Monthly Archives: April 2010

NPR’s advanced HTML Beta

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This week I’m at the International Symposium on Online Journalism at Univ. of Texas-Austin, an event that’s been a great source of professional and academic dialogue regarding digital journalism.

One of the neat demos was from NPR’s Kinsey Wilson, who showed their iPad-specific web site. If you visit npr.org with the iPad Safari browser, you’ll get redirected to their beta site created with “HTML5″ – npr.org/tablet (though Dave Stanton of U of Florida points it it’s really XHTML 1.0 Transitional. You don’t need an iPad to see it: use Safari for Mac/Windows or Firefox 3.5+ to visit that URL directly)

Without plugins, they’ve added an audio clip playlist manager that’s pegged to the bottom of the screen. On a landscape laptop screen, it looks a bit big and intrusive.

On a portrait-screen iPad with high pixel density, it’s very nicely sized and placed.

Wilson said the NPR team took about three weeks to finish the project. When the iPhone first launched, Steve Jobs famously said you don’t need apps, since rich web content is all you need. We know now Jobs changed his mind, but NPR is showing how you can make a web page feel very “app-ian” with some simple HTML additions.

China’s Social Networking Sites

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With the rumors of Facebook getting into China this year, VentureBeat has put out an excellent roundup of the big four social networking sites in China:

  • RenRen
  • Kaixin001
  • Qzone
  • 51.com

What’s interesting is that each one comes from a different angle: students, music/games, instant messaging and rural users (respectively). That makes for an interesting scrum, as no single service rules the landscape quite like Facebook does in the US.

I’ll be on KCBS radio tomorrow to talk about Facebook’s prospects.

In general, RenRen (nee XiaoNei) is the most like Facebook, as it launched as pretty much a pixel-for-pixel clone. It has a valuation of approximately $1.2 bln with Softbank recently buying a 35% stake.

I’m not hopeful Facebook will make any successful splash in the China market, though the way it’s been reported via sina.com, there’s every indication this is just an unsubstantiated rumor.

iPad the Spork

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After two days of showing the iPad to the community at USC, I got an interesting questions from a student in class: “It isn’t really a computer, it really isn’t a mobile device, so what is it?”

The best explanation I came up with: a spork.

It’s a digital spork.

Spork
Spork

Now I mean that in the most affectionate way. Rather than doing neither thing well, it does two things quite competently in one tight package.

It’s a browsing device with a large bright screen, powerful processing for multimedia and enough storage/connectivity to mimic a laptop. On the mobile side, its 10-12 hour battery means you constantly use it without rationing your time (this could be a bad thing), you can toss it in your bag without thinking twice, and you can lean back in bed or lounge at the beach to use it.

Now, the “lean back” aspect makes things interesting.

This is what makes the device so exciting for publishers and TV folks.

See, this whole laptop-based “lean forward” crouching over your keyboard phenomenon is foreign to them. It’s too participatory. You’re at your keyboard, ready to comment, to chat, to pan, to praise. You’re multitasking,  your attention is scattered, and you’re almost always one tiny step away from being bored and doing something else.

Traditional media companies aren’t used to that, and haven’t understood what to do with it.

Instead, the iPad brings back the passive, single-tasking, lean-back experience. Lean back is what they understand — couch potatoes, lounge chair magazine leafers and bathroom readers. You’re doing one, and one thing only.

So the iPad gives them hope the pendulum can swing back away from the wild chaotic bazaar of the mouse-based desktop, and back towards what they understand. And to help monetize this, they now have the elusive micropayment system they’ve been missing for a while — the iTunes Store. Years of Apple iPod and iPhone consumers buying songs at $0.99 and apps at $0.99 have conditioned the populace to pay these micro-amounts, driven by an ephemeral impulse buy for content.

Or so the industry hopes.

It’s a very real possibility it will be successful, even if I don’t particularly care for the trend.

Paid apps already available from Time and ESPN replicate the web content on those sites, but with more interactivity and a rich multimedia display. Folks who think this is folly, that the same content can be had for free on the web, and will kill the iPad paid-content market, need to consider consumer behavior more carefully.

By that logic, bottled water companies should not exist because of course we have free water everywhere, from taps and bubblers.

We know otherwise. That Evian, Perrier, SmartWater (and even Aquafina selling what is practically the same as tap water back to us) make money, and lots of it, is no secret. There is upselling of what is commodity. And if there’s ever a perfect partner for making that work (reselling what is common at high markups) it’s Apple.

And that’s what we’ll see — a bustling marketplace for captive content. That’s not my concern per se. What does give pause is a whole new generation of content that is not linkable, commentable or recordable. The iPad is a closed box, and for that reason, the rich discourse (and ugly trolling) goes away. But along with that goes the chaotic mashed-up marketplace that has spawned a creative content community.

For that reason, I hope the iPad will be good like a spork is good on a camping trip –something that will do the trick in adverse conditions, but not something you’d want for your main dining experience. Because that lean-back experience takes away the culture of the read-write web, and that would be a step backwards.

Update: my friend Cory Doctorow has an even stronger warning when it comes to the iPad: “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either)“.

Comcast-ick

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Today marked a signifcant setback for the network neutrality movement. The dream of keeping Internet traffic unshaped, unprioritized and unfettered was dealt a blow by a decision by the US Court of Appeals.

The panel of three judges unanimously invalidated the FCC’s authority to mandate that Internet traffic has to be treated equally. This was originally brought about by Comcast’s throttling of users’ BitTorrent traffic in 2007, which led to a 2008 FCC order to the cable provider to stop the practice. Since then, the FCC has been on the winning side of court cases maintaining the status quo and the agency has enforced “network neutrality” across Internet service providers.

Today’s ruling changes things, but it’s not as bad as one might think.

Though it started with BitTorrent, peer to peer file sharing is the least interesting of the cases out there. Instead, follow the money.

The idea of Comcast, AT&T or Verizon arbitrarily prioritizing packets by traffic shaping has been the scary scneario for a number of Internet-age content providers who have profits in mind, and hope to challenge powerful traditional telecom and entertainment companies.

Of particular interest — providers of Voice over IP, such as Skype, and those who serve up video that directly challenge the role of cable TV providers in delivering video content (ie. Netflix, Hulu and others). Consider also how much Google is getting into the both of those spaces with YouTube and Google Voice, and how much Apple depends on speedy download of video content for iPad and other devices.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, observed that this was not a lasting victory for ISPs.

With perhaps the best quote of the day, he said, “Comcast swung an ax at the FCC to protest the BitTorrent order… And they sliced right through the FCC’s arm and plunged the ax into their own back.”

That’s because there are some possible easy remedies for the FCC. The agency can reclassify broadband as a telecom service that deserves heavier regulation, which would change things rather quickly but not without controversy.

Or on a longer time scale, Congress could act to give the FCC this exact authority to regulate broadband. An FCC statement released today said, “the court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet; nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end.”

It’s clear the FCC folks are sticking with their stance, and confident of a solution.

Until then, we should expect to see bandwidth shaping experiments from DSL and cable providers. But this has always been a huge risk in upsetting customers. In an age of Twitter and Facebook, we’ll quickly see people diagnose, triangulate on and react to these types of efforts.

Caveat Comcast, don’t get too comfortable.

Also crossposted to Journalistech.org

iPad Reflections

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Saturday was the day that thousands of users obsessively checking UPS.com for their package status  finally got their gleaming white box of iPad.
With an entry price of $499, Wifi networking, a fast custom A4 processor made by Apple, and 16 Gbytes of storage, the iPad promises to be a compelling media consumption device. I say consumption, because it doesn’t come with a camera at this time nor does it come with any removable storage for expansion.
So does the iPad meet the hype? In the first 12 hours of use, I’d say yes it does. And it has great implications for traditional print publishers.
First the very basic physical aspects: it’s a 9.7″ 1024×768 pixel screen, or about the same screen size as a respectable laptop of a few years ago. The difference is, this is thin, portable and held vertically. It’s a classic lean-back instead of lean-forward experience. With no physical keyboard, you naturally hold it in portrait mode, about a foot from your face. That gives the pixels much higher impact on the eyes as it fills your visual senses.
When it comes to operation, one cannot underestimate the value of the intuitive direct manipulation interface — scroll by swiping, zoom by pinching, enable by tapping. There really is no manual for this thing, because you can learn everything you need to know in about a minute of experimentation.
Apple boasts the device can go 10 hours on a full charge. Most  testers have found Apple was modest, and have exceeded that in real world tasks. One caveat: because the battery is so capacious, one really does need to use the included 10 watt adapter to charge the iPad in a reasonable amount of time. Plugging the tablet device into a computer’s USB port will charge it much less slowly, taking up to four times as long and not being able to charge overnight.
The screen is plenty bright in daylight, as that’s something Apple perfected some years ago. However, since we’re used to screens that stand almost vertical, putting this down on a table, even at an angle, will bring up lots of glare, especially outdoors. The keyboard is usable, but not for touch typing. For brief bursts it’s fine, and more pleasant than using the miniscule iPhone or iPod touch virtual keyboards.
Content
In some ways the iPad is a retro concept. With a fixed well-known screen size for content developers, and apps that need to be installed before one can experience rich content, the iPad model is reminiscent of the golden era of CD-ROMs. That was a time where every pixel on the screen could be manipulated, and any mode of interaction was possible with rapid-fire crisp response because everything was local to the computer. This resulted in great tools and content, including Voyager CD-ROM books, Apple’s Hypercard and multimedia encyclopedic content from Encarta and Britannica. Strangely enough, iPad may bring us back to recapture that cutting-edge 1995-era multimedia technology.
Contrast that with web pages viewed on a general purpose computer, which has been the focus of “interactive content” since 1995. While basing the dot-com revolution around Web browsers and Internet-hosted content certainly allowed for great advances in connected applications and collaboration, it was lacking for rich media experiences. Macromedia (now a part of Adobe) pushed the envelope by giving us Flash, but even then most sites amble along awkwardly with a mishmash of dynamic HTML, and give us a but a small window of interactive Flash.
The situation changes quite a bit with iPad.
Right now, the two choices for content creators is to go the “app-ian way” or to innovate with web content. Remember: the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch don’t support Adobe Flash.
Apple doesn’t mind closed solutions but only if *it* is the purveryor of the proprietary product. Therefore, Apple didn’t want to give entire swaths of its prized iPad real estate to another company. The other solution that has developed is the HTML5 spec, which has been trumpeted as the way to replicate Flash’s video and advanced multimedia capabilities in a standard way, and is supported by the Apple’s Safari browser.
The apps released so far for iPad have been impressive, which has invigorated the art of visual news design, now that designers (unshackled from HTML and CSS) have the entire screen the play with. The content from NPR, Match (France), Yahoo! Entertainment and even the usually bland Associated Press all show promise that go far beyond what you see from their respective web sites.
In the coming months, look for news outlets to experiment heavily with both approaches.
So far the range of iPad apps exhinits a curious mix of charging for the app, charging for the content, or making money from advertising.
Consider what we have right now on launch day, you can find an array of models from various news organizations including:
Pay for app, pay for issues (Time)
Pay for app, free content (CNN, ESPN ScoreCenter XL)
Free app, pay for content (Wall Street Journal)
Free app, selected free content, ads (NY Times, subscription forthcoming)
Free app, free content, ad support (IMDB, Yahoo Entertainment)
Free app, free content (NPR, BBC)
Tablet style computers have been around for years now. So what makes Apple’s move interesting? The allure for publishers is that Apple has tackled the problem no one in media has been able to solve — micropayments. Apple’s iTunes Store system has suddenly made even $0.99 transactions possible and profitable, since people are already signed up, credit card in hand, and comfortable with pulling the trigger to pay for ephemeral content. That’s a major cultural shift traditional media organizations are eager to join.

Saturday was the day that thousands of users obsessively checking UPS.com for their package status  finally got their gleaming white box of iPad goodness.

Specs

With an entry price of $499, Wifi networking, a fast custom A4 processor made by Apple, and 16 Gbytes of storage, the iPad promises to be a compelling media consumption device. I say consumption, because it doesn’t come with a camera at this time nor does it come with any removable storage for expansion.

So does the iPad meet the hype? In the first 12 hours of use, I’d say yes it does. And it has great implications for traditional print publishers.

First the very basic physical aspects: it’s a 9.7″ 1024×768 pixel screen, or about the same screen size as a respectable laptop of a few years ago. The difference is, this is thin, portable and held vertically. It’s a classic lean-back instead of lean-forward experience. With no physical keyboard, you naturally hold it in portrait mode, about a foot from your face. That gives the pixels much higher impact on the eyes as it fills your visual senses.

When it comes to operation, one cannot underestimate the value of the intuitive direct manipulation interface — scroll by swiping, zoom by pinching, enable by tapping. There really is no manual for this thing, because you can learn everything you need to know in about a minute of experimentation.

Apple boasts the device can go 10 hours on a full charge. Most  testers have found Apple was modest, and have exceeded that in real world tasks. One caveat: because the battery is so capacious, one really does need to use the included 10 watt adapter to charge the iPad in a reasonable amount of time. Plugging the tablet device into a computer’s USB port will charge it much less slowly, taking up to four times as long and not being able to charge overnight.

The screen is plenty bright in daylight, as that’s something Apple perfected some years ago. However, since we’re used to screens that stand almost vertical, putting this down on a table, even at an angle, will bring up lots of glare, especially outdoors. The keyboard is usable, but not for touch typing. For brief bursts it’s fine, and more pleasant than using the miniscule iPhone or iPod touch virtual keyboards.

Content

In some ways the iPad is a retro concept. With a fixed well-known screen size for content developers, and apps that need to be installed before one can experience rich content, the iPad model is reminiscent of the golden era of CD-ROMs. That was a time where every pixel on the screen could be manipulated, and any mode of interaction was possible with rapid-fire crisp response because everything was local to the computer. This resulted in great tools and content, including Voyager CD-ROM books, Apple’s Hypercard and multimedia encyclopedic content from Encarta and Britannica. Strangely enough, iPad may bring us back to recapture that cutting-edge 1995-era multimedia technology, which kind of got lost in the shuffle of “the net.”

Contrast that with web pages viewed on a general purpose computer, which has been the focus of “interactive content” since 1995. While basing the dot-com revolution around Web browsers and Internet-hosted content certainly allowed for great advances in connected applications and collaboration, it was lacking for rich media experiences. Macromedia (now a part of Adobe) pushed the envelope by giving us Flash, but even then most sites amble along awkwardly with a mishmash of dynamic HTML, and give us a but a small window of interactive Flash.

The situation changes quite a bit with iPad.

Right now, the two choices for content creators is to go the “app-ian way” or to innovate with web content. Remember: the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch don’t support Adobe Flash.

Apple doesn’t mind closed solutions but only if *it* is the purveryor of the proprietary product. Therefore, Apple didn’t want to give entire swaths of its prized iPad real estate to another company. The other solution that has developed is the HTML5 spec, which has been trumpeted as the way to replicate Flash’s video and advanced multimedia capabilities in a standard way, and is supported by the Apple’s Safari browser.

The apps released so far for iPad have been impressive, which has invigorated the art of visual news design, now that designers (unshackled from HTML and CSS) have the entire screen the play with. The content from NPR, Match (France), Yahoo! Entertainment and even the usually bland Associated Press all show promise that go far beyond what you see from their respective web sites.

In the coming months, look for news outlets to experiment heavily with both approaches.

So far the range of iPad apps exhibits a curious mix of charging for the app, charging for the content, or making money from advertising.

Consider what we have right now on launch day, you can find an array of models from various news organizations including:

  • Pay for app, pay for issues (Time)
  • Pay for app, free content (CNN, ESPN ScoreCenter XL)
  • Free app, pay for content (Wall Street Journal)
  • Free app, selected free content, ads (NY Times, subscription forthcoming)
  • Free app, free content, ad support (IMDB, Yahoo Entertainment)
  • Free app, free content (NPR, BBC)

Tablet style computers have been around for years now. So what makes Apple’s move interesting? The allure for publishers is that Apple has tackled the problem no one in media has been able to solve — micropayments. Apple’s iTunes Store system has suddenly made even $0.99 transactions possible and profitable, since people are already signed up, credit card in hand, and comfortable with pulling the trigger to pay for ephemeral content. That’s a major cultural shift traditional media organizations are eager to join.