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.

Link for the feed readers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI

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.

————————
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.

Remember that cool computer screen interaction from the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report? Do you also remember when we saw the new touchscreen functions when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone? Well, check out the video below. It’s the ultimate touchscreen and appears to have been introduced in a smaller, slightly less developed format a year ago. Here’s that video too. Thanks again to Craig for making me aware of this technology. The company behind this is Perceptive Pixel.

Video link for feed readers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysEVYwa-vHM&eurl=

Here it is. Some assembly is required (like a color printer, scissors, and tape or glue).

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.