“If the American Dream of the Baby Boomers was all about being able to have a car and a house in suburbia, the new American Dream is having the choice between living in drivable suburban places and walkable urban ones.” - Chris Leinberger, land use strategist at the Brookings Institution
I’ve been reading a lot lately about the concept of smart cities and what makes cities work well for citizens and the environment. Getting the mix of urban planning, design, livability and community right seems to be the key to unlocking a city’s true potential,and there are a lot of cool ideas and design sprouting up around the movement.
Walkability is a concept that comes up repeatedly in discussions about sustainable urban planning that I find completely fascinating – partly because I would love to be able to walk to get what I need the way I used to in grad school, and partly because I hate throwing away hundreds of dollars every month on my car.
Great things happen when communities are designed to be walkable – the real estate market is stronger, people spend less on transportation, neighborhoods feel safer, the environment benefits and the overall health of the population increases. More than that though, there’s something simple and wonderful about living in a local neighborhood where everything you need is just a stones throw away. When you can walk your neighborhood every day to get the things you need, you feel less isolated, you build relationships with others who live near you and you strengthen your connection to the places and community around you – it feels better.
Deep walkability isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, though. A person’s livable, walkable radius is quite small, so getting it right for everyone in the community is a challenge. Good design can help, though, and there are teams of people out there designing new solutions — like the YikeBike — for the urban future. This thing is bit expensive, but it’s seriously cool.
It’s the smallest folding electric bike in the world, it goes around 12 mph and weighs only 22 lbs (my backpack on any given day can weigh 30-40lbs). You can fold it up to take it on trains, buses and cars. It charges in 30 minutes and has a range of 6 miles. It is one-third the volume of any other 20-inch folding bike so it can be easily stored and charged anywhere. YikeBike is the first bike in the world to have electronic anti-skid brakes and also has numerous other safety features like built-in lights indicators and brake lights. Like I said, seriously cool.
What makes me excited about products like this is that it changes the way we think about important fundamentals principals that make cities work. If commuters suddenly have an option to live in more affordable neighborhoods a few miles further away from mass transit, it takes some of the heavy burden away from the government and industry, and allows individuals to take more control over outcomes.
The bottom line is that smart design incorporates important value positions (like those of walkability, sustainability etc), and gives people the ability to change behaviors… and that’s exactly what the YikeBike does. Plus, this thing looks fun. Anyone have $5000?
You knew this was coming. Google about to start surfacing public web content from your friends and online contacts.
It wast much of a surprise that in the hours leading up to and following Apple’s official unveiling of the iPad, “Kindle” was also a trending topic on Twitter. Whether the iPad will kill the Kindle is on a lot of people’s minds and while I’m not going to speculate on the future of the Kindle, I think you can be pretty damn sure that Jeff Bezos didn’t sleep well this week. For what it’s worth, I think Apple’s about to float comfortably into an almost uncontested blue ocean where competing with the Kindle won’t be much of a concern. But most importantly, this launch is going to shift publishing practices and change consumer behavior and expectations significantly this year. Here’s why…
First, The Bad
Before I say anything, I do share some concerns with the iPad’s design. No multitasking, no camera, and no Flash makes me scratch my head a little. Including a camera seems like a no-brainer. The only reason I can think to leave it out would be to reduce the cost to hit a price point. I have a feeling people will complain about their inability to use iChat or use Skype video etc.
Not being able to view Flash content when you browse the web on a screen that big is also a downer – you’re going to have holes in some websites, and you can forget about streaming video. Also, no multitasking completely eliminates the iPad’s ability to compete with even the simplest netbooks. Not having multitasking on the iPhone isn’t that big a deal in my eyes, but I have a feeling that with the larger screen people will expect more of a laptop like experience. That said…
The Market Is Primed For An In-Between Product That Improves The Reading Experience
You might say that the iPad is just a jumbo oreo, and that Apple’s R&D team has lost it’s magic touch. I’m not convinced that that argument has legs, though. True, what’s missing in the iPad’s design gives some of us pause, and the device doesn’t seem to be well-positioned to compete with netbooks, but I don’t think that’s the point.
Even with what it’s missing in this first-generation design, it’s clear that Apple is going to clear the “reading experience” hurdle that plagues the iPhone, and bring users a rich multimedia experience that other ereaders can’t match.
Creating a better reading experience on a screen is what this movement towards ereaders is all about. And that’s all they really had to do with this release – take everything we love about the iPhone, create a significantly better default reading experience and give it lots of screen real-estate for app developers to go wild. That’s it. And that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Here are a couple of videos from Popular Science’s vault that show what the reading experience is actually like on the iPad. It’s obvious that this is where the Apple R&D team put a lot of their effort:
The iPad Is The Best Positioned Device To Become The Next Major Platform For Innovation
If you ignore the device’s shortcomings and focus instead on what the device has going for it, it’s hard to argue that Apple isn’t well positioned to shake up the market:
- Familiarity Is An Important Intangible Asset: Millions of people already use iPhones and are familiar with the interface, the apps, the app store and iTunes. The Jumbo Oreo can be a good thing when it comes to adoption because it eliminates the perception of learning curves for consumers – don’t forget that just holding a tablet creates a completely new computing experience. Going “too innovative, too fast” could actually put Apple at risk for releasing something too different that turns mainstream consumers off. By sticking with the familiar UI, look and feel, consumers know what they’re going to get – and make no mistake, initial perceived value can make or break a product. This thing hasn’t even been released and consumers that are usually at the center of the adoption curve are probably already confident that they’ll be expert users on day one, even though the device represents a paradigm shift in computing. Chew on that for a second.
- Consumer Lock In: iTunes users and iPhone owners already have tons of purchased content and apps that they can start using the second they open the box. There isn’t a single other competing device that that’s true for in this market. Access to 140,000 apps at your fingertips. From day one.
- Apple’s (probably) Not Excluding Other Book Publishers: Users will likely be able to read their Kindle and B&N e-book purchases on the iPad. It doesn’t make sense that they’ll stop Amazon, B&N and any of the independent e-book publishers from creating their own applications. There’s always the possibility that Apple could decide that these apps now “duplicate” a core feature of its own apps and ban all other e-reader apps from the devices, but that this seems like a highly unlikely scenario.
It’s all about the apps and the developer gold rush: It was a smart move by Apple to announce the device AND the iPad developer platform together, a full 60 days before the device is going to be available for purchase. You can bet your ass there are hundreds of developers busting their hump to make release day. We all saw what happened with the iPhone app store, and the developers know how important it is to be first to market. This’ll just be a rinse and repeat exercise – and this time, Apple’s given developers a ton more screen real estate to work with and opened the doors for new companies to focus on creating rich reading experiences. This’ll increase the size of Apple’s army of developers and companies that are going out of their way to push their apps and do the marketing for Apple. The structure of the marketing effort is completely different than any other eReader launch. After seeing what’s happened with the iPhone over the last 2 years, people are expecting the iPad to be able to do things it can’t even do yet on day one – and they’re also expecting the device’s utility and versatility to increase over time – more apps will come
The Reading Experience Itself Is Going To Change
I’ll say it one more time for emphasis (sorry) – it’s all about the apps – that’s where the real innovation is going to happen, and that’s where consumers are expecting it to happen. They don’t want a crazy new device they have to learn how to use – they want something they know how to use that does new and useful things. The extra screen real estate is exactly what developers have been waiting for, and it’s all they need to change the way we think about reading.
One of the innovations I’m most excited about is multimedia enriched books. Those of us who are used to reading and learning on the web have been waiting eagerly for this. There’s a company who’s already in pole position to deliver – Vook.com. The cleverly named “Vooks” (part video part book) are going to be some of the first instances of mutlimedia rich story telling on platforms like the iPad – and they’re not a part of the hardware – they’re apps. Seth Godin’s already announced that he’s getting on the bandwagon, and Gary Vaynerchuck’s got his latest book Crush It! on Vook already (and why the hell wouldn’t you want to experience Gary’s energy and exuberance on video along with his writing).
The point is that the “book” as a product is about to change. Long form content is going to start looking a lot more like web content – learning text will be accompanied by video tutorials, cook books will have recipes with matching technique segments and fiction texts will start looking a lot more like Myst. If players who are making these new multimedia apps can get the pricing right the floodgates will open and there’ll be no looking back. I’m not saying that books will disappear, I’m just saying that the iPad as a platform opens the market up to many more options and lots of innovation that extend the long tail of the marketplace for reading experiences.
And all of this together is why Apple’s iPad is going to be significant to publishing.
Thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments.
This short video was posted by Chris Brogan a few days ago. I love finding real-life stories about how small business owners are successfully using social media to increase their business. Joe Sorge, who runs AJ Bombers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin shares how he uses a tool to humanize his business and keep in touch with customers.
I’ve heard the advantages of shifting from traditional marketing to social media marketing strategies articulated many different ways, but Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer at Eastman Kodak Company, does it best in this short video. His Four Es – Engagement, Education, Excitement and Evangelism – are spot on. It’s a smart, pithy way to articulate the big picture and what the shift in strategy is all about. The second video highlights another key advantage to marketing on the web – the ability to be agile, and to respond quickly to feedback.
I found this video this morning. It’s a 5 minute stream of offbeat, interesting and disturbing questions to help exercise your noodle. It’s a fun way to wake your brain up.
Riddles for linchpins from Seth Godin on Vimeo.
Did you know that as of 2005, only 15 percent of the world was mapped? Google’s Lalitesh Katragadda thinks we can do better. Not having detailed maps in the developing world slows the delivery of aid after a disaster and hides the economic potential of unused lands and unknown roads. Said another way, access to better information yields better results and vice versa, especially when the timeliness of that information is critical. In the short talk below, Lalitesh demos Map Maker, a group map-making tool that people around the globe are using to map their world. Inspiring stuff that highlights just one more instance where individuals can use technology to better the world and make a difference.
Also, for those of you interested, Fast company wrote a great piece a few days ago on how critical Google Maps were to the aid effort in Haiti last week and put up a slide show of how Google maps could be used to gather information in the midst of the crisis.
