As pointed out in the New York Times and by many others, Apple chose not to support Flash video on the iPad. Anyone who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch is already familiar with this particular issue, but somehow it takes on entirely new dimensions (pun intended) on a larger screen device.
Apple claims that Flash is a battery hog and is too slow, but offers little evidence to support these assertions. What is undeniable is that Flash is one of the most ubiquitous technologies for Web content, present on virtually every personal computer as with Acrobat Reader. Moreover, many of us consume incredible amounts of Flash content, whether it be sports highlights, magazine content, or just random videos from one of the many video sources on the Web.
Apple touts the newish HTML5 as the savior for online video. Great. It bears noting that Apple is a part owner of the patents for HTML5. So what we have here is a standoff between two media giants, each battling for control of the marketplace.
Adobe, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of media creation knows, is by far the largest publisher of software for media development, from text to video and everything in between. They have a near monopoly in certain segments of that world, and applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver are part of the fabric of our modern landscape. They make a ton of money with these applications, and protect their assets with vigor.
In the popular mind, Apple is primarily a maker of hardware, but somewhere back around the launch of the first iPod, Apple clearly decided that the future was in becoming a media giant. By selling apps for the iPhone (most of which are simply media content, e.g.- books, games, etc.) and by selling video and audio (and now books) through the iTunes store and soon via iBooks, Apple has created revenue streams that go beyond the life of any particular hardware device. There is also a much larger margin with digital media than with hardware.
As a normal consumer and non-stockholder in either Adobe or Apple, I really do not care about their margins or stock dividends. What I do care about is consumer choice, and keeping content as low-cost as possible. All of this wrangling over Flash will ultimately cost consumers more money as we line up to purchase it from fewer sources or, in Apple’s greatest fantasy, from Apple alone. This is not a fantasy I am spinning. Within days of its launch, Apple’s platform rewrote the rules for ebook pricing. The loser: readers.
Somehow my enthusiasm for the iPad is waning by the second. Microsoft took a beating back in the days because, oh horror, they tied the browser (and their media player) to the operating system. For most consumers, it didn’t matter a rip. We happily used Netscape until it died, and picked right up when Firefox came on the scene. Cost to me: a few minutes for installation. Benefit: browsers galore, and free choices. Even if one uses Microsoft’s software, the differences are negligible, largely of concern to Web designers and sys admins.
Not so with Apple. By spreading their tentacles into our media consumption and creating revenue streams for themselves, they have fundamentally altered the game, and we will be the losers. Where is the backlash? I suppose when the “press” applauds giddily when a guy in a black turtleneck introduces a large-screen iPhone, we cannot expect much objectivity.
Sorry, cannot help myself. This may go down in history as one of the worst product names ever. This is what happens when the boys do not let the girls in on their decisions. I should, however, be grateful to Apple. Whenever I teach the topic of marketing and the importance of understanding culture when marketing products, I use examples such as the Ford Pinto and Chevy Nova. I now have a brand new example to add to the pack. Thanks, Apple.
Had a student come up to me after class within 36 hours of the Jobs-a-thon and ask me what I thought of the iPad. It does not take a media genius to figure out that Apple is going to sell kajillions of these devices. It is also clear that this has significantly raised the stakes in the budding ebook wars, and it is likely safe to assume that the Kindle will now die a slow but steady death.
But are we all so naive to think that this will be a troublefree device? I love my iPod Touch, but its battery life is horrible. Enlarge the screen and even with a larger battery I can only imagine that the iPad will suffer from a similar problem. Apple claims ten hours, which in plain talk means six, which means after a year of charging cycles four, at best. Apple is a computer hardware manufacturer still bound by the rules of physics, and the simple fact is that battery technology is not advancing at the clip with which devices demand it, whether one is speaking of handheld devices or cars. The big breakthrough is still before us. Replacing the battery will be prohibitively expensive, too, as experience has shown us, which renders the iPad yet another disposable device after two or three years.
I am also curious to use the virtual keyboard. One of my students pointed out that there will be a dock with an external keyboard. Umm, that sounds to me like a Mac laptop. I had one of those foldy keyboards back in the days for my Handspring Visor, and while it was übercool, it was also a major PITA. Do not want to go back to the days of devices that require more hardware to be useful. If the virtual keyboard is no good, I want a light laptop.
Beyond the hardware issues, there remains the fact that media content is still locked up in little silos thanks to things such as DRM and the persistent inability of media firms to find licensing models that work globally. Already one has heard the first warnings, as with the Kindle in its day, that the international version of iBooks will not appear for some time for legal reasons, not technical. Any iTunes user with broad media tastes who has ever tried to buy content from another nation has confronted this issue head-on, and it is not pleasant to be told, in our digital era, that because the address where you lay your head at night is in the “wrong” country, you may not buy some track or show. It will be little different with iBooks.
Still, I want to get one of these. I am not that jaded.
Anyone learning the German language whose native language, e.g.- English, lacks the notion of second person formal and informal has surely felt the pain of trying to figure out when to use du or Sie in conversation. Even those of us who have done this for nearly 30 years struggle with this weighty decision on at least a weekly basis. I thought it was high time for me to take my accumulated ‘wisdom’ and put it into a simple, easy-to-follow chart that you can print out, place in your wallet or purse, and whip out when the need arises. Click the image below to download the PDF version. Sorry, no large print edition is currently available.
Have fun!
While looking at Sony’s Web page today, I saw this picture and was just confused:
Me troll, me like Sony Reader
I just don’t get it. What do the troll and pixie/fairy/elf/whatever have to do with the Sony Reader? It has a black and white display, and cannot play videos, at all. Nothing else on the page pointed to anything to do with trolls or fantasy books.
I had just taught a class on defining your target market, too, so that was fresh in my head when I saw this. Sure, fantasy is a major genre, but does tossing some Tolkien-esque figures on your advertising make any sense whatsoever?
Am I just missing some really funny joke?
The other day my students got an earful from me about the ills and evils of Digital Rights Management, better known as DRM. I loathe most DRM techniques, since as most reasonable people realize, they do nothing to thwart illegal file sharing, but contribute plenty to increased blood pressure and stress levels in legal media users.
Today I encountered yet another bit of DRM absurdity. I was surfing around and noticed that my beloved Steelers were locked in a death match with the Bengals, with about seven minutes to play. Neat, I thought, I will find a radio broadcast of the last few minutes. What I found instead was this:
So much for globalization
Now I sort of get this kind of blocking (even though in the end I still find it protectionist and worthy of derision) when it comes to content that has a clear commercial outlet in Germany, e.g.- studio movie productions. But NFL radio broadcasts? Please. Who is making money on those in Germany? If they are available here somehow, I envision having to go through the seven layers of technical and bureaucratic hell to get access to them.
What I know, of course, is that there are myriad backchannel (read: illegal) ways to get live sports broadcasts from around the world. I used them this summer, often, when my legally paid for Eurosport Web feed crapped out during every single critical moment of the Tour de France because the French firm behind it clearly does not know what “server capacity” and “peak load” mean when used in the same sentence.
In this case, the game is so close to being over it makes no sense to find an illegal site through which to view/hear the game. But I would like to thank all the parties who made the annoying message pictured above possible. You underscored the main point of my lecture last week: DRM sucks, and turns us all into criminals at some point.
One of the many professional hats I wear is the one as director of the nascent open access imprint New Prairie Press. It is both fun and gratifying work; being part of a solution rather than a problem can only generate such vibes. Today I received consent to add another title to our list, the GDR Bulletin.
The GDR Bulletin, covering East German literature and culture, was published by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Washington University from 1975 until 1999 as a subscription-based paper journal. Earlier this decade, the department made PDFs for most of the run freely available online, which de facto made the title open access after the fact. The PDFs, however, are for the entire issue, and the site lacks article level data, making them hard to find. Then there are the issues of preservation, stable linking, and so on.
As an alumnus of that department, it made sense to inquire about republishing the title on a modern platform with all of the benefits that brings. Happily, the department agreed, and over the next few months I will successively publish the entire run of the journal.
While looking one again for the very useful summary of fair use provided by the US Copyright Office, it occurred to me again that their homepage has no link to this document. There is also no link to the document in their FAQ. Given how much some (most?) publishers loathe fair use and seek any way possible to undermine it, I cannot help but see this omission as anything other than the result of industry pressure to hide the doctrine of fair use from the public. Surely it is not a coincidence, given that when one googles for “fair use” the Copyright Office page comes up in second position right behind Wikipedia. If one googles for “copyright reproduction,” it gets top billing. Clearly it is an oft-consulted and -cited page, which makes its absence all the more conspicuous.
If this bothers you, too, then ask the Copyright Office to add a link. Also, consider getting the word out via tweets, blogs, etc.
Today is phänoMEDIA09 at the HTWK Leipzig (University of Applied Sciences). This is a special edition of the annual Tag der Medien (Media Day), made very special by the opening of the new library and the new media center which is part of the College of Media where I teach. Given that I had some fairly strong words about this new building in a recent newspaper interview, I wanted to get inside the building and check it out. As luck would have it, I hooked up with a tour given by the library’s director, Klaus-Steffen Dittrich.
I am impressed. Despite a somewhat awkward external shape, the interior architecture, which I had feared would be equally severe and austere, works well (this is a question of personal taste, of course). The lighting concept is particularly nice, given that the architect opted for direct lighting as opposed to wasteful ceiling lights. It means that work spaces are sufficiently bright without giving the rooms that overkill “surgical ward” lighting so often found in public buildings.
There are plenty of workspaces, all near windows or openings to other floors, so no one needs to feel like they are locked in a monk’s cell. The green carpeting (I do admire the German fearlessness regarding bold colors), perhaps not the world’s most delightful color, melds well with the plain concrete walls, and the touches of color elsewhere–red lights in one space, blue walls in another, etc.–also help break up the visual monotony and give the visitor a subtle sense of orientation.
The computer technology is brand new, and WLAN is available throughout. There are two rooms outfitted with superior computers designed for video and sound editing, and the library made the laudable choice not to restrict access to those rooms unless that proves absolutely necessary due to popularity.
All in all, it is a work of architecture that one cannot overlook. Love it or hate it, it will make and impression on anyone who sees it. Whether it wears well or not over the years we cannot know, but for now it adds a pronounced focal point to the HTWK’s main location here in Leipzig’s Südvorstadt.
But …
I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the less than successful elements. First and foremost, this lovely (and expensive) building will be open a grand total of 50 hours per week. It has custom designed lights, tables, desk lamps, and so forth, and will be open 50 hours per week, with no opening hours on the weekends, nor before 9:00 am nor after 8:00 pm. For a point of reference, even most cash-strapped public libraries in the US offer 60+ opening hours and at least some weekend hours, while academic libraries start at about 90 hours per week and go up from there. In Germany, it is no different. There are 24/7 libraries here, and most academic libraries have gotten on board and bumped up their hours, sometimes using some very creative staffing models.
It is also, sadly, in one sense a rehash of an old architectural library trope, namely, a shell built around a framework of book shelves. Other than in the first floor entrance area, one cannot turn around without running into or having one’s sight line blocked by a bookshelf. On the one hand, I am grateful that the HTWK library uses open stacks, but given that this is a new building, and that we all know that a vast portion of any academic library’s collection never or at best rarely circulates, it would have been wiser to reduce the footprint of the shelving and use more space for collaborative study spaces, study carrels, instructional spaces for classes, media viewing, and the like. Many newer libraries, from the 1990s forward, do exactly this. My trained librarian eye constantly scanned the shelves as we walked around, and I saw myriad titles where I knew I could easily tuck a 20€ bill in the pages and come back in two years and find it untouched. When are libraries going to stop housing low use materials in the most expensive real estate possible? Low use merits low cost.
The irony of the tour I went on was that it was actually advertised as a lecture by Dr. Dittrich on access to new media. I was excited to have a chance to hear his thoughts on this topic, having excoriated the library in my interview and, as I learned through the grapevine, not exactly ingratiating myself to the HTWK administration. Alas, new media did not come up much, although Dr. Dittrich did mention that about 30-35% of the acquisitions budget goes for electronic materials. This reinforces my perception that the HTWK actually offers a decent amount of electronic content, not that many students are aware of this or have any idea how to take advantage of it. The library does not do much to facilitate that use (no link resolver, no clear and concise online help, no solid pantopical or catchall database, etc.), and as an instructor here, that frustrates me greatly.
Both in Germany and in the US, there are many librarians preaching the word that libraries today are about information technology and providing unmediated (and lightweight) online services to users. If there is a grain of truth to that–and a glance at the research and our own statistically supported usage patterns tells us clearly that there is–then a library in 2009 has to be more than a beautiful house for books.
The second video created by my Mediendesign students here at the HTWK-Leipzig offers an insider’s view of library education. Kudos to them for a job well done. It has a Creative Commons by-nc-nd license, so feel free to embed, reuse, etc. as the license allows.
Had quite a shock today while teaching class. I was reenacting the “little big” search experiment I described in a post last week, and much to my surprise, had wildly different results this time around. If you search for this book on worldcat.org now, up it pops in first position. While it is gratifying to see OCLC react so quickly to feedback, I was curious whether this represented a change in their search algorithm, or rather just a quick fix for this one title to appease me.
Sadly, I suspect the latter. Doing some testing, I discovered that when you search for the term little or big, Crowley’s book now comes up in first position. Not sure how his work merits top billing for either of those terms, not when there are plenty of other books with two word titles where little or big is one of them, or one word titles that are even better matches. It is as if a database administrator got my feedback passed to them and said, fine, we’ll give you what you want and attached a high weight to this work using whatever mechanism they have for doing so. The underlying search algorithm is still a bit odd.
For example, searching for the word little brings up Crowley’s book in the first slot, the book Little Eagle in second position, but then items 3-10 are books written by someone named Little. So, two there by title keyword, eight by author. Furthermore, results 3-10 are all for German titles. Sure, I am sitting at a German IP address, but I selected English as the interface language, so why use an identifier over which I have little control rather than a deliberate user choice to rank my results? Incidentally, when I visit amazon.com from this IP address, it recognizes my IP address and adds a little note to the entry page (in German) encouraging me to visit amazon.de, but if I insist on searching at amazon.com, it returns results as if I were in the US. Amazon lets me choose how I want my results fed to me. I see no such option with worldcat.org, other than the language facet on the left, but I want my initial search to be spot on, not to have to tinker endlessly to find what I want. Librarians do that. Any usability test will reveal that an average user does not. We all know that.
Even when I log in to worldcat.org, I see no option to set my preferred locale for searching. And now that I think about it, I think it is kind of weird to change the ranking based on IP address. I did, after all, enter an English language query, so why weight German books high because I am at a German IP address. What a mess.
At any rate, Little, Big is now at the top of the list because somehow it has now been given a high weight, not because any underlying problem has been fixed. Searching for similar short, pithy titles (Kerouac’s Big Sur, Wilder’s Our Town, etc.) shows that they still land buried beneath works that are less exact matches.
Then again, I have no idea what people are seeing who might be sitting at a French, American, Russian, or Japanese IP address. Changing the ranking algorithm based on IP without giving the user a clear warning that this is occurring nor the ability to shut it off is just not right. Frankly, it renders worldcat.org useless to me when I am sitting at a German computer. Doing neat things behind the scenes with queries (aka post-query processing) is something that Roy Tennant and others have been saying for years needs to be a priority in libraries. Worldcat.org has evidently taken up the challenge, but this is not a good nor consistent implementation. Where I am does not define who I am or what I want.
