As expected Apple jumped into the cloud-based music game yesterday when Steve Jobs announced iCloud. While I download iTunes and update my iPad to try out some of the features that are available now, here are a few thoughts on the announcements.

It’s about time that there will be iPad synching via wifi.

The mere ability to sync to the cloud is worth the cost of admission, saving space, memory and time, especially for those apps.

If you think about it the iCloud feature allowing you to access songs you bought previously is about the same as what we currently have for iOS apps, which you can delete and re-download.

All that synching addresses and email with the Cloud stuff didn’t seem revolutionary to a Gmail and Android user, though it sure excited the Apple fan boy in the office next to me. Ditto with the Twitter integration with Contacts and enhanced notifications.

iMessages the next BBM? Maybe, but a dagger in SMS, I doubt it. Sure for close friends who you know have iPhones, but if you don’t know what phone they have? There are reasons why here in the States we prefer SMS over mobile IM and email and I suspect they are the same ones that will limit the popularity of iMessages.

There sure was a lot of Twitter integration with iOS 5, but none with iTunes. Kind of a shame.

Apple’s thorough Twitter integration seems like a big middle finger to Facebook, will it appease our social media desires or just make us hungry for Facebook features throughout iOS?

I can’t find any mention of streaming in all of the iCloud and iTunes in the Cloud descriptions, just downloading to multiple devices. So just because I have uploaded 20,000 songs to iTunes in the Cloud doesn’t mean I can access them at a moment’s notice unlike Google Music. I need to download a track first before I play it. Seems like we’re still playing off the hard drive and dealing with hard drive space with this option.

TechCrunch is calling iTunes Match (where for $24.99 a year iTunes will scan your music library, identify the existing tracks that match tracks available on iTunes and give you access to them through iTunes in the Cloud) as paying “$25 a year to legalize all your content” and CNNMoney calls it “music pirates permanent amnesty.”. But before you go matching all those songs you laboriously ripped from your CD library think about the quality you ripped those songs at. I know that mine are all better than 256 kpbs so the matched tracks are actually a step down in quality.

I’ll post a deeper dive into the new iTunes features once I’ve had a chance to try them out.

Initial iCloud Thoughts is a post from: Trumblog

These are exciting days for cloud-based music services. Amazon launched their Cloud Drive in March. Then Google rolled out the Google Music Beta at their I/O Developer Conference. And of course all signs point to Apple announcing iCloud or some similarly named cloud-based music service soon, perhaps in a couple weeks at its Worldwide Developer’s Conference. So, with this glorious opportunity ahead of us here’s what I would like in the music service of my dreams:

Easy Access

I want all of the music files that I have collected in one place and have no hear of losing them to a hard drive crash, natural accident, vindictive co-worker, etc. At some point I may also need them back, because of one of those aforementioned issues with my backup, so I want an easy download option too.

And when I say my entire music collection, I mean my entire music collection, not just the album cuts from the major labels, but rare indy singles, alt takes that never were supposed to see the light of day, unauthorized remixes, live versions, mashups, etc. I worked hard to collect it all and I want access to it all.

Then I want to access those tracks any time and anywhere that I want on any device. PC, Mac, iPod, iPad, Android. Online and offline. If it has a browser and a speaker I want to hear my music coming out of it. I can live without an official Roku channel, but provide an API so some enterprising folks can integrate it with Roku, Google TV, Apple TV, and whatever comes next. Also if my device has memory that can be written to I want some of my tracks to be available if the wifi goes out or I’m outside cell range (like on the subway during my commute).

Plenty of Data

I admit that I get a little anal about my music meta data, the correct year, album artist, disk number, artwork, etc. It simultaneously drives me nuts that I have to pick only one genre for a song (is Paper Planes rock, electronic, world, hip-hop, alternative or all of them?) and to have both the genres Electronic and Electronica represented in my library. Give me the control to edit the information about my music the way that I want it and tag it to my heart’s content.

The flip side of that is that I want to pull plenty of data about my collection and listening habits. What albums from the past year did I listen to the most? Which of my albums are on the 4AD label (why is label not included in music meta data I ask you?). Presumably this service will be doing some data mining of my music taste so give me recommendations about artists, albums, tracks, playlists and even blogs that I should check out.

Social

A perfect music service will integrate with social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Blogs so that I can let friends know what music I like, share what’s new, what mood I’m in, and I can find out the same about my friends. Those social features of course promote discovery of new music, which then the service would support through access to music blogs, band websites, music stores, etc so that I can learn about bands, listen to new tracks and find new music.

Finally, the service should be free and has no memory limits. How do you make money? Well, a music store is the obvious economic model. Targeted ads based on my music collection is another. Fully integrated, media rich, band/ label micro sites could be sold at a premium. Then there’s the benefit of keeping consumers within your online ecosystem (think Google keeping you in the GMail, YouTube, Google Voice, Android set of services and away from Apple).

Ok, so that is my wish list. Next I’ll start writing about how some of the existing services that I’ve tried in my quest to find the music service of my dreams stack up.

The Cloud-Based Music Service Of My Dreams is a post from: Trumblog

In the New York Times yesterday there was some interesting data from Forrester Research on men, women and e-readers.

Generically speaking, the iPad and other tablets are men’s toys, while the Nook Color and other e-readers are more popular with women. According to data from Forrester Research, 56 percent of tablet owners are male, while 55 percent of e-reader owners are female. Women also buy more books than men do — by a ratio of about 3 to 1, according to a survey last year by Bowker, a research firm for publishers — and are therefore more likely to buy devices that are made primarily for reading books.

But publishers also believe the resonance of the Nook Color among women highlights the vast difference in consumer markets. Some women, at least, seem to prefer their electronic reading devices to be simpler, something they can read on. Tablets with Rock Band, GT Racing and high-res cameras? That’s guy stuff.

Anecdotal evidence based on the devices on the bedside tables at my home back up this data, but if it wasn’t for the Kindle I won and then gave my wife for Christmas she’d be gadget-less. Generally she also lives up to the simpler is better mind frame for gadgets, but make an Android e-reader that delivers Bejeweled and Gardens of Time and she’s all yours.

Men Are From iPad, Women Are From Kindle is a post from: Trumblog

Blogsy is a fantastic new blogging app that finally brings WYSIWYG formatting to blogging on the iPad and includes some new takes on functionality to make blogging easier.

Blogsy splits their interface in two, Rich and Write, which roughly correspond to the Visual and HTML views in the WordPress interface. The Write side is your HTML view where you write, edit the HTML and can insert embed codes. The Rich side, that you switch to with a swipe of the finger, is for formatting your copy and and inserting images with WYSIWYG simplicity.

Just the WYSIWYG editing would have been enough for me, but Blogsy has added some other cool features for formatting and enhancing your blog posts. Flickr, Picasa and YouTube are all integrated with Blogsy so that a click on any of those icon opens your account on the service so that you can drag your photos and videos directly into your blog post. You can also search within any of the services for imagery too. It’s seriously that easy to drag and position assets into a blog post and once you are there you can resize them, tweak how the text flows around them, assign links, etc.

Can’t find the photo you need in Flickr? No problem you can search for photos with Google image search or drag some photos into your post from the integrated browser. The integrated browser is also helpful for work flow, when you want to quickly look something up or to grab a URL from for a link. Adding links is also super easy with the Link dragging button on the integrated button.

Blogsy is still a work in progress, which in this case bodes well for the future of this app because we can expect regular updates. As a matter of fact the app is budget priced right now because you cannot add photos from the iPad photo gallery to blog posts, which will be addressed in a coming update. It’s not always clear whether you are in the Rich or Write interface and the fact that you can only write on the Write side and not on Rich isn’t intuitive at first and limits the ease of editing. Saving also should be easier, not hidden in sub navigation. Twitter integration is missing and I look forward to when a blue “t” button is added to the right column of buttons.

Blogsy works with both WordPress.com and WordPress installed blogs and Blogger and I looks like there are plans for adding Tumblr, Drupal and other platforms.

Check out the Blogsy demo video below.

Review: Blogsy For iPad is a post from: Trumblog

It was about 4 years ago that I was hit by Rishad Tobaccowala’s advice to the crowd at OMMA East. “Mind your API“.  Don’t ask me why that one instruction stuck with me more than everything else that he said that afternoon, but it did.

For those of you who don’t know what an API is, API stands for Application Programming Interface and it is the rules and specifications for a third party to interact with your software.  For example, Google Maps API allows thousands of programs to incorporate Google Maps data into their programs.  Twitter’s open API allows hundreds of alternate ways of posting or reading tweets.

While Tobaccowala’s advice should be taken literally, it was also meant to be metaphoric.  Make sure that you work well with third parties, exchange information easily and make it simple for them to use that data.

What made me think of this?  Well, we just launched an app for an event that one of our clients is hosting this week and I needed screenshots.  The app is available for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, but I just spent the last half hour taking screen shots of the iPhone version only.  Why? Because Apple makes it so easy and the others don’t.

Tap and hold the power button, click the iPad button, done.

But for the BlackBerry and Android you need to connect the device to a computer and download some software and only then can you start the process of taking a screenshot, which still probably isn’t as easy as click, click done.  It’s a little thing, but because Apple makes it easy to take screen shots I will be promoting the iPhone app and not the other platforms.

Usability isn’t always about making things easy to find and sharing isn’t just making sure you have a “Tweet This” button on your site.  How rich is your API?

Mind Your API is a post from: Trumblog

One frustrating thing about the iPad is that the applications are not integrated. On my Android phone once I download the Tumblr app I can share the webpages that I browse, the pictures I take, etc on Tumbler directly from the browser or gallery. On my iPad I have to copy and paste to the app, which is especially a pain when you want a URL and a page name or something like that. I’ve found an easy workaround with bookmarklets that enable social media sharing in Safari, help me to get around the lack of Flash support that makes getting YouTube embed codes a pain and as an easy way to view the page source.

Here is my tutorial for adding a bookmarklet to your Safari browser on the iPad and a list of my favorite bookmarklets.

How To Create A Bookmarklet

In Safari, click the + sign at the top of the browser and select “Add Bookmark.”
On the Add Bookmark screen change the name of the bookmark to whatever you want. For the purpose of this demo I used “Bookmark Name,” but you can use something generic, the name that you ultimately want the bookmark to be or just leave it and change the name later (you’ll have another chance to edit it later in the process. When you’ve made this enormous decision click the save button.

Click the Bookmarks icon (an open book) and click the edit bottom in the top right.

The dropdown will shift revealing delete and edit icons on either side of the bookmark names. Click the bookmark that you just made in order to edit it.

You now have a second opportunity to edit the bookmark name and more importantly the bookmark URL. For the bookmarklets that I have been using for enhanced functionality I swap the URL for some JavaScript. Just select the url of the dummy site and paste the JavaScript into the bookmark.

Click “Bookmarks” and “Done.” You’re all set and can begin using those bookmarks.

My Favorite Bookmarklets

Here are the bookmarklets with JavaScript that I’m using to extend the functionality of the Safari browser on the iPad, especially where it comes to social media, social networks and blogging. If you have some additions please let me know in the comments.

Tweet This
javascript:(function(){window.twttr=window.twttr||{};var D=550,A=450,C=screen.height,B=screen.width,H=Math.round((B/2)-(D/2)),G=0,F=document,E;if(C>A){G=Math.round((C/2)-(A/2))}window.twttr.shareWin=window.open(‘http://twitter.com/share’,”,’left=’+H+’,top=’+G+’,width=’+D+’,height=’+A+’,personalbar=0,toolbar=0,scrollbars=1,resizable=1′);E=F.createElement(‘script’);E.src=’http://platform.twitter.com/bookmarklets/share.js?v=1′;F.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0].appendChild(E)}());

Bookmark On Del.icio.us
javascript:(function(){f=’http://delicious.com/save?url=’+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href)+’&title=’+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+’&v=5&’;a=function(){if(!window.open(f+’jump=doclose’,'deliciousuiv5′,’location=yes,links=no,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,width=550,height=550′))location.href=f+’jump=yes’};if(/Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent)){setTimeout(a,0)}else{a()}})()

Tumble This
javascript:var d=document,w=window,e=w.getSelection,k=d.getSelection,x=d.selection,s=(e?e():(k)?k():(x?x.createRange().text:0)),f=’http://www.tumblr.com/share’,l=d.location,e=encodeURIComponent,p=’?v=3&u=’+e(l.href) +’&t=’+e(d.title) +’&s=’+e(s),u=f+p;try{if(!/^(.*\.)tumblr[^.]*$/.test(l.host))throw(0);tstbklt();}catch(z){a =function(){if(!w.open(u,’t',’toolbar=0,resizable=0,status=1,width=450,height=430′))l.href=u;};if(/Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent))setTimeout(a,0);else a();}void(0)

Get YouTube Embed Code
javascript:void(location.href=’http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/files/YouTube_codev2.htm?YouTubeURL=’+escape(location.href))

Share on Facebook
javascript:var d=document,f=’http://www.facebook.com/share’,l=d.location,e=encodeURIComponent,p=’.php?src=bm&v=4&i=1271771052&u=’+e(l.href)+’&t=’+e(d.title);1;try{if (!/^(.*\.)?facebook\.[^.]*$/.test(l.host))throw(0);share_internal_bookmarklet(p)}catch(z) {a=function() {if (!window.open(f+’r'+p,’sharer’,'toolbar=0,status=0,resizable=1,width=626,height=436′))l.href=f+p};if (/Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent))setTimeout(a,0);else{a()}}void(0)

Add To Google Reader
javascript:var%20b=document.body;if(b&&!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement(‘script’));void(z.src=’http://www.google.com/reader/ui/subscribe-bookmarklet.js’);void(b.appendChild(z));}else{location=’http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)}

Get Bit.ly Shortened Link
javascript:var%20b=document.body;if(b&&!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement(‘script’));void(z.src=’http://www.google.com/reader/ui/subscribe-bookmarklet.js’);void(b.appendChild(z));}else{location=’http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)}

View Source
javascript:var%20sourceWindow%20%3D%20window.open%28%27about%3Ablank%27%29%3B%20%0Avar%20newDoc%20%3D%20sourceWindow.document%3B%20%0AnewDoc.open%28%29%3B%20%0AnewDoc.write%28%27%3Chtml%3E%3Chead%3E%3Ctitle%3ESource%20of%20%27%20%2B%20document.location.href%20%2B%20%27%3C/title%3E%3C/head%3E%3Cbody%3E%3C/body%3E%3C/html%3E%27%29%3B%20%0AnewDoc.close%28%29%3B%20%0Avar%20pre%20%3D%20newDoc.body.appendChild%28newDoc.createElement%28%22pre%22%29%29%3B%20%0Apre.appendChild%28newDoc.createTextNode%28document.documentElement.innerHTML%29%29%3B

iPad Bookmarklets is a post from: Trumblog

Yesterday morning I spent a lovely couple of hours reading The New York Times. To set the scene, it was a crisp fall morning, the dogs were walked, I had a cup of coffee beside me and my iPad was propped comfortably so I could read it and sip at the same time.

I’ve done this ever since I got my iPad using the New York Times app, which gave me the “Editor’s Choice,” the top 10 or so stories from the main sections of the paper, world and local news, business, culture, tech, opinion, and some video and photo features. Enough for my weekday morning commute, but not enough for a Sunday morning deep dive.

Now, in anticipation of requiring payment to read the newspaper online, The Times rolled out an enhanced app that gives you the whole enchilada from Top News to Obituaries, NY / Regional to Travel, the Magazine, Books, Automobiles, Sports. And these sections are not limited to the top 10 or so articles. While I didn’t do a cellulose to silicon comparison the stories are extensive and I found some pretty obscure columns and features that I’d never found in the original app. The entire newspaper plus the video and photo features from the original app and website along with a few NYTimes.com blog posts as well.

The app does a great job of helping you easily navigate through the paper. Every section of the paper is accessible from a pop-up menu on the left hand side of the screen on main page of each section. Once within the article you can scan all of the headlines in that section from a bar at the bottom of the screen and then jump to them with a click. Every story also has a very handy “share’ icon with links to email, tweet, share on Facebook or just copy the link, the better to attract more paying online readers my dear. Unfortunately links in the photo features, that must have been ported from the web did not work and would be a nice fix in the next few weeks of additions.

Personally, I don’t find the ads obtrusive and see them as a necessary trade off for a free, or at least subsidized experience. Unfortunately there just isn’t enough variety in them and I was pretty immune to any suggestion to see “Conviction” after the 20th time that I saw the ad. Some other ads would have been welcome.

Early next year The Times is due to start charging online readers who use the newspaper as their primary news source. In other words if you read a few articles a week you can probably get that for free, but if you plan on starting your day with The Times you’ll need to get a subscription. This app makes that option seem worthwhile both in terms of functionality and breadth of content.

But how about the newspaper experience? I didn’t miss the weight of the Sunday paper on the bed, more room for the pug. I did miss the satisfying “thwump” of a hearty Sunday paper on the dining room table. I didn’t miss the inky fingers or extra recycling, though it is handy under pumpkin carving and to start fires. I’m probably easier to engage over Sunday morning pancakes with a 9″ screen in front of me than with the broadsheet. I did miss sharing the paper, which is impossible unless your partner also has a device of their own, and if you can’t share then the family’s tolerance for your reading it goes down exponentially.

With this app The Times shows that they can deliver the news to you in an enjoyable experience. They prove that you’ll get the complete set of news online and not just a best of and the value of the New York Times curation is clear. How about the cost that we have come to expect? That’s still unclear at this point. What galls me about the Wired, New Yorker and other apps is that I pay $8 for my yearly subscription to Wired, but they want me to pay $4.99 each month for the app. I know the rationale for the magazine cost structure and why the news stand cost is higher than a subscription. Apple needs to take care of the subscription model so I’m not forced to pay top rates not because I’m unwilling to make a year’s commitment, but because Apple won’t let me. The same goes for The New York Times. If their price for a subscription isn’t fair, if I’m paying a one-off cost when I should be treated as a reader who makes a commitment, if I can’t share my “paper” with my household, then we have some issues. Boy I hope The Times gets it right.

Review: The New York Times iPad App is a post from: Trumblog

I have to idea if the video below is real and of the 4 guys in the video below are actually playing live with their iPhones or not, but regardless, it’s sure possible that they could. Many of us walk around with more computing power in our pockets than power the space shuttle. Let’s keep using that power for art.

Mobile Computing Power And Art is a post from: Trumblog

This is a live blog of the FutureM panel The Realities of Mobile Advertising which was held at MIT on Monday October 4, 2010.  The panelists were Stephen Bagdasarian (Hill Holliday), Brenna Hanly (Mobile Catalyst, Mullen), Brett Leary (VP/Dir of Mobile Marketing, DIGITAS), William Nann (Director, National Advertising Sales) and Jon Phenix (VP Sales, Nexage) and was moderated by Dan Olshwang (Jumptap).

There were a few interesting things said during the panel.  The first was actually something that went unsaid for the first 45 minutes of discussion, the use of geolocation for location based advertising.  From the discussion it seems that LBA is exciting in theory with lots of opportunity, but has yet to be really cracked in practice.  Another interesting topic were the devices themselves.  Stephen Bagdasarian from Hill Holiday talked about identifying devices and mobile activity in the target audience before digging into tactics and creative at all.  But later tablets and phones were lumped together as 1 mobile experience by Brenna Hanly.  While I’m sure that she would agree that they provide different experience it’s clear that with the range of devices under the “mobile” umbrella, talking about mobile as one medium is not tenable.  Finally mobile was described as being the hub of all marketing channels.  I used to have a boilerplate slide in my PPT deck that positioned online marketing that way so I’m a bit jaded on that, BUT at the same time it’s clear that mobile can fill that central spot with other channels as spokes off of it depending on the type of campaign and quality of mobile advertising.

07:38:32 PM Hey it’s not just agencies that have wall of icon slides in their PPTs, mobile companies do too showing off app developers.

07:46:10 PM Mullen sees mobile as the communication hub between all channels, print, online, live, etc.

07:51:08 PM Digital dollars are ramping up for mobile with some annual budgets reaching $1 million

07:51:42 PM RT @stevenduque: At #FutureM‘s #momobo: @digitas “The pain we feel as buyers is fragmentation in the [#mobile] space.”

07:53:05 PM Mobile is the medium to reach consumers at the point of purchase, but creative needs to match opportunity

07:56:16 PM The paradigm for mobile is the online advertising ecosystem, but changing so fast. How will it impact mobile?

07:58:47 PM In mobile advertising there is 100% share of voice per page. Big opportunity

08:01:47 PM Or part of overall digital ad $ pull from other channels? RT @jmoore700: where will mobile $ come from? Web $s most susceptible.

08:02:42 PM RT @stevenduque: From #FutureM‘s #momobo: 3 types of fragmentation in #mobile market: ecosystem, platform & buying side.

08:05:57 PM Type of phone and mobile activity for target demographic key driver for developing mobile campaign

08:07:11 PM Short term use, throw away apps are a valid opportunity for sponsorship and not used often enough

08:07:40 PM RT @stevenduque: At #FutureM‘s #momobo: @digitas: “Mobile search is a fast growing area where we know we can reach our target demo”

08:08:36 PM RT @earlthompson: Audience member claims to have made a purchase of +$5K on mobile device in past 30 days. WOW

08:09:58 PM Creatives never said anything about mobile advertising until iAd, it brought excitement to the platform

08:11:44 PM iAd is not a creative platform it is an ad network. Still room for creative agencies.

08:12:21 PM Test small, learn big before jumping into large mobile ad spends.

08:14:59 PM RT @stevenduque: At #FutureM‘s #momobo: “Is a WSJ reader just as valuable while they’re playing Angry Birds?” Context matters

08:17:30 PM Mobile ads may be hyper local targeted or cool experience, but ultimately it’s all about post-clickthrough engagement

08:19:32 PM Mobile is all about marketing to context (location, audience, device)

08:21:08 PM Browser history not available to mobile advertisers in a meaningful way the way that it is for online advertisers.

08:22:53 PM RT @stevenduque At #FutureM‘s #momobo: @hillholliday“In mobile, you don’t necessarily need to be everything to everybody. Market to context”

08:24:32 PM Not referring to it as mobile but “time & place” marketing. @Brennahanley

08:26:19 PM Geo-location companies going after agencies clients “wanna try this” Hmmmm.

08:28:53 PM Geo-location advertising leads to practice changes across company, advertising, delivery, etc. Big investment, big payoff?

08:31:01 PM Mobile video is in demand, but not much available. 4G will drive video adoption

08:33:07 PM HTML5 will be the tipping point for mobile video supporting both delivery and tracking

08:38:12 PM Context difference between tablet and phone. Tablet – lean forward engagement , phone – on location usage

The Realities of Mobile Advertising is a post from: Trumblog

My BlackBerry died again on Wednesday so while I await a real replacement I’m rocking this beat up BlackBerry 8700.  I tried adding a few apps to help with Social Networking, but the old gal’s not having any of it (and since I’ll be handing her back on Monday I’m not jumping through any hoops to make it work) so any updates will need to be performed via the mobile web.

Consider it an experiment and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Don’t Expect Much Social Media From Me Today is a post from: Trumblog