The new Nano: total disaster or clever marketing?

There has been a lot of speculation about the images that have been floating around the net that apparently depict the yet-to-be-released version of the iPod Nano. These pictures were instantly denounced as fake (mostly due to their decidedly ugly design) but when Apple started to send cease and desist notices to any site showing the images, people started to take them seriously. You see, Apple is claiming that these images are owned by Apple Inc., and if they’re owned by Apple a lot of people assume that they must be legitimate. That is to say you’ll be able to go out and pick up a new “Fat Nano™” sometime this holiday season, right? I’m not so convinced.

Sure, Apple is taking this leak very seriously. Gizmodo for instance, who very rarely pulls a story, removed the images from their site after having a little chat with the Apple lawyers. It seems that Apple Inc. did not want these images to be seen – or is that just what they want us to think? Steve Jobs is a master at manipulating the stream of news coming from Cupertino. The most recent example of this is the launch of the iPhone. The iPhone was announced at Macworld ‘07 way back in January, 6 months before the public was able to get its hands on it. Still, it seemed that the iPhone stayed in the news nearly every week during those 6 months. How could this be? The iPhone stayed in the news because Apple allowed it to. Every week or so they would let slip some new tidbit (including false information, such as the last-minute switch to a glass screen which was impossible given their production schedule) to keep enthusiasts interested. Steve Jobs understands completely how news is spread, and by manipulating ‘the system,’ the iPhone gained hype when it should have been losing it.

This all relates to the latest Nano leak in a few different ways. First, like I said, Apple is awesome at marketing. Second, Apple leaks don’t “just happen” like the Nano one has. Apple employees are completely tight-lipped about anything coming down the road (especially new hardware) because many former Apple employees have been fired by Jobs for letting something slip. Finally, it’s important to examine how Apple has handled leaks in the past. A little over a month ago the complete design of their new keyboard was leaked and placed on every gadget site’s front page within a day – well before the final product was released. Did Apple send out their legal team then to serve Gizmodo with a cease and desist then? Absolutely not – they almost never do. With those tidbits in mind I’m going to weave a tale of potential conspiracy that is probably totally off-base…but then again, most conspiracy theories are.

I think Apple let these images slip purposefully. Then, because of the obvious “Fake!” reaction, they sent lawyers after anyone who showed them. The lawyers claim the images are Apple property because they are – but later Apple will admit that the “Fat Nano™” design was just an early mock-up. By leaking the design Apple gets everyone buzzing about the new iPods and therefore creates a ton of publicity. Then, on September 5th (the official Apple event taglined “The beat goes on,” maybe a Beatles reference?), they release a new iPhone-like iPod with touch controls and everyone goes crazy with praise. It’s pretty far-fetched but it wouldn’t surprise me if it happened. We’ll know on the 5th. Expect another post shortly after the event.

I’m excited for this event because I haven’t been very impressed with the current-gen iPods. I’ve actually started jumping on board the Zune bandwagon. If Apple doesn’t deliver the goods at the upcoming event I think I’m going to wait for the 2nd-gen Zune.

The truth revealed.

So, halfway through last week I posted an extremely quick post containing a screenshot of my Photoshop’s situation at the time. Last week I worked really hard (from about the 17th of August to the 24th) on populating a database with products for a new website my brother is launching in early September. I say new website, but it’s really a second revision of a current website he has for an online business he runs. The site is Buy Knives Online and you can hit it up in the links bar to the right. I worked pretty hard to get all of the products ready for the new revision (almost 1100 in a week), and I hope it’s very successful.

Anyways, if you get a chance to give it a look I’d really appreciate it. I’ll probably make a related post when the new site launches as well, so stay tuned.

In other news, classes at Pitt-Bradford start up again tomorrow. Man this summer went quick. I’m looking forward to getting back in the classroom though. If you’re a Pitt-Brad student post a comment! Even if you’re just a college student in general, gearing back up to head to campus go ahead a post what you’re looking forward to this semester.

I apologize for the lack of updates in the past week but now you know why that had to be. Now I’ll get back to posting a couple times a week hopefully. =)

Currently Listening To: Leo Laporte – The Tech Guy (streaming live on Stickam/Ustream)
Currently Playing: Bioshock

Screenshots from a mad man?

Hit the thumbnail to see the full version. What could I possibly be up to? Let’s just say I’ve been extremely busy this week. I finished up a little early tonight so I figured I’d just post this real quick since I’ve been neglecting the blog. More info to come. Hopefully sometime Saturday. Now I’m going to go open up my Bioshock LE box and wish I had time to play the game. =(

Morgan Webb has Bioshock. :(

She did a story about the Toys ‘R’ Us Bioshock leak and even went so far as to wave her own pre-launch copy in our faces. I do take some solace in the fact that I haven’t seen anyone get the Limited Edition from TRU – which I have preordered – but when it comes down to it I just want that damn game. Oh well, next Tuesday isn’t too far off, is it?

Meebo me!

So you might have noticed I added a new widget on the sidebar called Meebo. Basically what Meebo does is allow anyone who views this blog to send me an instant message. I’m not completely finished setting it up but once I have it tied to my own AIM account I should be on fairly regularly. If you’re reading my blog and you see me online feel free to shoot me a message!

Also, to whom it may concern – you can find my Pageflakes pagecast here. My setup is pretty lame right now but I’m still getting used to it, there are certain things I like about it and other things I sort of miss from Netvibes but that’s for a future post.

Until then…

Good vibes.

I feel like writing a quick post – a nice change for anyone who reads this – about a new site I’ve been using a lot. It’s called NetVibes. Basically it’s an awesome homepage filled to the brim with AJAX goodness that lets you place RSS feeds, widgets, and a lot of other things onto one page for your convenient viewing. The page can even have multiple tabs so you can set up a different tab for anything you want to keep track of.

For instance, I have 3 main tabs. My first tab is called Home (brilliant, I know) and it contains a few widgets like a Gmail notifier, Twitter notifier, Remember the Milk and a few RSS feeds from some gaming sites. My second tab is devoted completely to Digg and has about 10 feeds from all of the various sections of Digg. Finally, my third tab is called Media and it has a couple of feeds for podcasts like TWiT as well as a YouTube widget that can be used to quickly search the ‘Tube for whatever I feel I need to watch. The nice thing about the podcast feeds is that NetVibes has a built-in media player so you can listen to the audio right from the NetVibes page without having to open up a separate application and without navigating away to a different site.

Another cool thing about NetVibes is that you can customize the way the pages look, not just by moving and placing your different page components, but also by creating your own custom color theme. You can even change the title of your NetVibes page to anything your heart desires. It’s a pretty handy site and I’m using it regularly just out of convenience. I know there are some other home page sites out there like PageFlakes, Favoor and Google IG but I stumbled upon NetVibes first so it’s the one I’ve chosen to use. If you have a personal favorite start page leave a comment and let me know what it is so I can give it a shot!

Where are they now?

Back in the early 2000’s there was a show on a long-gone channel (Tech TV) called The Screen Savers. To anyone who was into technology at the time The Screen Savers was one of the few TV-based bastions that could be depended on for reporting all of the latest in gadgets, software, and all around geekery. The show actually started in 1998 and ran until 2005, but I find the 2000 – 2003 era to contain the best episodes of the bunch. If you’re really interested in learning more about the show’s history go ahead and hit up its Wikipedia entry.

The Screen Savers was hosted by Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton and featured many other co-hosts (Kevin Rose, Megan Morrone, Morgan Webb, Sarah Lane, and Martin Sargeant just to name a few) and it was one of my favorite shows of all time. When the show disbanded in 2005 (after already having lost many of its key members due to the G4 acquisition) I was sad to see it go. The nice thing though is that via the web I’ve been able to keep up with most of the cast, and in a way I’m almost happy that they decided to put TSS behind them. Today I’ll cover some of my favorite audio podcasts, video podcasts, and IPTV offerings from the TechTV alumnus and alumna that I watch/listen to regularly.

Leo Laporte is now heading up the largest podcasting network that I know of: TWiT. The network’s flagship podcast (and the show that gives TWiT its name) is This Week in Tech, a weekly roundtable discussion most commonly hosted by Leo himself, John C. Dvorak, and Pat Norton. The panel often varies however, and many other tech luminaries have participated. Other notable shows from the TWiT network include Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott, Macbreak Weekly, Net@Nite (featuring Amber Mac), and Jumping Monkeys (featuring Megan Morrone) just to name a few. Leo participates in all of these podcasts himself. If you haven’t heard of TWiT – it’s hard to believe that you wouldn’t have, if you’re into tech – I’d definitely recommend giving it a look.

Patrick Norton was, up until just recently, co-hosting his own IPTV offering with Robert Heron called DL.TV. The show is very similar to the Screen Savers’ layout and has a lot of the same feel. I like it because it’s still, for the time being anyways, the closest I can get to the “good ol’ days.” Robert Heron was from TechTV and is best-known for his extremely extensive knowledge on anything related to displays. Roger Chang, who is also a Tech TV escapee, can be found behind the cameras (and sometimes in front of them) producing the DL.TV webisodes. Just yesterday I heard that Patrick Norton had announced that DL.TV’s episode #188 would be his last. He already has another opportunity lined up however, so expect to see him again soon.

Kevin Rose. Do I even need to say anything? Digg. Pownce. Revision 3. This guy has gone completely crazy since he left TechTV and has brought some of the coolest web 2.0 websites to fruition. Digg.com is a social news networking site where users can contribute stories which other users then rate, Pownce.com is a twitter-like miniblog that allows users to share files with their friends, and Revision3.com is the hottest IPTV offering currently available. I highly doubt Kevin regrets leaving the set of The Screen Savers whatsoever.

Morgan Webb is one of the few TechTV holdouts who stuck with G4 after the switch, and she can still be found co-hosting Xplay with Adam Sessler. She also just started a new web show, one that sort of gave me the idea for this post (along with a brief Twitter conversation), called Webb Alert (get it? Her last name is Webb! Oi…). There are only 4 episodes of Webb Alert available right now but the basic premise is that Morgan covers all of the hottest news from the blogosphere in handy little 5-minute bites a few times a week. It looks promising even in these early stages. Keep an eye on it.

There’s one other person I wanted to mention: Jim Louderback. You might not remember him even if you were a Tech TV viewer because he wasn’t on-screen very often. He was, after all, the Vice President of the network so he might have had more important things to do. Even so, it’s good to know who he is because he’s a big player in web media. After TechTV he became editor in chief for PC Magazine and also managed several IPTV shows including DL.TV and John C. Dvorak’s Cranky Geeks. Not long ago he left that position and is now the CEO of Revision 3.

So that’s what they’re doing now, for the most part. It amazes me to think how much the cast of The Screen Savers has done since they left the show. If Leo Laporte hadn’t left TechTV I doubt podcasting would be as big as it has become, without Patrick Norton and Jim Louderback IPTV wouldn’t be exploding right now, and if Kevin Rose had stayed on with G4 there probably would be no digg. Basically, without the lot of them, we’d have an internet that I’m not sure I’d want to inhabit!

Also, Dvorak.org/blog.

Currently Listening To: Flogging Molly – Never Met a Girl Like You Before
Currently Playing: Overlord