1. Durable hard case, with keyboard

Since an Ipad is so small and light, placing it in a thick case would make it more protected than your laptop ever was. You can now use your tablet just like a laptop.

2. Wireless TV adapter
Wireless plug that could be attached to a television, you could now use the tv as a second monitor for your tablet

This would give you the option to bring your Ipad to a friend’s house, and display whatever content you want to show them. Televisions are now coming with internet ports, but that content is very limited. Instead you would have the complete internet that could be viewed on your home television.

This innovation could also make your ipad into a gaming device that connects directly into your television.

3. Remote sensor
Ability to use large touch screen to scan through television channel guide

While traveling through the menu on your Ipad, the television entire screen is still on the show you are watching. It could look up all the codes. You could easily connect a blue ray player, stereo, cable, or anything else that has a remote with it. Finally one awesome remote, to control them all.

4. Simple voice command
You could clap and turn off your stereo, television, and cable box all at once. Since it works more like a clapper, it would not have the problems of a typical annoying voice recognition system.

5. Video camera
Video conferencing is the obvious next step for the Ipad. But how can they make it better?

For many years now many consumers have been video conferencing through Gchat and Skype. Google translation software is now at a point where you can take a picture of a German menu and the words will be translated into english. Imagine talking to someone in real time and a loose translation would slowly appear on the screen.

What innovations are capable of
In the war of consumer electronics, Microsoft added a FM radio to their Zune. They still lost the mp3 player battle to Apple’s Ipod. At that point, Apple had already had won the hearts and minds of the public with intuitive sleek style, patented scroll wheel, and Itunes library.

If Google, Amazon, or Microsoft implemented these and other ideas, they may compete better with Apple, the tremendous force in this industry. But, there is a hole in the consumer electronics market, that should be filled. Twenty years ago consumers were buying computers and software because it was enriching their lives. Now people are buying computers mostly out of necessity.

Why Tablet Computing is very Vital to our Economy
If an industry giant could standardize the tablet industry the way Microsoft did with Windows 95, there will be fertile ground for a multitude of new things to develop from that standardization. Apple has always put restrictions on what can be produced when it comes to software. Apple produces the majority of it’s own hardware. Other hardware companies can’t expand the marketplace with other versions of the the tablet. In turn customers will have to pay a premium price to get the Apple standard. The Apple standard is something that could be surpassed by another company in the next year, at a better price, for more people.

These 5 ideas are likely in many companies drawing book already. In the next year, it will be interesting to see the decisions each company makes to construct their competitive advantage. The Ipad may be big, but it has yet to break into the general audience. A year from now Microsoft or Google needs to step up to the plate and produce a tablet that can standardize the market. This will give many different companies a chance to thrive, producing different hardware and software under a single standardized platform.

The book Content Strategy for the Web is the brain child of the website A list apart. A good website is built with one thing, good content. When content was published and printed there were guidelines that companies used to structure and build their audience and publication. With the internet allowing anyone to post their message, that structure is often lost. This book is a set of rules, of how to build your content like a publisher.

The book is broken down into 4 categories:
Learn, Plan, Create, Govern

All the references are laid out in a way that gives a rich history of the internet and publishing. The layout of book makes it fun to turn the pages and soak it in. Once you get past as few chapters, you realize that this is a book that you need to memorize.

Amazon.com / book Content-Strategy

One small step
Sometimes even the smallest changes can reinvent an object. For example, try to use a television without a remote. The following LinkedIn idea is a small change, that could strengthen the community that uses it.

Currently LinkedIn is a professional community to function alongside Facebook. The main uses for LinkedIn are the following: posting employee recommendations , Facebook type friends or “connections”, the ability to chat, and job postingings within the LinkedIn Community.

Let’s take these new changes, one step at a time.

Step 1 — The ability to add contacts to your list, without having to ask them to join LinkedIn.

Currently to gain a connection:
1. You have to ask them to be your connection
2. They must already be on Linked in, or must then make the decision to join instantly
3. They need to accept your invitation

Imagine not being able to add someone to you address book because, they didn’t have the same type of address book as you. Perhaps the pen that you are writing with doesn’t allow you to write down a persons phone number because you are not in the same club. The exclusivity of the service is holding LinkedIn back.

Step 2 — The ability to email using any email address

Instead of having software that tethers your information to one computer like Outlook. The LinkedIn website would be the black book or rolodex that could be used exclusively for your business contacts.

• With these steps
• Your entire business rolodex will be in one place.
• The messages sent will be emails, in a form that works for you.
• Your contact list is separate from your other accounts.
• Your rolodex doesn’t have to be a set of business cards in a desk drawer, or a cumbersome rolodex wheel. It can have all the advantages of digital content management. Deleting making categories would be simple and quick.
• Your list of contacts will be stored in the internet accessible by any computer with an internet connection.
• LinkedIn smartphone application will could be your go to rolodex for everything business.

What this could mean longterm
“We want to create a broad and critical business tool that is used by tens of millions of business professionals every day to make them better at what they do,” Mr. Nye (Chief executive or LinkedIn) said. -NY Times

With these changes LinkedIn can be used as a tool more than a community. “Roughly 1% of the LinkedIn addicts are responsible for a staggering 34% of all visits! 62% are passers-by and responsible for 18% of visits.” -Global Recruiting Roundtable There are not many casual users, because there is not a really casual use for it. Basically it is used for people who really need to look for work or people who are building their status within the community.

LinkedIn is commonly referred to as an online rolodex. Instead of trying to run from this title they should embrace it. No matter what computer you are on you will be able to access your business contacts, and business lists, even a set of editable web bookmarks could be added in this rolodex of yours. Everything else can be said and stored through email within their LinkedIn account more privately. The way it should be.

If this plan is executed tactfully, and they master privacy settings keeping the information in it’s place. These changes can help to gain the marketshare of the global competition. This includes Viadeo (similar site based in Paris 30 million members may 2010 including China) -Tech Crunch and Xing (based in Germany) -Tech Crunch. If these changes were part of the free service it could expand how much it is used, and in turn expand the amount of people using it.

“Imagine if you work up this morning, and the branding in your life disappeared. No burger King, No Geico cavemen, No beer comericals.  Would you behave differently?  Nope. You would continue to buy the best products and services for the money you are willing to spend.” (17).  Branding is a subject that has many books written on it. Branding only works on Cattle is the only book that isn’t shamelessly praising the concept of brand.

The word Brand, is one of the most overused, vague, and useless, words in the business language. The word Brand “Is the eight hundred pound gorilla that crushes every conversation about itself.  Nobody in the orgination defines it the was same way marketers do, and I guarantee that there’s no consensus with your own marketing department what it means either.”(187)

Even though the word brand is bad, branding can shape a company into unstoppable force in the marketplace. The conclusion of this book is a set of different measures that need to be taken to help the brand process advance.  “The business challenge is to recongize this behavior and figure out ways to enable it while not getting in it’s way.”(144)

If Facebook was the television that you grew up and loved, Twitter is the satellite dish.

When used effectively, Twitter is less about forming or maintaining personal relationships and more about the sharing of comments that are free from the pettiness of social media applications such as Facebook. So instead of dressing up what you have to say to impress your circle of friends, now you are laying bare your ideas.

Once you get into Twitter it starts to feel like a swingers club for exchanging information. Instead of telling people about yourself, you are jumping right into what you want to say with random people. You start by finding subjects that you want to talk about. Then you locate a few people to share your interests, which will offer new perspectives and experiences about the topic. By linking with others you are able to gain more insight into topic of interest.

Twitter is often seen as a simple internet fad, the new thing to waste time on.  There is truth in this. Here is a cartoon that points out the many faults of a typical twitter user.

“What’s Twitter?”
“da da da, latest social networking micro blogy thingy”
“I’m not interested”
“Damnit Derek, You are a young, hip, tech savy 20 something, and I will not let you turn into my father, come on.”
“Where are you taking me”
“Into the Twittershpere…”

It is true that the majority of Twitter users do not have much to say, But with a bit of searching you can find interesting and informed opinions on a vast array of subjects, especially on the internet and technology.

Often Twitter is called a mini blog which is misleading it is not a micro blog at all. Twitter is the blog interstate. Once you have started build your twitter network your roads will include information with links to blogs, videos, and posts funneled to your page. These messages or tweets are targeted information coming from your Twitter friends. If you like golf you don’t stop have to stop at friending Tiger Woods. You can also find other golf friends who enjoy sharing golf information with you. This information includes articles on great places to golf, videos on techniques, and egocentric messages on their recent scores.

From this giant pool of twitter people there are people who are interested in a variety of subjects but are not looking to get to know you personally. Unlike email you don’t have to worry about your message inbox filling up. And if someone is annoying with a lot of dumb messages you simply stop following them.

You can listen to anyone: celebrities,  politicians, captains of industry. It is less about following a huge group of people than it is about selecting and shaping the noise that is coming from your orchestra of Tweets. It can be a great resource as long as you choose those who have a pertinent point of view.

Like it or not, this simple web application is influencing how the world web is spun and read. Here are three examples.

The first example demonstrates that one of the best uses of this tool is for marketing. “Alecia Dantico is a professional tweeter for Garrett Popcorn. A growing number of businesses are embracing social media by hiring full-time employees, like Dantico, to man Twitter, Facebook and similar sites.” “Social media is all about being social,” says Nora Ganim Barnes, a marketing professor and director for the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “It’s not called selling media. The biggest mistake companies make is using social media to hawk products. It’s a turnoff.” AP – MSNBC.  When used for marketing it is important how one talk to their followers.
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32661618/ns/business-careers)

Secondly, Twitter helped narrate the news story in Denver of a 737 plane sliding off the runway and injuring 38 people on Dec 20 2008. “Passenger Mike Wilson tweeted his miraculous escape.” -The Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/twitter-holy-fucking-shit-i-was-just-in-denver-plane-crash)
Since Mark chose to use Twitter on his phone instead of calling someone. The information was received much differently because of the choice he made. Instead of having one friend on the other line there were multiple Twitter followers. The conversation was computerized text so that meant it could be easily quoted and pushed through the internet.

Finally, “Twitter is also influencing other big Internet players like Facebook. Facebook’s latest face-lift was clearly a response to Twitter’s overwhelming influence, even though Facebook has a substantially larger user base.” -Feross.org.
(http://www.feross.org/new-twitter-layout/)

Since this entry was originally posted Twitter has changed their prompt to “What’s happening”  from “What are you doing”.

“The change acknowledges that Twitter has grown far beyond the more personal status updates it was originally envisioned to convey, and has morphed into a sort of always-on, source-agnostic information network that is wholly unique. Twitter says they don’t expect the change to at all influence how people actually use Twitter, but might “make it easier to explain to your dad.”  -Mashable http://mashable.com/2009/11/19/twitter-whats-happening/

Once people stop shouting and begin tuning their voices, others will really begin to start harmonizing, eventually resulting in communities tightly bound in productive dialogue.

“Do you use Twitter?”

The statement do you use Twitter pesters people because what you are stating  is “I use Twitter do you?”   The feeling that you are most likely feeling from just reading word Twitter, is what I would like to classify as the Twitter Stigma.

You hear about Twitter all the time is very commonly joked about and discussed, but very rarely will you hear about people mentioning that they use it.

So what is keeping people from using this software? The Twitter stigma stems through what Geoffrey A. Moore calls the software gap. - Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore If you look to the graph on the right you can see 4 differnt portions of this Graph.

Twitter is currently in the early market stage a simple push and the sensation will become more common place for your average user.  If Twitter wants to be a household product instead of a household name something still needs to occur.   One solution is something called diffusion of innovation or word of mouth marketing.  Steve Knox claims that word of mouth is the strongest way to pass a message. When a friend or family member mentions that they like or dislike something their message goes a long way to influencing your decision. What someone else tells you goes a lot further television, radio, print, and even internet advertising can do.

What Steve has help shape while working at Tremor is the concept of  trend-setters and trend-spreaders.

Trend-setters are clearly what make up Twitter’s user base. These people who’s “personal equity is about being different”. A Trend-setters don’t spread the message at all. A trend-setter will discourage others to join in to stay different. Messages are passed along really by Trend-spreaders. A trend-spreader has a “social networks that are five six times larger than normal person. Have a deep propensity to talk about new ideas within their social network”. -Steve Knox Listen to Steve Knox keynote adress at Duke free on ItuneU These trend spreaders are the ones who enjoy letting other people know what is new and up and coming.

If Twitter wants to be more than a product for simply the elite computer user.  They need to reach out to build something these Trend-spreaders can grab onto.  The image of  Twitter will change from elitist to the common product once it’s functional in a way that the average user can jump into.  For Facebook it was the photos and friends, Myspace webpage building, and yahoo had it’s revamp with it’s news and celebrity gossip.  It is still yet to be seen if Twitter will shape its product to become a website for the typical web consumer.

“Slogan, is Galic for, battlecry”