The stream and photos will be covered on http://tokyo.japantimes.co.jp

It's a 24 hour event but I will head over in 30 minutes to do some testing.

I'm not picking on the New York Times. Just compare every media
companies app to their website. It's like night and day. Everyone is
guilty of "search engine optimization" and the New York Times is good
at finding that balance, other media companies are much much worse.
Besides search engine optimization, it's too common for media websites
to create annoying photo collages in a way that forces you to load a
new page for every image you want to see, this is because page-views
are important for selling advertisements. So most content websites you
find are both "page-view optimized" and "search engine optimized."

But on the iPad these optimizations don't help much because of the way
apps are structured and because the web economics hasn't caught up yet
to apps. I hope it doesn't. For now, iPad apps and iPad optimized
websites are built for engagement, readability and usability. But
shouldn't all content display engines be built this way?

The web is kinda screwed up.

Advertising sold within apps are sold based on the amount of user
engagement, how much time they spend within the app, how many users
are actually using the app. That is refreshing. Now Apple is coming
out with their new advertising platform. I hope they get it right. If
advertising continues to be sold based on page-views and if a key
metric for a web sites success is the numbers of visitors they get
from search engines then the leading online media companies won't be
the ones that employ journalist, but those that employ writers, human
or otherwise.

Related reading:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ad-driven_content_is_it_crossing_the_lin...
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/14/vox-populi-vox-forbes/

- Using your iPad upside down is great for playing games with two
people. Because either side of the iPad can be used by each player.
It's also good for media companies if their users make the mistake of
reading content upside down. This happens sometimes in print, another
annoying issue that the iPad has finally resolved.

- iPad is great for watching movies and visiting websites. It starts
faster than a computer and the browser is amazing. Actually I haven't
turned off my iPad since I received it, not sure how to. Kind of the
always on internet.

- If you buy a crappy book on the iPad you can't sell it to another
unsuspecting loser. You can't even give it away! I paid 12.99 for a
crappy book and I can't even force my friends to read it! If you want
to buy a book on the iPad be sure the book is well rated. Even worse
is the iPad bookshelf. Because the crappy book remains there to remind
you of your purchasing mistake. I ended up deleting the crappy book
from my bookshelf, but the charge still remains on my card. Za-nen (oh
well)

- Reading books on the iPad is not that much fun. In my 6 months of
Ivy League college during the remedial reading classes I learned about
"critical reading"; a way of engaging the text that requires writing
within the book as you read. Obviously I never finished school but I
wonder how the iPad or Kindle plan to capture the university market if
there is no way to engage in the text you are reading? As is, I think
Kindle and iPad will only be able to capture 30% of the education book
market. I will probably only buy another book on the iPad if I need a
quick read before I board an international flight. I kept my books
from the 6 months of school I attended, I think it makes me look
smart. Showing off my iPad books just makes me look like a dork with a
iPad.

- I would rather continue reading my favorite news websites than
downloading their apps for a few reasons. 1) the news apps don't have
as much content as the website (from 6 news apps I experimented with)
2) the news apps load slower than the website. 3) the browser on the
iPad is pretty cool. Better than reading websites on the PC because
you can engage with the website in a way that is impossible on the PC.
4) Some media companies might charge me for their apps, but I haven't
seen anything worth paying for that can't be found on the existing
homepage. This means, if you aren't already charging for content,
don't expect to be able to do so on the iPad.

And the iPad works upside down. That is kind of cool too.

Received an iPad from a friend in San Francisco. This poorly lit video shows me opening it. The iPad was charged but it only came on once I connected it to my computer for registration.

2) The iPad has a very beautiful browser, users will continue to visit
news websites using the iPad's browser. Focus on creating optimized
websites that look amazing on the iPad's browser. In the end, these
are the websites that will be bookmarked by iPad users.

3) Placing news content into a Apple app instead of focusing on your
website will give Apple unilateral control over your content
distribution and online subscription revenue. I'm not saying Apple is
bad, I'm just saying, think about how much of your revenue you want to
be dependent on them.