We all sit huddled together on the couch, my two year old son, my wife and I. Between us is the iPad, glowing and changing colors. We all take our turn with Adobe Ideas, each of us building upon the others creation; it’s a collaborative effort, more like a board game, a constructive group activity with seemingly endless possibilities. We quickly change to the Eyewitness photo app from The Guardian and we can’t believe the quality of the photos and the resolution, stunning simplicity, even our son can operate it. From there, we move on to the Netflix streaming app and we watch Kipper the Dog, because once my son sees the red Netflix logo he starts chanting “Kippy, Kippy, Kippy!” He usually watches Kipper on the iMac, sitting by himself in the chair, strait up and alone, but this time we are all involved together, attentive and engaged on the couch. The intimacy that this new device creates falls into a new sociological zone. The zone is engaged family togetherness. Your iPhone is for you, the computer is for lean forward, super focused, often hunched and cramped one on one activities and the iPad is for collaborative group sharing with friends and family. No more huddling around a desktop computer while one person holds the mouse and keyboard, this is a smooth and productive social activity. We are looking at the very beginning of a new category of digital interaction - the family social device category. A category that Microsoft has tried and tried again to get people to jump into over the years, but this time, as in the iPhone, it takes Steve Jobs to revolutionize the category and get people to buy into it. Here is a list of my ten favorite iPad apps.
- NYTimes Editors Choice
- Netflix
- The Guardian Eyewitness
- Early Edition
- Zinio
- iJournaler
- Adobe Ideas
- Good Reader
- iBooks
- Free Books
What are your favorite apps and how do you use your iPad?
Good Sport | Isaora
By Bruce Pask
Isaora’s plaid waxed-cotton hoodie.
Bruce Pask, T Magazine’s men’s fashion director, writes on style every week.
There’s a new player on the technical sportswear scene: Isaora, a company with a name derived from the Spanish expression “ahora sí,” which loosely translates as “now’s the time.” The company’s founders — Marc Daniels, a high-tech vet, and the designer Ricky Hendry, formerly at Neil Barrett and Calvin Klein — set out to create a high-performance line of apparel with a fashionable point of view last year. Hendry and Daniels, who are both board-sport enthusiasts, grew frustrated with the baggy, bright and unsophisticated gear that is usually on display on the slopes.
In order to differentiate their line, they keep to a design cycle that is more in keeping with the fashion calendar than with the glacially evolving sports-gear world. They also decided to represent their brand with highly styled imagery that veers away from the extreme action photography common to the genre. A plaid waxed-cotton hoodie paired with sleek utility pocket pants are standouts for next spring, while a fall graphite gray pullover parka will be shipping now to Paragon Sports and Atrium in New York, as well as United Arrows in Tokyo.
 I was talking with a few executives from one of the biggest technology companies in Europe, and they were explaining how their hands were tied in moving forward on the internet. They were doing the best they could under the circumstances, of course, but there were units in their organization that needed to be protected, prices that needed to be supported, sacred cows that couldn't be touched. After all, they argued, how could they wipe out their current business just to succeed online? This conversation happens every single day at organizations large and small. You want to do the new thing, but of course you must do it in a measured, rational way. Which is great, unless your competition doesn't agree. When you have someone who is willing to accomplish A without worrying about B and C, they will almost always defeat you in accomplishing A. Online, of course, this often leads to doom, since there are many organizations that are willing to get big at the expense of revenue, or writers willing to be noticed at the expense of ethics or reputation. But in the short run, the singleminded have a fantastic advantage. And sometimes, their singleminded focus on accomplishing just that one thing (whatever it is) pushes them through the Dip far ahead of you and then yes, they make a ton of money and you've lost forever. Newspapers, magazines, TV stations, hardware companies, real estate brokers, travel agents, bookstores, insurance agents, art galleries and five hundred other industries need to think hard about this before it's too late.
photo credit
Posted from Jon Cronin's Stream Of Consciousness
article from PSFK With the internet taking a significant amount of its readership and the recession impacting physical sales, running a profitable print publication these days is becoming even more of a daunting proposition. But despite these struggles, many magazines are finding new opportunities outside of the printed page, diversifying their business model with alternative revenue streams. Advertising Age recently surveyed five such publications, representing diverse cross-section of the entire industry - Men’s Health, Make, The Atlantic, Complex and Fader - to find out what their outlook is going forward. While advertising, both print and digital, remains an integral component of the revenue mix, these magazines are building on their brand’s appeal and by extension reaching out to their audiences with other opportunities to engage with the publication’s unique point of view. This can take the form of events, books, retail and other media, but the key appears to be thoughtful curation and relevancy, justifying the shift in attention by creating a more meaningful experience. This in turn reinforces the culture of the magazine, while allowing readers to identify with a larger community.
[via Ad Age / ] [image via Dan Zen on Flickr]
 republics are built by the people We assemble custom bicycles based on shared design. We offer component and color selection curated for quality, value and aesthetics. Pick, choose, swap and decide and we'll build it, box it, and ship it out. Built by us and you.
Urban Bikes
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Posted from Jon Cronin's Stream Of Consciousness
 USAA, a privately held bank and insurance company, plans to update its iPhone application this week to introduce the check deposit feature, which requires a customer to photograph both sides of the check with the phone’s camera. “We’re essentially taking an image of the check, and once you hit the send button, that image is going into our deposit-taking system as any other check would,” said Wayne Peacock, a USAA executive vice president. Customers will not have to mail the check to the bank later via Posted from Jon Cronin's Stream Of Consciousness
Summertime is filled with opportunities for brands to show they care, whether by helping consumers find a place to change at the beach or by giving them a little cooling refreshment during a heat wave. Targeting the latter option is Soak Media, a UK firm that gives out free bottled water to London commuters courtesy of on-bottle advertising. Focusing only on the months of July and August, Soak sells advertising space on 330 ml. plastic bottles filled with Buxton water and then hands them out for free to overheated London commuters, who would normally pay GBP 1 or more for such refreshment. Soak's own staff hands out the bottles from an ice-filled cart, after which time it estimates the bottles spend about 50 minutes in the average consumer's hands. The company also does specials including leaflet tip-ons, specially shaped bottles and sampling. Perhaps best of all, however, is that it donates all its profits to charitable causes. Posted from Jon Cronin's Stream Of Consciousness
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