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Today, after over a year of working with a machine that crashes, holds no more than 5 minutes of battery, and cannot run half of the programs I need to accomplish even the most basic creative tasks, I finally found the courage to click the ‘place my order’ button on the Apple Store.  I’ve configured probably over 20 different cart variations (you know you’ve done it–nothing wrong with wishful thinking), and I finally landed on the one shown above.  In just a week I’ll have the custom-designed Timbuk2 messenger bag above, Final Cut Express, MS Office ‘08, Adobe CS3, and a brand new, aluminum 15″ MacBook Pro!!

I cannot express the excitement and joy I am feeling right now!  The time to create great things is upon us, and I am finally going to have the tools to make it happen.  I can’t wait!

(for you techies out there interested in the specs:  320 GB Serial ATA @ 7200, 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2×2GB, SuperDrive 8x, and both NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M of course)

I was taking apart a friend’s computer the other day to install a fresh new stick of RAM, and she caught me off guard when I unscrewed the plastic case and opened up all of the chips and boards and gizmos inside her machine.  She saw that I was working with little tools from my computer-modding toolset (I like to call it my utility belt, or my armory) and she shocked me when she said, “oo, that’s sexy.”  Sexy?  Really?  Taking apart a computer to install RAM can be sexy?

Then I thought about it and realized that yes, in fact, taking apart a computer can be sexy these days.  She compared it to a guy fixing the engine in her car, just with smaller tools and less grease.  Both sexy.  Now I’m asking myself, when did nerds transform from dorks in dark rooms with thick glasses and absolutely NO social lives to sexy geeks with skillz?

This new breed of eligible bachelor works in the garage on computers, not cars.  Rather than chugging beers, he runs a website on the side that sells rare wines.  He has a different playlist for each activity he does, from basketball to grilling burgers to Call of Duty 4.  He flirts on gchat and facebook wall-posts more often than in person, and he likes it that way.  And so do the girls.

Girls used to look at computer nerds and see pocket-protecting, socially awkward sketchballs.  But something happened, and suddenly some computer nerds transformed into [potentially] sexy geeks that might just be boyfriend material.  But the question is:  what happened?

I’ve narrowed it down to three things: Neo, MTV, and Zuckerberg.  Movies like The Matrix started it all, think about it:  a computer nerd is the only hope for saving the world, and he becomes almost infinitely powerful by the end of the trilogy.  Heroes like Neo planted the seed in people’s minds that there might be more behind nerds’ thick glasses than meets the eye.  Then MTV began highlighting bands like The Hives and Panic At The Disco.  People started associating skinny ties, black suits, and otherwise dorky attire with being hip.  Combine rock and roll with (almost) anything and it immediately becomes cooler.  We are one step closer to the evolution of sexy geekdom.  To finish off the process, Facebook hits the scene in ‘04.  People start checking their facebooks obsessively.  It’s not ok to forget to post a ‘happy birthday’ message on your friend’s wall.  We begin to see our computer as a means of communicating with actual people.  Our laptop becomes a medium with which we can truly cultivate a relationship rather than just a schoolwork, occasional solitaire-in-class machine.  Because of facebook and other social media, college students’ concept of the purpose of spending time on a computer began to radically change.  Forget late-night gaming, forget programmers and dungeon and dragons, forget leaving your computer behind when you go on a trip.  Laptops are college kids’ far-reaching, constant connection with all of their friends–whether they’re at home or traveling the world.  And somewhere deep down it clicked with people:  it can be cool to be good at computers.  Somewhere between figuring out that computers connect people not motherboards, that laptops with bumper stickers on the back can be more expressive than tattoos–somewhere in there, being a geek became just a little bit sexy.

Of course, I’m not saying a that all geeks are sexy.  I’m definitely lacking in the sexy-geek area (every time I try to get people to call me Neo it never really goes well).  But there are some out there–and they are like heroes to all of us aspiring geeks.  Take Tina Fey, Kevin Rose, Conan O’Brien, Will Ferrel, Jake and Amir, Jim Carey…  All dorks, all cool.

Now, if I could only figure out how to get the girls to post on my wall, too…

We’ve all seen this dreaded message at least once in our computing lives:  Cannot copy file(s), the disk you are attempting to use is FULL.  We’ve all asked ourselves, ok–do I really need those photos of our annual trip to Sea World or can I delete them to install Spore?  Dad, surely it wasn’t me that filled up the hard drive on the family computer, it was just a little recreational BitTorrenting!

Well, the little pie chart doesn’t lie, you’re disk is full–and don’t call me Surely.

Welcome to the seemingly eternal problem of expanding disk storage space versus increasing file sizes of content.  Just as soon as my computer can hold thousands of 320×240 movies, Apple releases HD video content for download on iTunes and I can barely fit 10.  As soon as my PC can manage to hold Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars on the hard drive, Fallout 3 comes out in 4 DVDs and the minimum recommended disk space is more than I’ve ever had total.  It’s almost like they want you to have to keep buying new computers.  Wait…

But soon all of those woes will evaporate (har har) and you’ll never have to see that pie chart again.

Enter: cloud computing.  It’s a term that gets thrown around on the internets regularly–you’ve probably heard it multiple times.  Most savvy internet people know what it is and have read a few predictions as to how it’s going to play out, but for those of you who don’t know what cloud computing is, I’ll give you a quick rundown (or you can read the wiki).  The concept of cloud computing is simple:  take all the stuff you do on your personal computer and move it to the internet.  Take all of your photos and store them on Flickr instead of in folders on your hard drive.  Take all of your word documents and keep them in folders online on your Google Docs homepage.  Don’t store any emails on your computer, just let Google handle it with Gmail.  Who knows where all of the actual files are stored–and honestly, who cares?   Where does Google keep the actual digital file that has my email from Jessica Alba asking me to meet her for dinner tonight?  I don’t really care, I’ve got a date with Jessica Alba! [citation needed]

Cloud computing is evolving hand in hand with Web 2.0 applications that allow us to accomplish our every day tasks online instead of locally on our computers.  After all, it doesn’t really make sense to try to cram all the processing power as can fit into a little laptop when that same laptop could just connect to the internet, log in to Adobe.com, and use an online version of Photoshop.  In this scenario, all of the processing would happen over on Adobe’s side on their specialized servers.  We would still have the same Photoshop window on the screen, accomplishing the same tasks of doctoring photos and making LOLcat pics (i can haz clowd compewtng) except that we wouldn’t have to process all of the data on our little laptop.  The internet allows us to keep the actual processing power in very large, cold rooms halfway across the world.  In this respect, cloud computing could give everyone access to the fastest processing power available without having to purchase a monster power computer.  All we really need is a good browser and a (very) fast connection to the internet.

Imagine, then, that to have access to Photoshop you don’t have to go out and buy a CD and install it.  To have Final Cut Pro you don’t have to go to the Apple store to pick up the DVD.  Instead you just pay for a subscription to the online versions of those same applications, and when you no longer need to use Microsoft Access (oh, say, because you changed your major) you can simply end the subscription.  That saves you a lot of money–you only pay for the amount of service that you need–and it saves the company costs in shipping and physical production of install disks and packaging.  If companies had their software as web applications only, it would win them many more (paying) users because piracy would become infinitely more difficult.  How could you download a pirated copy of ProTools if there are no actual discs for the hackers to upload?  It also means you always have the most up-to-date version of the software, no need to patch or download updates.

But this migration to cloud computing from desktop computing requires some serious structural upgrades in the US.  We’ll need some pretty darn fast connections to the internet–to edit on Final Cut Pro in Georgia with the servers over in California would mean exchanging gigabytes of data two and a half thousand miles from laptop to server.  But with improvements like Verizon’s Fios, a service that connects your home directly to a fiberoptic network, the trend of faster internet to the masses has begun.

Having all of the computing power off in storage somewhere in the clouds would change the game for computer makers most of all.  No longer would Dell or Apple or HP have to focus on making a powerful computer–all the power they need is being supplied by the application companies’ servers up in the clouds.  No, instead of cramming in power into the smallest space possible, the computer producers’ focus will have to switch to design, form factor, ease-of-use, and branding.  When all of the computers in Best Buy have powerful, open-source browsers that provide access to all the apps a guy could want (from Photoshop and Call of Duty to Word and Minesweeper), people will have to differentiate computers somehow.  The consumer will begin to buy the most functional computers–the innovation will occur in the realm of user input and user experience.  Multi-touch screens replace the mouse and keyboard.  Waterproof, drop-proof, heat-proof casing (much like the Panasonic toughbook) replace the breathable, breakable plastic cases.  Battery life becomes a major selling point, but not as much as connectivity.  Connectivity, connectivity, connectivity.  If all of my applications are online somewhere out there in the cloud, I better be able to access them anywhere, anytime, with absolutely no change in program response time.  These apps better fly, and I better feel like I’m working at home on a MacPro while I’m sitting in the park on my little MacBook Air 3rd Gen, waiting on Jessica to meet me with the sandwiches.

So here we are, the chicken and the egg.  Do we go ahead and create the framework for cloud computing with structural upgrades to the US fiber optic network, and hope that companies utilize it by making online versions of their software?  Or do companies stop making CDs to sell in stores and start putting all of their apps online, forcing the network upgrades to follow?  Or do they both evolve mutually, pulling each other along when one falls behind?

Only time will tell, for now we can only dream…with our heads in the clouds.  :)

When I came to college in the Fall of ‘04, I had a 12″ PowerBook G4 and, needless to say, it was the envy of everyone in my dorm hall.  While all the other guys on the hall had their $500 Dells and HP’s big enough to play poker on and slow enough that pen and paper might just be faster, I was surrounded by beautiful women in awe of my tiny, shiny, powerful Mac (the term ‘women’ is used here in a very loose sense, and can be taken as ‘other nerds’ or ‘imaginary women’ if necessary).  Not only was I the only kid on the hall who could edit skateboarding movies, make web pages, and successfully take my laptop to class and back, I was one of very few college freshmen with a Mac instead of a Windows machine.

Oh how the times have changed.

In a mere four years the landscape of computing on this college campus (the University of Georgia in Athens, GA) has changed dramatically.  From black and blue Dell notebooks to shiny white MacBooks; from custom-built black monster gaming machines to sleek, silver towers of MacPros; from HP pocketPCs and Palm Pilots to iPhones and (some) Blackberrys.  The types of computers college kids are buying today have led to classes where there might be 1 Windows laptop for every 4 Macbooks.  Think I’m lying?  Go to a class in the Student Learning Center at UGA and see for yourself.  It’s all Mac, all the time.

But why?  What caused the switch?  How could starving college kids eating Ramen noodles every day choose to spend what little money they can save on a more expensive Apple computer over the cheaper priced Windows machines at Best Buy down the road?  The answer I’ve come up with is not quite as cut and dry as one might think.

I think a good way to investigate this migration is to analyze two snapshots: one of college life four years ago and one of college life today.  Four years ago students were logging on to that new nerdy stalker website, Facebook, for the first time.  The real photography majors were still using film and developing in a dark room because Digital SLR cameras were thousands and thousands of dollars.  There was no YouTube (that wouldn’t be around till the next year, 2005) or Hulu.com or BitTorrent.  Believe it or not, there was hardly even a Gmail (you had to be personally invited to get an account until 2007).

Let’s face it, four years ago college life just wasn’t very digital.  Even the content that made it into digital format tended to stay on the person’s computer who took the pictures, shot the video, or created the document.  Four years ago, sharing of digital content took place from one hand to another with a fairly expensive 32 mb flash drive.

So it’s easy to see why college kids back then wouldn’t really care whether their computer could edit and store photos, make high quality movies with a few clicks, or record multiple tracks and produce a song.  Even if they bought a Mac to make that cool content, with whom and how would they share it?

Today the landscape and general use of computers on college campuses is wildly different.  Web 2.0 and the affordability of digital-content-producing devices has completely opened up the digital arena for the average college student.  Suddenly we can ask for a digital SLR for Christmas and take stunning pictures, and we can immediately share them with all of our friends on Facebook.  We can shoot a video of ourselves dancing with our 8 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras, upload it to YouTube, and become overnight internet stars.  We can take notes on a GoogleDoc and have five of our classmates editing the document at the same time, in real time.  We can travel to Italy to study abroad and video conference with all of our friends, and Skype with our parents.  In a time like this, in which computers and web apps are starting to become a major part of interacting with the real world, why would any student want to own a big, bulky computer that can’t handle the heat?

No, what we want is a light, easy to use, powerful machine with the capability to produce content.  And not just low-end home movie content, either.  We want to make professional quality short films, do graphic design for magazines to make money on the side, and build websites for our parents.  When we realized that we have access to the same tools the pros use, we grabbed the bull by the horns and haven’t stopped since.

And by the way Microsoft, we use Photoshop now–maybe you should start marketing MS Paint to pre-schools and daycares.

That’s right, the modern college day kid is ready to produce the highest quality content and integrate it with his or her every day life.  And we’ve realized that a $450 laptop just isn’t going to cut it.  So when I’m sitting in class looking at the various MacBooks and MacBook Pros, I’m not seeing people chatting on AIM.  I’m watching them create digital art and edit their latest documentary, I’m watching them switch between 8 or 9 tabs on Google Chrome, flying from web app to web app.  The modern day college kid is making the content that his buddies are watching, reading, sharing, and using.  The day PCs catch up to the capabilities and ease-of-use that Macs have, then we’ll see some diversity in the classroom laptop of choice.  But for now, Mac has the power.

And don’t be surprised, but I am blogging this on a Mac using a web app while I’m taking a break from managing various UGA websites.  In about half an hour I have to go film a local musical group with a Sony camera and edit their newest music video in Final Cut.  Later tonight I’ll be mixing a couple songs on Garageband for an upcoming UGA breakdance show…

In an uncharacteristic mistake by an employee of Google, an email was sent with a comic that expressly describes Google’s next big release:  a web browser called Google Chrome.  Since the dawn of Google (a phrase I feel our children will say very often), the company has relentlessly challenged the status quo of various areas of technology–usually resulting in an increase of innovation and a whirlwind of competition.  Their entrance into the browser wars will be no different; in fact, Google claims that this browser is the best browser on the internet.

In recent past, Google has worked with Mozilla’s open source browser Firefox in an attempt to challenge the giant marketshare of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.  Mozilla recently released Firefox 3, Microsoft released the Beta of Internet Explorer 8, and now Google is releasing Chrome.  With the universal brand recognition Google has acquired through its #1 search engine, Google Chrome will undoubtedly rise to become a notable competitor in very little time.

So, why is Google adding yet another browser to the brawl?  As usual, Google’s pruduct this time around will be very different than it’s rivals–so much so that we may see a Firefox 4 or an IE 8.2 very, very soon.  It would be an understatement to say that they’ve redesigned the back end; rather, they’ve taken every bit of code that modern browsers are being built on and thrown it all out the window.  Whereas we used to use our browsers for viewing little jumping .gif images or viewing articles, we now regularly use our browsers as mini-processors, virtual machines that perform resource-intensive tasks like chatting, uploading and recording videos, editing documents in real time with mutliple people, and more.  The old architecture of a browser just isn’t cutting it for the new Web 2.0 applications–and Google Chrome is an answer to that.

Without getting too technical, Google has changed the architecture from a linear model (in which one process cannot begin its task until its predecessor has completed its task) to a multi-process model.  In Chrome, each tab has its own allocation of processing resources and the use of a process like javascript does not stop another process like html from occurring.  In that respect, this structure is similar to an OS and very, very different from a traditional browser.

To put it in a bit simpler terms, current browsers like Firefox or Internet Explorer are like a single lane road.  You can’t move until the car in front of you moves.  The car behind you is stuck until you move.  And no matter how many cars you have on the road (tabs you have open in your browser) everybody stops when one car crashes.  Google Chrome is different.  It’s more like an 8 lane highway, where you can switch lanes, avoid an accident, and speed up or slow down without affecting the 95mph car in the next lane.  Google Chrome treats each tab as it’s own lane, and thus every process has the ability to do all of it’s tasks regardless of the other tabs.  And best of all:  if your Facebook tab crashes while you’re working on that important email to your boss, the Facebook tab will close but the Gmail tab won’t.  Clutch!

The release of Google Chrome also has mobile implications.  The open-source browser was built on Webkits, as was Google’s mobile, open-source operating system Android.  The two use Webkits for a few good reasons:  it’s fast, it’s safe, and it’s adaptable.  In the near future, be on the lookout for a very close connection between the two:  Google Chrome and Google Android.  Yet another step in the massive, undending process of convergence.

It seems that everything Google touches turns to gold.  Digital gold.  Digigold.  Will people download Google Chrome?  Will they choose to use it over Firefox 3 or IE 8?  Who knows, but I bet that when I type ‘web browser download’ into Google anytime in the near future, it won’t be Firefox or IE in the #1 spot.  Ah, the fairest company prevails again!

[Update] Google has released the first iteration of Google Chrome, you can download it here!  I am using it right now, and I have to say that it is really shining.  Check it out yourself and be sure to watch the new features videos!

I recently changed my mind about a motivating philosophy in my life.  I was reading Seed, a refreshing science magazine with young writers, and I stumbled across an article about an increase in science and technology implementation in Africa called Building a Bright Continent.  At first I thought this would be another attempt to encourage people to get laptops in the hands of children and adults in developing countries–which of course is a noble and worthy endeavor.  But this was different (which is exactly why I love this magazine), the article instead called for a new goal of using technology to solve problems and incorporate it into pre-existing practices in the community to enrich life.  Now, Seed only briefly mentions this idea in the article, but it really struck a chord with me and got me thinking.

For the past few years I’ve been interested in acquiring computers in the US and bringing them to children in developing nations, with the hope that I could do my part in inspiring the children to get connected and improve their lives and the lives of people in their communities.  I was able to convince a generous company to donate $5,000 to this cause, and I then used the donation to purchase 24 XO laptops from the OneLaptopPerChild campaign.  As you might know, participating in the Give One, Get One program with OLPC allowed me to pay the $5,000 and OLPC sent 12 laptops to a developing nation, and 12 laptops to my front door.  For the past few months I, and students and professors in the New Media Institute, have been exploring the XO laptops.  I have been biding my time, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself from which I would be able to get these 12 laptops in the hands of the children that need them.

I was waiting for a specific type of opportunity–one in which I would take a trip to a small village somewhere and the children would, with wide eyes, experience a ‘connected’ computer for the first time.  That was my dream and my goal from the beginning of the project; however, one must be flexible when dealing with initiatives like this.  The other night I ran into my professor, Emuel Aldridge, at Cali and Tito’s in Athens.  Emuel mentioned to me that he would be traveling to Costa Rica in mid-July, and that he could get me a cheap ticket down there and housing if I was interested.  Of course I jumped on the offer, and I am now working out all of the details for the trip.  Emuel connected me with a professor in Costa Rica named Quint.  Quint works with various schools in Costa Rica and abroad, and I thought he would be able to connect me with children in these schools–how perfect!  But instead, Quint proposed an idea that would never have crossed my mind in a million years.

He suggested that we not give the laptops to children, the target demographic for these particular models as they are bright green, have child-sized keyboards, and all pre-loaded programs are child/learning oriented.  Instead, he proposed that we spend four days traveling around Costa Rica and teaching local farmers how to use the laptops to increase their productivity and generally improve their lives.  Quint mentioned that a lot of the farming families had never had access to a computer, and the impact it would have on their lives would be great.

At first, I was opposed to the idea.  After all, these laptops are designed to be used by children.  I have a tough time typing on the small keyboard as it is, and the programs on them are not even remotely useful for adults.  But then I got to thinking, and I realized that it doesn’t really matter what the laptops are intended to be used for–in fact, that could be the very misconception that is keeping developing nations separated from technology.  What really matters is that we use technology to solve real-world, day-to-day problems in communities all over the world.  If a computer can help a farmer in Costa Rica manage his crops, sell them to a wider market, and connect him to friends and family all over the world–who cares if the keyboard is slightly smaller than that of a normal laptop?  Who cares if he never opens the music making game?  What really matters is that he and his family will be connected in new and exciting ways.  And that is exactly what I was trying to achieve all along.

So, in mid-July I will travel down to Costa Rica with Emuel and possibly a few others.  I’ll have a big waterproof pack with 12 XO laptops inside, a couple changes of clothes, and a toothbrush.  In all likelihood, I’ll be wearing sandals and a poncho for most of the trip.  Not only will this trip benefit real families in villages in an area of the world that doesn’t get that much technological attention, but it will be the experience of a lifetime.

And I’m already thinking of ways to do it bigger and better, next time around.  Suggestions welcome.  :)

The New Media Institute at the University of Georgia is incredible.  Not only are the classes the most interesting, hands-on, effective classes in the entire university–but the professors in the NMI are constantly investing time with, available for, and connecting the students they work with.  I have given more to and received more from the New Media Institute than any other part of my UGA academic experience.  And now it’s all paying off–both for me and for the NMI.

We’re heading to Atlanta!  Dr. Scott Shamp–the director of the New Media Institute–has invited a couple NMI students and myself to the GSMA Mobile Innovation Marketplace in Atlanta this coming week!  In this event we will have the opportunity to man a booth, meet with [very] high level executives, and network with some of the most important innovators in the mobile community.  We will hear speakers like Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility; Martha Bejar, Corporate Vice President, Communications Sector, Microsoft Corporation; and Michael Nash, VP of Warner Music.  Basically, if just one of the people passing by our booth takes my card and resume and lays them on their secretary’s desk, I’ll be up and out of college faster than a copyrighted video clip can be removed from YouTube!

At our booth we will be showing off the work that students from the New Media Institute completed in our Capstone class this past Spring.  We usually call the project APPSA Atlanta, or AIDS Personal Public Service Announcement Altlanta.  We assembled diverse teams of students from schools all over the country and matched them up with professional producers.  We then handed each team a set of technology tools to be used in the field the next day–and we crossed our fingers.  Inside each team’s bag was a MacBook, a Verizon Wireless Broadband Modem, a Nokia N-95, a Verizon LG cellphone, a Flip Video Camera, a lapel mic, a bluetooth mic, and a couple other items.  Using the Nokia N-95 (what a sweeeet phone) the teams captured TV-quality video footage from all over Atlanta–footage that would be used to produce 2-3 Personal Public Service Announcements, or PPSA’s.  But the catch:  the teams only had from the hours of 9am to 4pm to shoot the footage, and the producers only had from 12pm to 6pm to edit all the clips into perfect little 15-20 second PPSA’s!  How in the world did we get this done?

Well, the key piece of technology that made the speed of production possible was the Verizon Wireless Broadband Modem.  The teams would download their raw video footage shot entirely with the Nokia N-95 to the MacBook.  The tech guys from the New Media Institute (ahem, yours truly and a few other awesome guys) set up a couple simple programs so that the footage would automatically and continuously transfer from the MacBooks out in the field, over the airways and through the buildings of Atlanta, all the way down into the hotel rooms where the producers were sitting with Final Cut Pro and iMacs of their own.  So pictures this:  even as the teams of students are still out in the field shooting footage with the cell phones, the producers are in the hotel rooms editing all the clips just minutes after they are shot!  It was an amazing feat and an impressive use of technology–and needless to say it took a lot of hard work from the students in the New Media Institute!

So, when we get to Atlanta this week for the GSMA Mobile Innovation Marketplace, we’ll be setting up a couple flat-screen TVs at our Mobile Media Consortium booth.  Running in continuous loops on these TVs will be the many PPSA’s that were shot and produced in the APPSA event!  I can’t wait to show off all of our work to these execs, because we used a lot of the technology that their companies produce!

Having said all of this, if you are a UGA student and you want to get involved in the best program offered at this university (IMHO), you should head over to the New Media Institute website and get signed up!  Not only will the program familiarize you with modern technology and software, but it will connect you people you want and need to know, and it will teach you how to swim in this ocean that this generation is timidly dipping their toes into–a world in which technology is embedded in almost every facet of our lives.

I’m looking forward to the GSMA Mobile Innovation Marketplace in Atlanta–I’ll be twittering while I’m there!

In one corner, weighing in at a respectable $15 billion, the reigning champ, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook!

And the new challenger—we’ve all heard his name on the streets and he actually helped us discover Zuckerberg—weighing in at a hefty $150 billion, the ad-toting, search-optimizing, float-like-a-betafly Eric Schmidt of Google!

Let’s get ready to rumble!

Wait a minute—what’s this?  It looks like Schmidt and Zuckerberg are not fighting, they’re tag-teaming!  And there’s Ramu Yalamanchi of Hi5, David Glazer of OpenSocial, and Kevin Rose of Digg coming up to join them!

Will the whispered Yahoo, Microsoft, MySpace giant allegiance challenge them next week?  Only time will tell…

What am I talking about?  The cage-match between Google’s new product offering, Friend Connect, and the answer that will come in the next few months from their competitors and adversaries.

Last night Google released their cure for the internet’s social networking addiction:  universal integration.  Wait, what?  That’s right, Google has found a way for the average website owner to integrate social networking capabilities into their sites without doing any coding at all!  Pretty soon you will see your favorite (currently static) how-to-age-cheese website integrating social networking options like comments, uploading pictures, friends, and updates of your activity on their site sent to your favorite social networks (Facebook, hi5, Orkut, etc.).   All they have to do is sign up through Google Friend Connect and choose the little applications they want to add to their site.  Google takes care of the rest!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a game changer.  Suddenly po-dunk Bar-B-Que Shack’s one-page website can integrate comments about their latest BBQ recipe, have their regulars upload pictures from last night’s wrangle-fest, and connect with BBQ lovers all over the country.  It seems dumb, but then again so did searching for information on a computer when you could just find it in your local library.  This, my forward-thinking friends, is a serious game changer.

Wanna see it in action?  Check out these sample sites that Google created and watch the video introduction.

So there you have it, Google is entering the Social Networking arena with guns blazing.

But what does this mean for the general internet community?  In my opinion, all good things.  I have a few websites, and I would love to have user comments, user-generated content, and user connections all happening in the background—without me having to moderate, code, or otherwise handle the implementation.  It’s actually kind of like a dream come true—in theory.

But so far, from what I have seen in the example sites and the videos, this first go-around of Google Friend Connect is—in a word—clunky.  You can tell that the idea behind it is beautiful and full of potential, but that the coders forgot to pass it on to the make-it-look-sexy people before they released it.  To give them credit, it is still in the very, very early stages.  I just can’t wait until this can be used in sites all over the web.  I’ll stumble upon a random karate-by-cats website and I can immediately connect with other people who love the board-chopping meows as well—and my activity on karate-by-cats will be automatically posted to my Facebook profile!  And keep in mind, this is just the first iteration of this new functionality—the real gold lies at the end of the Google rainbow (somewhere over in California, I’m sure).

Look forward to lots of news about Google Friend Connect—great work Google!  Now, about those karate chopping LOLcats…

How distant is the downfall of cable television?  How far away are we from the day when no one subscribes to cable anymore because every ‘good’ show can be found online, at any time of day or night, in HD quality?

Not as far as you might think.

In fact, last night for Mother’s Day my family and I sat down together after we leisurely finished dinner and watched The Office—courtesy of the Internet, my laptop, a small conversion cable, and our family TV.

If you are a TiVo owning, flat-screen hanging, digital cable receiving, 250 channel man then you’re just one step away from canceling that Comcast cable service and bookmarking your favorite IPTV sites.  Think not?  IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television (here is the wiki about it).  With products like TiVo, AppleTV, and SlingBox we are inching closer and closer to the edge—a couple more steps and we’ll be soaring away from the old days where programming was chosen by millionaires sitting in offices in LA and NY and heading towards that beautiful land where we choose what we watch, from whom we watch, and when we watch.

I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine:  Hulu.com.  Officially, Hulu.com states that its mission is “to help people find and enjoy the world’s premium video content when, where and how they want it.”  And though this is true, I want to hone in on one specific word from that statement:  premium.  As its website proudly boasts, Hulu.com is the best place to go if you want to see shows “from more than 50 content providers, including FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. and more.”  Those content providers, I’m assuming, are the ones who have attained the status of ‘premium content providers.’  Hulu.com is—in my experience—the first truly user friendly TV-on-the-Internet website ever.  Watching shows on ABC.com or NBC.com or FOX.com or tv-links.co.uk or pop-vids was like, to put it mildly. having the worst migraine of your life and being forced to sit in a bright room with 4 lagging commercials repeating indefinitely forever.  Yeah, it was something like that.  But Hulu.com really gets it right.  The shows are good quality, they load quickly, the ads are timed and vary from show to show, and the user interface is accessible and understandable.  I’m happy with that.

But something about that word, premium, still gets to me.

Who’s to say that shows produced by NBC or FOX or Sony are any funnier than the clips you can find on FunnyOrDie, CollegeHumor, or SuperDelux?  Sure, they might be filmed with better cameras, in a studio in LA, tested against hundreds of focus groups for humor quality and demographic receptiveness, and all assuredly politically correct (enough)—but my question is: does the fact that they were produced by a big name inherently entitle them to the status of premium video content?

Of course, my answer is a big fat n0.

The Internet video stars are becoming more famous, more quickly, than the television stars of today.  Videos like Pearl the Landlord and the dance for Soulja Boy Crank That have swept the Internets from left to right, top to bottom, in just a few weeks each.   It’s hard to argue with the power of viral videos on the internet.

It is also hard, though, to see a future marriage between viral video style Internet clips and ‘premium’ video content from the big names.  How will we see them living happily together on the same site, or better yet, integrated into the same programming systems?

When we find the answer to that question, hopefully with the help of sites like Hulu.com, you can be sure that your cable service provider will have already made the arrangements for the funeral of their cable programming, and the upgrade for their Internet bandwidth offerings.  You’ll also probably get a colorful, laminated announcenment in the mail from about 300 different start-up IPTV companies.  Ya can’t teach an old medium new tricks…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch 30Rock.  It comes on at 1:28 PM on Hulu.com.