IanSchafer.com

Musings On the iPad.

After playing around with the iPad for 36 hours (with some sleep mixed in), I can honestly say that the device is pretty impressive. The screen is beautiful and sensitive, everything is screaming fast, and the battery life is what it should be. While I've read many, many reviews about the iPad, there are some aspects of it that really got me thinking.

The device is amazing. The apps are weak. So far. You can't fault the developers that much here -- they only had less than a month, with no test device in most cases. But initial negative reactions to the iPad seem to have more to do with app shortcomings than device shortcomings. The apps have a lot of room for improvement. But that will happen. The iPad is going to get better as the apps do.

The best thing about the device is what isn't resident on it. The web looks amazing on the iPad. It works amazingly, too, but only when sites you visit have switched out HTML5 for Flash. Embedded video looks great. That's right. Embedded video on a mobile device. The web version of some sites look so good, it may supercede the need to develop an app (unless they want to sell it). Facebook.com may be the best way to experience Facebook on the iPad.

This is not a content creation device. Or at least that is not the iPad's primary purpose. You can get some of that done, but primarily, this is a content consumption device. That means it is not a laptop replacement for many of you. But are you surprised? This is an additional device. It's not as much a game-changer as it is a game-inventer. I can already tell that I will be carrying my iPad around the office, making it the best way for me to check email, access my calendar (the calendar is beautiful), and take notes (the Evernote app is a gem). Heck, I can even watch GoToMeeting or WebEx presentations on it. The ABC app is probably the most impressive thing to show someone on the iPad. Followed by the MLB At Bat app. You won't want to watch video on a laptop again. Seriously.

It's for your mom. As I was explaining the iPad to my mother over the phone, I realized that this thing was made for her. Casual games, email, web, and video are what this thing does best. Once she handles this, she's going to want it. I bet your mom (as long as she has an email address) will want one too. Actually, anyone that has an iPod Touch will want the iPad right after they see it in person. It's as if Steve Jobs created the iPod Touch just to make people 'pre-familiar' with the iPad. After looking at the iPad for a few minutes, your iPhone will also look like a postage stamp.

Advertising is going to be awesome on this. That's right. If ads are done gracefully on the iPad, there is a real opportunity to add value in a deeply, richly engaging way. Video might finally have found its rightful place -- within the mobile Safari web browser and/or app ecosystem.

Social media has a long way to go on the iPad. I mentioned that it's not a content creation device. Well, it's not a content sharing device either -- yet. Social media elements need to become a more integral part of the in-app content consumption experience. Right now it's pretty insular. It shouldn't be.

Gaming on the iPad might be huge. And by gaming, I just don't mean, casual, or even role-playing. I mean board gaming. Watch this:

My verdict? I'm bigger on the iPad's potential than where it is today. But where it can be has less to do with the hardware, and everything to do with what third-party developers dream up. You don't need it. But remember that feeling when you got wireless internet for the first time? Or cracked open your first laptop? You didn't need those things either, yet look what people figured out to do with those.

POLL: Did The iPad Commercial Make You Want It More?

Apple Takeover of Wired.com

via vimeo.com

In case you missed it, Apple did a very cool takeover of Wired.com. It comes very close to overdoing it, but stops just short. It's an ad that makes you want to hit "replay". In fact, I did.

Reminder: Live @ WidgetWebExpo on Monday 6/16.

I'll be on what looks to be a great panel @ WidgetWebExpo on Monday, 6/16 in my old stomping grounds of Brooklyn, NY.

Here's the info:

3.15 - 3.45:

Micro Interactions: Can portable experiences go mainstream? (Panel)

Whether we call them widgets, modules, desktop applications or something else, we are increasingly seeing more interactions happen that are distributed, portable and yes—small. From rich interactive banners, to do-it-yourself Web widgets—the internet is more fragmented than ever before. Thanks to search engines, we know that your home page is less relevant than it used to be. And advanced interactions in small places like Apple’s iPhone have shown us that meaningful interactions can happen in small, portable chunks. The question is—will this all go mainstream? Join our panel of experts as we discuss how micro interactions may or may not change our digital behavior.

Chair: David Armano, VP, Critical Mass

David Malouf, Interaction Designer, Motorola Enterprise Mobility

Matt Dickman, Vice President, Digital Marketing, Fleishman-Hillard

Steve Rubel, SVP, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital

Ian Schafer, CEO and Founder, Deep Focus

Stephanie Agresta, InternetGeekGirl.com

I plan on sharing some fairly strong opinions. See you there!

When ‘ Open ’ Isn ’ t Really ‘ Open ’ . The Battle to Own Your Code — And Your Creativity.

Oxford University Professor Jonathan Zittrain in his new book, The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It, according to NetworkWorld, states that:

...today’s Internet appliances such as the iPhone and Xbox hamper innovation. That’s because these locked-down devices prohibit the kind of tinkering by end users that made PCs and the Internet such a force of economic, political and artistic change.

Zittrain argues that if the cybersecurity situation doesn’t improve, we will migrate to a different kind of Internet. The new Internet will have as its endpoints tethered appliances such as iPhones, which are controlled by their manufacturers, instead of open, changeable PCs attached to an open network that can foster the next round of disruptive innovation.

A bold statement. And he's got a point.

Now these devices are innovations unto themselves, and some even are positioned as development platforms. Take the iPhone, for example. Apple just released the latest version of their Software Development Kit (SDK) and developers everywhere are coding away, looking to build the next great iPhone application.

But in classic Apple style (i.e. heavy DRM within iTunes), Apple remains the gatekeeper. Applications can only be distributed via their App Store, and will only be distributed if approved by Apple. Apple will explain that this is for security and quality-assurance reasons, but it still puts them in control of what's available, with the ability to shut an app off if they so desire. So yes, you can be as creative as you want on their platform, but it's up to Apple if anyone is going to see it at all, or in perpetuity.

There's a similar situation going on with Google's new App Engine (the preview version was launched on 4/8, then taken down on 4/9). Google's vision is that instead of freely building apps with their API, you can develop applications using their APIs and host them on their servers, free of charge. Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud and Salesforce's Appexchange are also providing similar opportunities for developers. Sounds great, right? But there's a catch, as ArsTechnica reports.

Perhaps the most blatant downside is being locked into Google's platform. Existing projects will have to be ported or written from scratch, and those that rely on traditional relational databases will probably have difficulty making the transition. Even more difficult would be transitioning your application to your own servers if you choose to leave Google's tender embrace. Once you've created an established application on top of Google's authentication service and stored all your data within the company's datastore, removing all this code and data and moving it to another location would appear to a be fairly onerous task.

Once again, applications -- and even more importantly, data -- are locked into someone else's platform. And this is precisely what Jonathan Zittrain is talking about.

This is a disturbing trend and runs afoul of what led to the creativity that yielded many of the most popular websites of the last few years. Imagine if Warhol was free to create any art he wanted, but someone else owned the canvases and could destroy or bury them at any point if his art offended someone? That's what's going on here.

It doesn't seem that this is a trend that will let up anytime soon as companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have way too much to gain by housing and hosting application engines. Doesn't feel like 'do no evil' anymore does it? And a little more 'PC' than 'Mac', if you ask me.

Food for thought...

Three Depressing YouTube Experiences This Week (and it ’ s only Tuesday).

1. Car Crash Nation, er, Planet


At least once a day, I visit YouTube to see which videos are the most viewed, discussed and shared. On Sunday the entire front page of view rankings was populated with:


a) Videos of Arsenal striker Eduardo Da Silva breaking his leg in a Saturday game against Birmingham City. The injury was too graphic for Sky Sports to rebroadcast it.


b) Videos of Big Brother Season 9 contestant Amanda Hansen passing out due to low blood sugar.


I've watching my share of Formula One and ski jump crashes on YouTube over the years. I'm no innocent. But sometimes, when a "Most Viewed" index holds ONLY injury, disaster or downfall, it makes me wonder. Especially following the noxious preoccupation with 2 Girls One Cup last autumn. Boo humanity! Boo!


2. Giveth, then Taketh Away? Stilleth?


Everybody has "go-to" online content that immediately cheers them up. For me, it's LOLCats (Emily Wu posting unsolicited on my FB Wall to wish me happy birthday was a major highlight this past weekend), and a few key videos. Namely, Charlie the Unicorn, Paintball Kid and a recent addition: "Child Clowns" from Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!


What? That last link doesn't go anywhere? That's because Time Warner/Cartoon Network yanked the Adult Swim show's content from the site. Time Warner's volatile relationship with YouTube is well known, but this was one of those great examples that illustrates the cost of stubborn and stodgy corporate policy. I wanted to share the video, in person, with a group of friends. Sure I searched other sites, but at the time, I only found badly optimized, shorter versions. Nothing as majestic as the one I'd been watching every day on YouTube for three weeks. Note: This version on FunnyOrDie is pretty good, though. Anyhow, the experience left me pissed off and unable to share my excitement with my friends. To use an awkward dating metaphor, I got content blocked. Compare this to the Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon affair, which ABC got OUT THERE. I even tuned into Jimmy Kimmel Live, a show I never watch, to see the response video. Anyhow, I know this is an old story...but that doesn't change the fact that it's still happening.


3. Everybody loves Magic. That's why they call it Magic. (sorry, following the awesomeness of the Redbelt trailer, I had to channel Mamet.)


I don't believe you can cultivate "magic", it just happens. And yet, right now, this little girl is tearing up YouTube.


OK, I guess she's cute and all. And yes, I'll probably get some boos for nay saying the clip but I thought the editing of this video, by the dad, left it feeling completely contrived and bereft of magic. I've nothing against parents capturing their kids doing funny stuff and posting it on YouTube, but this video (and the father defends himself in the comments) really feels like it was shot FOR YouTube. Regardless of intent, the finished product didn't feel organic to me. I went "eh" instead of "aww". And that's a bummah.


Look for a more substantive post on the potential convergence of Online Advertising and New Marketing Research Technologies in the AM.

Guinness ’ Most Expensive Commercial Ever.

Compare the value of this with the mileage from the Coke/Mentos clips. Or an Apple Ad -- any of them.

How about that this cost $21 MILLION to make. Need I say more?

Why? Seriously. Why?

Best Of the Internal Deep Focus Blog: Poor Microsoft!

Check out this post on Deep Focus' internal blog by Associate Creative Director Nick Braccia:

So you've probably all seen this student-made spot from the UK for iPod Touch, featuring Cansei de ser Sexy's "Music is my Hot, Hot Sex.

It's a fine piece of editing, but when I saw it, I thought, heck, all he REALLY did was pick an awesome song and time some animations. Big deal, right?

Here's the irony: a year ago, Microsoft had a ZUNE spot running with the SAME SONG.

What's the moral of this story? Well, the amateur kid kept it simple: Music = HERO. Interface = Easiest way ever to hang with HERO. In the Zune spot, the song is part of a schizophrenic execution that's trying to: a) be irreverent with stylized, anthropomorphized illustrated animals b) cycle through a list features (music, wireless, tuner, community) c) bring it all back to music and "social" by building a narrative.

Wow, that's a lot. Just listening to a Brazilian girl sing "Music is my Boyfriend, Music is my Girlfriend" seems to sum all that up, with like, 1/1000th of the work. It's just an ironic slap in the face that they had the perfect weapon (the song) and didn't know how to use it properly.

Just found more assessments of the two spots.

Exactly right, Nick. Consumers realize that a better product is a better product -- and if you believe in your product, simply showing its points of differentiation can help someone (consciously or subconsciously) make their purchasing decision. And including your biggest fans in the creation of your advertising -- NOT through solicitation, but discovery -- is priceless.

Facebook Don ’ t Need No Steenkin ’ Vacation: Music + IM News

So I'm back from vacation. And what happens while I'm over the Atlantic Ocean?

News breaks that Facebookis going to be directly competing with MySpace to be the default "home" for bands, according to GigaOm:

The platform will allows bands and labels to create artists pages, and allow various widgets to be embedded for music promotion, organizing events, etc. Among those widgets would be iLike, the most popular app inside Facebook, but will also include iTunes widgets for sampling (to being with), and eventually buying music through Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). The service will still have the utilitarian sensibilities of the Facebook platform, the sources stress, rather than the more chaotic and flashy platform that MySpace has.

Initial rumors apparently had Facebook taking on iTunes, but this seems to be the substantiated story. And it makes sense. Aspiring bands and rappers are what initially fueled MySpace's growth, and anything Facebook can do at this point to migrate some of that magic over to their property is just gravy. Furthermore, iLike, ostensibly "Facebook Music" is one of the property's most popular applications (over 632,000 active daily users -- 7% of the active Facebook audience) has already been helping Facebook users recommend and discover new music since the opening of the Facebook app platform. There's plenty of momentum for Facebook in the music area, and this will certainly help capitalize on that.

But what remains to be seen is whether or not Facebook can catch lightning in a bottle here. It seems that, according to the GigaOm report, these pages will be established by labels for bands -- not necessarily indie bands themselves. So, is this just Facebook signing a deal with the devil, instead of making itself a better home for the unsigned/intentionally un-labeled bands?

Frankly, I'd be more excited with news of a Facebook deal with someone like Amie Street or even Last.fm. Naturally, that would make things less cozy for iLike, but as AC/DC once sang, Who Made Who?

Oh. And blink and you'll miss it, but a UK company, Techlightenment (really?) has just launched a Facebook IM client app, FriendVox. Read the news at Slashdot.

Rocketboom Moves to Blip.tv. Deep Focus Moves Quickly.

As announced by Mike Hudack, its brilliant CEO, Blip.tv is the new home of the vaunted and storied Rocketboom. Mike's got all the details here, but the big news is that:

a) Rocketboom has moved to Blip.tv.
b) The Sarah Silverman Program is the sponsor of the show, an arrangement made by Deep Focus.
c) The sponsorship employs a new form of Apple's Quicktime technology to make it look fantastic.

So check it out. Techcrunch already has...