@T: ALWAYS THE TWAIN

Today is THE day when we’ll finally know what Apple’s tablet (codename “K48″) will look like and its functionality. I’m beyond excited and have been ever since I heard of the Axiotron:

Today, the tech blog Engadget released this image of what they believe to be the Apple tablet:

I was hoping for something along these lines (if readers click on this picture they’ll be directed to the Gizmodo site and its exhaustive links of previous and ongoing Apple tablet rumors:

Why the particular interest on my part? Well, I just bought a netbook for la mia Mamma except that I was actually going to get her an Apple tablet — the very one being released imminently, albeit she chose the netbook. I also have a friend whose birthday is coming up and he needs a new laptop / tablet and keeps admiring my Apple products (he’s a PC faithful so far), so this new Apple tablet would be SUPER-SMART & COOL present to give!

UPDATE

Hurrah! It looks nothing like the monstrosity speculatively provided by Engadget! It looks closed to the screen crossing the Mac Air with the iPhone! Mashable was possibly the closest in terms of its speculations of what the iPad would look like before it was actually announced:

Here’s what iPad IS ACTUALLY ALL ABOUT (clicking on this image will take readers to the Apple site where you can register to get information and notifications on when it actually ships):

Plus here’s Steve Jobs’ presentation of the iPad:

GRAMMYS 2010

Now watch how brilliant Apple’s marketing strategy is:

* announce the launch on 26 January

* on 31 January, tie the iPad in with the Grammys, the cool music crowd (and the typical iTune music store demographic) and a comedian noted for his cool.

* advertise to the TV crowd that the iPad can act as their teleprompter.

Strategic genius!

Mike Volpi, the former CEO of Joost and now Partner at Index Ventures, highlighted what I consider to be the most insightful point about online revenue generation in the current economic climate. Principally that investors will be much more interested in transaction-oriented models than platforms which rely on advertising.

As I mentioned previously, even though Morgan Stanley’s technology analysts recently released a report which upgrades the prospects for the advertising sector, with the exception of Google Adsense few companies will experience the same kind of ad revenue upside they did during the better years.

* http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090706/mike-volpi-jumps-from-joost-to-index-a-boomtown-interview-and-full-press-release/

* http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-interview-mike-volpi-broadcasters-own-vod-plans-killed-joost/

Notably, the majority of tech plays I’ve been involved with have had a split broadly like so:

· transaction = 80

· advertising = 10

· subscription / membership = 10

Luckily, the transaction-oriented ones survived — and even flourished — during the vagaries of the tech cycle. One of them we originally invested less than US$5 million in, to build as a consortia play. When it floated it’s valuation was US$1.2+ billion.

Even on a content basis, the information and analysis being provided on a platform, needs to serve some kind of PURPOSE. It should be an intrinsic need-to-know-or-must-have to complete a to-do. That’s what companies and Joe Public consumers alike would be prepared to pay for. It explains how Michael Bloomberg created a US$ billion company: the BBerg terminals facilitate transactions.

The transaction component is a……….UTILITY and people have a lower barrier of resistance about paying for those than paying for advertising, particularly of the push kind.

In any case, the best thing one of my partners on Project ART did was to make me think about how the advertising stream feeds into the transaction ocean rather than vice versa.

That makes strategic sense.

JOOST

For anyone unfamiliar with Joost, here are some YouTube videos which explain its rationale and also how it works on an iPhone:

What the Joost story shows is that we can have top tech veterans (founded by the creators of Skype) and sophisticated tech investors, but some blind spots on consumer market dynamics and how media incumbents will respond — like create their own VOD capabilities, jv with a video streaming provider and/or pure content syndication with a competitor — can lead to a product / service not gaining traction or settling into its USP competitive position.

It also provides us with clues about whether and to what extent people are prepared to pay for content and what caliber of content. People overlook the fact that media giants, particularly the film studios, have decades-worth of content libraries which they own the IP of and can generate income from.

One of the strategies Joost could have deployed to risk manage itself against media giants not signing syndication agreements with them or strengthening the content library would have been to create their own digital content production arm. This doesn’t mean content partnerships but rather financing and developing an in-house team of producers who would shape content strategy and create original content.

That’s a strategic option the investors should have discussed at board meetings within the first 3 months of operations. Instead they seem to have opted for the content alliances and syndication model.

In any case, IPTV will be here. It just isn’t here right now with the likes of Joost. It’s more likely to arrive with an Apple tablet and its content syndication with media giants.

Incidentally, why else is Steve Jobs my personal business hero? Well, he’s created US$ billion businesses in completely different sectors: Apple and Pixar. He gets the technology. He gets the code + consumer + transaction synch. He gets the design. He gets the content. He gets the production. He gets the marketing. He gets the branding. He gets collaborating with people who are brilliant in their own right like Alan Kay, Guy Kawasaki, Jonathan Ives, etc. He gets it all and he can do it all: technical and interpersonal synching. Plus he manages to make it all seem cooler than any other tech geek can.

Now, THAT’s…………GENIUS.

(1.) Michael Jackson

To date, I’ve only ever cried over the passing of family members — until I heard about Michael Jackson. From some place unknown I’ve sobbed for a few minutes every day since last Thursday. How strange is that? If someone like me who wouldn’t be considered an MJ fan and is more rational than emotional can be so upset, how must his children, family and fans be feeling? I just feel for them.

Sometimes, some people like MJ affect our souls and we don’t even know it until they’re not here anymore…………..

A billion and one official news sites and global citizen blogs are going to comment on his controversies and eccentricities, but this blog is not going to. This is not to deny his human flaws or mistakes which were notable (including dangling his baby son from a balcony which he later admitted he regretted) or to feign some form of rose-tinted nostalgia, but because I believe in three things:

(1.) celebrating and paying tribute to the genius of others

(2.) collective constructivism

(3.) respect for the deceased

I particularly know from the experience of my father’s death how vital that last one is. We had our issues and that’s normal in all relationships, but as our friends and family commented afterwards, “No child could have given their parent a better goodbye.” Months later, when my father’s spirit appeared in my dreams happy — the first time I’d ever had a dream about my father in my life — I knew he’d had a safe passage into the afterlife and reincarnation.

A safe passage is what I hope MJ will have too.

For me, the impact he had on my generation and future generations exceeds even the legacy of his music, his dancing and his phenomenal fusion of the arts. Amidst all the obituaries and recollections people seem to have forgotten an important contribution he made:

HUMANITARIANISM

In fact, he co-wrote the 1985 anthem We are the World to raise money for starving children in Africa following the news reports from Ethiopia. His charitable involvement numbered in excess of 30 organizations and included:

· American Cancer Society

· Cities and Schools Scholarship Fund

· Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation

· Juvenile Diabetes Foundation

· The Sickle Cell Research Foundation

The Guinness Book of World Records recognized his participation with an entry in 2000 for the celebrity who committed to the most number of charitable organizations. A comprehensive list of his work in this area is provided here:

http://jacksonaction.com/?page=charity.htm

Humanitarianism was a genuine core of him because US$ millions of profits from his sell-out shows, tours and performances were donated to charitable causes.

Moreover, if we listen to his last three albums we recognize that he became more and more enlightened about global social responsibility as he matured as an artist, and he tried to take us on that journey with him. For example, listen to the words of Man in the Mirror, Why You Wanna Trip on Me, Earth Song, Black and White:

· http://www.allmichaeljackson.com/song-lyrics.html

Consider also the reports that he was working on a song about climate change shortly before he died so unexpectedly.

What we discover when we pay tribute to his musical genius is that it’s not necessarily through politicians and political processes that the values and hopes of our societies are reflected, determined and realized. It’s also given genuine voice and awareness by artists like Michael Jackson. Artists who don’t jump on bandwagons, show up at so-called “social awareness” concerts and fly in on carbon-spewing private jets or buy electric cars out of guilt complexes to counter those private jets.

Artists like Michael Jackson who try to communicate to us concepts of:

· what really matters in the world — please listen to Why You Wanna Trip on Me, What More can I Give, We Are Here to Change the World

· Mother Nature — please listen to Earth Song

· the futility of conflict — please listen to There Must be More to Life than This (unreleased duet with Freddie Mercury), They Don’t Care About Us

Yes and for moments when we feel down, we just put Billie Jean on and before we know it we’re dancing with a huge smile on our face.

Thank you, MJ.

(2.) Sir Roger Bannister

I read a ‘Whatever happened to……..’ interview in a magazine supplement at the weekend and it made me smile. Sir Roger Bannister recollected his achievements and noted that:

There was uncertainly in the medical profession whether a former prominent athlete could also be a serious doctor. So I had to be assiduous in my medical work…”

which reflects the fact that we need to EARN whatever rewards we get through hard work.

The type of person I admire the most is the one who is multi-talented and excels in different fields of endeavor. This is simply because it proves how amazingly agile and dynamic the human mind, body and spirit is — which is something to cheer with all our hearts.

Sir Roger Bannister, who’s now 80, was the first man to run the mile in less than 4 minutes. He achieved this feat on 6 May 1954. More recently, he became the first person to receive a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Neurology.

B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T!

(3.) Steve Jobs

Hurrah he’s returning to Apple after his health timeout!