The Next Web |  |
- Antennagate claims its next victim. Lead iPhone 4 executive departs Apple.
- Books: The vinyl record of the publishing business.
- Lonely? Disconnected? Don’t blame social media.
| Antennagate claims its next victim. Lead iPhone 4 executive departs Apple. Posted: 07 Aug 2010 01:51 PM PDT
Mansfield is no stranger to the iPhone, however. He already oversees the A4, retina display and touch screen projects, according to Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling. Papermaster had previously held positions within IBM, leaving for Apple in October of 2008. His position at Apple was one that directly reported to CEO Steve Jobs. Papermaster found himself in court late in 2008, as IBM alleged that he had misappropriated trade secrets of IBM which fell under a noncompete agreement that he had signed with the company. There is no clarification, at the moment, as to whether Papermaster left Apple of his own accord or if he was removed from his position. Regardless, it doesn’t reflect well on Apple and shows that there were perhaps deeper issues involved with the antenna problems than Apple has been willing to admit. Original title and link for this post: Antennagate claims its next victim. Lead iPhone 4 executive departs Apple. |
| Books: The vinyl record of the publishing business. Posted: 07 Aug 2010 12:34 PM PDT
There has been a lot of talk, lately, about the death of books due to the e-reader market. While I firmly believe that book sales are going to take a staggering loss, I’m fairly certain that we’re not ready for the eulogy. The saviors of paper and ink publishing will come in two forms: the purists and the poorest. The Purists
And I’m not alone. There has been a huge resurgence of the vinyl market over the past few years. While the overall sales of the format only account for 1% of all music sold, that’s a percentage that is growing and will not let go of their beloved “antiques”. The same can be said for book lovers, of which I am one as well. Absolutely nothing will compare to the feeling of reading a book. In fact, that’s been one of the largest obstacles that the Kindle and its ilk have had to cross. No matter how good your page-turning animation is, it still doesn’t require you to moisten a finger or use a physical bookmark. Though we purists might very well own a kindle, simply for the sake of the joy of reading, we’ll still buy books. We’ll buy new ones, used ones and ones that we hope to hand down for generations, because that’s simply something that you can’t do with an electronic device. For us, the joy is in ownership. The Poorest
I live in Nashville, TN. Though there are billion dollar businesses within a 10 minute drive of my apartment, there are people who can’t afford to eat dinner tonight who live 10 minutes the other direction. The median income for Nashville is $39,797, versus $76,963 for San Jose. The part of Nashville’s population who fall below median likely don’t have the money laying around to buy an e-reader. Our school districts, while arguably some of the best in the country, simply can’t go telling people that they have to purchase an e-reader as books won’t be available for rent. The economic standard won’t allow for that. I’ll even use myself as an example. Though I’d love to own a Kindle, I don’t. I probably won’t until it either gets another price reduction, or becomes a product like a men’s razor. Razors are cheap. The cartridges to use them are where the money comes from. I will, however, continue to buy books. They’re relatively cheap, they don’t require an investment before use and they can be passed on after I’m done. While I’m not in the poorest of the poor bracket, extra money is not something I have very often. The VerdictBooks aren’t dead. Plain and simple. Further, they won’t be for quite some time to come. While the smart publishing companies are figuring out ways to evolve into this next iteration, we’ll be reading words on paper for a long time to come. So please, go buy a Kindle, or a Nook or any other e-reader of your choice. Enjoy what can come to you because of them. But as for the book? The fat lady hasn’t even begun to warm up. Original title and link for this post: Books: The vinyl record of the publishing business. |
| Lonely? Disconnected? Don’t blame social media. Posted: 07 Aug 2010 10:41 AM PDT
The gist of the piece is that that by mainly carrying out social networking online instead of face-to-face, young people feel increasingly lonely despite the huge numbers of online ‘friends’ they may have. Lonely, shy people feel more lonely and shy in the face of others sharing their amazingly interesting lives online, even though many of those “interesting” people may well be lying about their lives and be pretty lonely themselves. What a surprise. The world has always had shy, awkward people who watch from the sidelines as other people have more fun. All that social media has done is amplify the feeling that other people have more fun by bringing it into our homes and onto our phones and broadcasting it play-by-play in status update form. As sad as that is, it’s social change – deal with it. The good news is that we will deal with it. Clay Shirkey’s current book ‘Cognitive Surplus’ talks about how drinking gin became a major problem during the British Industrial Revolution. The move from living in the country to cities like London led to people struggling to cope with the huge change from their simple country lives of old. In the end though, we got through it – we adjusted and the drinking subsided. As Shirkey writes, “What helped the Gin Craze subside was the restructuring of society around the new urban realities created by London’s incredible social density, a restructuring that turned London into what we’d recognize today as a modern city, one of the first”. In other words, when the world changes we can struggle at first but we humans learn to cope. There may be more lonely people as a result of social media but that’s all the more reason to get out there and make real-life contact. As someone who grew up shy and awkward, I hate to say what I’m about to say but as patronising as it sounds, it’s true. Lonely, disconnected people need to go out and do things in the real world, make real world friends and you know what? Social media will suddenly stop being a source of misery, it will become something truly useful. Just as it amplifies loneliness, it amplifies the positive sides of life too. An example? I have a terrible problem putting names to faces. When I’m at events and people I don’t know well come up to say hello, I often struggle to remember who they are. There’s a painful couple of minutes while I ask generic “How are you? What are you up to?” questions in an effort to work out who they are without seeming rude. If, however, they introduce themselves with their Twitter username I immediately know who they are, what they do and all about that frustrating coffee shop experience they had last week. Suddenly we’ve got lots to talk about. Some people I socialise with may think of me as @MartinSFP rather than as ‘Martin Bryant’ but so what? It’s only a name. Social media shouldn’t be your life, it should complement it. Lonely people have always felt disconnected from society and the solution remains the same. Don’t blame social media, just change the way you use it. Original title and link for this post: Lonely? Disconnected? Don’t blame social media. |
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