Scoop.it - content curation meets magazines

Expert, curate thyself!

A lot has been said about online content curation, which is the practice of collecting, filtering, and sharing online content in your area of expertise. Long story short: one person's "online content curation" is another person's "lifting online content."

Done well, curation is about great research and investigation, and making sense of a wide body of work. Done badly, curation is a fancy word for plagiarism.

Controversy aside, curation has become critical in business, and for advertisers, journalists, and communicators. Rohit Bhargava does a nice job of breaking down content curation into these models:

• Aggregation - collecting everything and putting it in one place.
• Distillation - collecting only the most-important information.
• Elevation - bringing insight to the information you've collected.
• Mashups - bringing together two (or more) aggregations of information.
• Chronology - organizing information based on timeline.

This is why I believe curation should be part of school curriculum: there's a big opportunity here for teachers to pose questions and research problems and give students the curation tools that encourage self-directed research, thinking, and contemplation.  

The issue for me has been finding the right online curation tool, so that my students can conduct research while they construct an online, digital magazine in the course subject matter. As it is, students already write, design, and produce an original magazine, old-school paper style. As I see it, the online curation tool would supplement that existing knowledge. 

Scoop.it - the website and the app - might be the one.

Like Delicious (social bookmarking) and Instapaper ("read it later") meets Flipboard (social media becomes a magazine on your iPad), Scoop.it lets you publish cool online magazines by curating content on the topic of your choice.

Your Scoop.it topic could be about anything. I, for instance, just started a Scoop.it page on one of the most important issues facing society: Star Wars figures. Or, you could go meta like this gentleman and curate curation. 

You can add as many resources as you like by "scooping" sources with the site's bookmarklet, "rescoop" from other scoopers, or scoop from the site's "suggested content." You can filter and share your topics on social media and build up followers and networks, just as you would on Twitter or Facebook, or by RSS feed.

I'm new to the site, so I don't have any followers and precious few scoops - however, I can see how this could grow into something larger. My only beefs: it doesn't seem possible to scoop tweets (I suppose I could use Storify or Tweetbot for that) or search within a particular topic.

I recommend giving Scoop.it a shot. There's a good chance my students will be using it next year unless, of course, you have a better suggestion or something even better comes along. Do tell!

A fine time to revisit Foth's classic Winnipeg article

"Everyone worries about Winnipeg."

So begins the great article by Allan Fotheringham, printed in Maclean's in 1995 and criminally unavailable online (until now).

With rumors of the Winnipeg Jets leaving town (among other awful things, like Winnipeggers voting Conservative), Fotheringham reminds us that "any city that can abide those mosquitoes can cope with anything."

All in all, a lovely summation of Winnipeg, which feels especially pertinent with the booming redevelopment projects and the Jets' return:Winnipeg City of Survivors

Zinio: the easiest way to read a digital magazine

Zinio Reader Desktop Tutorial from Kenton Larsen on Vimeo.

A screencast about a digital magazine reader? How po-mo of me.

As our first-year students embark on a tradition dating back to before even I was a student - "the magazine project" - I hope that they take heart at knowing that this might be one of the last years we care about whether they print it or even call it a "magazine" (I hope - I'm starting to feel like I'm trying to sell Gutenberg a stone tablet).

As the magazine stand at 7-Eleven continues to shrink and print pubs continue to fold, I thank Zinio for keeping the magazine-reading experience alive and well on my laptop, iPad, and iPhone.

Zinio bills itself as "the world's largest newsstand and bookstore," allowing you to subscribe, search, read, share, save, and sync magazine content. 

You can buy the Zinio app for iPhone and iPad in the App Store, or download the Zinio Reader for your laptop.

Screencasting for dummies (like me)

By the way, the embedded video above is my very first screencast, as you can tell by my "ummms" and "tsks."

I made it using the trial version of the Snapz Pro X software, which is pretty cool if you can get past having to wear the nerdy microphone headgear ("roger, roger!"). To post it here, I simply recorded it on my laptop using the software, uploaded it to Vimeo (YouTube works too, but I hate it), and used the embed code to show it on my blog.

Extry! Extry! RRC students launch ePubs for iPad

 These are a few of my favorite ePubs.

 The ePubs have landed.

You can download them onto your iPad for free by clicking the links at the bottom of this post (instructions included!).

Red River College's CreComm advertising majors and second-year Graphic Design students have spent the better part of the school year working to write, design, program, and publish these interactive magazines (or ePubs) for the Adobe Viewer app on iPad.

The ePubs are targeted at college-aged students, include motion graphics and video, and feature ads for RRC and Berns and Black Salon and Spa (this semester's advertising client).

We're special! We believe that Red River College is the only educational institution in Canada with students producing interactive magazines for the iPad. So let's get on that RRC app already! OK, I'm calm. Let's continue.

The ePub project was funded by an award from RRC's Program Innovation Fund, which is designed to support technological innovation and continuous improvements in academic programming at RRC. I applied for it last year, and I thank them for giving it to me. They rule.

How to download your free ePubs

The ePubs are available for download by anyone with an iPad and the Adobe Viewer app. To download yours, simply follow these instructions:

1. Download the free Adobe Viewer app onto your iPad, as you would any app.

2. Click on the links on this blog post, below, and save the ePub files on your computer desktop.

3. Plug your iPad into your computer and launch iTunes.

4. Click on the iPad icon on the iTunes navigation bar on the left side of the iTunes screen.

5. Select "apps" near the top of the screen. You should now be looking at a menu of all of the apps you've downloaded onto your iPad. Page down below them, and you'll see the File Sharing menu.

6. Click on the Adobe Viewer app icon under File Sharing.

7. Drag your ePub files from your desktop into the Documents window under File Sharing.

8. Sync your iPad by pressing the Sync button near the bottom of the iTunes screen. Detach your iPad, select the Adobe Viewer app, and you're ready to enjoy...

Download away!

• Example one.
• Example two.
• Example three.
• Example four. 
• Example five. 
• Example six.
• Example seven. 
• Example eight. 
• Example nine. 
• Example 10.

Some of these apps are awaiting the final proofread, design, and programming; I'll post updates as they become available.

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!

"Take me, hurt me, smoke me:" Newport

Newport: there's a fine line between lover and hostage.

Is this a good ad or a bad ad? Or can we just agree that it's a perverted ad?

Another year, another Good Ad/Bad Ad assignment in which students find two magazine ads, a good one and a bad one, and write about what makes them that way.

Brutal simplicity and simple brutality!

The assignment has been a mainstay in Creative Communications for over 20 years, not only because it makes for a great icebreaker at the beginning of the year, but because it reveals the subjective nature of advertising, art, and everything.

Alive with misogyny

But if one thing holds true every year, it's that one person will present the famous "Alive with Pleasure" lifestyle ads for Newport cigarettes, a campaign that started in the mid-70s and continues to this day.

What makes the Newport campaign notable is that the ads feature young, fun-loving couples engaged in wholesome, clean fun...wait a sec, make that enraged psychopaths descending into "absolutely perverse, dark misogynist themes."

Every year, seeing another of these ads makes me think of John Leo's 1988 article in (the now defunct) Spy Magazine, which chronicled and critiqued the fun - or is that mayhem? - going on in the campaign.

I finally tracked down the article, thanks to Spy releasing an awesome history/anthology called The Funny Years. There on pages 63 and 64 is Leo's famous advertising case study (click photos to enlarge).

Take off, you hoser.

Says Leo:

"Why are the ads so successful? Post-feminist resentment.

"About half of the photos depict women who seem to be off-balance or menaced, or at least the target of berserk male energy.

"Newport women tend to suck on icicles, drink from hoses whenever they can, and open their mouths as tiny white snowflakes, water spray or feathers drift their way."

And don't get me started on the gumballs!

Jackpot!

"In Newport's sexual wars, men get pushed around, too. During a miniature golf game, a giggling woman tees up her ball on the mouth of a supine male."

And what could this "odd phallic demibranch" mean?

Is that you, honey?

And what guy doesn't like to spend a lazy, Sunday afternoon getting stomped on his privates?

Newport presents: the Nutcracker.

In the article's close, Leo tracks down the guy who took the photos for Newport, and it turns out to be none other than Joel Meyerowitz, the famous street photographer.

Meyerowitz has since gone on to publishing a photo archive of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, as the only photographer allowed onto the scene at Ground Zero immediately following the attack.

"(Meyerowitz) seemed more embarrassed about being caught doing commercial work than about being tagged as the perpetrator of softcore sex and violence...(he) implied that the campaign had been intended solely to depict rollicking, wholesome activities of fun-loving couples."

And what, I ask you, could be more wholesome than a good, old-fashioned pumpkin plunge?

Happy Halloween!

Who needs print production when you've got Moving Tales?

Hug me!

iPad therefore iAm.

With this week's wacky mobile-technology media blitz almost behind us - just one more article in the Uniter, a mention in a Telegraph UK blog, and a follow-up in the Projector to go - next week becomes all about the iPad.

This year's advertising majors in the Creative Communications program will be sharing iPads thanks to Red River College's Program Innovation Fund.

I applied and was approved for a grant from the fund during the summer. So, starting next week, the Creative Communications ad majors will be working with second-year Graphic Design students to conceive of and write, design, and publish an e-book in CS5 as a download for the iBooks app, Zinio, and as a PDF, viewable online at Issuu.com and through its (forthcoming) Issuu app.

In a perfect world, we'd also be designing a Creative Arts app, but as Bill Murray said in What About Bob: "Baby steps."

What's a magazine?

Really, this is a pilot project to see if we can work across programs to create a digital magazine. One day it could replace the famous magazine assignment in which first-year CreComm students write, design, and produce (get this!) a paper magazine.

There are good arguments for CreComm students continuing to understand the prepress and print-production processes, but I maintain that you can do that with something small, like a brochure or fact sheet and leave the heavy lifting in other capable hands.

When I was a fresh CreComm grad making my way in a communications industry I didn't understand, I knew nothing of print production. I learned very quickly that when you're dealing with any print job at any print shop, a great print-production planner is your best friend.

A great planner just smiles when you hold up a million-dollar Nike brochure and say, "Make my brochure look just like this one for $2 and deliver it yesterday."

He or she calmly talks you down and makes you understand that when you balance speed, quality, and cost, you shouldn't be sad - 'cos two out of three ain't bad.



Of course, things still need to be printed. Lots of things! But when you've got a kick-ass graphic designer on prepress and an awesome print-production manager on the case, your mind starts to wander away from paper and toward motion graphics.

I recently downloaded Moving Tales' Pedlar Lady iPad app... magazine... book.... story... movie... or whatever it is. It really feels like the future of all of these things and maybe something else.

Words tumble onto the screen and a narrator reads them. The pedlar lady walks into frame in insanely smooth HD motion graphics. You can read the book yourself, or switch it to "automatic" and watch it like a film. It's a steal at $4.99.

The YouTube promo video makes it look like it's for kids, but this app is really for anyone interested in the evolution of storytelling:



I feel an attachment to magazines - I wrote about being a magazine junkie here - but more and more I find myself asking, "What is a magazine?" Maybe it isn't what I thought. Is Dateline NBC a magazine? Is Slate's website a magazine? Is it a WIRED app? A PDF?

Less and less is the answer "ink and paper."

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:

iPad blogs day two: magazines

Today I would like to talk about my habit.

It's not pretty. And it's hard to admit. But, Lord help me, I am a magazine junkie: I read hundreds of magazines a month - instead of buying formula for my babies!

OK, I have no babies, but I pretended I did for drama - did it work?

It started as a subscription to Rolling Stone when I was a lad, and it expanded into a love of British music mags Q and Uncut, then went completely bonkers: Vanity Fair, Esquire, New Yorker, NY Times Magazine, the Economist, Time, Newsweek (recommended by my first RRC instructor, Garry Moir!), NME, Details (short-lived; thanka Anka), Spin, Blender, and any number of design and video game pubs.

Hey, beats heroin. Am I right, people?

I love mags so much, I started dealing at WHERE Winnipeg and Twin Cities mags (in my handwriting, it looks remarkably like "Whore" - different magazine!), and even wrote for Games Informer under another name, since reviews mostly consisted of saying things like, "This is rad, dude!"

We also have a famous magazine project in CreComm, where we put students in groups and they produce a magazine in one semester. Legend has it that we instructors put students in groups designed to make them NOT get along, but I can hereby dispel that myth: we're not that smart!

So, there are lots of reasons why reading and publishing mags on the iPad is an appealing idea: applications for school, work, and just plain pleasure.

The cool thing is that there is no one way to read and buy magazines on the iPad: it's still the wild west out there! As a result, there is a variety of ways to enjoy a variety of mags, though Variety isn't one of em.

***
1. WIRED:

This is the Cadillac of iPad magazine experiences.

Available for $4.99, each month's mag is a separate app - and each is so big, you can't use Rogers 3G to download: nope, it's Starbucks Wi-Fi for you or nuthin', kiddo.

But here's the thing: WIRED has made something that's truly interactive, including the ads.

So, if you go to the article about Mars, you touch the screen and the planets fly around - at least that's what I think they are; I was so bedazzled by the animation.

The ads don't have quite the excitement, but there are a number - like Fidelity Investments - that allow you to click on things to make other stuff pop up. Hope I'm not getting too technical here. Ha!

I can't wait to see how these mags evolve: so far, so great.

Here goes with the video. Gulp.




2. Zinio:

This is a cool app that allows you to shop for, buy, and download a load of different magazines, from Esquire and National Geographic to the Economist and Smithsonian.

There's nothing here as exciting as WIRED, but it's a smooth app that has the jump on being the iPad's go-to destination for magazine shopping.

The app is free and comes prepackaged with five free magazines, but you've gotta pay for the rest. They range in price, but most offer year-long subscriptions.

I downloaded National Geographic, and I'm completely satisfied with the interface and photo quality: but - as I say - it's no WIRED.


3. CS and the whole slate of Blue Toad magazines:


I have no insider info here, but it seems that developer Blue Toad has created a magazine template for a suite of style magazines, including CS (Chicago Style).

If so, it's a great approach: design an app, and sell it to individual magazines - make your money back on volume. This is how we could quite possibly offer our students' mags in app form and actually afford it.

Again: very smooth app, and pristine picture quality - that Victoria's Secret ad in the May issue really - uh - pops. Let's move on!

I had to look for these magazines - there appears to be no online promo going on whatsoever. As well, there's no interactivity within the mag itself, other than Web links.

The price? Free! Like, totally.


4. Entertainment Weekly's Must List:

I like this approach a lot: EW gives you a free app featuring one part of its magazine, and - if you want more, you can buy the magazine, Chester.

EW's Must List is the mag's recommendations for what to do this week in the world of entertainment - books, movies, TV, DVD, downloads, video games - kinda like Letterman giving you his Top Ten list, but making you pay to see Brad Pitt.

Where is that app, by the way?

As well, you can create your own Must List out of EW's recommendations.

I love this app's interactivity - links to video and Amazon - and content approach: a free appetizer before the meal!


5. Time and Newsweek (separate apps):


Poor Time and Newsweek, struggling for weekly relevance in a minute-by-minute world.

You can download them for free, but when you open them up, ya gotta pay. TIme gives you a nice, free newsfeed but charges $4.99 per issue; Newsweek gives you the Politics of Obama for free, and charges $2.99 per issue.

Both of these apps are nice enough - they look good and the interface makes sense - but remind me: why do I need this content?


6. Vanity Fair:

Not available in Canada?! I hereby appeal to Graydon Carter to throw his countrymen a bone. And I don't care if that sounded dirty - I'm down to 20 per cent battery power on my iPad.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The iPad is beautiful - setting it up, not so much

It's a boy, Mrs. Walker, it's a boy!

The iPad has landed.

That according to the UPS guy who delivered mine to my door. He said that Apple dispatched a special plane full o' iPads to the Winnipeg airport on Friday, so that all of the little kids awaiting them wouldn't be disappointed.

Thanks, Santa Jobs!

So, even though I got an email from Apple earlier in the day saying, "There's no frigging way you're going to get your iPad today," I got one anyway. Classic marketing trick: to under-promise and over-deliver.

Setting it up

I know that I'm completely crap at setting up anything - right my poorly assembled EQ3 sofa?

Whenever I have to build something, the same thing happens: I begin optimistically, slowly and methodically reading through the instructions. Flash forward two hours, when I'm swearing and throwing the item across the room in a blind rage.

So, I was going to wait until Saturday morning to set up my iPad. My wait lasted for about 10 minutes before I ripped into the box with a frenzy befitting of Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

To my evil, imaginary twin I say: "Leave now and never come back!"

Sure enough, my first instinct was the right instinct. My review, in a nutshell: love the iPad, hate the set-up process. I'm tempted to say, "It's all Rogers fault" but allow me to explain further.

I just hope you enjoy reading this review as much as I enjoyed setting up my iPad. Ahem.

He wants a hug!

First, I should say that I purchased the iPad with Wi-Fi and 3G capability. That means that I can hook into whatever Wi-Fi network I happen to be near, or hook into Rogers 3G network, like a cell phone, and access apps and the Web and everything good in the world wherever I happen to be.

Yay! But, oh boy, Rogers didn't make it easy on me or anyone, judging by the wait time on the phone to Rogers' tech support.

Rogers greatest hits

1. 3G pricing options, or lack thereof

After I ordered my iPad, and before it was delivered, Rogers went back on its original offer to allow iPhone users to add their iPad to their existing Rogers plan for just $20 a month, because that might bring its customers "pleasure" - and we know that cell phone providers aren't in the pleasure business.

Although the original offer was posted on the Apple website as an option, Rogers instead went with a one-price-fits-all strategy: $35 a month, which is $15 more than $20 - more pleasure for Rogers, less pleasure for us.

But for that extra $15, the customer service is going to be stellar, right? Well...

2. Sim card, what's that?

Two days before I got the iPad, I got the Rogers sim card in the mail. Points for timeliness.

What's a sim card? Not that you'll find out in the Rogers brochure, or from the URL that Rogers tells you to visit for technical support but actually takes you to an unrelated sales pitch.

The sim card is a little microchip that you insert into the side of the iPad on a little tray to get 3G wireless access. Before you can do that, though, you'd better invest in an Exacto Knife, because you'll have to cut along these very, very light creases to free the sim card from its imprisonment on a larger card.

Careful now, because one wrong move and - d'oh! You put the little card gold-chip down into the tray, close the tray and...

3. Registration, customer "support"

...sign up for your cellular service using the "Cellular Services" menu onboard the iPad in its "settings" menu. You simply enter your credit card and personal info, and you're automatically registered for a Rogers plan. In theory.

It took me seven tries and three calls to Rogers (I was transferred three times on the first call alone) before it actually worked.

Rogers did get back to me later in the evening - not to see if my iPad worked, but to give me a prerecorded "customer service survey" and I obliged them with the most sarcastic answers ever recorded at Rogers headquarters.

My biggest Rogers complaint: at the height of my frustration, and having given my birth date and postal code six times to prove my identity, a Rogers customer-service rep actually tried to upsell me on something called a "rocket stick." Sounds dirty, but I said "no thanks" anyway.

In comparison, here's the entire Apple iPad instructional booklet for your pleasure:


iPad screen: now in glorious color!

Once the Rogers service was up and running - three hours later - I finally had a chance to sit back and marvel at the marvelous screen. Totally marvel-worthy.

Anyone who says that the iPad is just a big iPhone is a little right and a little wrong. Yeah, the interface and apps work the same, but the iPad screen's dynamic color, depth, and resolution is really something to see.

I loaded my existing iPhone apps onto the iPad first; they worked, but looked pretty sketchy. It was then I realized that you have to download the iPad apps from the special iPad section of iTunes.

So I downloaded the ones that I've already used and like on the iPhone in addition to the ones that all the cool websites said I needed, among them:

• AccuWeather
• BBC News
• Bloomberg (stocks)
  
• Dictionary.com
• Dizzypad HD (Frogger for iPad!)
  
• GrooveMaker (for music mixin')
  
• The Guardian UK
• Harbor Master (a boat game)
  
• iBooks
• KAYAK Flights
• NY Times Editors' Choice
• Pages (the iPad's app for Word docs)
• Shazam
• TweetDeck
• USA Today
• WIRED
• Zinio (for magazines)
  
• Marvel Comics
• Dragon Dictation
• Epicurious
• Feeddler RSS (to follow the CreComm blogs)
  
• IMDB
• Amazon Kindle (sync your Kindle with your iPad)
• Sci Fi Wire

To see the Guardian UK's Eyewitness photography app is to decide on the spot that you need an iPad.

Ditto for Wired Magazine, which is a much better read on the iPad than on paper, thanks to interactive ads, slide shows, embedded HD videos, and 360-degree functionality.

I'll be writing a full review of some of these apps soon - especially Pages, which I know many, many people are hoping and praying is great, so they can replace their bulky laptops with an iPad, confident that it has a workable equivalent to Word.

If it makes you appy...

iPad versus Kindle

You'll note that one of the first apps I downloaded is iBooks. Winnipeggers and Assiniboine Park zookeepers alike will be happy to know that it comes preloaded with Winnie-the-Pooh.

I also downloaded the Amazon Kindle for iPad app, which allows me to read all of the books I've downloaded onto the Kindle on my iPad.

Does this mean my Kindle is destined for the dumpster? Well, it's true that the iPad blows away the Kindle for sheer "wow power," but I see a place for both in my life.

Ooh, my aching head...a Kindle atop an iPad.

The Kindle is much smaller and lighter, making it better for the bus. The iPad is significantly heavier, which makes it a good alternative for all of the things you currently use your laptop to do.

The iPad has a backlight and the Kindle doesn't - which you prefer depends on where and when you like to read. In daylight on the bus? Kindle. At night next to a sleeping spouse? iPad all the way.

Here's how Consumer Reports breaks down the comparison:


They've got nothing on the Mac and PC dudes.

One more prediction

I'm gonna be washing my hands a lot more.

Ewww...

I'll be posting again soon when I've had some time to use the apps and experience the iPad in real life. Until then!

Chicago, Hudson Bay...what are they?

Chicago...whatever that was. Courtesy of Newsweek.

Hudson Bay? That's where we buy our Olympic mitts, right?

Newsweek has a pretty great photo feature online and in print called, 100 places to remember before they disappear.

Among the magazine's places that "could disappear or be radically changed if climatologists are right in their predictions of global warming:"

• Chicago
• Charlevoix Region, Quebec
• Western Hudson Bay
• Nunavut
• Pauline Cove, Herschel Island, Canada
• Siberia
• Panama Canal
• Paris, France
• Amman, Jordan
• Antarctic Peninsula
• Great Barrier Reef
• Perth, Australia
• Venice
• Copenhagen
• Rotterdam
• Bangkok
• Borneo
• Beijing
• Thames, London, UK
• The Battery, New York City

No Battery? What will horny sailors sing about?

On the plus side, we're safe as kittens here in Winnipeg. Nips on the 'House!

Bye bye mon laptop

Are they talking about the iPad or me?


Bad bit of stand-up I used to do in the old days:

"The other day, out of the blue, my grandmother asked me, "What's the Internet?" And I said, "The Internet is a wonderful learning tool, grandma."

"She said, "Yeah, what has it taught you?" I said, "Well...mostly how to type with one hand."

Cue the tumbleweeds.

Take a tablet, and call me in the morning

Little did I know that a lame sex joke would foresee why the era of the tablet and mobile computing is upon us: because you can use it with one hand and take it to bed with you.

Joke all you like, grandma, or even make the standard maxiPad joke, but this is the reason why Apple's iPad will be the first in a long line of tablet-computing devices that will make the laptop a thing of the past, sooner rather than later.

Kindle, meet iPhone

I've been using the Amazon Kindle for the past six months or so, and it's changed the way I consume the news and books, get them delivered, and even think about them. I now look at chumps on the bus fighting with the Globe and Mail and giant Stephen King novels and think, "Suckas."

I've been using my iPhone for the past year, and - as anyone who reads this blog regularly knows: I think that it's crazy great. Damn the phone part, it's mobile computing, Internet, newspaper, magazine, email, music, TV, video game system, and (I'm pretty sure) straight razor. And, I ask you, what woman doesn't like her man to have a clean, close shave?

I got a crack in my iPhone last week; "Better than an iPhone in my crack," I said to the unblinking and self-professed hungry clerk. I had to be without my love for two hours. "The dingo took the baby!" I shouted until a new iPhone was returned to my hand.

The one thing, however, that makes the iPhone a chore and not a pleasure is surfing the net on such a tiny screen. I totally get where the iPad came from: "Let's give 'em a big iPhone!" The iPad is being heavily criticized for being just that, but that's like criticizing a cow for mooing when you get milk every day.

Did that metaphor work? No? Let's move on.

We'll always have paper. Cough.

Here's the thing: the iPad will let us do what the Kindle and iPhone do, but better, allowing us a larger canvas and window on the world with which to do it; this isn't just a little laptop, it's a new way for communicators to tell stories that grip readers by the throat and take them on a journey that they and we haven't even begun to imagine.

If some of the traditional media doesn't get it yet, it will. As "Fake Steve Jobs" points out in the current issue of Wired ("Rise of the Machines: How Tablets Will Change the World"):

"Frankly, I don't read magazines or newspapers, and if every last one of you were all erased from the planet tomorrow, I would not notice and I would not care. Having said that, I wish you all the best in whatever future careers you choose. Gardening, I've heard is very peaceful."

Ouch. I don't have the heart to quote the last part of the insult, which involves manure.

I have an ongoing debate with a friend, and here's how it goes:

Friend: There will always be paper.
Me: No there won't.
Him: Yes there will.
Me: No there won't.
Him: Yes there will.
Lights go out. Gun shot.

I really believe I'm right. So does he. However, I don't have the heart to bring up the iPad in our debate. Just seems cruel.

But it's gotta be hard out there for a paper advocate when technology pioneer Kevin Kelly describes the future of tablets in Wired as such:

"You'll be able to see into movies, pictures, rooms, Web pages, places, and books seamlessly. It will have a built-in camera and idiot-proof video-editing tools, and it will also serve as a portable movie screen, eventually enabled for 3D. It will remake book publishing and Hollywood, because it creates a transmedia that conflates books and video. You get TV you read, books you watch, movies you touch."

Technology, meet school

So, I have to admit to feeling a little depressed when I heard that Creative Communications - the program in which I teach - is surveying students about becoming a laptop program in September 2011.

At this rate, we'll become an iPad program in 2021, at which point I will be, like, 1,000 years old. "In my day we used to wear thongs...on our feet!" Not pretty, eh?

Laptop program aside, I recently formed a technology committee with some of my fellow Creative Arts instructors in DMT, CreComm, and Graphic Design, and submitted a proposal to introduce mobile media to Creative Arts at Red River College.

The proposal, of course, is dependent on getting a grant, which we hope to do. Here's to hoping.

No, we're not going to get iPads for our students anytime soon, though that could happen if they become cheap and ubiquitous (the iPads, not the students). But we can get our students to engage with mobile media in the classroom and build something that you can download onto an iPad or iPhone.

The plan

So, we're proposing a partnership between programs to build a visually dynamic, interactive, digital magazine created for mobile online media and presented in the form of a standalone Creative Arts mobile app.

For students currently enrolled in the program: imagine the magazine project that you download on the iPhone or iPad that moves around, talks to you, and "listens" to your touch commands.

The app would function as a marketing tool for Creative Arts, the college, and our students - usable as a mobile portfolio piece and be available to download by the communications industry and future employers at large.

We've already got a potential community partner interested in being involved in the production, though I don't want to get too heavy into the details at this point, since so much of it is "if" and "TBA."

In this plan, the CreComm students are the mobile content providers, the graphic design students handle the online magazine's design and structure, and the DMT students program the motion graphics and app.

The idea for this project was hatched after I attended a meeting with the CreComm advisory committee, made up of industry leaders in the broadcast, ad, PR, and journalism fields. The members stressed the importance of our students learning about audience engagement, mobility, new media, and attracting a profitable target audience.

Before I start getting too self-congratulatory, I must point out that what we're proposing is already a mainstay in some academic environments: the U of Saskatchewan has an iPhone app - iUSask - for students to find their classes, get library books, and check their grades, and the University of Missouri makes the iPhone or iPod Touch mandatory for its communication students.

And with the iPad just days old in the U.S., we've already seen our first iPad school.

It's my hope that this project would bring at least part of this innovation and communication revolution to CreComm. It would make our grads more valuable in the marketplace, position them for future success, and predict (I'll bet) RRC's eventual adoption of the mobile format.

And if I'm wrong, I'll be the guy teaching "The History of the iPad" class in W215 starting in 2021.

The best list on my list of 10-best lists

So many lists, so little time...

Famous composers? Why, I have a whole Liszt of them! Wah, wah.

I was thinking of this "hilarious" old joke recently when facing the daunting task of keeping this blog updated on my self-imposed goal of "every day."

But, as every blogger knows, keeping your site updated and readable takes time - between eight to 12 hours a week to do it properly, by my estimation.

So, it's not surprising that every blogger has, at some point, thrown his or her arms up in frustration, curled into the fetal position, and shouted, "The hell with all of this blog writing - from now on, I'll just make lists!"

I admit to having this thought frequently. A list is just so much easier, and maybe makes more sense, given that my daily unique visitors keep growing, but the length of time they spend here keeps getting shorter - down from 2:33 minutes last week to 2:09 this week, according to Site Meter.

Is it wicked to love lists?

Not only that, I actually like lists. I love nothing more than to add things I've already done into a to-do list, so I can cross them off instantly and feel smug and self-satisfied with everything that I've accomplished.

I also admit that I live for year-end top 10 lists, and make many of them myself. For some reason, the year just doesn't seem to make sense without them.

But as the Internet continues to make niche audiences ever-nichier (Nietzscheian?), list making has become the domain of the criminally insane. Instead of a list of "Top 10 bands of 2009," we now need lists for:

• Top 10 Techno-Punk
• Top 10 Alterna-Country
• Top 10 Christian Rap
• Top 10 Heavy Metal Bands With One-Armed Drummers
• Etc.

When we make lists, we also assume that we're doing "our readers" a service by wading through reams and reams of information - movies, albums, singers, whatever - so that they can cut to the chase and start loving what we love, right here right now.

It's kind of the digital equivalent of "Olivia's picks" at Music Trader, though it may be a bad example, because I actually like her picks, unlike "Drew's picks" at Movie Village. Just kidding "Drew," whomever you are.

But, here's the problem: if anyone can have a blog, and anyone can make a list, has list-making become obsolete? I mean, who care's what your favorite music of last year might be, when I just gave you my list of favorite music?

The politics of dancing

It's impossible to make a list of 10 best anythings without getting political. On my list of Top 10 Albums of All Time, for instance, the Clash's London Calling would be right near the top, though I might actually play Men Without Hats Rhythm of Youth more.

When this happens, am I just making a list that I think positions me as a "happenin' dude" or am I listing what I think is actually good?

The best lists show a tolerance for art and box office and contain at least one surprise. So, yeah, rank "Zooey & Adam" as one of your Top 10 films of last year, but include "Avatar," just to show that you're not an elitist snob.

Conversely, love the Hollywood movies, but include at least one foreign film to show that you're not beholden to Michael Bay.

One on hand, no one wants to read a list in which nothing's new, but on the other: is there anything more depressing than finding out this year's Oscar nominations and realizing that you've seen none of them?

Lists of lists

I've noticed that list-making is being taken to extremes lately, not only online but in magazines, where "service journalism," like 10 WAYS TO DRIVE YOUR LOVER CRAZY IN BED! tends to thrive.

Number one, by the way? "Call out another person's name." Number two: "Whisper in her ear, "Yousa thinkin' yousa people gonna die?" I could go on...

The trouble with listing everything is, of course, that lists stop mattering, and you might as well list nothing. For instance, the New York Times publishes seven, separate best-seller lists for books a week.

Entertainment Weekly's yearly Best Of issue is cover-to-cover lists, featuring everything from entertainers, DVDs, TV shows, trends, and breakout stars; even more counter-productive is that they have a list and then a "second-opinion."

So, Lisa Schwarzbaum's list of best films is "the list" and Owen Glieberman's list is "the second opinion" for no other reason than, presumably, one has seniority and/or gets paid more than the other.

Last year, Schwarzbaum and Glieberman only agreed on three of the year's best films. By proving that two people who love and review films for a living can't agree on what's "best," isn't Entertainment Weekly undermining their authority by splitting their votes and allowing them to contradict one another?

The secret: authority and argument

Given that, maybe the perfect lists have some authority - you know the critic or the person and respect their finality of judgment - and something worth arguing.

Back to the Clash example: a good friend of mine constantly argues that London Calling isn't punk, it's pop. Good! It's now number one on my list of Top 10 Punk Albums of All Time.

Please submit all other complaints in writing, and I will compile them into my Top 10 List of People Who Hate My Blog, 2010. Should be a barn-burner.

Larsen predicts the Oscars, '10: this time it's personal

Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter does hilarious iPhone/Oscar shtick.

It's with much pomp and circumstance every year that I predict the Oscar winners.

Because, as I shamelessly brag every year, I once won Movie Village's big Oscar contest grand prize by correctly choosing every, single Oscar category correctly, including the short-film and animation-no-one-saw-nor-will-ever-see categories. No small feat, if I do say so myself.

True, I did win so long ago that movies were actually called "talkies." So, you wanna make somethin' of it?

For my success, I won a free movie every day for a year, which is how I became the quivering, naked, light-deprived mess of a man who now stands before you. Have you got that image? Good, let's move on.

In recent years, I haven't done so well. Last year, I got 72 per cent correct, moronically selecting Batman and Mickey Rourke for Oscars that weren't to be, making the classic mistake of choosing with my heart instead of my mind.

Vanity Fair Oscar app

This year, Vanity Fair has made it easier for me - and you - to make our Oscar predictions and find out how we stack up against each another with its free iPhone and Facebook Hollywood app.

The app is a high-quality affair, sponsored by L'Oréal and featuring Oscar-related news, trailers, chat, a link to Facebook, a chance to enter your Oscar picks and, on the big night, track the leaderboard to see how you stack up.

After getting my best movie buddy to go over my picks this morning and provide me with some feedback, I'm ready to make this year's picks public. As well, I'm including the degree to which users of Vanity Fair's app agree or disagree.

In short, I'm predicting an Avatar sweep, with some exceptions. If Avatar does what I think it will do, all will be right with the world. If not, I'm throwing my iPhone into the Assiniboine river and putting a curse on Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter, and L'Oréal.

Ready? Let's party!

Best Picture
Avatar (52 per cent of people using the app agree with me)

Direction
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker (22 per cent agree)

Lead Actor
Jeff Bridges (38 per cent agree)

Lead Actress
Meryl Streep (17 per cent agree)
(No, I cannot select Sandra Bullock for the Blind Side. No, no, can't, can't, won't.)

Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz (45 per cent agree)

Best Supporting Actress
Mo'Nique (51 per cent agree)

Art Direction
Avatar (81 per cent agree)

Cinematography
Avatar (72 per cent agree)

Costume Design
Coco Before Chanel (26 per cent agree)
(I haven't seen this film, but how can it lose with that title?)

Makeup
Star Trek (80 per cent agree)

Documentary
Food, Inc. (66 per cent agree)

Foreign Film
The White Ribbon (62 per cent agree)

Animated Film
Up (74 per cent agree)

Editing
Avatar (66 per cent agree)

Score
Avatar (44 per cent agree)

Song
The one from Crazy Heart (44 per cent agree)

Sound Editing
Avatar (64 per cent agree)

Sound Mixing
Avatar (64 per cent agree)

Visual Effects
Avatar (89 per cent agree)

Original Screenplay
Inglourious Basterds (52 per cent agree)

Adapted Screenplay
Precious (28 per cent agree)

Live-Action Short
The Door (63 per cent agree)

Documentary Short
China's Unnatural Disaster (64 per cent agree)

Animated Short
French Roast (64 per cent agree)

See you on the red-carpet app!

The last time I'll ever be able to do this "hilarious" bit on The Beaver magazine

The Beaver is changing its name. Something about it being mistaken as porn by online filters. Go figure!

I used to do a bit on The Beaver magazine in my stand-up act. Sadly it will expire in about another couple of weeks, if that. The bit and the act.

RIP, The Beaver. And RIP this "hilarious" bit:

"Think about this scary fact: kids growing up now have computers in their rooms from which they can access porn anytime they like. A porn portal! And I resent that... because when we were kids, we used to have to work hard for our porn!"

"We'd have to put on a disguise. Sneak around the store, look for the dirty magazines section. Take one off the stand, tip toe to the checkout. Lower your voice: "How much for the Beaver magazine, kind sir?" Sneak it home, wait for my parents to fall asleep, and get out my flashlight."

"And then it was, "Ahhhhh - what have you got for me The Beaver magazine! What!? It's a Canadian History magazine!? OK, I guess I'll read about the invention of Medicare."

"Six hours later, I'd wake up drenched in sweat, "Wow - Tommy Douglas was the greatest Canadian!"

Wah, wah, wah.

Long live "Canada's History" magazine!

Welcome to the magazine project, whatever that is

What SI might look like on an Apple tablet computer. An Applet?

As our first-year students embark on a CreComm tradition dating back to before even I was a student - "the magazine project!" - the New York Times "Magazine" asks the pertinent question, "What is a magazine?"

It's a good question, given that a magazine is no longer read as often in the medium that the word was born to describe. The answer?

Well. Errr. It's a. Hmmm. It's...complicated. Thank you Facebook and Meryl Streep!

The article suggests that the word "magazine" was used in the 90s as a stopgap, like "bookmark," while we got ourselves used to this wacky, new online medium. Instead, the article suggests, online magazines are now "communities," "websites," "curated news aggregation," or "aggregated blogs."

So, when you embark on the magazine assignment this year, take heart at knowing that this might be one of the last years we ever call it a "magazine" and that you may have already have done a magazine project in the form of your own blog.

As for aggregated blogs? That's sooooo last semester. This semester, we embark upon something new altogether, which I propose we call "The existentialism of magazines project:"



Who's with me?

One week of Kindlin', makin' friends, and influencin' people

The Kindle, Winnipeg Transit, Barack Obama, and my left foot.

It's been one week since I got my Amazon Kindle in the mail, and it still makes me feel, as Madonna once sang, shiny and new.

For the unfamiliar, the Kindle works for books, magazines, and newspapers about the same way the iPod works for music: you download your literature on a wireless connection, then read it on an Etch a Sketch-like screen, only it's glare proof and thinner.

It's newly available from Canada, and ships from Amazon.com.

When you're reading the Kindle on the bus, it's impossible not to feel like you're Tom Cruise in Minority Report - minus the looks (but not the acting ability!).

But at the same time, I predict that within five years, I'll look upon this version of the device with disdain and think, "Whatta piece of junk," much like I do with my chunky-style iPod and its crazy, clicky wheel back from the early 1800s.

After one week of of Kindle use, here are my observations:

***

What Kindle is good for:

1. Making friends

Every time I've read the Kindle on the bus, a person or people have asked me, "What is that thing?" When I show them, they instantly want one.

So, listen up fellow creepy bus people: it instantly makes you more lovable to have a Kindle! Talk about social media.

2. Reading

Despite some reviewers kicking the crap out of the screen, I love it.

I still think it feels, looks, and reads like paper, and I've had no problem consuming books, magazines, and newspapers. Even the deeper reading required by book-larnin' works for me on the Kindle.

And the pictures still look fantastic - black and white, yes, but crystal clear.

So, why so many naysayers? Probably the same people who said that we'd always have to print the stuff we read on the Internet.

At first, it just seems "different" to be reading a book on the Kindle, but I've already overcome the screen factor, not to mention the "geek" hurdle of taking it out in public.

3. Wireless delivery

I've subscribed to the New York Times on Kindle for $27.99 a month, with the first 14 days free.

In the morning, I turn on the device and - blam - there it is. Not so much as one issue with what Amazon calls its "Whispernet" wireless service.

I've downloaded one book, Truth, Lies, and Advertising, and it took about 30 seconds to appear on my "home" screen.

4. Battery power

The power lasts and lasts and lasts.

I haven't deliberately tried to run it down, but at the end of the day, there's still usually over half or more of the battery power remaining; it seems to last a lot longer than the battery power in my iPhone which disappears quite quickly (especially when I'm shooting video or taking pictures).

5. Selection (for most things)

There are over 380,000 books. Lots!

The newspapers and magazines also have a good selection of titles, but...no Vanity Fair!? Entertainment Weekly?! Q Magazine!? Yeeellllpppp!

It would be particularly great to download overseas content, like Q and Uncut Magazines, but BusinessWeek, Time, Forbes, the Atlantic, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (no kidding!), etc., are a good start.

The other big missing piece is Canadian newspapers, though there are already more of them since last week. We currently have seven Canadian newspapers from which to choose, now including the Regina Leader-Post, the Windsor Star, and the Edmonton Journal.

6. Text to speech

Turn it on, and the voice - male or female - reads your text seamlessly.

Yes, at times the inflection comes off a bit robotic at times, but it's about a million times better than the old Winnipeg Transit telebus schedule. Anyone with a visual impairment would be well advised to buy the Kindle: it's a smooth listen, and the text can be enlarged once, and for all time, quite easily.

7. Portability

Light as a feather. Easier to carry around than a book, plain and simple.


What the Kindle is not good for:

1. Web surfing

It's no coincidence that you find the Web browser under "experimental" in the Kindle menu.

It doesn't look great, I'm only able to conjur up a bad-looking version of Wikipedia at this point, and navigating the browser with the joystick/keypad combo is irritating. More on that in a second.

2. Winnipeg newspapers

No Winnipeg Free Press and nothing from the Sun chain. Last one there is a rotten egg!

3. Backlighting

There's no backlighting, which - at night - makes it no more useful than a book and a lamp.

4. Syncing with your iPhone

There's an iPhone app in the U.S. that allows you to sync your Kindle with your iPhone, so you can start reading a book on one, and continue on another. Cool!

It's not available in Canada. Not cool!

5. Navigating

I hope that future editions of the Kindle have a touchscreen - I instinctively want to touch it to navigate around, but alas, I cannot.

The Kindle's joystick and "next page" button are fine for pure reading, but quite clunky for browsing online.

The iPhone touchscreen is better for navigating almost everything.

6. Color

There isn't any. But I suppose that will change in upcoming releases.

7. Showing off your good taste in books

The Kindle shows off your great taste in technology, but not books. So no one knows if you're reading Shakespeare or Sarah Palin. Then again, that might be a good thing...

***

As Jeff Jarvis suggested earlier this week, we may not be far away from having permanent screens on our desks, where books, movies, music - whatever - reach out for our attention as opposed to us having to look for it. No more hiding that cell phone under the desk!

Overall, I'm quite happy with the Kindle. But the mind races at what might be in store for this device - and our info-lovin' brains - in the years ahead.