How does Richardson's "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts" hold up six years later?

Will Richardson talks the future of education on YouTube.

Will Richardson's excellent book "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts (and other powerful Web tools for classrooms)" explains how teachers can integrate online media into their teaching to help students learn and be engaged - no small task, as any teacher knows.

(I recently read the book as part of my master's degree studies at Central Michigan University).

As someone who attempts to keep up with the latest digital media and technology, it's interesting to see where some of Richardson's suggestions have already been replaced by other online tools, and read his predictions in the context of where we're at today. Example: Richardson imagines a tablet, which we now know is called an iPad. And no one giggles when you say it.

That the book came out in 2006 (the third edition was published in 2010) shows how quickly technology has changed and is changing, and how nimble you have to be to incorporate it into the classroom and just know "what the hell is going on online" in everyday life.

Richardson begins the book with a discussion about Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, who was recently honored at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony (and flummoxed the NBC commentators, who suggested - not ironically - that viewers Google his name).

Berners-Lee's vision for technology is the Read-Write Web:

"Berners-Lee saw the potential to construct a vast "web" of linked information, built by people from around the globe, creating the ability to share not just data but personal talents in new and powerful ways." (Richardson, P. 1)

It's a theoretical idea championed by the public relations industry for years (in the industry, we call it "two-way symmetric" communication), but it took the Internet to make it come to life.

Richardson's resources

In the book, Richardson gives examples of how teachers can use the read-write Web to communicate, get and pass along information, create content, and encourage students to create content. Richardson's suggested classroom resources (in his order), and how they hold up:

1. Blogs

I've been a champion of blogging for years, though I admit that I arrived late to the party. But as soon as I started blogging, I made up for lost time.

"I will never forget the first time I posted my opinion, and the first time someone responded to it. There was something really powerful about so easily being able to share resources and ideas with a Web audience that was willing to share back what they thought about those ideas" (Richardson, P. 17). 

 Amen.

In Richardson's chapters on blogging, I particularly like his suggestion that teachers use blogs with other schools - in their neighborhood or around the world - to encourage discussion. It's an idea I hadn't considered.

For my students, the biggest blogging benefit is a chance to practice expressing themselves in writing in a public forum, which is something they'll be expected to do for their potential employers or clients.

I see every chance to write as a chance to get better. I recall Stephen King's advice in his excellent book, "On Writing":

"Practice is invaluable (and should feel good, really not like practice at all) and...honesty is indispensable" (King, P. 195). 

 Blogging checks both boxes.

The biggest downside to blogging, from a teacher's perspective, is that it's difficult to legislate students' blogging and commenting. It's the age-old problem: how do you teach (or encourage) passion?

The other issue: the complaint that "no one reads my blog, so why should I bother updating it?" The answer, of course: "You need to update your blog, so that people will read it."

2. Wikis

I've never used a wiki as a classroom tool, other than for the classes I'm taking myself.

So, I felt a little ashamed when I read Richardson's chapter on wikis and then came across this article on Smartteaching.org: 50 Ways to use wikis for a more collaborative and interactive classroom. Ideas include "virtual field trips," "exam review," "fan clubs," data collection, "adventure story," "school tour," and "teacher collaboration."

Among Richardson's suggestions: creating an online classroom text, lesson plan exchange, or class Wikipedia.

The strengths and limitations of using a class wiki are apparent when you visit a class' shared wiki pages - the variety of fonts, colors, and formats (not to mention coding issues and broken links) can make for a disjointed read. In addition, the ability to edit and be edited can be a help and a hindrance. What if, for example, a well-meaning student edits a classmate's work, but makes an incorrect edit? And what if a student posts weak work, knowing that someone else will likely correct it?

Of course, if Wikipedia founders would have listened to these arguments, we'd be missing one of the key sites on the Web.

"No one person or even small group of people, could produce Wikipedia, as currently edits appear at a rate of around 400,000 a day. The extent to which this happens and to which it is successful is truly inspiring" (Richardson, P. 56 and 57).

3. RSS

"I think it's the one technology that you should start using today, right now, this minute. And tomorrow, you should teach your students to use it" (Richardson, P. 70 and 71).

The difference between what RSS readers used to be and what they are now is stunning. For instance, I now find Google Reader to be a difficult way to enjoy reading my favorite feeds. What's better? My heart goes to the Flipboard and Pulse mobile apps, which turn RSS feeds into very readable social magazines and news tickers, respectively.

The upside of this technology is enormous: the ability to "read more content from more sources in less time" (Richardson, P. 72). In this age of "too much information" that's the real trick. The downside of this technology is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'er drink; you may subscribe to the prescribed RSS feeds, but that doesn't mean you'll read them.

4. Twitter and social bookmarking

I tweet, therefore I am. And I hope that it makes up for my lack of work in the wiki world, because with Twitter, I'm all in.

The upside of using Twitter is enormous: I've used it for class discussions and networking (#journchat on Monday evenings is particularly good), for generating and testing comedy material, and to see what students are saying when I'm not around (har, har!).

I haven't yet used a social bookmarking tool in class, but I plan on introducing Scoop.it (website and app) this semester. Similar to Delicious and Instapaper ("read it later"), Scoop.it lets you publish online magazines by curating content (social bookmarking) on the topic of your choice.

The benefits, again, are collaboration and the ability to collect, curate, and share.

5. Flickr

Generally speaking, photo-sharing is easy and part and parcel of running a blog. Apart from reminding students to "post a photo with every blog post," I've never needed to make photo-sharing a separate assignment - it's happened organically.

"The easiest place for teachers and students to begin experimenting with creating and publishing content other than text is with digital photography, a technology that is becoming more and more accessible every day" (Richardson, P. 101).

Flickr is where Richardson and I part ways, although it's only fair to point out that his book came out before there was an Instagram and pretty great digital-phone photography led by the iPhone.

Instagram, of course, is the photo-sharing website that Facebook recently bought for a cool billion dollars. It has some advantages over Flickr: the ability from your mobile phone to very easily take and filter your photos, post them online instantly, and instantly share them with your friends on Instagram or other social networks.

At its heart, Instagram is easier, more flexible, and faster than Flickr. Its biggest advantage, however, might be its "fun factor." Where Flickr is a photo storage site with sharing options, Instagram is all about sharing, liking, and commenting with storage as an afterthought.

The other big advantage is that Instagram is free with no maximum number of uploads (though it's not currently possible to upload whole photo albums). Flickr caps users at 200 photos and then asks them to upgrade to a premium account. Knowing that I could upload the same photos to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook without charge, I decline to pay for Flickr's premium service.

6. Podcasting/screencasting/streaming

"The simple fact is that it has become much easier to create and consume multimedia as well as text and digital images" (Richardson, P. 112).

I'm grateful I had the chance to learn GarageBand this summer and to find out how easy it is to record a podcast. I'm at three and counting - and I'm looking forward to submitting it to iTunes in the near future, alongside my podcasting comedy heroes Adam Carolla, Bill Burr, Greg Proops, Marc Maron, and Joe Rogan.

I will put this knowledge to good use at school: my college's radio station recently discontinued its broadcast license, which means that podcasting is among the best options to replace it. It's unfortunate that students are no longer able to broadcast on traditional radio frequencies, but I'm optimistic that podcasting skills are more forward-looking, since you can no longer imagine an invisible audience listening; instead you've got download and streaming stats and "marketing" becomes the much-needed partner in crime.

The good news:

"About $100 and an Internet connection is all you need to start doing regular radio shows with your students" (Richardson, P. 115). 

It's probably cheaper now. I've recently downloaded the Ustream, viddy, and Bambuser apps, which allow anyone with a smartphone to live stream video.

Also underrepresented in the curriculum: screencasting. The downside of much of this technology is that it's becoming more and more necessary for everyone to own an iPhone and iPad. On a student budget, that is not always a possibility. I can't help but consider how great it would be if our program could provide each student with an iPad on the first day of school.

"Our ability to create and share multimedia in more and more transparent ways is only going to continue to expand...publishing to an audience can be a great motivator for students. Podcasting, videocasting, screencasting, and...live-streaming TV are all great ways to get student content online" (Richardson, P. 129).

7. Facebook/Ning

My school is far from the only one that's afraid of Facebook. Be that as it may, I believe it's a teacher's duty to show "appropriate use," especially in a communications program.

"The key to...these sites for educators is to move beyond the friendship-based connections and really explore the potentials of the networked, interest-based learning that's possible within these frames" (Richardson, P. 132).

Among the benefits of Facebook are creating a strong online community, sharing information, and collaborating. However, if one's school doesn't allow it, what's the solution? Could it be Ning?

Before my class, I'd never heard of Ning. I was looking forward to experimenting with it, but you begin to be charged for using it after a 30-day trial. I'll pass: Edmodo is available for free. Like a Facebook for the classroom, I've found Edmodo do be very easy to use and a great way to meet other teachers. The issue is getting students used to using a site other than Facebook - Edmodo is even more of a ghost town than Google+.

Facebook is also good for classroom discussion purposes: What is Facebook's responsibility toward its users? Personal data? Is freedom of speech on Facebook a right? Should you buy when Facebook stocks finally drop to $6?

***
The ongoing multimedia revolution is mind-boggling and ubiquitous at once. To ignore this revolution in school is to miss out on an incredibly powerful range of communication tools that allow us to publish, consume, discuss, comment, and collaborate.

Students will be using "the new media" in the workplace when they graduate, and it may look very different than it does today. We owe it to ourselves and them to show them how to not only learn about the tools Richardson talks about in his book, but to be on the cusp of whatever replaces them.

Richardson's book is a good reality check for teachers considering incorporating online media into their classes and road map for how far we've already come.

The Idea Writers: the best new book about the future of persuasion

When Live the Sheen Dream wunderkind and CreComm grad Jarrett Moffatt speaks, I listen. For at least a little while anyway, until my mind inevitably wanders back to tasty, powdered donuts.

So when he told me that he'd read an awesome book about advertising, I ran all the way to the ebookstore and picked up Teresa Iezzi's the Idea Writers. I'm glad I did: it's the best book I've read about the modern advertising industry and where it's headed, and I've read Rob Walker's Buying In.

Using case studies from some recent campaigns of note - the Old Spice guy, Burger King's Subservient Chicken, and BMW films among them - the book writes the rules for the new digital landscape and explains why copywriters are not just copywriters anymore, but:

• Ideators
• Comedians
• Improvisers
• Event planners
• Tech experts
• Collaborators
• Sociologists
• Social-media gurus
• Masters of the craft - an expert at one thing, but good at many
• Conversationalists: in social media, as a writer, and in every format
• Dealers in emotions
• Analog human beings - who take creative ideas from everywhere
• Simplifiers
• Utilitarians
• Persuaders
• Rule-breakers.

And, yeah, writing not only still matters - woo-hoo! - it's more important than ever to be able do it well.

The book quotes former Ogilvy creative director Guy Barnett:

"Your choice of phrasing and syntax needs to be that much more nimble and unusual. You need to keep people entertained and informed. You need to be authoritative, charming, funny. You need to be able to recount a story and digress in all directions."

"You should be reading all you can and writing for all you're worth. If doing that doesn't appeal to you, maybe you should pursue some other creative path."

Amen. This is probably what I already say too much in class, and what my head would probably continue to say too much, even if you cut it off with an axe:

"You need to write at a deeper and more entertaining level than everyone else. Hey, you cut my head off with an axe."

The book also makes the case that today's preferred ad team isn't the big agency model, but a pod of creatives consisting of a writer, developer, designer, and producer, who are always there for each other.

I find this idea so compelling, I'm hoping to organize next year's Advertising major this way - with help from our good friends in Graphic Design and computer programming (whatever that class is called now - me a stupid non-programmer. Grunt.). 

The book also tackles the approaching sea change in which advertising becomes not an interruption, but a destination: the early version of this trend is the app, but imagine a branded-entertainment universe in which advertisers flee the traditional media to create platforms, products, and content themselves; it's easy if you try.

And since "you can't spell party without PR" (thank you CreComm grad Will Cooke), PR and social responsibility are the core assumption of every communication campaign, which aren't so much campaigns anymore, but ongoing, two-way communication models (something the book Futuretainment calls "loopworld").

Imagine a world in which advertising doesn't just promote something, but actually does some good and makes your audience's life better - and your audience's audience. And your audience's audience's audience. And your audience's audience's audience's audience.

Says Pelle Sjoenell of BBH New York:

"People talk about a target audience, but you also have to figure out what your target's target is. Fans talk to other fans and they're our actual target."

The Idea Writers is a fascinating book and a must-read in a world in which everyone is, for the first time, an audience and a media outlet. Read it now, before everything changes.

How I got the consumption on Reading Week

Reading week? They should call it "media consumption" week.

How I spent one glorious week of preparing for class by swallowing the media whole:

1. Movies

• All Together Now: the Beatles Love
• Best of Youth
• Client 9
• Copyright Criminals
• Jack Goes Boating
• Leaves of Grass
• The Maid
• Please Give
• A Prophet
• Waiting For Superman (trailer:)

• The White Ribbon

2. TV

• Amazing Race
• American Idol
• Big Love
• CNN (Mr. Blitzer and Spitzer go for a Spritzer)
• Colbert Report
• Dragon's Den
• Ebert Presents At the Movies
• Frontline
• An Idiot Abroad
• Jersey Shore
• Late Show with David Letterman
• NBC Nightly News
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• The Ricky Gervais Show
• Survivor
• ABC This Week

3. Magazines and newspapers

• Bloomberg Businessweek (actual magazine)
• Chicago Mag (iPad via the Zinio app)
• The Daily (iPad app)
• Fast Company (actual magazine)
• Globe and Mail (iPad app)
• Huffington Post (iPhone app)
• New Yorker (actual magazine)
• NY Times (iPad app)
• Q Magazine (actual magazine)
• Uncut Magazine (iPad via the Zinio app)
• USA Today (iPhone app)
• Winnipeg Headlines (iPhone app)
• Winnipeg Sun (iPhone app)
• WIRED Magazine (iPad app)

4. Books

• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
• Louis Riel by Chester Brown

5. Podcasts

• The Adam Carolla Show
• The iPad Show
• The Joe Rogan Podcast (great recent interview with Dave Foley)
• TedTalks
• This Week in iPad
• WTF

6. Assorted apps

• Ad Age
• Blastr
• Dexigner
• Echofon
• EW Must List
• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Seth Godin
• Kindle
• Live Nation
• Lynda.com
• NME
• PS Express
• QRANK
• TagReader
• Twitter
• U of M Newsroom
• Vanity Fair Hollywood
• Wallpaper

7. Music

• Beach House - Teen Dream
• British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall
• Candy Skins - Best of (burned by me)
• Elvis Costello - National Ransom
• Foals - Total Life Forever

Foals "This Orient" from Sub Pop Records.

• The Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts
• PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
• Wendy James - Racine 1 and 2
• Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
• The Streets - Computers and Blues
• White Lies - Ritual

8. School

• Markin' first-year students' video storyboards with CreComm grad Jennifer Ryan
• Placin' second-year students on their last-ever work placements (sniff, sniff)
• Workin' the Open House with colleagues and students at Notre Dame Campus
• Attendin' Desiree Mendoza's Colours of Hope Independent Professional Project at Edge Art
• Readin' my mid-semester evaluations (thanks for the criticism!)
• Thinkin' about all of the great highs and lows that characterize every second semester of every year.
• Preparin' some good stuff for the rest o' the year.

9. Extravagances

• Innis and Gunn Highland Cask

• [yellow tail] premium wine
• Lilac Bakery
• Sleeping in
• Reading Twitter and Facebook feeds with care 
• Watching movies in the afternoon
• Bare-knuckle brawling down at the Alexander Docks

 Urp. See you on Monday!

Ten great moments in Bill Carter's book, The War For Late Night

Carter talks Leno on The View.

Daddy, what did you do in the late-night wars?

I just finished devouring Bill Carter's new book, The War For Late Night, which I did in one sitting (Vanity Fair has an excerpt here). Burp.

As a fan of Carter's TV column in the New York Times, and his books the Late Shift and Desperate Networks, I couldn't wait to read about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the big O'Brien versus Leno Battle of 2010, and the book doesn't disappoint.

Ten great moments in Carter's The War For Late Night

There's no question that Carter's got sources and an ear for anecdotes and quotes, as proven by these 10, great moments in a book full of 'em:

1. Conan's retort

When Conan finds out that NBC wants him to move the Tonight Show Back an hour, he's mostly quiet, but finally says to the executives, "What does Jay Leno have on you?"

He repeats the comment at a later meeting, and can't help but think that the executives' reaction looks like "sympathy" as taught in "corporate school."

2. Dave's state of mind

Most of Letterman's staff think he needs mental help; however, they agree that if he were actually to get it, the comedy would suffer.

3. Dave's diet

Letterman drinks "enough strong cups of coffee to stimulate the economy" and eats a "chocolate tower" of Hershey Bars before hitting the stage every night.

4. Kimmel strikes back

When Jimmy Kimmel is booked on Leno's "10 at 10," he reads it as "that little fucker Jay intending to neutralize him on the show."

After the interview, he "had the feel of winning a 10-round fight. His haranguing of Jay on Jay's show had been, in his estimation, the best thing that had ever happened to his own show."



5. Jay's shoes

Jay only wears $14.99 Payless shoes, which he "buys by the crate." The USP: they're impervious to oil and gas.

6. The other late-night villains

The DVR and YouTube are the big villains in the book; late-night TV continues to fade, as viewers watch their favorite shows on playback, which they usually do late at night. YouTube is "the icing on the horrible cake."

NBC executive Jeff Gaspin suggests that "within five years, NBC might not necessarily even be programming a Tonight Show, or anything else for that matter, in what the networks label the late-night daypart."

7. Conan's joke

Although Conan appeared to quit his job with his famous "People of Earth" memo, the point of no return for NBC comes when he tells the joke, "Kids: you can do anything you want in life. Unless Jay Leno wants to do it too."

8. The Super Bowl ad

The famous Dave, Jay, and Oprah Super Bowl ad had another invitee: Conan O'Brien. "No fucking way I'm doing that," Conan said. "It's not a joke to me - it's real."



9. Seinfeld and Michaels' advice to Conan

Jerry Seinfeld and Lorne Michaels are among the few to question O'Brien leaving the Tonight Show.

Seinfeld on Conan: "All of this, "I won't sit by and watch the institution damaged." What institution? Ripping off the public? We tell jokes and they give us millions! Who's going to take over the Late Show? Nobody! It's Dave! When Dave's done, that's the end of that!"

"Here's big point number two in show business," Seinfeld continues, "Hang around! Just stay there, just be there. The old cliche, "95 per cent is just showing up." You never leave!"

Lorne Michaels recalls some advice he once got from former NBC exec Irwin Segelstein: "Our job is to lie, cheat and steal and your job is to do the show."

10. Where there's a hit, there should be a writ

The moral of the book: have good lawyers write up good contracts.

• Conan's contract didn't specify at what time the Tonight Show would run (though lawyers said it would be a problem if NBC moved it to 4 p.m.).

• Jay's contract had an unprecedented "pay and play" rider, which meant that he could sue if NBC took him off the air.

Terrible rock songs based on kids' lit, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes

The mutton called. He wants his mullet back.


What could be worse than children's books written by rock stars?

Glad you asked!

Try rock songs based on children's books, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes - the sure sign that a pop singer has writers' block, a drug problem, a new child, or - most likely - all three!

Granted, there are some examples of the genre that buck the trend, like Aretha Franklin's "the House That Jack Built," but for every one of these there are three like the Castaways' "Liar Liar." Based on the "pants on fire" rhyme, the song is so bad, it must be heard to be believed (link below).

Ten of my favorite examples (links open in YouTube):

1. Paul McCartney - Mary Had a Little Lamb (see the video at the top of this post)

McCartney's first post-Beatles single was, like the lamb itself: fluffy and unwelcome at institutions of higher learning. Let it be said: the lamb has no chops.

2. Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit

Turns out that the "white rabbit" in Alice in Wonderland was a heavy user of mind-altering substances.

A YouTube talkbacker helpfully explains:

"Its weird, when I watched this on weed it was a lot more interesting than when I was on LSD. Maybe cuz I was sooo much more interested in everything around me while I was on LSD and while on weed I just watched the video lmao"

Thanks for the insight, @bmurder25. Ahem.

3. John Lennon - My Mummy's Dead

A short, creepy song about John's dead mother. Features the melody to Three Blind Mice.

4. Aretha Franklin - The House That Jack Built

Aretha could sing anything and it would be great - except for, maybe, Sting's gawd-awful Noah's Ark book.

5. The Castaways - Liar Liar

What could make "Liar, liar pants on fire, hanging from a telephone wire" more annoying than it already is? Cue the falsetto!

6. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - The House at Pooh Corner

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's embarrassingly sincere tribute to Winnipeg's most-famous citizen is just begging for an equally sincere cover version by the Guess Who. Get on it, boys!

7. Jethro Tull - Mother Goose

A song with a flute about Mother Goose, fairy tales, and - I'm quite sure - Vulcans, Wookiees, and Hobbits. So nerdy, it would get blushes at Comic Con.

8. The Cryan' Shames - Sugar and Spice

The rhyme about what little girls are made of comes full circle when the girl grows up (I hope) and all of the singer's friends want some paprika. Let's move on. I'm Roger Lodge.

9. Dave Matthews Band - Rapunzel 

Keep those scrunchies in your hair, Rapunzel.

I firmly maintain that Dave Matthews is the Devil and his fans are the evil dead, as evidenced by the terrible faux-funk noodling in this and all of his songs.

Hell, we chucked out the Spin Doctors for lesser crimes against humanity. 

10. Green Jelly - Three Little Pigs

The target audience for this song: the boneheads who live next door to me; they drink, party, and listen to metal all night long in addition to - wait for it - having a young child they're bringing up to be exactly like them.

Does the wolf make house calls?

The cradle will rock: terrible kids' books written by rock stars

Why do rock stars think they can take their crappy lyrics and turn them into awesome children's books?

Why, because they know they can become a famous author in just five, easy steps:

• Step one: rock star goes on tour.

• Step two: rock star discovers drugs.

• Step three: in a drug-induced haze, rock star sleeps with groupies/gold diggers.

• Step four: rock star has a baby.

• Step five: rock star marvels at the miracle of life, and writes a children's book, because children's books are just like songs - they have hardly any words, and the illustrations - the visual equivalent of "melodies" - do all of the heavy lifting.

I give you:

1. Sting - Rock Steady: A Story of Noah's Ark

Who needs God when you've got a God-like ego?

Sting is the man who once wrote "Hey, Mr. Brontosaurus, don't you have a lesson for us?" but that didn't prevent him from reading the Bible and deciding he could do a better job. So, in 2001, he published "Rock Steady: A Story of Noah's Ark."

Get it? "Rock?" Like a boat? Awwww, forget it. 

While five Amazon reviewers give the book an unbelievable five out of five stars, I'm with the lone reviewer who gives it one.

The reviewer calls himself "A Customer," but it's probably none other than Noah himself: "I have thrown my copy in the trash."

2. Billy Joel - Goodnight, My Angel

Somewhere between marrying young girls and crashing his car into trees, Joel penned this sappy love letter to his daughter, who - like his current wife - was already in her twenties when it was published in 2004.

The illustrations make the book even creepier - so much so that even the School Library Journal gives it a giant thumbs down: "This bland visual rendering of one of Joel's popular ballads takes what should be a universal declaration of love between a parent and child and turns it into a narrow, limiting sentiment."

3. Madonna - The English Roses

Madonna trades in her pointy bra for something even more uncomfortable: the role of a moralist blowhard, who jumps to the defense of good-looking people everywhere.

Our author knows of what she speaks: as a hot babe, she knows that even the best-looking among us have to endure terrible things like, for instance, the jealous barbs of ugly people who are so cruel that they sometimes even pretend good-looking people don't exist.

And the problem is...?

The book resolves itself when the bullies realize the pretty girl's mother is dead, and - whew! - the pretty girl squeaks into the gang on a technicality.

4. Paul McCartney - High in the Clouds

Will you still need me, will you still feed me (veggie burgers) when I'm 64?

The title of McCartney's kids' book seems to hint at marijuana legalization, but no such luck: the book is predictably a pro-vegetarianism treatise.

A squirrel sees his mom crushed by a bulldozer and he goes on a quest for a mythical island in which all animals can be free to do whatever they like - as long as the consumption of each other is not involved.

5. Kylie Minogue - The Showgirl Princess

A 32-page, hardcover picture book in which a showgirl takes a dazzling adventure through the scary lands of narcissism and self-promotion.

The moral of the story, kids: Kylie's world tour is coming soon to a city near you, and you should buy tickets a.s.a.p.!

6. Geri Halliwell - Ugenia Lavender and the Burning Pants

Ugenia has burning pants, because she lies a lot. Make up your own joke here.

7. Gloria Estefan - The Magically Mysterious Adventures of Noelle the Bulldog

A bulldog has trouble teething. I think. The most mysterious thing about this book is that it's in Spanish, which means that, at some point in the book, someone will hear the dog making noises and whisper to no one in particular, "El Diablo!"

8. Bob Dylan - Forever Young

How does it feel to write a tome like a complete unknown with no direction home?

Just a touch less depressing than the Bank of Montreal ad that hijacked "The Times They Are a-Changin'," Forever Young simply transcribes the lyrics to the famous Dylan song and places them amidst a cleaned-up, cartoonish version of the man's career.

Save your money for the Bob Dylan stuffed doll instead.

***

What could be worse than rock stars writing children's books? How about rock stars writing songs based on children's books, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes?

To be continued...

Bonus! 

9. Paul Simon - At the Zoo

CreComm instructor Melanie Lee Lockhart loaned me the Paul Simon Children's book, called At the Zoo, and pointed out the best part, where "the hamsters turn on frequently."

What would Garfunkel say!?

James Brown's four rules for interviewers: Q Magazine

How do you like my new Levi's, James? Come back, Mr. Brown!

The latest issue of Q - my favorite music magazine - comes with a great bonus: the 164-page Music Bible, a "holy compendium of rock facts, quiz, & miscellany."

Among the pocketbook's cool facts and trivia is James Brown's rules for interviewers:

1. The wearing of blue jeans is not permitted.

2. Do not drink beforehand. Mr. Brown does not like the smell of alcohol.

3. Your interview will last 20 minutes if Mr. Brown likes you, two if he does not.

4. Addressing Mr. Brown as "James" will result in immediate termination of the interview.

Guess Mr. Brown fell off the wagon for this classic interview:

Has Facebook muscled out the yearbook?

You can't tell a yearbook by its cover. I hope.

A pressing question for my students under age 22:

Do they still make yearbooks?

The question popped into my head yesterday when I wrote that barnburning blog post about how I invented Wii Fit and the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime album cover. My proof (for the latter, anyway) is my yearbook photo, which came out four years before the album.

In your eye, Minutemen! Oh, sorry, that was yesterday's blog.

The yearbook is basically Facebook in book form, but as yesterday's blog post revealed: you can prove stuff with a yearbook because it's a snapshot in time, written in stone.

The yearbook's primary value is sentimental; when you get to my ripe old age, you pick it up, look at it, and think, "What was I thinking with those game-show host glasses and feathered hair?" Or, "I dated her for three years! What's her name again?" Or I went to school with "Nia Vardalos' sister?!"

Nia's sis on the left.

With Facebook, you can search, link, poke, write on walls, friend, unfriend, tag, untag, and change history, if you're creative and own Photoshop.

But for all its interactivity, Facebook is always a work in progress. You can't prove s**t with Facebook - on Facebook I can have a full head of hair and say I discovered the law of gravity.

In your eye, Isaac Newton!

The history of the yearbook

The original Facebook group.

A quick online search tells me that the yearbook was invented in 1845 by John A. Yearbook, who realized that he would die penniless if he couldn't think of a way to rip off high school students.

After that, the history of the yearbook follows the history of photography, graphic design, and the print production process.

In the eighties - my high-school era - computers made the process so easy, the yearbook moved from being controlled by staff to being handled by students, which is how you get a yearbook cover that features a "titan" with a loincloth positioned remarkably low - for a yearbook and a man.

The business model was simple: you had a captive, niche audience made up of students who would pay whatever a yearbook cost, so they could get a keepsake from their "glory years," also known as "those awkward and terrible years you wish you could block out, but you can't because you've got this yearbook."

The original wall.

One good book deserves another

Facebook started out as an online yearbook for Mark Zuckerberg's classmates at Harvard, which then grew to include Ivy League schools, then all universities and colleges, then high schools, then everyone.

That's about when I discovered that I like individuals, but hate "everyone!"

My reservations aside, Facebook is now the second most-popular website after Google; to most people, its immediacy and brand makes the old, hardcopy yearbook look a little like yesterday's newspaper (or today's, if the front page features a thunderstorm photo from two nights ago).

Could it be that yearbook is to Facebook what newspaper is to Internet? The poor yearbook is so time consuming and costly to print, produce, and buy - should it even try to compete with a free, online service that lives and breathes interactivity?

The original prof-pic. Is that you, Ally Sheedy?

Time wounds all heels

The yearbook's big niche is "sentimentality" - the one are in which Facebook fails, because the Internet is all about "what's happening now."

A yearbook increases in value with time: the longer you live, the greater the chance you'll grab the yearbook on your escape from a burning house.

When I ran across my yearbooks yesterday, I leafed through every page of every one. Time heals all wounds, so at this point even the high-school bully's profile made me laugh out loud:

The original profile.

The yearbook's future?

The idea of an online yearbook seems cool until you consider the poor bastards who got stuck with a CD-ROM yearbook: if you're selling sentimentality from one moment in time, the format of choice has still gotta be "the book," doesn't it?

(Keep in mind that this comes from a guy who now reads all of his books on Kindle and iPad - magazines on Zinio and newspapers on PressReader. The yearbook: the happy exception to the rule!)

To this end, I think that social media could still play a role in the production and promotion of the hardcopy yearbook - and for all I know, maybe it is!

You get students and staff to submit their profiles, articles, and pictures online and make choices about the yearbook content - maybe you even create a yearbook page on Facebook, where yearbook staff keep everyone up to date on the process and invite students to participate along the way.

Participation begets ownership begets accepting the invite to show up and buy a book at the big yearbook launch/autograph session/party.

Then you continue updating the Facebook site as it turns into the 10- and 20-year class reunion planning committee.

And for the rest of your life, whenever you feel the need to get sentimental and away from Facebook, you can always turn to the original book of faces:

The four most provocative books in my library

Hello, devil, welcome to the book club from Hell!

I reorganized my library yesterday - a cross between the Jedi Temple library and the one that Belle has access to when she starts warming to the Beast - and came across some all-time classics that I forgot I even had.

If I'm ever being investigated for horrible crimes against humanity, these are the books that will be seized by the cops, called into evidence, and seal my horrible fate:

1. How to Steal Food From the Supermarket by J. Andrew Anderson

I bought this classic, really a pamphlet in a book cover, at Barnes and Noble in New York City. Come to think of it, maybe I should have stolen it.

I started reading it in the store and couldn't stop laughing; you've gotta love any book that makes the case for shoplifting because "we pay taxes for farm subsidies so that we can be overcharged at the store."

So, just like "not paying a cabbie" is "hitchhiking" to some people, "shoplifting," is "saving money" to Anderson, whose expertise on the subject of shoplifting is that he works as a supermarket security guard.

Anderson breaks the book down like this:

• Reasonably legal methods of saving money.
• Illegal (but low-risk) methods of saving money.
• Illegal methods short of outright shoplifting.
• Full-fledged, hardcore, stick-it-in-your-pants-and-walk-out-the-door shoplifting.

There's also helpful advice about what to do if you get caught: deny everything, offer to pay for it ("Never shoplift something you can't afford to buy!"), but don't run, and don't do it if you already have a criminal record.

And, my favorite:

"Try to look like a guy who listens to Christian rock and likes it...like you'd be proud to have Pat Boone as your father."

My father, a retired lawyer, once told me that certain criminals - I mean "people" - he represented scared him, because their criminal minds were so sharp, they were always one step ahead of everyone, including him.

I'd put Anderson in that category. His ideas show me that I'm not smart enough to be a criminal and maybe not even a teacher. Don't tell, OK? OK!

For instance, has it ever occurred to you that you could save bar codes from cheaper products, coat them on the back with glue stick, save them on a sheet of wax paper, and apply them over the real bar codes on more expensive products in the store?

Didn't think so.

How about paying a grocery clerk to "slide" the items around the scanner?

Too scary for me!

I originally bought this book to give someone as a joke gift, but I'm just not ready to say goodbye to it yet.

Besides, I may need a hobby when I retire!

2. I Wish That I Had Duck Feet by Theo. LeSieg

For most people, this book is notable because it was written by Dr. Seuss under a pen name.

For me, it's notable because I actually do have duck feet - I walk with my feet pointing outward, giving me a happy bounce that I overheard one student last year refer to as my "diva walk." Yes, teachers hear everything.

I have no proof, but I'm fairly sure my parents bought me this book to tell me that there's nothing wrong with my duck walk. Come to think of it, a Chuck Berry record would've been the icing on the cake.

The lesson: "And that is why/I think that I/just wish to be like ME!"

What's more, it worked: the book is falling apart, having been read and loved a million times.

Take that, cruel mockers!

3. You Are Going to Prison by Jim Hogshire

The logical must-read after How to Steal Food From the Supermarket, this is a survival guide and merry jaunt through the U.S. correctional system, from arrest to the electric chair and all the delightful steps between.

It answers every question you've ever had about the criminal justice system, including:

• Everyday objects lying around prisons that you can use as weapons (plastic spoons, razor blades, toothbrushes).

• The best way to slow a trial down and even get a mistrial if things aren't going your way (punch your lawyer in the mouth and sit back passively while all hell breaks loose!).
  

• The form of execution to choose if you want to increase your chances of taking a few of the guards with you (gas chamber, of course).

• What you might want to say at your execution - no filibuster allowed.

• How to make wine in prison - fresh out of the toilet and into your glass!

• And the answer to every guy's worst fear: "Will I get raped in prison?"

That would be a big affirmative.

I've bought this book five or six times - more joke gifts! - and I've read it five or six times. Breaks the ice at parties!

This book became a Will Arnett film called Let's Go to Prison, which is good for a few laughs, but nowhere near the greatness of the book.

4. The Woman's Gourmet Sex Book, by Peggy & Evan Burke

First of all, I didn't buy this book. No, really!

It was left at my house by a well-known singer in a local band, who carried it around because it made her laugh so hard. Me too! If she's reading this, I promise to give it back...one day.

"The Woman's Gourmet Sex Book" was published in 1983, but the advice in the book seems to come from a simpler time (read: sexist), as the book imagines a world in which men work hard and women wait patiently for them to come home, at which point it's their duty to pleasure them - 365 days a year!

The back-cover blurb says it all:

"This book is arranged in the form of a perpetual calendar, so it can be used year after year. Put it to use by turning to today's date, reading the entry, and letting the scenario that is suggested become a sensuous reality..."

Among the book's many helpful suggestions is March 9:

"Buy a package of Chinese fortune cookies. Open one of the cookies and insert a note telling him what you are going to do him at the first opportunity. Reseal the cookie.

"Get him to take you to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Switch your cookies for the one brought by the waiter. He may be somewhat startled when he reads your message, but he will soon recover enough to help you get into your coat and rush you home to bed, where he will hold you to your promise."

I'm confused: who do I tip?

How about May 10?

"Fake a chest cold. Tell him it's causing tightness in your chest. Ask if he would mind giving you a rubdown, and give him some lotion to use. Then smile and admit you were faking."

Nothing turns on a guy like the whooping cough.

And, the grand finale, Nov. 7:

"After you have finished making love, tell him you have never experienced orgasm till you began making love to him. Don't worry about the left-handed reference to other lovers. Men no longer expect every woman to be a virgin."

Left-handed virgins unite: you have nothing to lose but your dignity!

How Belushi put the PR in party

"You can't spell party without PR" - CreComm grad Will Cooke

Words that John Belushi lived by.

I just finished reading Mike Thomas' Second City Unscripted - a good oral history that does for the the comedy troupe in Toronto and Chicago what Tom Shales' Live From New York did for SNL.

My favorite story in the book is from SNL and Second-City alumnus Tim Kazurinsky, who recalls being dragged to John Belushi's Chicago Blues Bar at Belushi's insistence, where he gets a PR advice from the guy who played Bluto in Animal House.

"Basically it was, like, four pinball machines, a pool table, and a bar...a big bunch of nothin'. People would kill to get in. They would pay a fortune to try to get smuggled in there."

Kazurinsky gives in, goes to the bar with Belushi, and discovers the secret to the bar's success:

"I said, "Who are all these people?"

"And (Belushi) said - and this was his little lesson to me - "All right, the Blues Brothers are gonna jam with the Eagles. Here's the Eagles. Those guys there are our PR people. Those guys there are their PR people. These are our assistants; these are their assistants. These guys are all reporters from Rolling Stone and Time...."

"Everybody had a corporate tag, a reason to be there. The place was jammed. And he said, "You are gonna read about this wonderful event in Rolling Stone, Time, and Newsweek, and what a great party it was, and how the crowd really enjoyed it. But you know something? You're the only person who's not a journalist or an assistant or an aide or a PR person."

"It was his way of saying, "This is the way the business works. This a completely planned and controlled event."

The Second City Unscripted is available on Amazon.ca and a digital download.

My favorite comic-book author and Letterman guest dies at 70

Dave and Harvey crash Live at Five with Roker and Cafferty.

It was a bad week for Cleveland: LeBron James moved to the heat and the Heat, and native son George Steinbrenner went to that big Yankee Stadium in the sky.

But, even worse, my favorite Cleveland underground comic writer, Letterman guest, and curmudgeon - Harvey Pekar - died from cancer at age 70.

American Splendor

In 1976, Pekar started writing comic books based on his life and job as a file clerk at the Cleveland VA Medical Center.

Pekar's American Splendor comics - the title is ironic! - are about working-class Cleveland and Pekar's mundane, regular-guy life: his paranoia, anger at the world, and himself.

I bought Pekar's comics as they came out at (the now-closed) Schinders in Minneapolis - one more reason to drive to the big city! - but for most people, the collection American Splendor: the Life and Times of Harvey Pekar is a good place to find out what's so great about the guy.


Pekar's graphic novel, Our Cancer Year, is his best self-contained work, chronicling his harrowing and depressing battle with cancer. To this day, I'm haunted by the panel where Pekar drops the groceries in the snow and can't pick them up - the sheer helplessness of it all.

For all of his self-disparagement, Pekar had a lot of success, the pinnacle of which was the great, Sundance-winning film American Splendor, starring Paul Giamatti as our anti-hero:


"Every American city is depressing in its own way."

Pekar also showed up in two of my all-time favorite Canadian documentaries, ridiculously unavailable online, the video store, or maybe anywhere - Vinyl and I, Curmudgeon. Pekar was an avid collector of jazz records and grumpy, which explains his appearance in both.

The Letterman years

Pekar first came to my attention in the 80s in his handful of appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, which are notable for Pekar's subversive rants - altogether missing from late-night talk shows today.

This one got Pekar banned from Late Night "for life." In the pre-September 11 world, Pekar made Letterman pray out loud for "a terrorist:"



The life ban didn't last long: Pekar appeared on Letterman's Late Show twice after his Late Night outburst, again accusing Letterman of being a shill for the man and having contempt for his audience.

Pekar told the LA Times:

"On some of the shows, I was doing a deliberate self-parody, and now there's a lot of people that think I'm some sort of maniac, you know? I'd rather be liked than thought of as a crazy man, but with Letterman, I've been in a situation where you either lay down and let him insult you or you do something about it. Most people keep their mouth shut and let him dump on them. I don't wanna do that."

Comic books, talk shows, and Cleveland will never be the same:

eBooks: Amazon needs Apple needs Amazon needs Apple

You've got the books, I've got the store: let's make lots of money!

I'm reading the same book at the same time on the iPad, Kindle, and iPhone and I'd like to thank the good folks who made it all so probable: eBook competitors Apple and Amazon.

It's a bit like thanking BP and the Gulf of Mexico for all of that great oil we use in our cars, because most people consider Apple and Amazon to be at odds with their competing devices and bookstores - the Amazon Kindle and bookstore on one side, and the Apple iPad and iBooks store on the other.

Begun the great eBook war has!

But please allow me to be the Rodney King of eBooks for just a moment: "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?"

The comparison

There's been a lot of talk about which company has the better book selection and which has the better device. Why, if I had a nickel for every person who's said to me:

"What are you going to do with your Amazon Kindle now that there's an iPad? Use it as a paper weight/door stop? Huh-huh, huh-huh..."

Being the proud owner of both devices, I can sum up the situation pretty succinctly:

The device:

• The Kindle is lighter to carry around and easier to read in direct sunlight. But it doesn't do anything else other than let you read.

• The iPad is a better all-around device for absolutely everything, but it's hard to read in direct sunlight, more prone to fingerprints, and a little heavier. But...you can check your email, listen to your iPod, write, blog, surf the Web, download and use any one of a zillion apps.
  

The bookstore:

• The Kindle bookstore has a crazy huge book selection.
  

• The iBooks store doesn't.
  

The ratio is apparently 600,000-plus books for Amazon versus 60,000-plus books for iBooks.

How the two companies already get along

So, how is it that the two companies - mortal enemies - have together given me the best reading experience for my buck?

Like this:

I started my shopping trip by searching both bookstores for Tom Bissell's Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter - a breezy and brainy look at video games, and something of a response to Roger Ebert's assertion that "video games aren't - and can never be - art."

Reading a book about technology on new technology? How fitting!

Not surprisingly, the book wasn't available for download on iBooks, but the Kindle bookstore had it for just $11.99. I downloaded the book on my Kindle using its wireless service - Whispersync - and it was available to read about a minute later.

I hadn't planned to start reading the book yesterday, but the wait at the doctor's office lasted a little longer than Avatar with trailers, so I started reading the book on my iPhone using the Kindle app.

That's right: there's an Amazon Kindle app on the iPhone and iPad, which means that it had to accept the fact that not everyone would be buying a Kindle, and elected to make its books available to everyone, regardless of what device they wanted to use. It also means that Apple had to approve the app before it could be downloaded (for free!) on iTunes.

A rare moment of competitors doing what's right for the end user. Hooray!

Reading a book on the tiny iPhone screen isn't the greatest experience, so when I got home, I switched to my iPad; the Kindle app automatically syncs your last page read across all of your devices, including Kindle, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac, PC, Android and BlackBerry. Totally handy.


As well, the app takes the reading experience and makes it interactive: you can leave bookmarks on pages you want to read again, highlight important passages, write notes, and - most impressively - view "popular highlights:" parts of the books that other Kindle users have highlighted as being particularly interesting.

My Kindle has been taken out of the equation - it feels like reading the digital equivalent of a yellow newspaper. It works, but where's the Internet, color, interactivity, email, and music?

And worst of all: when I get onto the bus with my Kindle, nobody yells "Norm!" anymore.

The solution: a strategic alliance!

It seems to me that the natural fit here is for Apple to worry about the hardware and Amazon to worry about the library: iPads will continue to get lighter and include more features in subsequent releases - and we have yet to see a Kindle that can so much as search the Web convincingly.

In the short term, I think Amazon's best bet is to get rid of its Kindle stock ASAP by giving it away for free to strategic customers - the ones who buy loads of books. Amazon may be headed this way anyway, as it's already dropped the Kindle's price and started positioning the device as a niche player: the one that "books enthusiasts" should have.

To believe that the Kindle can compete with the iPad over the long term, though, is wishful thinking at best - the iPad has already outsold the Kindle in one-twelfth of the time.

When the free Kindles run out, it's time for the long-term strategy to kick in: Amazon gets out of the hardware business altogether, putting its promotional dollars behind its app and massive store - keeping eBooks downloadable on all, possible electronic devices with a focus on the dominant iPad.

It may not seem likely that Apple would include the Kindle bookstore as its "official iBooks library," but people demand selection - and that's something that Amazon can deliver. If it can continue to outgrow Apple with its eBook selection, ya never know.

Regardless: Apple will continue to sell millions of iPads, and Amazon stands to make billions of dollars on its huge and growing eBook library, which cuts the retailer's largest expenses right out of the equation: retrieving, packing, and shipping tangible books through snail mail.

Truly a marriage made in eBook heaven.

My favorite bits of advice from "Googled"

The next time I'm searching for the solution to a problem, I'll just pause, look up to the sky, and ask myself, "What Would Google Do?"

Not much choice, since the company has swallowed up a good chunk of the newspaper, TV, radio, advertising, magazine, books, photography, pornography, and - oh, hell - every business that used to earn a dime before we had "search."

(By the way, Jeff Jarvis has a book called "What Would Google Do?" and an excellent blog about technology, education, prostates and stuff here.)

Search - now in book form!

I've almost finished reading Ken Auletta's book, Googled, to which I recently made a passing reference and gave a lukewarm thumbs up on this blog - "interesting, but dry," I think I said. I'm not sure. You can Google it, if you like.

The good news is that the book is a grower. Just like autobiographies that start off with the most-boring chapters - "It all started out in a small Saskatchewan farm in 1899..." - Googled gets better as it goes along and ends big by explaining how Google plans to take over the advertising business.

I was so inspired, I instantly monetized this Google-supported blog to include ads in my RSS feed - "text and/or images on every fourth feed." I figure that if an advertising instructor can't do it, who can? No one, I tell you!

Even better than getting rich off of my 1,600 page views a day (it never goes up or down - is StatCounter screwing with me?!) is that the book is rife with advice about how to start and operate a business in the Google- and Apple-dominated world in which we live.

What does Google do?

My favorite snippets of info from the book that I would like to follow myself, some as practiced by Google and some by Auletta's (many) other interviewees:

1. Take a work break.

Google gives staff 20 per cent of their time back to pursue their work-related passions. That's one out of five days a week.

Uh, Mr. CreComm Chair, could we make my day off a Friday or a Monday? Uh...I'll get back to my course outlines now.


2. Question "the way we do things around here."

• Boss: "Do it this way."
• You: "Noooooo!"

3. Do for yourself - have a vision, and don't just be a head waiter.

One of my big complaints about the academic environment and the work environment in general is that what passes for "managing" and "coordinating" these days is taking a wish list from others and seeing how far you can stretch the budget.

Even better: have a vision, set priorities, and work outside the established order (at least to start). The established order will always go along with success eventually.


4. Don't be territorial - nothing is proprietary.

Can you Imagine?


5. Build communities.

In the online world, this refers to stuff like Twitter and Facebook. In the real world, it's meeting and "networking."


6. Remember your target audience is the end user, not you or shareholders.


7. Focus on your core competencies.

Which some say that Google has not done...


8. Have a mental sparring partner.

It worked for Professor X and Magneto !


9. Choose your battles.


10. Push.


11. Set aside time everyday to look around online.

And don't forget to visit Kenton's Infotainment Scan while you're at it! We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.


12. When starting an online business, follow the "Albie Hecht rule:"

The audience must be able to:

• Watch (on any device)
• Learn (by searching)
• Play
• Connect (social networks)
• Collect ($)
• Create (user-generated content)

"If we have four of the six, we put it into development. If we get six out of six, we think we have a hit." I believe the iPad gets a 6/6...

Order the book here:

iPad blogs day three: six show-off apps

Nothing says, "Out of my way - I'm doing God's work here!" like a person walking around with a new iPad.

But at the heart of every iPad user lies a wounded child just waiting to be asked by someone - anyone! - for a demo.

And when they do, you'll want to be ready with something good to show them; like with TV, if you ain't got fast-moving, dynamic visuals and a great gimmick, you ain't got nuthin' - well, except maybe Jersey Shore.

Uh-oh...I think we have - "a situation!"

Of course, you should start by showing them the basics: turning on the iPad, locking the screen, checking emails (delete the Viagra spam first!), and showing them the crystal-clear photos and videos from your predictably sad "I'm having a yes-year!" vacation to Mexico with your middle-aged cousin, Mabel (real names have been changed).

Then, wake them up and show them these awesome apps:

1. Skull X-Ray:

Best bragging opportunity: everyone. Including the undead.

So dumb it's genius: a dayglow skull you hold up in front of your face that moves its mouth when you speak.

I've been using it to recite my favorite moments from this week's strike meeting:

- "Mandate, mandate, who's got the mandate?"
- "Find a win-win."
- "Wizard of Oz pulling the levers."
- "Tweedledee and Tweedledumber."

Oh, skull, you're so funny! In a completely non-legally binding way that respects the provisions of any and all collective agreements now and in perpetuity.

At 99 cents, you can't afford NOT to buy it:




2. Marvel Comics:

Best bragging opportunity: 40-year-old geeks.

Get your geek on. Like you aren't already, if you're reading this.

Marvel Comics does everything that everyone in publishing should be doing to stay relevant and make money.

The Marvel app is free, as is some of the content. But it looks so great, it's not too long before you're going, "Well, OK, I'll just download this one issue of the X-Men" and plunking down $2 per issue for the privilege.

It's cool that Marvel gives away new, free comics every week and tailors them for the new medium - check out that eye-popping color and the sliding comic-book panels (especially impressive the first time you see them).

It's enough to get a 40-year-old lapsed comics collector reading - and buying - comics again.




3. Epicurious:

Best bragging opportunity: mom.

How app-etizing.

Whether you're Epicurious or outright Epi, the Epicurious app is the perfect pre-dinner appetizer. Or is that app-etizer. See what I did there? Awww, forget it.

The free app has over 27,000 recipes and lets you create and email shopping lists, save the recipes you love, and browse recipes and ingredients.

I have this app on the iPhone, but the incredible full-screen landscape view on the iPad takes it to the next level of gorgeous.

I haven't made my own dinner in years (thanks Corydon restaurants!), but I look at this stunning app all the time. A man can dream, and drool on his iPad, right?


4. Real Soccer HD:

Best bragging opportunity: boys, men, Boyz II Men.

The World Cup will be starting soon, which means that I'll be needing something to do while others watch it.

Why not this insanely great Soccer app, so mind-blowing in terms of visuals and gameplay, it gives the Xbox and all console games a run for their money?



This app costs $6.99, but the first time you do a throw-in by shaking the iPad - damn you iPad! - you realize that it's the best $6.99 you've ever spent.


5. Dizzypad:

Best bragging opportunity: everyone. And George Costanza.

Lily pad, meet iPad.

What could be more brain-numbingly fun than making a frog jump from lily pad to lily pad on an iPad? Turns out: nothing!

Painfully simple and addictive - and when your frog falls into the river, you should hear the curse words that come out of your mouth. As salty as the sea from whence the frog came!


The app is free, but they charge you a couple of bucks each time you want to unlock a level.

Question: why does the frog die when it lands in the water?
Answer: ask BP.


6. Kindle, Kobo, and iBooks for iPad (separate apps):

Best bragging opportunity: book lovers. Parents. Morley Walker.

If the Kindle is the natural enemy of the iPad, then why is there a Kindle iPad app that syncs all of your Kindle purchases with your iPad, so you can read books on both?

Who cares? All I know is that it works, and it's lovely.

Oh yeah: you'll note that the third book, below, is none other than recent CreComm grad's Janet Adamana's Rice & Mashed Potatoes.


Kobo and iBooks are more of the same: beautiful, free bookstore apps that together make the best case for a vibrant online future for books and reading you can imagine - a noble pursuit for any vainglorious braggart.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad