- 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.

Every technology person who has a little bit of street credibility believes he has the answer to the problems that media companies face. Marc Andreessen, who I met while at FON and is a nice enough guy, should really lead the charge in asking technology people to shut up rather than just suggest that publishers “Burn the Boats” by shutting down their print operations. If you stop telling media companies to flip their business on its head someone might actually start listening.

I spent a year helping Hearst Communications during the late 1990s, two years working with Columbia Music Entertainment in Japan and am now consulting The Japan Times, and I still have no clue about the future of media. I haven't met a media veteran who does either, and I haven't heard a technologist with a compelling idea that doesn't involve placing a bunch of people on a sacrificial alter to the digital gods. It would be suicidal to try and predict -- and even worse to prescribe -- a single solution that has no clear results.

The media industry brings out a lot of pundits because everyone can read a newspaper or listen to music. This makes them feel more qualified to prescribe a remedy.

Not everyone can read the stochastic oscillators or bollinger bands, charts used by traders to graph stock movements. When I was at Lehman Brothers, our technology teams had to first try to understand the needs of the business people (traders) and then built technology for them. What we need are more experienced technology people who are willing to try and understand the internal needs of media organizations. This means instead of telling the chef "make the toast yellow, not brown," first figure out how toasters work and look at the environment the chef is producing in.

But since prescribing solutions is all the rave, here is mine: What media companies need is flexibility. The music industry is flexible enough to adapt to changes. In the last 20 years, music companies have been able to distribute their content on more formats than I can count, 8-track, cassette, plastic disk of varying sizes, CD, records, and multiple competing digital formats. This is because artist and producers are very much independent from the distribution channel (CD, tapes, records, iTunes). Between the creator and the distribution channel is a business operatus that funds and manages it all. I think this is the way things should be in the music industry, though that's a separate discussion. But what this means is that a 15-year-old kid who creates an entire album on his PC using a $400 piece of software could end up in the same distribution channels as a artist like Madonna who probably spends $20,000 - $100,000 per track using the same music company as their coordinator. As long as people pay to listen, the music company wins.

Newspapers on the other hand don't have this sort of flexibility. Newsrooms commit to publishing systems that could easily run up to $1M for a small news organization. While the writers can often work independent of this system, the producers or editors can not. This system often dictates how content flows in and out of the organization, with the primary assumption being that the content will be consumed on paper: The nature of a normal editorial floor unavoidably places constraints on the flow of content.

Eventually “newspaper newsrooms” will just be “newsrooms,” so what news organizations need to operate is flexibility, the ability to accept content in any form and then distribute it in any form. Most pure technologist have a hard time grasping how important this change is to a print news organization.

At The Japan Times I'm trying to implement technology that leaves the organization flexible because I have no clue what the future will bring, I'm not a fortune teller. Fundamentally content going out needs to be able to fit an infinite number of forms of consumption – which should be of little concern to the writer. For me, this means refusing to work with vendors who use proprietary standards for content storage, which is common in the media industry because publishing systems originally had to display content well enough to look good on paper, the only content exporting functions they built into their products were related to printing. It means treating our end points, websites, iPads and mobile devices all as equal display engines. Display engines need to be able to read and display standardize content. Of course, the features and styling you implement around that content will vary depending on the device, but the content remains core.

With the assumption that we have no idea of what the future brings, recommending to a media organization that they need to be "digital" has no real meaning. It doesn't help the organization solve the greatest challenge of moving content. It's even worse to recommend news organizations move to the "web" without solving the issue of flexible distribution of content.

If technology pundits really know the future of news, they should just create their own news companies. Otherwise, shut up and enjoy the show. And I mean that in the nicest most constructive way.

But if you really have something to say, answer me this: Aside from distribution, what are technologies pundits’ hard advice on monetizing content now that ad sales are disappearing in print publications and online sales have yet to show growth comparable to what print once enjoyed?

Zip it photo from; http://www.flickr.com/photos/winton/

Next week on the 25th in Tokyo we will have the official launch party
for Tokyo.JapanTimes http://tokyo.japantimes.co.jp

You can find out more about the launch party on its ever changing Facebook events page http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=362274829656

I won't talk about how earth shattering or game changing the
Tokyo.JapanTimes platform will be. I've learned my lessons from trying
to innovate within the music industry.

I think the beauty of Tokyo.JapanTimes is its simplicity. Its about
Tokyo for people who love Tokyo. Much of the content is consumer
generated content, but this is in no way a attempt to shift the
business strategy of a media company. The Japan Times benefits from
Tokyo.JapanTimes by being a part of the conversation.

Already several Japan Times reporters have voluntarily joined the
community and become a part of the discussion. The great thing is that
Japan Times reporters and members of Tokyo.JapanTimes all have the
same mutual interest, Tokyo and to a larger extent Japan.

The party guest list for the 25th is a virtual who's who of the Tokyo
young professional and creative scene. So I think this could become
something meaningful if its allowed to grow.

We provide a platform and a venue for Tokyo lovers and in exchange,
The Japan Times gets a pulse on what people are thinking, talking
about and interested in. This type of real time information is
invaluable.

If when people around the world think of Tokyo they think of The Japan Times. The
platform will have been a huge success.

One thing you may notice immediately on the site, besides the beautiful photographs is the
absence of banner advertising. The greatest challenge at this stage is
to nurture the community. That will be our immediate focus.

In my opinion there wasn't a English language user portal on Tokyo
that was well done, if anyone should build one, why not The Japan
Times? And here we are.

See, no major pronouncements about changing the world.

Since my old blog is down, here is a repost of my autobiography
published in 2002 by HarperCollins. Totally unbiased family members
have told me its a really great book. Others with a obviously vested
interest like the Boston Globe and Wired Magazine have also said good
things.

You can get it from Amazon USA here: http://bit.ly/bs5IpV

From Amazon Japan here: http://bit.ly/dBHlbS

If you know me but have never read the book you maybe surprised by
some of what's inside. People who have absolutely no interest in
computers may be bored by the computer related stories sprinkled
throughout the book. Otherwise its a page turner. ;-)

[Archive] In 2002 after having lived in Japan for one year I was ready
to go back to the USA. Before leaving Japan I wanted to see more of
the country and get a feel for what Japan looked like outside of Tokyo
and Osaka.

Its looks very different! Tokyo and Osaka really doesn't represent
what Japan is as a country. For one, most of Japan is covered in
green. Seeing trees every where I went was shocking for me. Before
coming to Tokyo I assumed Japan was a glass metropolis of neon lights.
That describes Tokyo and to a lessor extent Osaka, but not so for
other parts of the country.

I started my hitchhiking in Tokyo and ended in Sapporo, taking a ferry
from Aomori to Sapporo. I don't remember how long it took but I want
to say 3 weeks. I hitchhiked in the middle of summer, which made the
area around Sendai uncomfortable when standing in the middle of paved
roads wondering when someone was going to stop. But as I got closer to
Sapporo the weather was cool and enjoyable.

To hitchhike I bought this book. Highly recommended if you want to try
yourself. http://bit.ly/9XvBRY The author recommended I try hard to look western, so that's why many
of the shots have me wearing a Yankees hat and a white t-shirt.

Most of the time I stood on the road drivers laughed at me. The people
who picked me up also laughed at me but they usually took two or three
turns around before they realized I was seriously looking for a ride.
The vast majority of drivers who stopped had a interest in foreigners
and speaking English even when they couldn't say a word of it.

My most memorable experiences include:

• Having a strange guy pick me up then make a stop in his house to pickup a package that looked very much like a wrapped up gun. After he dropped me off he gave me a rare 500 yen coin, which I still have saved.
• Going to Goishi Beach to collect the same stones historically used to play Go http://staff.aist.go.jp/sudo-gsj/sand/english/D-1636.html
• Staying in a Buddhist temple on a Island with a larger population of sacred deer than humans.

                                                                                     

Click here to download:

Hitchhiking_across_Japan.zip (6475 KB)

Here is a select number of photos from my old fights.

Sometimes I fought on a platform. You could be thrown off or kicked
off the platform. Its great for competitive fighting because its hard
to get lazy and sit on the ropes. Also, I often fought under rules
that allow throwing, similar to Judo or Shooto in Japan. I have a
shoulder injury from being thrown in my first fight that makes it
painful for me to put on my jacket or coat.

                 

Click here to download:

Archive_My_first_fights.zip (585 KB)

If you can't read Japanese at least enjoy how awkward and weird I look
wearing a hat indoors surrounded by computer geeks.

     

Click here to download:

Archive_When_I_was_a_OpenBSD_h.zip (545 KB)