Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
A Geek's Impression of His First Weekend with the iPad
Like many technology enthusiasts (aka geeks) I watched the iPad announcement with excitement and was both thrilled and frustrated when the announcement was made. I was thrilled because it looked like it could do so much and yet I asked myself why would Apple design a product that really did not seem to fit in with any traditional market segment. It is a product that to most seems to be a net book or is it a tablet? This product just does not fall neatly into a specific product category. Maybe that is best.
I was struck with the potentials of this device from day one and even wrote about it here. On Friday I broke down and decided to slip into the reality distortion field and see just what can be done from a media geeks standpoint. Well... A lot. Before I delve to deeply into my findings I am writing this in Pages on the iPad, and will attempt to see how many things in the next week I can do without using my laptop.
Now onto the findings....
As you could see by the unboxing video I couldn't wait to open it till I got home. I could say that my daughter wanted to hold it, but really I just wanted to take a look at it. I will have to admit it is a bit frustrating to have to activate the iPad with iTunes. Fortunately I had seen a tip early in the week that talked about activating it and not syncing all of your apps if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch. When asked choose to not sync your apps and the on the app screen while holding down command click on one of the apps and the whole list will uncheck. This is important because it will take forever to sync all of your apps. Once activated the fun begins though.
The iPad is a media consumption dream come true. As you can see by this picture of my home first page of apps I have availed myself of many of the available sources so far including ABC, Netflix, TWiTPad, and an amazing find called AirVideo. ABC has really polished their app with some great user interface features and good quality video. Definitely a front runner right now in delivery of video to the iPad. According to The Wall Street Journal which took a look at ABC's application for the iPad ten days after the device's launch, revealing that users have streamed at least part of 650,000 television episodes in what the network deems a very successful launch.
The network said that in the 10 days since the iPad's debut, its TV-show watching app has been downloaded 205,000 times, giving the Walt Disney Co. unit a presence on nearly half the 450,000 devices that Apple says it has sold. Moreover, users have watched at least part of 650,000 television episodes using the app, generating "several million" ad impressions, according to an ABC spokesman, although the precise number is still being calculated.
Very impressive numbers and I can see why after attaching some video from it.
The Netflix app needs some work from my experience. The app once loaded is really Netflix's website. It is responsive, but some of the links seem to lag and it is really difficult to push some of the links, but the video looks really good. So the struggle of the links is well worth the final outcome. Would I watch a feature length movie, well probably not, unless I had the 3G version and I was traveling somewhere. Hmmmmm maybe I will have to upgrade in a few months or get a mifi, but I digress.
The final crown jewel in this media geek's mind is a paid app called AirVideo that allows you to install a media server on your Mac or PC and stream it to your iPad. Here you can see Alex Lindsey getting ready for the iPad unveiling with Andy Ihnatko from a MacBreak weekly I downloaded on our home media server. This has some great potentials I think even in museums that would like to have historical videos. This really opens up some fascinating ideas.
This has been an amazing weekend of incredible discoveries when it comes to media consumption. Tomorrow a few apps that you must have!
The iPad Unboxing
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Here is a short unboxing video shot when I decided to be an early adopter
.Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Social Media for You
So it is really fun to teach social media and really how to manage it better. Thank you all for the class.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Drakes week part 1
So I sit here on the couch at 9:50 pm needing to edit the Hacker Memorial video. This piece is in honor of the late Tom Hacker who embodied what truely great creativity as well as striving to do your best is about. The problem I am having tonight is my eyes are not cooperating with my brain and yet I have to push forward to get it done.
This is the struggle that we as creative producers must overcome. Sometimes we have a short deadline that must be hit! We push forward onward ad upward to achieve the best we can. Not only is a piece like this important it is what Tom was about. To hear some of the past award winners it is important that the greater AdFed of Central Oregon community understand what this award is about. So sleep will be elusive over the next few nights as this piece must be completed by Thursday!
Friday, March 05, 2010
Monday, March 01, 2010
On our way to our location.
We are off early and on our way to the location for our project for the day. Beautiful sunrise!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
that's how it happened (Great showreel of green screen effects from...)
Amazing video demonstrating some current effects done by Stargate Studios! Very enjoyable to watch.
Friday, February 12, 2010
REALMS Kids working on this year's project
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Jeff Munson is being interviewed by the students at REALMS for this years video for Commute Options.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
The future of content
I started this post well over 6 months ago and I just could never get myself to finish it. With the release of the iPad it is time to share my thoughts on how we will get our content.
pastedGraphic.pdf (20 KB)
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Much has been said recently about the iPad and how this is a device destined to fail. First let me say I do think it is a terrible name, but we will eventually get over that. People think Apple should have added a camera and a USB card reader, it should have flash, a swiss army knife, and a blender. What Apple has made is an appliance. They are trying to change the way we get content. The market is not the netbook or even “slate” form that most people want. Apple has created a device for the consumption of content and a very good one at that. The iPad is the first device really built on creating good experience for in your hands content consumption. An “appliance” that will allow us all to get our content the way we want it.
Content creation as it sits today is the easiest to produce at an affordable price. In fact most cell phones have cameras in them that are capable of delivering decent video. Most of this video ends up on YouTube. So much that in fact, every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. This stat is incredible because in the time it takes you to read this post you now will have to go watch almost 2 days worth of video on YouTube. We as a society have become used to shaky cam as I call it and the down and dirty talking head. YouTube lacks production value, but what it lacks in production value it makes up in authenticity. This authenticity is important for the future of content. We want the content that makes sense to us. The content that is spoken in an authentic voice. Yet where does that leave the mainstream media in this future of the content the way we want it.
The truly successful mainstream media has been trying to niche itself in this authentic communication with some success, but mostly failure. Here is where they are going to need to learn a few tricks from the non traditional media. Case in point Leo Laporte and the TWiT network. On most days Leo sits in his studio which is a room in his rented office house and broadcasts at least 4 hours of original authentic content. This is nothing more than live streamed talk radio, but he has syndicated his content in the form of podcasts in audio and now video form as well as he is posting to YouTube. This shows what content delivery should be about. Why do we have to go to a newspaper or television site to get the content? What if I could get the content delivered to me on a local level? While I know that some are doing this they all should be doing this. Most media on a local level has somewhat an authentic voice, but they are going to need to get more authentic.
Wether we like it or not content is delivered faster now then ever before. I even did a live feed for my Dad of my daughter’s band concert from my phone. This content is moving around quicker and traditional media needs to move to accelerate their own speed of delivery to the end user as well as get more local and authentic.
The iPad is an appliance to allow this to happen time to start developing content.
#private
The future of content
I started this post well over 6 months ago and I just could never get myself to finish it. With the release of the iPad it is time to share my thoughts on how we will get our content.
pastedGraphic.pdf (20 KB)
View this on posterous
Much has been said recently about the iPad and how this is a device destined to fail. First let me say I do think it is a terrible name, but we will eventually get over that. People think Apple should have added a camera and a USB card reader, it should have flash, a swiss army knife, and a blender. What Apple has made is an appliance. They are trying to change the way we get content. The market is not the netbook or even “slate” form that most people want. Apple has created a device for the consumption of content and a very good one at that. The iPad is the first device really built on creating good experience for in your hands content consumption. An “appliance” that will allow us all to get our content the way we want it.
Content creation as it sits today is the easiest to produce at an affordable price. In fact most cell phones have cameras in them that are capable of delivering decent video. Most of this video ends up on YouTube. So much that in fact, every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. This stat is incredible because in the time it takes you to read this post you now will have to go watch almost 2 days worth of video on YouTube. We as a society have become used to shaky cam as I call it and the down and dirty talking head. YouTube lacks production value, but what it lacks in production value it makes up in authenticity. This authenticity is important for the future of content. We want the content that makes sense to us. The content that is spoken in an authentic voice. Yet where does that leave the mainstream media in this future of the content the way we want it.
The truly successful mainstream media has been trying to niche itself in this authentic communication with some success, but mostly failure. Here is where they are going to need to learn a few tricks from the non traditional media. Case in point Leo Laporte and the TWiT network. On most days Leo sits in his studio which is a room in his rented office house and broadcasts at least 4 hours of original authentic content. This is nothing more than live streamed talk radio, but he has syndicated his content in the form of podcasts in audio and now video form as well as he is posting to YouTube. This shows what content delivery should be about. Why do we have to go to a newspaper or television site to get the content? What if I could get the content delivered to me on a local level? While I know that some are doing this they all should be doing this. Most media on a local level has somewhat an authentic voice, but they are going to need to get more authentic.
Wether we like it or not content is delivered faster now then ever before. I even did a live feed for my Dad of my daughter’s band concert from my phone. This content is moving around quicker and traditional media needs to move to accelerate their own speed of delivery to the end user as well as get more local and authentic.
The iPad is an appliance to allow this to happen time to start developing content.
#private
Sunday, January 31, 2010
You too can have a piece of the internet...
via youtube.com
Put this on the shelf and all will be impressed. Courtesy of the "IT Crowd"
Thursday, January 21, 2010
From today's FaceBook event
What a great day. We handled all of the av services including producing a package for television stations that could not make it over. Here is a picture of Roger Lee, Executive Director of EDCO. Look for the video that we are working on editing later in the week hopefully on FaceBook.
Monday, January 11, 2010
What we are working on right now.
This is a fascinating disussion of health care and what should be changed about the system.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
The quest for the 12' experience
This week brings CES to Las Vegas. I can only imagine halways filled with pasty geeks wandering around looking for the next great geek device. Well I guess I would count myself amongst them and I would be able to see this device.
This is the Boxee box built by D Link and powered by Boxee. I have been using the Boxee software for almost 18 months now on a Mac Mini, and it truly is a wonderful experience. It looks like judging from their website http://boxee.tv that they have radically changed the interface for the better.
Why this is important is that you will be able to search for a show and Boxee will find it online. Boxee the software will even allow you to watch Netflix What really changes things is the applications you are able to install. These applications are a way of providing the experience you want for your viewers of your content. This is where the next area of content distribution will change by allowing you to provide the experience you want. The other advantage is that the Boxee box is easy to install and once you have it hooked up, I hope, it will just come up with the ability to start watching the content you want. This will allow anyone to plug and play. Very exciting. They are hoping to have it available the first half of this year for around $200. I want one.Sunday, January 03, 2010
Trip to Portland -- timelapse by iPhone
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Here is an interesting vantage point of going from Bend to Portland throughy iPhone taped to the windshield. This is a timelapse and it would appear the recording stopped somewhere near Detroit where I restarted it. I will try another coming home and see what happens.
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