The latest episode of The New Mediology is now live. Listen to it online or subscribe in iTunes to give it a listen. If you listen, see if you can find this awkward exchange between Nathan and me…

Nathan: Lyrics is cool.
Bill: I’m not familiar with that.
[long pause]
Nathan: Song lyrics?
Bill: Oh, I thought that was a program.

When you listen you’ll get the context of that…but it was funny (at least to us.)

A few weeks ago Apple released a new series of products. The major headlines seemed to go to either the new iPod Touch and the price reduction in the iPhone. Though this news may have overshadowed the update/name change about the iPod Classic, the new iPod Nano, and iPod Shuffle colors (which was hardly news, but still…), I think we will look back at this product release and see that the most significant announcement was new Nano.

The new Nano now plays video and the prices are at a level that lowers the barriers to entry so virtually anyone to get a personalized video player. Apple clearly dominates the MP3 market and the new Nano solidifies them in personal video players. Sure, the screen is small (2 inches) and the Nano moniker seems a little less applicable with this short and stocky version, but it doesn’t matter. For $150 (4 GB) or $200 (8 GB) you get a video iPod.

So who should care about this? Well, video content creators to start. By January there will be loads of new and eager new Nano owners looking for good video content to fill their iPods. If you were ever thinking about starting a video blog/video podcast, now is the time more than ever. If you create video of any form and don’t allow people to subscribe to it, you’re about to miss out on a new wave of potentially interested people. Get some RSS feeds tied into your existing video and register with iTunes so people can subscribe.

If you have video that you sell, start promoting the heck out of it this fall. If you can bust up your video so it can be sold off in smaller parts, give that some consideration as well. Again, there’s going to be a new group of consumers for your content.

If your business is trying to find a new way to regularly engage existing clients, consider this option: this Christmas send your clients a Nano and start a weekly five minute video podcast from your organization. Have the first video podcast ready for subscription by the time the clients receive their gift and you’ll be giving them something with a high perceived value but also be handing them the vehicle to further you ability to connect with them. After all, now there’s a little video for everyone.

UPDATE: My bad. Chris, my good friend told me I missed it and I did. The iPhone goes on sale tomorrow, not today. 6pm tomorrow actually. I missed it. Sorry AT&T. I look forward to seeing you blow it out on your site tomorrow.

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Today marks the first day that the Apple iPhone is available for purchase. Apple hooked up with AT&T (formerly Cingular) for the phone service. In case you’ve missed it somehow, the iPhone has been one of the most hyped devices in the history of hyped devices. So here’s my question…where’s the iPhone on the AT&T website?

Ok, so the iPhone can be found on the front page of the AT&T site. My real question is why isn’t it the first thing you see? Why is it minimized to a small fraction of front page real estate? Today is the big coming out party for the iPhone so you would think it would dominate the AT&T front page but instead they’ve given it a small box that doesn’t even show the phone, but the Apple logo instead. Here’s what it looks like:

Now compare that to Apple’s front page. It’s all iPhone.

Perhaps there’s a reason for this, though I’m not sure what it would be. Both companies obviously gain from promoting the iPhone in a big way so why would AT&T minimize it on the big launch day? Is this symbolic of AT&T’s reliance on Apple to do all the marketing for the iPhone while AT&T gets the new service plans? Is it a simple oversight? Maybe this was on purpose on AT&T’s part for some reason. Whatever the case, I can’t help but feel that AT&T’s missed it here.

My friend Nathan is a serious Apple guy. He told me recently that he purchased a new Dell to do some testing on the PC experience for his website development work. The new computer came with the Microsoft Vista operating system and he said it was pretty interesting to see what Microsoft is doing. I’d heard that many Mac enthusiasts were actually quite complimentary of Vista (which is about as common as Halley’s Comet if you didn’t know) so being the hard core Mac fan that he is I thought it would be fun to get his take on Vista. I asked Nathan to be a guest blogger on MicroExplosion to review his experience. He came through like a champ. Here’s Nathan’s take on Vista:

I have been an Apple guy for several years and was intrigued with what Microsoft had up its sleeve, especially after hearing other Apple fans praise Vista. Here’s what I discovered:

First Impressions
First impressions are everything. Like you may suspect, my first impression of Vista was that it feels a lot like Apple’s OS X. The “aero” interface is strikingly similar to “aqua” among other things. The interface is clean for the most part, not cluttered like previous versions of Windows. Vista even sports an Expose-esque feature allowing a user to visually shuffle through open windows. Even though most of the visuals look like they came from Apple’s labs, I must say… it is pretty slick. And slick appeals to the Apple fanatics.

Lasting Impressions
Now, Vista still has that “Windows” feel that I have never been keen to, but I have to give Microsoft credit. They have created an operating system that attempts to give the user a great experience. Sure, pump enough eye-candy into anything and it will look great with the first presentation, but Vista feels solid as well. For example, errors and alerts are handled more gracefully, and logging in literally feels like a dream. Microsoft has definitely taken a page from Apple’s book, and I must say, “Well done.” Vista will not become my primary operating system by any means, but it will not be as reluctant to use it as I have with previous versions of Windows.

Conclusion
Microsoft is starting to get it: experience is what yields passion for products. Experience is the key to emotional interaction with a product. Microsoft’s new Vista operating system is an effort to create an experience for the user rather than frustration. Though I believe Apple is the one indirectly teaching Microsoft the art of “the experience,” Microsoft is starting to understand. I doubt Microsoft will ever become a company respected for experience and user interface development, but at least they are attempting to develop products that acknowledge the user experience.

I will be very interested to see what Apple presents in its next operating system, Leopard, due out this spring. Steve Jobs has said it will sport several top-secret new features, and I can’t help to think that Apple kept these secret so they would not find a way into Microsoft’s Vista. But anything that Apple creates will probably be answered (or replicated) in Microsoft’s next big project. I guess flattery is the highest compliment.

Ok, so I had some other stuff to talk about tonight but I’ve been watching the Steve Jobs keynote this evening and I simply cannot focus on anything else. If you haven’t heard by now (where have you been today???) Apple Inc. unveiled their iPhone. I must say that the more I’ve seen of this tonight the more impressed I am. Earlier today I just thought it was cool. Now I’m blown away. Check out the demo on the Apple site or the live demo from the keynote today (which actually shows you a bit more about it).

The iPhone is due out in June through Cingular. I expect the race is on for applications that can work with the iPhone…in fact, this may help push the adoption of web applications like Google documents and spreadsheets or the Zoho family of products because you can use them through the web browser. Should be interesting to see what happens.

The culture that surrounds technology is an interesting thing. There are dividing lines between the people who are “in” and everybody else. A little over a year ago I learned that the people who are “in” don’t use Microsoft Explorer for their browser…they use Firefox. Firefox introduced (or at least popularized) the tab browsing function which means you don’t have to use numerous individual windows running anymore but just his Ctrl+T (Apple+T for the Mac folks) and BOOM…a new window is ready to go in the original window you opened.

The Firefox guys really got it right when they started letting people create add-ons that let you do all kinds of stuff to customize your browser. Its popularity has soared and the Firefox users became evangelists for the browser.

Firefox just recently released version 2.0 and it seems very sweet as usual. Interestingly enough, there’s a new Microsoft Explorer now that strangely Firefoxish.

In the tech culture, there are a few products or services that elicit emotional responses from the user base. Apple computers tend to fall in this elite category. So does Firefox. I recommend Firefox because it’s a great browser…the coolness is just gravy.

I’ve been chewing on the idea for this post for quite a while now and have been hesitant to ask this question…it’s a bit off topic but here it is: are Macs really that much better than PCs? Not software wise, that’s not really what I’m thinking about. I’m talking about the inherent components of the computers.

Here’s why I’m even thinking about this, I know several people(I’m thinking of four specific situations) where Mac owners have had trouble with their computers. Two of the situations were hard drives dying, one was a case of a bad processor, and one was a laptop that broke and the screen would no longer stand up on its own. But here’s the thing I noticed in these cases…the Mac owners were at most apologetic and at least hesitant to complain or say anything negative about their computers. Are Mac owners just more optimistic about the woes of computer hardware or have they taken a code of silence the rest of us don’t know about?

The Mac problems mentioned above represent a third of the people I know who use Macs, so in my world, one in three Mac users have had significant problems…and in three of the four cases the Macs were only a year old.

Let me state for the record (anyone keeping a record?) that I’m not against Macs by any means. I use one (iMac) at work every day and Apples were the first computers my family ever had…so I’ve been around them for 15 years and have always thought they’re good products. My question is simply this: do Mac owners defend their computers (or other Apple products for that matter) more than PC owners? If so, why?

I hope to get some good comments on this post but here’s my answer to these questions:
Yes, Mac owners defend their computers more than PC owners for three reasons…

Macs are cool: Macs are considered cool products. It’s not cool to say bad things about Macs. If Macs are what all the cool kids play with, then to say something against a Mac would be to stand against the cool (and be, therefore, uncool)…and who wants to be uncool?
Macs are chosen: Mac users choose their computers whereas PC users may just take what they can get (whether because they had no choice in the matter or went for the cheapest option their budget would allow). I think anyone who chooses a product on purpose will be more apt to defend the product even when it doesn’t work properly because it’s a reflection on their own decision making process.
Macs are work horses: One of the common denominators in all four cases of broken Macs I am aware of were on computers that were heavily used on a daily basis. I don’t know what the average PC user’s time spent on the computer is but would guess Mac users use their computers much more than PC users…leading to more wear and tear on the computer and the higher likelihood for problems.

Note: I bounced the idea for this post off two of the four Mac owners I mentioned in my broken computer sample and they both affirmed the fact that there is something to Mac defense. One was more quick to defend the Macs than the other but each felt at least some hesitation to really blame the computers. What did Apple do to get this kind of loyalty?

In my daily work I have a chance to interact with a lot of graphic designers. Our company has three designers on staff…two for print design and one for web design. Add to that a full arsenal of freelance print, web, and video design specialists along with an occasional art director and I’ve got a world of creativity around me on a regular basis.

I don’t know if I’m simply more aware of good design (and bad design too) now more than ever or if it’s just becoming so pervasive (it’s probably both or these) but design for everything these days is HUGE! Look at how important design is to so many of the products we have. Every coffee company in the world has adopted the Starbucks style of coffee packaging. It was a design that’s come to symbolize high quality coffee and now even the old school coffee companies like Folgers are on board with this…they call it their gourmet coffee. Here’s another example…look at Apple computers, they’re a combination of both good form (visual design) and function (ease of use).

This trend toward high quality design is inherent in many things web 2.0. Yes, there are certainly some exceptions like MySpace, but for many sites it seems clear there is specific attention given toward and open, intuitive design. That design is often combined with a plain-talking, straight-forward tone. There are four things I’m seeing regularly in many of these sites:

• An attention to the use of white space - The attention to using white space is most noticeable at Google, but I’m seeing it all the time like at eBible and myChurch. One great thing about a lot of white space is that it leaves little room for doubt as to what is most important on your site…and that’s a good thing.
• Predominant graphics - Many of the good web 2.0 sites focus on showing a few predominant images rather than multiple (and often smaller) images. Compare Flickr to Kodak to get the idea. Again, the focus is on directing people down a very specific road rather than the “shock and awe” approach where you overwhelm them with information or options.
• Straight-forward information - The straight-forward information an approach that communicates “mean what you say, say what you mean” kind of attitude. It is also a non-corporate approach…which is also fitting for most web 2.0 organizations. I love the way FeedBurner uses this tone on their site.
• Simplicity - It’s all about ease of use and accessibility. If the person can quickly find what they’re looking for then the site is sufficiently simple.

The distinctions are becoming so stark that the very design of any organization’s website communicates a lot about it. Does your site say you’re accessible and personable or rigid and corporate? Does it communicate with clarity or confusion? Does it show that you’re clunky or nimble?

With the trend on an every growing importance on good design, it would be worth a little extra consideration toward your next project..particularly if that next project is a website. It will say more about you than you can anticipate…so will that be a good thing or a bad thing?

I saw on Micro Persuasion that Apple is beginning to take legal action against organizations, websites and products that use the word “pod” in regard to podcasting. It appears that Apple wants to reign in the podcasting name and any unsanctioned use of “pod” that could be related to iPods or podcasting.

I must say I don’t really get this and am disappointed in Apple. Isn’t it the goal of any company to get their brand to a point that it is so ingrained into the culture that its product name becomes synonymous with the use of the product? Look at Xerox, Frisbee and Kleenex. For many people xerox is a verb for making copies, a frisbee is any recreational flying disc, and a kleenex is your best friend during cold and flu season. These brand names have transcended the actual products they originally represented and as such own the mindshare of their respective markets. We already know iPods are the leading MP3 players. In fact the word iPod has even begun to represent all MP3 players…and how could Apple not be pleased with that?

So let’s say Apple sufficiently cracks down on all this pod-speak. That means everyone will have to use another term to discuss the technology formerly known as podcasting except in the actual cases when you’re referring to the Apple products/technology. As this new word emerges it will undoubtedly push the “pod” to the background and the “casting” to the foreground. I don’t see how that helps Apple at all. They already have the “pod” product with the family of iPods, so by default they win every time someone uses the word “podcast” whether it’s intended to represent something specifically for iPods or not. In fact, this depodification may only clarify for some people that podcasting is not exclusive to iPods. While that’s a nice clarification for the uninitiated consumer, it doesn’t help Apple extend the reach of their brand.

In the end I think Apple may regret this course of action because it’s going to muddy the waters that they have clearly owned up to this point. It’s also going to be a PR problem because they have been the anti-corporation for so long and this is very corporate…it’s fearful and controlling and just very un-Apple of them.

I had a tough conversation recently. It was tough because I had to let a client make the wrong decision. In fact, I told them it was the wrong decision, and I was tactful, but they got the message. After my gentle protest and suggestion for taking another approach I was met with a resounding gong of silence (insert cricket sounds here) and it was then that I knew they were going to do it anyway. What is it? IT was banner ads.

The goal this client came to us with was to drive more traffic to their website but they already had decided they wanted to try to accomplish this with banner ads on a particular website they selected. After a few minutes of listening to them I just had to tell them that it isn’t generally a good idea and that there are better (and much cheaper) ways to go about it. As I mentioned above they wanted to do it anyway…and so they are…but here’s where we’re really going to test this…

In addition to the banner ads we’re going to put some video for this company’s same product on YouTube. We’ll be able to track the number of views and links from both areas and see what happens. I don’t quite know what they’re going to pay for a month of banner ads…but I know what they’re going to pay for the YouTube video…$0.00. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I’ll admit, I’ve got an issue with banner ads. I rank them right up there with the people who sell email lists that are usually just spam. Banner ads are the very reason I was interested in switching from Hotmail to Gmail a year or so ago (Gmail only has text ads). Banner ads just don’t work most of the time. They’re not a wise expense. An effective banner ad would have to be highly targeted on a very specific kind of site to even have a chance. For instance if Apple had a banner ad for an iPod accessory they’re going to have a good chance of getting some attention for the ad, but even then most people still ignore them. By and large banner ads are ignored and with all the effective (and free) web 2.0 options today like blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, video blogs, Wikipedia, etc. there are much better ways to go. Needless to say I’m excited to see how this little experiment turns out! In the end I expect the score to be: Banner ads - 0, Web - 2.0.