Today I’d like to ask us all to step back and take a deep breath. Call me cranky, but in 25 years or so of covering this space, and certainly with a fair share of breathless exortation to my name (early Wired, mid Industry Standard, etc.), can I just say this for the record:
The iPad is not going to change the world this week.
The world takes a long time to change. It doesn’t happen in one machine, or one year, or even one decade. Now, what the iPad represents – new approaches to user interfaces, sophisticated, third-generation software applications that are connected to and feed the Internet – yes, this is a very big deal.
But let’s not wrap all that change, which will take time to unfold – into one device and one launch. It’s ridiculous. Think back over ten years of Internet innovation – back to the year 2000. And as much as the Web has evolved, think how long it took us to get from the Treo to Android, or GeoCities to WordPress. It takes time, folks. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Many of today’s links inform this mini-rant. To wit:
LEAKED: HP Slate Gets Priced and Specced (Mashable/Engadget) One in a long line of iPad competitors on the way. There is going to be a major horse race here, to all our benefits.
Nokia Aiming a Tablet at Apple: Exclusive (TheStreet) More of the same. Nokia is a global giant and will not go quietly into the night either.
Android’s U.S. Marketshare More Than Doubles In Just Three Months (PaidContent) Oh, and yeah – there’s Google too.
Backwards Steps by the WSJ and NYT on iPad (CJR) This is the trend I am very eager to see go away – publishers who refuse to feed the link-driven web because the iPad provides them a vertical channel with total distribution control. It was wrong when I pointed it out more than five years ago and it’s wrong now.
OK, onto other news:
Online Ads Spur Increasing Consumer Action (eMarketer) Whadya know. “US Internet users are more apt to take action after viewing a variety of online ad formats, according to longitudinal research conducted by the Opinion Research Corporationfor Adfusion.”
Why Aren’t We Hearing More about Where.com? (The Next Web) Fair question, I plan to grok the service more.
With Lawsuits Looming, Yelp Separates Reviews From Advertising (SEL) Yelp has been beset by claims it sold positive reviews, the company responds in this post: We’re Increasing Transparency and Eliminating ‘Favorite Review’.
The Devil in the Details (MarketingProfs) Denny’s put its Twitter handle on all of its menus, but forgot to get the handle cleared. Ooops.
Privacy and Control (Bruce Schneier) The foremost expert on security explains why privacy is about control, not hiding things, and why most of our tech company leadership fails to understand that dynamic – or perhaps understands it all too well. Long time readers know I believe that the social conversation about privacy is one we’ve only just begun to have, and so far are not having in a manner that seems to be moving the ball much.
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Lot of truth in that.
But it’s also easy to argue that iPhone, effectively in one device and one launch, did change the world. It a) unbundled the telco business model, for chrissakes, b) put a node of the sensor web in your pocket, c) supercharged the cutover to smartphones from feature phones (e.g., 2011 >50% forecasts), d) made the mobile web a reality, exposing the crappy, conceptually brain dead mixdowns for the dreck they truly were, and e) put rich media consumption and creation in the palm of your hand, at scale. And more: how about launching an app marketplace that itself changed how software and content is designed, built, sold, and consumed?
Did all that change the world? I’d say yeah (my world, at least). And in ways we’re just beginning to understand. Is it likely iPad will do the same? That’s a longer discussion, and Magic Eight Ball says, maybe.
But given what’s just come before, it’s a reasonable question to ask.
Agreed Ron, but…the iPhone was built on ten years of attempts to do the same. I think the iPad has more of a chance of being like the original Mac, or even the Next machine…
i really enjoy going through your posts here and i’ve been following from a distance but felt i should let you know. keep it up. is there a RSS feed? I just got bloglines and want to add it in there.