donation to the developer.

I usually test plug-in’s here, to get the hang of them. If you click on the VIDEO tab at the top of the page,you’ll see a bunch of thumbnail images that –when clicked– play the video on YouTube.

You can also configure the plug-in so the video pops up in its own window.