I’ve been saying this for awhile now, comic books on the Apple iPad are a massive opportunity. The large color screen is perfect for this kind of content. I would even argue that it’s a big strategic advantage the iPad has over the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle is the perfect device for black and white books with it’s superior e-ink display but when it comes to content like comics or color magazines, the iPad can do things the Kindle can only dream of. As a comic book lover, I’m pretty excited about the possibility of comics on the iPad and I would seriously consider getting one if for no other reason than to read comics.

There are indications now that Amazon may try to make a new Kindle with color and multi-touch technology, bringing it much closer to an iPad. I think it’s very dangerous for Amazon to rush headlong into a competition with Apple on their own turf. Maybe the smart play is to remain the dominant player in black and white e-ink technology and let Apple have the rest. Amazon’s strength has always been traditional black and white books, not magazines or comics. Here’s an even smarter play, make a full iPad version of the Kindle reader. Amazon needs to remember their focus, they are a bookstore not a hardware manufacturer. By making a great Kindle reader for the iPad, they stand to sell more books from their online bookstore, even possibly cutting into Apple’s store.

2010 will be THE year of the tablet computer as Sony has also said they want to enter this market. No doubt there will be others. 2010 could also be THE year traditional publishing makes the turn to digital distribution. People have been predicting the death of traditional publishing for years now. These new tablet machines go a long way to bringing that prediction to pass.

Sorry, I’m a little late posting this one, but here are the 2010 technology trends as I see them.

Quicktime Version

Image via Wikipedia

NBC took a big gamble when they moved Jay Leno to primetime and it obviously hasn’t worked out. Now they are canceling the prime time show and contemplating putting him back to late night, which itself is complex now as they gave his old job to Conan O’Brien.

What caps my hide about this story, however, is the way NBC has handled the news. NBC has said the show “didn’t meet affiliates’ needs” and that the show performed “exactly as we anticipated on the network.” NBC is saying here, it’s not our fault, the show was fine, blame the affiliates. The painful truth, however, which is clear to everyone is that the show wasn’t very good and very few people were watching. Critics didn’t like it and the general buzz was bad. So if the show really performed “exactly as we anticipated on the network.” that’s pretty sad and it’s no wonder NBC is the last place network.

I don’t know why companies feel they cannot admit failure. Customers will not punish you for failure, only continual failure and an inability or lack of desire to fix things. This is why AT&T is taking such a beating lately. Their network is failing in certain cities and they have been slow to correct the problems and even admit the seriousness of them. That’s what people are most upset about. Admit openly and honestly you have a problem and than get on it. Customers will be patient, for a time. But if you will not admit your failures and you issue trite press statements that smack of ridiculousness in the face of the facts, you will be punished. We are in a very media savvy society; people understand the game now. It would have been so easy for NBC to say something like, we are constantly innovating and pushing the envelope with our content. Jay Leno in primetime did not work the way we imagined so we are changing things up. We anticipate an exciting new line up, including our popular late night programming.

Bill O’Reilly likes so say his show is a “no spin zone”. The entire world is a no spin zone now. PR people are traditionally trained to control the story, even guide it if you can. A traditional PR approach to this NBC/Leno story would be to control the damage on what is basically a negative for the network. But of course the problem is there is no control anymore and there doesn’t even need to be any damage. By admitting your own failure and presenting a plan to correct things and move forward you take away the very weapon others could use against you. When the emperor has no clothes, he shouldn’t parade around as if he does. It’s a new media world now and we can all see you naked.

Actress Kirstie Alley has launched a new social website Phitter which provides a community in which to talk about fitness, health and diet. It’s built on a Twitter-like interface allowing “Phits” of 140 characters.

First of all, every “F” sound on the site is replaced with a “ph” which is incredibly annoying and amateurish. I’m sure it was as cute idea in some board room or living room or where ever this thing was conceived but in practice it just doesn’t fly. Second of all, I don’t know why it was built on a Twitter-like platform. Twitter is the hot technology of the moment but that doesn’t mean it’s the answer for everything. The site wants to be about community, but there are actually very few real community features on it. Twitter, in and of itself, is not a community. If they wanted more of a real community a much better choice would have been Ning, which allows you to build real community based sites easily. Ning sites can have message boards, video, audio and chat.

Another odd thing is the prominent message in the top logo that says the site is “A gift from Kirstie Alley”. Well, thank you Kirstie for your generosity.  Usually it’s classier to be more humble about such things. She didn’t exactly cure cancer or anything.

People are so infatuated with Twitter, microblogging and 140 characters but you must realize, there is nothing magical about 140 characters. It is not the path to enlightenment nor the key to the fountain of youth. It’s just another technology, good for some things, not good for others. I am hearing a little too much Twitter is everything, Twitter is all I need. Blogging and RSS are dead. Please, stop it already. Twitter is great, I love it and use it daily, but some things cannot be expressed in 140 characters. Some things deserve a longer, more thoughtful treatment. If you are not blogging as much because you’re Twittering so much, I would say you have it backward. Blogging should be the main course, Twitter the appetizer. Keep things in perspective and remember when you Twitter your Tweets go into the Twittersphere. When you blog, your posts live on your site, forever. It’s content that helps your SEO and brings perspective customers, partners and employees to you. Never forget, the sale is always made on your site, not on a social network. Your primary objective is to drive traffic to your site and blogging is the most effective way to do that. Twitter, yes, but dont’ forget to blog.

A World of Hurt

AT&T has been in hot water with their customers lately. Spotty network coverage in critical areas like San Francisco and New York have customers angry. Add to that comments made by AT&T CEO of mobility last week that blamed customers and their heavy data usage for the problem and things are just getting worse.

Dan Lyons of Newsweek who writes as “Fake Steve Jobs” wrote a blog post positing that if iPhone users all used data heavy apps at the same time on a particular day it would choke the AT&T network as punishment for their poor service and lack of respect for customers. Dan may have written the post with tongue in cheek but some of his readers think it’s a great idea and it’s been gaining steam across the Internet.

Teachable Moment

Parents often call this a teachable moment, and if this plan goes off it certainly will be.

Lesson 1: You cannot hide from your customers anymore. All of your faults will be exposed and spread widely among friends and foes. The opportunity is in your reaction and response.

Lesson 2: Be very careful what you say because customers are listening and your words will be amplified and once again spread widely. AT&T’s implication that they may penalize customers for heavy data usage went over like a lead balloon and was the spark for this latest outrage.

Lesson 3: Never, ever blame your customers for your problems. Payback’s a bitch so they say and your customers have many ways to hurt you now. A nasty letter to the editor is the least of your problems.

Amazon.com has scored it’s first big win in securing exclusive electronic rights to publish Stephen Covey’s popular business title 7 Habits of Highly Successful People on the Amazon Kindle. As ebook competition heats up among the Kindle, Barnes and Nobel Nook and others, these companies will seek more exclusive deals with popular authors to gain an advantage for their platform.

I think the really important news, however, is Stephen Covey experimenting with self publishing his own titles, at least the electronic versions. Reportedly the royalty split is more favorable and I’m sure there are other aspects Covey gets more control over with self publishing. The music industry is already going through this right now as many artists are seeing less and less value in the traditional record company. Artists can record, produce, distribute and market their songs all on their own and keep more of the profit and control. Now we can see the first steps of this happening in the publishing world. Stephen Covey is a big name and a best seller. If he can show success with this model, others will likely follow.

It’s not as likely this self publishing senario will flow over into traditional paper bound books as there are real costs there for printing and distribution, unlike electronic books. In fact, Covey says he has no intention at this time of changing his paper book publishing setup. Popular podcast book author Scott Sigler, though, is running a very interesting self publishing experiment with his hardbound book called The Rookie. The Rookie is not the typical horror novel Scott is famous for and as such his publisher Crown Books was not interested in putting the book out. So Sigler started taking pre-orders for the book online, utilizing his lage fan base and social network marketing. Sigler was diligent, making this an exclusive limited print run at a specific price that insured everything was paid for. With some luck, Scott may make a small profit as well.

Self publishing isn’t just for blogs anymore, the whole book industry is about to go through a major disruption in the next several years. More book readers will be released. Tablet computers that may display full color magazines are likely and more. If publishing is to survive they will need to figure out how to utilize this new technology for themselves. If they grip to hard holding onto the old models, they will suffer the same fate as the music industry.

I have been fortunate enough to attend a few really great social media conferences in the past few months and while there I noticed something very interesting. It’s something I had experienced in years past as well. Several people that I came into contact with were familiar with me because of Facebook or Twitter and my profile picture specifically helped to jog that recognition. One person even commented how much he enjoyed my picture on Facebook as it includes my new baby Capella on my shoulders. He said it makes him smile every time he sees it pop up in his Facebook stream.

That’s a kind of brand awareness that you can’t purchase for anything. Traditionally we think of brand awareness as it is associated to a logo like the Nike swoosh or Apple’s Apple with a bite out of it. Logo branding is still a powerful tool and I help many customers crate or revitalize their logos but in this increasingly social world there is also a power in your own face. I guess they don’t call it Facebook for nothing.

Don’t underestimate the value of your face. Think carefully about all those profile photos on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and everywhere else. If you’re into this for building business and brand value, here are some tips to remember:

• Make sure your picture is a good one. A clear close up view of your face. Make sure the exposure is good and the pose is comfortable and positive. Something that captures a little of your personality is always great.
• Don’t use cartoon characters or other logos. If it is an account that represents the entire company, a company logo would be appropriate for that.
• The background should be as clean and clear as possible. You don’t want anything to obscure or take focus away from what’s most important, your face.
• Don’t change your picture often. You can change it now and again, especially if you get a better picture to use, but try to remain as consistent as possible.

I would not appear with anyone else in your photo with the exception of your kids. This could even be a debated point, but I chose personally to have Capella in my Facebook profile for a few reasons. My personal Facebook account is a little less business and more personal. My Connected World Media Facebook page uses the company logo. My kids are also a big part of my life and so much of who I am, I don’t mind showing that. That being said, I have recently changed my LinkedIn photo to a photo of just me and my Twitter profile pic is the same one although my Twitter custom background has the Capella and me photo on it. I try to use the same photo across all networks as much as possible, again for consistency sake.

As with most things there are no hard and fast answers. You have to discover what works for you and your company, but I hope I have given you some things to think about. As always if you want help in this or any other social media regard, don’t hesitate to contact me. I would love to work with you on your brand image online.

Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame has an interview on the Today show in the morning and by the early afternoon there is an article on cnn.com about the Twitter response, which was not kind to her. In the never ending question of what is Twitter good for anyway, it is now a real-time feedback mechanism for anyone in the public eye. Celebrities, politicians, or anyone speaking at an event attended by an audience, there is now a Twitter stream of comments about you and your performance as it is happening. When could you ever step off stage or camera and know exactly how you did within seconds? And not from random polling, but directly from the people who watched you. There is no more raw or real feedback than that.

I wonder how long it will take for publicists to catch on and start offering their clients real-time gauges like a simple thumbs up or down based on how the Internet is responding. People could make corrections on the fly, if for example, someone held up a card that said “smile more”. General reactions to the Kristen Stewart interview was that she was dour and not friendly.

If you have an executive who has given a big speech and he asks you how it went, now rather than generically saying it went well because nobody ran out of the room, you can give him/her much more quantitative results. Some quotes and exactly how many positive and negative things were said.

File part of this story firmly in the rumor category, but it does give us an interesting look at the future of mobile communications. Currently the world is split between two main wireless cellular technologies; GSM, used by AT&T and T-Mobile among others and CDMA, primarily used by Sprint and Verizon. It looks like the next generation of technology beyond the current 3G, the so-called 4G technology will be LTE or Long Term Evolution. LTE is being rolled out currently by Verizon and has acceptance from AT&T, T-Mobile and most other vendors. For the first time ever, we may be on a single standard.

Part of the problem with the iPhone is that it is a GSM technology phone, so it will not currently work with Verizon or Sprint. Apple would have to develop a new handset altogether. If the new generation iPhone is LTE, however, this would open up a world of possibilities as it would be technologically compatible with most vendors. I think at this point we may see the ending of the long standing exclusive arrangement with Apple and AT&T. And if Apple ships the phone before AT&T can roll out it’s LTE network, AT&T stands to loose a great deal of customers. AT&T has been running at least a year behind Verizon technologically for the past several years, so I see a dark future for AT&T. AT&T’s customer satisfaction has also been plummeting lately due to their inability to handle the iPhone as it is today.

Bottom line: Apple and its’s customers stand to be big winners and AT&T stands to be a big looser unless AT&T can latch onto another phone that knocks the iPhone out of the box.

When it comes to cruise ships it seams as if bigger is better. Cruise ships keep getting larger and as the population on these floating cities continues to grow so do the services. On-board Internet is nothing new as many ships provide connections and even terminals at cafes shipboard and in room as well. The disadvantage is these connections are often very expensive. But what about the thousands of people who are already onboard with you?

Carnival is the first company to address this with a first of it’s kind on-board social network. From the various terminal points or from your very room on the new Carnival Dream you can connect to an exclusive online social network. There are typical features such as your own profile and the ability to invite friends to activities both on and off ship. I actually think this makes sense because of the enormous number of people on any given ship these days. As a marketing move it’s very smart as younger customers, very familiar with social networks, will appreciate the high tech touch as well as the easier ability to connect with others that share similar interests.

The one thing I see missing is the ability to take your connections with you when the cruise ends. Why not allow this network to continue to function with customers get home? There is no reason customers would not want to continue to communicate with their new friends, especially of they are nearby. There is also an increased chance they may want to take another Carnival cruise together, even allow them to plan the trip right on the network. It’s a community that Carnival is creating with this network and that’s one of the most powerful things a company can do. It’s very much in Carnival’s interest to keep the community going and even extend it to others who have taken Carnival cruises. Your profile could list all the Carnival cruses you have been on with your comments and reviews on each one.  At first blush this feature might looks like a gimmick but it has the potential to be much more than that.