Right from the “cover” you are able to interact with the content by watching a commercial for the new Toy Story movie. That interactivity is scattered throughout the magazine in the form of sounds, animations, videos, etc. There is definitely added value in the iPad version for things that could be provided (in some cases) in the print but are limited by size of the print publication. For example, in the images below you have the Japanese and English translation for a comic strip but in the print version you only had the Japanese.

Access to these two versions were made available simply by selecting the strip and it would toggle between the two. Other examples of interactivity came from animations built to illustrate a story. For example, the history of Mars exploration or building of a lego car or designing a pop-up book.

Finally, and probably one of my favorite elements, is the embedding of music. I enjoy reading about new music or artists being highlighted in Wired. Usually I’ll look them up on MySpace or MOG but with this version of Wired I can hear the tracks right within the reading experience. Further, in the story on Trent Reznor we could experience the building of a track from samples. Definitely something not available in a print publication.

Critique

The cost. While $4.99 may seem reasonable for a one-off purchase, I don’t believe I’m willing to pay $60/year for a subscription to the iPad version. Right now I pay $12/year for the print (which is probably an indication of the magazine publishing industry!). It will definitely need to be somewhere in between. I would give up the print (as I don’t really need both), but the price would need to come down some. Still waiting for the pricing model.

The download. The issue was about 500mb and it took 10-15 minutes to download on my home wifi. Unlike the recent Vanity Fair issue (same publisher as Wired – Conde Nast), the interactivity is built into the issue itself. This does allow for offline interaction (a bonus), but a large download (a negative). Being able to access the content while offline is critical so the download is necessary.

Navigation. Easy and clear. Can be used horizontally or vertically. Slider to scan through all the pages or utilize the table of contents. Left to right and top to bottom reading experience. What I’d like to see in the future is the ability to email a link of an article – build in a bit more of a social media experience.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed. It was easy to read and provided a new reading experience. I look forward to more issues and other publications joining the fray. Maybe next month I’ll try reading it on the iPad only.

I’m giving my heavy use of Foursquare and Gowalla until the end of June. Part of my decision to continue using the service will depend on the ALA experience. Though I’m somewhat impartial to Gowalla, I’d like to use the service most widely used by ALA attendees. Please help me out and share, retweet, post of Facebook, etc.

Which service will you use, if any, in Washington DC for ALA Annual?

For the record, my user name on all the above services is kenleyneufeld.

Why the end? First, it didn’t really generate any interaction with my readers. Without an interaction, it seems kind of pointless. Secondly, I couldn’t ever figure out to automatically do a “read more” option when the Digests got too long. Finally, it’s kind of weird to see all the media activity so tightly gathered into one place. Obviously, I can control what appears in the digest but my thought was to include everything. Maybe it’s FourSquare making it kind of weird?

I’m going to keep the plugin running in the background and possibly add a widget feed instead of the Daily Digest. This way it can stream by like Friendfeed or Facebook but the interactions can occur on the actual media site.

It seemed important to revisit the article now that I have an iPad and to see if I read the ideas any differently. Two quotes stand out:

When people lament the loss of the printed book [what are] they talking about. My eyes tire more easily, they say. The batteries run out, the screen is tough to read in sunlight. It doesn’t like bath tubs.

and

In printed books, the two-page spread was our canvas. It’s easy to think similarly about the iPad. Let’s not.

This raises two concepts. The reading of print material in the digital format and how the digital for at could look in the future. I read a lot of digital material, but have not ever read an entire novel or book digitally. Portions yes, but not the whole thing. I have loaded on my iPad, You Are Not as Gadget, that I hope to read soon. I’m intrigued and not fearful of digital novels and non-fiction.

I’ve had the iPad almost a week. I’ve done some reading of long pieces. Most of it is fairly traditional in nature. Read, “turn” the page, read some more. Much like the book reading experience. That’s all good.

I like the second concept that Mod presents in his essay. The idea to repurpose and reconceptualize the medium, and even to allow and build value for the print medium too. The ipad does not change anything yet, at least not with its ibook app. It is a nice interface, but it does take what we know and simply make it digital (with some minor tweaks). I look forward to what other producers and artists can create.

I encourage you to read Mod’s piece and reflect. What kind of reading experience do you value? I always thought we’d keep the paperback because it’s cheap and disposable but maybe that content is better suited for the digital environment? For librarians, we’ve already seen this transition for magazine content. Does the iPad pushes further into the digital?

It’s true, many people value the hallway and party conversations more than the sessions and panels. For me, as someone outside the industry and not knowing anyone, heading into the sessions and panels was very valuable. Here’s a short rundown.

Chris Messina took us down his vision for dealing with the stream. ActivityStrea.ms: Is It Getting Streamy In Here? ActivityStreams. Take basic construct of RSS (1999) and ATOM  (2005) and we weave in some additional data. Verb. Object. Target. Make it richer. ActivityStreams can be a universal format for social objects. What you end up with is code for title+link+summary+author+id+date+verb+object+target. This will better allow us to syndicate this information and mix and mash. It’s simple.

From this talk, I want to read The Second Coming: A Manifesto by David Gelernter, Designing Social Interfaces by Crumlish & Malone, and definitely have to check out the Fetron Annual Reports.

A late added session called iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators was packed. Of course! The panel included voices from books, gaming, web, and newspaper industries. For the Village Voice, the focus is on design. Focus on reading. Leaned back reading in particular. Will we be able to read in the tub using an iPad? The gaming representative, Shervin Pishevar, got everyone excited when he said “the laptop will be the rotary phone of our generation.” He was very impressed with the iPad at the announcement event. The book industry expects $1 billion in revenue from this publishing model even though the reading experience still needs to be improved. Ultimately, this panel was very hopeful and excited about the upcoming shift in media delivery.

Closely related to the above panel was the lively Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies. The lively part was mostly coming from David Carr, NY Times columnest and Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos. Moderator began by asking how many would be disappointed if NYT disappeared? Most in the room said yes. However, not nearly as many raised their hands when asked if they’d pay for online content. My take away thoughts from this session are:

• Do we need a responsible gatekeeper to tell us what is news and what’s not news? Twitter seems to demonstrate that we do.
• We live in a decentralized news environment and we need to question  everything. Need to be savvy consumers.

The last session on this subject of media and technology was After Magazine: WIRED’s Digital Rebirth. They are putting significant energy into providing media content on the tablet. They gave us a full demo on what this will look like. Design allows for reading over longer periods of time and typography has been lost on the web. This new format, with Adobe Air as the tool, will coming more of print and web design. The fidelity of print design and the flexibility of the web. The goal is to have “walk-up” usability so it is so familiar and intuitive that anyone can use it. For example, reading from top to bottom and left to right. The new product will provide continued access to older content and integrated social media content. The big questions that remain are accessibility, pricing, and the wired.com content. Watch the demo.

In Convergence 2010: Ten Cool Things Taht Could Happen This Year, we heard from Dan Shust.

On the panel of social media geeks, we get a list of indispensable Twitter tools:

• Simply Tweet
• Tweetie
• Twhirl
• Brizzly
• Listorious
• TweetMeme
• Redux
• Listhabit
• Cotweet
• Friend or Follow
• Tweetriver

Sunday morning at 9:30am, the audience got amped by Jeremy Gutsche in Exploiting Chaos — How to Spark Innovation During Times of Change (based on the book of the same name). Popular is not Cool. It is unique, cutting edge. Microtrends and viral innovations surround us. And a quote I heard twice during SXSW…culture eats strategy for breakfast. There is no point innovating if you think you already know the answer. Therefore, be open to the complete possibility of what could be and look in other areas and adjacent markets for ideas. Organizations can be revolutionary by being aware of perspective (crisis creates opportunity), cultivating disruptive innovation, maintaining a customer obsession (Don’t Mess With Texas), and built in forced failure (Gambling Fund – try things you wouldn’t always do). Check out Trendhunter for more information and ideas. This session was a great way to begin the day!

Found myself intrigued, but somewhat confused, by the 10-minute Transmedia Experience. To learn more, I’ll need to visit ARGNet a bit. It’s a form of storytelling. Wired article. So outside my element.

That’s probably enough for this post. For the record, I attend a few other sessions that were also interesting:

• The City As Platform (working on a blog entry for the Ojai Post)
• Microsoft Bing: Behind the Scenes of the Decision Engine
• Transforming Media Education
• Artists, Labels Embrace Virtual Worlds
• Cracking the Books: User-Generated Content in Education

Bottom Line: Two trends for 2010…tablets and location based services.

I’d heard of South By Southwest (SXSW) for many years; the music festival, that is. However, in 2009 I heard about Interactive Conference that precedes the Music Festival when a few librarians reported attending. I’ve always wanted to attend the music festival, but didn’t feel it was justified in mid-semester given the time and the cost. The Interactive Conference, with its focus on technology, was clearly work related and worthy of investigation. Despite no travel funds, I registered early (paying $395), bought a plane ticket with miles, and arranged to stay at a friends house. Low cost and worthy endeavor.

The trip and conference were well worth the time and I came away energized by the technology community. The conference was certainly different from a typical librarian conference, particularly given the primary demographic – young, hip, technologists in a party atmosphere. I wanted something different to shake my brain up a bit; to give me a new perspective. Also, I wanted an event where I didn’t know many people and didn’t have any committee meetings. SXSW paid me back well.

The Buzz

For those of you who don’t know, SXSW is where a little company called Twitter essentially had its history changed in 2007. In each subsequent year, Twitter has continued to be the darling technology product but this year began to see a shift toward location based services such as Gowalla and FourSquare. The buzz on the street was all about these location based services – and 2010 will be the year of location. Certainly Twitter was heavily used throughout SXSW, but looking forward we may see a different horizon. The second major technology shift observed for 2010 may be the rise of the tablets, beginning with the iPad release next week. We can expect a couple dozen tablet products by the end of 2010 that may dramatically shift the computing world.

Book Readings

The book readings occurred in a central location and was sponsored by Adobe and the librarian in me just felt like a few analog activities were required. These were short sessions (20-minutes) and the author typically discussed the new title or did some reading from the book followed always by Q&A. These were good sessions for me to attend on the first day to help get my feet wet and experience a bit of the SXSW audience.

All the book readings were very interesting and seemed to be worthy reads. In the end, I only purchased one title (especially since it isn’t available yet outside SXSW).

• The Young and the Digital by Craig Watkins
• Upstarts! GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the Business World by Donna Fenn
• DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education by Anya Kamenetz (this is the book I purchased and am currently reading)
• The Backchannel by Cliff Atkinson
• The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

A few take-aways from these sessions

Happiness can sometimes feel abstract as a goal. A good place to start is with your own body. Are you getting enough sleep?

Sleep. Exercise. Reduce clutter. Make your bed (#1). Imitate a spiritual master. Mindfulness of present moment. 1-sentence journal.

Let’s start with registration. I registered online about six months before the actual event. It was intuitive, easy, and clear. What was different? They integrated a social network tool. Every registrant became part of a community where you could add friends and share short Twitteresque messages. I could search for other conference goers based on geography, business, interests, etc. Totally awesome networking tool. Secondly, as part of registration we were encouraged to upload a photo that would then be included on our attendee badge (if we forgot or didn’t take this step, a photo was taken upon arrival). For the record, early registration was $395.

Because badge pickup involved photos, one had to wait a minute or two for the badge to be retrieved and/or to have a picture taken. This allowed for a higher energy level at registration as people’s names were called out after the badge was ready. High energy is good and sets a tone. Happiness! The attendee badges also included personalized QR Code (Quick Response Code)  for easy sharing via iPhone app. Despite this option, I saw most people sharing business cards.

Signage around the Austin Convention Center was ubiquitous and customized to the event. Other conferences do this as well, but what was different at SXSW? Each panel or speaker had a table plate in large bold letters (last name only) so it could be seen from the entire room. Secondly, a table tent with the session hashtag was also included for easy tweeting and following the backchannel. Excellent!

The schedule was available online, iPhone app (64% attendees were iPhone users), and in print (upon arrival). I was so impressed with the online schedule I made a video -- SXSW Schedule Tool. The technology behind the tool was developed by The Social Collective. Big bonuses with the schedule tool: when you mark yourself as attending, you can see all the other attendees who have done the same.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV3maHr7YFc

When viewed on the iPhone app, it tells me that x number of my friends (see above) are also attending. Changes in the schedule are sent via email notification if you’ve marked yourself as attending. All the days followed the same block schedule -- first session at 9:30am with 30-minute passing times between sessions. Consistency is very nice. Finally, in addition to the hashtag table tent, the hashtag was also included in the print and online schedules. Awesome!

The technology was superior, as it should be. Free wifi was abundant, including on the trade show floor and hotel based sessions. The satellite wifi routers were abundantly clear and added throughout the event. This is a no-brainer. In addition, a charging station was availble in the main lobby hall (sponsored by Chevy Volt) and power strips were scattered throughout the convention center. In this day, power is essential.

Final comments. Within 2-days of the conference ending, I received an email acknowledgement and request for completing an evaluation. The conference planners will add my name to a drawing for a free registration for next year if I complete the evaluation. How cool is that?

Final, final comments. SXSW Interactive is a party atmosphere, but also provocative, intelligent, and thoughtful. Many parties happen at night and alcohol is not uncommon in the conference sessions (and a party tent is open most of the time). Swearing from the conference speakers is not unusual. Of course, this is also a conference where 80% of the attendees are under the age of 40 (I’m older!). Nonetheless, there is much we can learn from this and my hope is we can use some in our library related conferences.

What do you think? What experiences do you have from other conferences?

The other odd element is that I really don’t know anyone here except a handful of people. A few more I know virtually but haven’t met in person. This leaves a lot of space to explore and flow. Though I’m not always 100% confortable being social, I do reasonably well and did meet a few people on my first day out.

Registration was smooth. The swag bag was monstrous. The schedule manageable and easy. The tech omni-present. I’ve did a video of the scheduling tool from The Social Collective because I think it is awesome and the iPhone app makes it even better. I am loving the competition happening between Gowalla and FourSquare. Both have made tweaks and customizations just for SXSW which makes it even more fun.

A couple other minor applications that I’m testing are Plancast and sitby.us. The first is kind of like an event tool that duplicates what we have in the schedule tool a bit. The second lets you find friends in an audience, but they crashed for half the day. Will try both again today.

In terms of programs I attended, the quality was good to great and I felt happy about the results. I did a few author talks, Battledecks, and one panel on the Revenge of Editorials. One author talk in particular pushed me to buy the book, DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education by Anya Kamenetz. It will be interesting to dig a bit deeper on this topic because she is talking about some of things I am experimenting with in my MAT 149 Social Media class.

The other author talks were for The Young and the Digital; Upstarts! GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the Business World; The Backchannel; and The Happiness Project.

Day ended with an excellent meal at Koriente, an Asian fusion restaurant. Thank you to Hoa and Dale for the place to sleep and the bicycle to ride around Austin.

When is enough enough?

Though I definitely don’t own a great deal of gadget technology compared to many others, it still feels like quite a bit. Specifically, I own a 2004 iPod Click Wheel, a 2008 iPhone 3G, a 2009 Flip HD, and a 2009 MacBook Pro. What does adding an iPad to the mix create?

Each piece of technology comes with its own environmental impact in the production, ongoing use, and ultimate disposal. Aware that I am only one consumer, collectively we consume and waste a great deal. It seems that we often consume without thought or awareness and we easily succumb to desire through marketing and possibly an underlying unhappiness.

My Buddhist practice asks me to be aware of my actions in body, speech, and mind. This action includes my consumption. I have taken the both Five Mindfulness Trainings and the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings as my guides to living. These trainings represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic. They are a concrete expression of the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the path of right understanding and true love, leading to healing, transformation, and happiness for ourselves and for the world.

In the training on Nourishment and Healing, I am to be “aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption” and “am committed to … practicing mindful … consuming.” In the training on Simple Healthy Living, we are “committed to living simply and sharing our time, energy, and material resources with those in need. We will practice mindful consuming…”

Fully aware that these are not commandments, but rather ideals to aspire to, I don’t want to get too caught by the vows either. The idea is to bring awareness to my actions. The real “clincher” of these trainings are to “contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.”

Cost. My first question above regarding cost is the least important and easily remedied. I make a decent living and just received a retirement refund from another institution in the amount of a new iPad. Check!

Professionally. I work with technology. I teach technology. The impact of technology on my profession is significant, particularly if we consider the ongoing migration from print to electronic formats. It could even be that the library continues to shift dramatically in the next 20-years. Understanding and knowing technology enhances our profession’s ability to respond to these shifts and its impact should not be underestimated. Though I could easily digress into the mindfulness training on right livelihood, I will not muddy the water further. As a leader in my profession, I need to maintain currency and awareness. Check!

Family Harmony. For me, there are two issues with buying the iPad as it relates to the home. First, adding another device to home environment already cluttered with technology and secondly, the potential to continue to degrade interpersonal relationships in the household. The iPhone already has developed a central role in my daily activities both at home and at work. Finding a balance to provide harmony has been challenging and I am concerned the iPad may make it even more difficult. That said, there is the potential to draw us together at times using the technology. This is a great unknown. It could be that it is simply banned from the house as the television has been for the last decade. This obstacle is one that needs further consideration and an easy solution is not apparent aside from simply not buying the iPad. No check for this one.

Environment. From an environmental perspective, the iPad is designed with arsenic-free display glass, BFR-free, Mercury-free LCD display, PVC-free, and recyclable aluminium and glass enclosure. This is good. Nonetheless, no matter how environmentally sound a product is created, it is still another “thing” created and put into the universe. It will have an impact, particularly if millions of people purchase an iPad. This type of technology also has a certain level of planned obsolescence. For example, speculation already exists that the next version will include video. Why not now? Will I need to buy another iPad when v.2 is released? There is no way to truly wiggle around the environmental cost of the iPad. However, keeping technology operating and long lasting is one method to lessen the impact. Obviously it can’t be like a vehicle (I drive a 25-year old vehicle), but it could be designed to last 5-8 years. Not very long. No check for this one.

Ultimately, this is an exercise in deep looking; exactly what the Mindfulness Trainings and my Teacher asks us to do.  I will continue to ponder, consider, argue, reconcile, meditate, and discuss until the moment a decision is made.

What are you planning in regards to the iPad? How do you make decisions about technology consumption?

Note: The title of the blog post is a play on a new book by Jaron Lanier called “You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto” – thanks Jaron!

Foursquare is a combination of Twitter, gaming, and Yelp (in fact, Yelp launched it’s own similar product while in Boston). Users “checkin” at venues using text messaging, web site, FoursquareX desktop application, iPhone, or Droid app.

Other similar applications that I’ve been testing include Gowalla (fantastic UI), Brightkite (older service, but never took off), and the newly released Yelp (huge user base).

When a user checkins to a location, options include pushing the checkin to Twitter, Facebook, or keeping it just for foursquare users. With the checkin you may leave a short comment.  Using one the applications you can see other foursquare users who are in the same location or close vicinity so you could connect physically with the others if desired. There is some level of serendipity to using the application because you can meet new people or leave messages for others who checkin to the same location.

For example, one morning I checked in to the convention center venue and one of my foursquare friends had left of message to join him in one particular program. All users who checked in that morning would see the same message. Networking with my friends using a combination of Twitter and Foursquare enhanced my experience at Midwinter and added a new level of fun to the experience.

Example of Foursquare Tweet

In addition to pushing to my Twitter or Facebook feeds, I can have friend checkins appear in Twitter as a direct message. This allows for even  closer and immediate contact with friends. Part of the application feature on a mobile device is see the venue in Yelp and/or see all the Tweets posted in venue region.

The game part of the foursquare allows users to collect “badges” for certain types of checkins. For example, I received the Overshare badge for checking in 10+ times in less than 12 hours. Users can also become the Mayor of a location by checking into the same location more than three times (until someone bumps you). You can still play the game without disclosing your location to the public by not pushing the checkin to your foursquare friends. When you do this, your checkin will appear as of the grid.

A warning for new users: don’t push all your updates to your Twitter or Facebook stream. This can quickly become annoying to your Twitter friends. Choose selective posting to Twitter and always include additional comments so it is not just the location information. I also recommend turning off Twitter push for mayor and badge changes – you can still do this manually if you like.

This coming semester I will attempt to engage my library users in this game. The idea right now is to generate a contest where students checkin to the library using foursquare and give prizes for Mayor and/or specific Badges. The prize could be a reserved seat in the library, priority reserve access, etc. The idea is still forming, but the possibilities are endless.

Example of Foursquare Badges

What potential do you see for location based social networking? What do you think might work in your library?

Follow me on foursquare.