Twitter, newspapers, new media – some observations

Walled gardens are increasingly irrelevant. I follow writers who i trust and are recommended to me, through things like twitter and rss, i have no loyalty whatsoever to a media company, in fact i think they are so slow to react they are increasingly being left behind, despite the talent they have writing for them.

This is all wonderful Malcolm but if the broadband plan gets scrapped as the liberal party are talking about if elected, new media won’t be very good as we will be stuck in the stone age with terrible internet speeds.

Simon, you may well be right. I am not hung up on the iPad – clearly cheaper tablets with more functionality will emerge and they will compete in this space and especially for education. The iPad has trumped the Kindle because of its better graphics, colour, etc etc. But eInk does have appeal for many because it is easier on the eyes. So this is a “tablet revolution” in which iPad is the harbinger, not an “iPad revolution”.

I don’t deny the advantages of the iPad of today vs the Kindle of today – my point simply is that we will shortly have a number of tablet devices with more functionality than the iPad of today which presumably will evolve to compete.

In reference to point one I tend to agree with @beeso.

Newspapers/media organisations are only as good as the people who produce their content.
We currently identify with a ‘brand’ like SMH or Daily Telegraph however this will shift more towards the individual writers and their own name/identity will become the new brand.

I believe media organisations will evolve more into the role of aggregator for these individual journalists/content producers.

If and/or how these organisations/individuals will profit from this content is still going to take some time to resolve.

The iPad is becoming more common in the lectures I give – in a class of thirty it seems that at least one or two students will have one, and in a bigger lecture the numbers increase accordingly.

The important thing with an iPad, though, is that the functionality is reduced to match what works within that form factor: while I agree that I’d like to see a bit more, the Microsoft tablets never took off except in niche markets, and they had a much higher level of functionality. Price played a part in that, but they also had much shorter battery life, apps that were designed to work primarily with a keyboard or precise pointer (pen or mouse) instead of a finger, and longer boot times. If the iPad’s functionality was increased, it is likely to tend to start suffering from those problems – the clever bit, for me, in the iPad’s design was cutting it back to something that works in that form factor (media consumption) and leaving the existing devices to focus on things that work better on them (media creation).

As an side, I’ve spent a lot of time working with the eInk devices, and I love them – but they are limited to reading text, as the refresh rate is low. The iPad isn’t as good at reading text, and costs more, but it replaces that with a screen appropriate for a wider range of tasks. If I just want an eBook reader the Kindle or alternatives are wonderful – but if I want something to take a few notes, get email, watch some videos, and do some quick online research, the tablets will win.

@Simon, @Malcolm, @Besso – Apple have always been strong in the educational sector and they are working very closely with schools, colleges and universities in the US. So that and the point that beeso made about colour and the ability of an education department to write their own apps (inc. to disable parts of the iPad) will mean that the iPad is going to be a the forefront of the education revolution, not the Kindle.

As for Malcom’s comment on wireless internet yes we are going to need a good wireless internet but that costs MUCH less and the telephone companies are more than capable of providing that themselves without government funding at all. This is where competition will be very strong as there are some very good technologies emerging in this area. But we will still need the NBN. Wireless internet might be able to reach similar speeds in burst mode but it won’t be sustainable for bandwidth hungry applications that might be used in hospitals, classrooms and at home. The benefits in hospitals and classrooms and business are obvious. But at home the applications take a little more imagination and this is good because it means there’s a lot more business opportunity out there once the NBN is in place. Perhaps the most obvious is high def. video streaming for movie rental, on the same internet connection which provides VOIP services and connects to your utility providers helping you reduce electricity and gas bills. There’s so much yet to come and the NBN is going to be core to that.

Malcolm I think you are missing the edgy unbroken water on this technology wave.
You are talking about the tools.

I suggest you engage, as a civic leader, the far broader opportunity that the wave delivers in preparing for the “pull” power ordinary people now have.

As I understand it, when the “push” power of the printing press began its epochal era the power was in the hands of the printers. Within a hundred years they were put into the back room by the new entity of the publisher.

Today the “push” industries are rolling out the very technologies that can and will place the power of the “pull on demand” for a few cents into the hand of the consumer.

I would debit a few cents for an article by Malcolm Turnbull if he published an article on a subject on my interest list. Who needs Fairfax or News? On a per article basis I am sure you would be ahead on the deal. There would be a base rate and it would adjust down in line with the popularity of the article. We do not want to make you too wealthy. I could write the logic of the code easily using my old Cobol or Assembler language coding.

Whether they arrive on the iPad or a nice cheap little device from China, who cares.

The sleeping giant of public awareness of our “pull” power needs to be given a shake. That is our current challenge for the next decade or so.

Cheers

Michael Byrne : ww.localforlife.com.au

It’s no so difficult. Apple lead the pack with innovation, functionality, ease of use and product quality, and open-source a good bit of it (e.g. Google Chrome). Google will keep the pressure on Apple to continue to innovate, and the mainstream will move to Android/Chromium. Microsoft will focus on the games they do well as they lose their limited mobile share and desktop dominance. All we need now is ubiquitous, reliable broadband. Kindle has probably seen its day.
Beeso is right – Apple has provided all the developer tools needed for in-house deployment.

The iPad is becoming the new place for reading, viewing and browsing. But it isnt revolutionary, as per Jobs promise. It is a stepping stone in terms of getting some new skills. This is why I bought an Ipad .. to learn incrementally the new skills. Like learning to drive a car. The iPhone was the revolution.

Re point 5. I tend to agree with you, Malcolm. And it is sad that News executives don’t fully appreciate the opportunity before them. If I was in charge, I’d be creating apps of old, popular publications. They’ve only just put together Taste, but it has only 70recipes.

And I think a lot of people who are sick of carting their home delivered carbon footprint to the bin each week, will pay a bit more for the content. I paid $1000 for my iPad. I’m hardly going to baulk at $5 a month for a newspaper.

Great Speech Malcolm. I was there and thought it was great and those people that have commented above should have been there!
My personal opinion is that if you want functionality, you want to use the internet, read a book/newspaper, write a few notes or have fun playing a game then the ipad wins!
Thanks Again and i hope you become PM

cannot beleive as a business man you are against the NBN , i dont have to tell you the benefits of this, why would you accept this shadow min.
Surely finance is where you should be.
or leader.