Just like they said they would, Apple revealed plans for iPhone OS 3.0 to the world today. Best news? Cut, copy and paste. I know, I know, you’d think that this would have been a feature of iPhone OS 1.0, but no, for some reason Apple wanted none of that. Other best news?
Wait for it.
MMS.
(I can hear all the Windows mobile fans laughing right now).
Engadget has all the particulars.
This one in my own backyard. The Seattle P-I will print it’s last newspaper tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17th, 2009. The fish wrapper has been publishing since 1863. All is not lost though. The owners said they will keep a web edition.
MORE: seattlepi.com executive producer explains what the web edition will and won’t be.
It seems Twitter is everywhere today. The social networking service is being used by TV news talking heads, members of the U.S. Congress, and celebrities, not to mention the millions of other regular people out there. Some folks use the web to tweet. Others (like me) use applications to update their Twitter status. There are a few apps to choose from – Twhirl, Twitterrific, Spaz, and more. When I first signed on to Twitter, I used the web interface, then switched to Twitterrific (when sitting in front of my Mac), then to Twhirl at work on my ThinkPad, and as recently as two weeks ago, I started to use TweetDeck. I like TweetDeck for all the same reasons other people use the app. I like the multi-pane interface and the ability to search across Twitter. I also like how easy it is to follow other people. Of all the other apps I’ve tried, TweetDeck integrates a feature set that suits my way of using Twitter.
Well, today, the fine folks who develop TweetDeck updated the app to include a feature that now brings it into Killer App status. TweetDeck now integrates Facebook.
In a blog post, the developers announced, “You can click on the Facebook icon at the top and, once you have signed into Facebook and given TweetDeck authorization, this will add a new column full of each of your friends most recent status update which updates automatically once a minute.
From here you can email the update out to anyone, tweet it out over twitter, view the users online status and if they are online right now click on their name (or the green online status indicator) to open Facebook chat right within TweetDeck.”
If you’re like me, you hate checking multiple social networking sites. I love it when everything is located in one place. Sure, I could go to the web and use FriendFeed, but I’m loving what TweetDeck is doing, and now with Facebook integration, it’s becoming my go-to app.
A Walmart photo department manager twittered details of his experience while sitting on a jury in a $12 million dollar lawsuit. The plaintiff lost, but now his lawyer is appealing. At issue is Twitter post timestamps and whether some of the posts betray bias before the jury finished deliberating.
h/t ars technica
OK, so I didn’t exactly make it to New York City last Friday night. The reason? An emergency trip to the ER for yours truly. Yep, that was me, riding in the back of the ambulance and into the hospital. Seems that out of no where my heart started racing at not normal speeds. I didn’t have any other characteristics of a heart attack. I just had this racing heart thingy. So, rather than take chances, we dialed 911. I spent 4 hours in the ER to find out that nothing looked wrong with me, other than my heart going too fast. They administered some drugs and my rate came right on down.
I did a treadmill test and an echocardiogram yesterday just for good measure. Looks like an ongoing prescription for a beta blocker is in my immediate future. Of course, we’ll see what the doc says.
So, that’s why I didn’t make it to NYC, or to the O’Reilly event. I’m bummed to say the least, but whatcha gonna do? Health comes first, right?
UPDATE: It appears that my heart is completely healthy and that I still have work to do on this planet. The results of my test have come back normal. 🙂
I’m looking forward to my trip to NYC tomorrow. This will be my third time attending O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference. Each one has been a worthwhile experience. I’m especially looking forward to this year since I’ll be participating in a panel on digital rights along with a few other folks in the industry. Of course, I’ll be ready for those impromptu meet-ups that often happen at these things. you never know who you’ll bump into!
Just read a great post from Clay Shirky, a guest blogger at Boing Boing. Clay’s is a response to an article written in the New York Times by James Gleick, who advises book publishers to walk into the future by visiting the past. They should embrace the “book”, that is, the ink, the paper, the beauty.
Gleick lives in a strange land of fantasy.
Book publishers are facing a 100 mph head wind; a bad economy and a rapidly changing marketplace. It’s time to invent new models and discover new sales channels that cater to readers, not just book lovers. If publishers embrace the past, they won’t be around to see the future.
If you follow the book publishing industry as much as I do, you know that yesterday was a dark day. In what many are calling “Black Wednesday”, a few key publishers announced employee layoffs and/or salary and hiring freezes.
All that happened yesterday. Today, there’s more…
One wonders what’s next?
This much is clear. Book publishers need to face the reality that their tried and true sales model is coming to an end.
Book publishers depend largely on the retail channel for their sale revenue. Unfortunately, that channel has been weakening with each passing month, and publishers have little recourse than to cut back on expenses. They do not have a direct relationship with the book buying individual, so they can’t suddenly decide to sell direct from the web. They depend on online retailers like Amazon for the bulk of their virtual brick and mortar sales. They cannot pick new books that will be surefire hits because they don’t know what their customer wants. They only know how many units similar books have sold through in the past. Every decision to publish is a risk of precious cash.
So, is the publishing business lost? Hardly, but their recovery won’t be easy.
Publishers will have a difficult time building a direct relationship with customers. Their internal structure is not setup to accommodate it. They can however, partner with organizations who do have direct relationships with buyers. Now, you might say, isn’t that the kind of partnership they already have with Amazon? No. Amazon owns the customer relationship and they don’t share that. Moreover, the publisher treats them like just another retailer. Book publishers need to co-promote and co-publish with organizations who own relationships with real buying customers. These organizations regularly communicate with these customers. They can ask them what product they want, how they want it, and what they’d like to pay for it. Book publishers can, for the first time, publish books that are created specifically for identified groups of people. Some will even pay ahead of time and essentially fund the development of products. This is being done in the marketplace right now.
All of this means the publisher will need to think and react differently to an unknown market. For the most part, they haven’t been willing to do this on their own. Today’s economy will force them to adapt. Is it risky? Of course, but the alternative is death. The question is, who will have the will to choose life?
This is pure gold. The best thing about it is the guy in the background.
I’m beginning to think it is for me.
I know, just because I’m doing less of something doesn’t mean it’s dead. Not in the least. There are tens of thousands of blogs which are updated regularly and read by gobs of people. I’ve just been wondering about how much traditional blogging has been hit by services like Twitter and social media like Facebook? A couple of years ago, the term “micro-blogging” became a part of the online vernacular but is that really something most people are conscientiously doing when they tweet or update their status? And how many of those people would have started a blog if it weren’t for Pownce, FriendFeed, and the myriad of other sites that exist today.
As is evidenced by this blog, I’m definitely doing more of the “status updating” these days.
How about you? If you’re like me and you started a blog four or more years ago and now you tweet and do Facebook, does your blog still “do it for you” like it used to?
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