The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.

I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward.

For me, the biggest online tool for most entrepreneurs is definitely their website. Having a website is like putting your shingle out declaring you’re in business.

In this presentation, the first section focuses on further defining your idea so you can create the site, offline, before engaging someone to build it for you (or building it yourself). From who the users / customers will be and what kind of information they want, to what the actual purpose of the site will be (conversion), to defining a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for the site.

The second section focuses on how to collaborate with those who will help your idea become a reality, from working with collaborators remotely, to the kinds of tools and software you’ll need to collaborate, and setting some guidelines for those tools to be effective.

The third section focuses on methods and approaches for communicating your idea, whether through the use of social media or just being consistent in your entire presence online.

Be sure and page through the entire slideshow to see the resources I included at the end for those looking for open source software alternatives to proprietary software, and links for getting started with ebooks and Creative Commons.

Below is the slideshow, click through to see the slideshow in your browser:

All the applications suggested are linked to their Android Market pages so you can check them out immediately – click on them! Here’s a direct link to Productivity on your Android Mobile – 10 Tips & 40+ Apps on Slideshare.

Did I leave one out? Let me know in the comments.

If you’re not familiar with the Ignite format, it’s very exciting for both speakers and spectators. 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds each slide. It’s a timing nightmare and you’re always racing against the clock, but it’s a great exercise to really concentrate on the meat of your presentation and remove the extras. (I gave another Ignite earlier this year on the New Digital Company: Distributed, Online, Transparent)

In any case, the Ignite I gave has enough material and research behind it for a 1 hour talk, and it was hard to stop at 5. But since this topic is relatively new, I wanted to whet people’s appetites with a broad overview of digital curation: what, why, how, and a brief look at curation and protecting our data across all of these different social networks and sites we sign up to and subsequently fill up with our data. We often can’t get that data back.

I propose WordPress as a digital hub – a place where our original and curated content is created, published, and archived, and integrates with everything else. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is one you can own and it continues to evolve as new plugins are coming out every day (just today a plugin was released to sync WordPress with Google+ – it’s a great time to get started!)

Here are the slides (in English) from “Digital Curation: The New Frontier of Knowledge“. Video of my presentation is online at KnowCamp.it, but it’s in Italian. If you have any questions, let me know!

Besides appearing to be one of the only people at the event who read the book blurb and a little background on Jay (and knew he hasn’t worked at Apple or with Steve Jobs in 25 years), I was keenly interested in his insights about Steve Jobs’ leadership methods back in the 1980s, when Apple was just getting started. This is the meat of his book and something I looked forward to speaking about him with, rather than asking his opinion about the iPad 2 and products he had very little influence or insight on.

I asked three questions during the event, and I’ll share the answers to two of them below:

1. Given that you believe much of Apple’s success is because Steve Jobs acted as the “Product Czar,” meaning he had complete control and influence on the product from all levels and to the finest details, do you think a similar level of excellence could be achieved in open source? (I had introduced myself as working at WordPress.com)

Obviously, I knew the answer was no, but I guess I had to hear it from his lips. We’ll prove you wrong

2. The second question I asked was about finding and recognizing talent – Jay was offered a job by Steve Jobs after a chance meeting in a coffee shop. A short conversation ensued, and a few weeks later he was offered a job. How do you recognize talent when you see it? What are you looking for, in just a short conversation?

He mentioned that the most important thing is how the person talks about the future of your product / company – is there a future? Do they have ideas? Are they thinking into the future or can they only speak about what’s happened already?

I think Jay has a lot of insights to share, and I look forward to reading more of the book (I read a few chapters already, and had watched a talk he gave earlier this week so I knew a little more about him), but one of his comments really floored me that I feel it has to be addressed.

At a certain point, he asked, so you’re bloggers? What does that mean to be a blogger? (The event was a meeting with journalists & bloggers) He then shared a story with us about a blogger who had written a review of his book (critically, I can only assume) and Jay was surprised by the fact that the post was published at 3:30am. He ended the story with, “Wow, get a life” (to the blogger).

Whoa.

This really shocked me, especially coming from someone who works in Silicon Valley and in technology (and who should know better by now). Of course as the spontaneous spokesperson for an entire 18 million bloggers on WordPress, I felt I had to speak up.

Blogging, I said, is a freedom of expression, and can be very professional (& many journalists blog, too), and I wanted to add: there’s nothing to be afraid of, really.

But what I should have done was framed bloggers in the context of something he’d understand since he’s a serial entrepreneur who’s worked in Silicon Valley his whole life.

Bloggers are communication start-ups.

The “product” that these start-ups sell is content – ideas, thoughts, opinions, and yes, journalistic or investigative reporting at times.  The product is fragile at the beginning, and probably only as strong as their already-known reputation, but the more they write, bounce their ideas off others in a sort of “elevator pitch”, the more solid their blog’s voice and product becomes. They gain readers “consumers”, who believe in their words & content, and these consumers provide feedback about the product, or better yet they vote with their feet and never come back.

Some blogs serve a niche market, some are more widespread. They often will not reach the “IPO” state of success and sell to the AOLs of the world like The Huffington Post & TechCrunch (yep, both blogs!), but can remain content with their small, rather captivated market. Their most valuable raw material is time, rather than money. Intellectual property is the most important asset of these start-ups.

Can there be misreporting, lack of professionalism, and incorrect, biased or ignorant content on a blog? Sure. The power and beauty of the Internet is you can also decide where to direct your attention and how you will or won’t engage with these sources. You can dislike, disagree or discredit a blogger just like you can any other news source. Of course, some others may also agree with them.

In the same conversation, Jay also expressed some concern about his young children being on the Internet and exposed to all kinds of information online and how trustworthy they could be.

And to that I say, teach them the meaning of critical thinking, evaluating what they read, weighing facts, and comparing and forming their own opinions just like in anything else, and you’ll see that they’ll be discerning individuals no matter the news source, and maybe one day, they too will come out…as bloggers.

Check out Beast of Traal.com’s opinion on what the difference between journalists and bloggers are.

PS: It’s interesting to note that Jay’s site runs on WordPress. Welcome to the family!

I gave a presentation in Italian at the Digital Communication Forum in Milan in February, and I spoke about “The New Digital Company: Online, Distributed, and Transparent.” I wanted to make those slides available immediately, but since the talk was an Ignite, a flash talk given in 5 minutes with 20 slides that appear on the screen for only 15 seconds, the slides are usually more visual than descriptive, so in lieu of recording my speech in English, I’ll walk you through a few of my slides.

At the bottom are both the complete Italian and English slide decks in Slideshare in case you feel the need to share or embed them. There’s also a video of my presentation in Italian available.

The first few slides were information about me (in a nod to Italian national identity card design) and the company I work for, Automattic, which is obviously a huge inspiration for the presentation. I tried to extract the three main points and describe them independently of our company, and how they could be applied to any “new digital company.”

The first point is “Be distributed.” The subtext of this slide is that the definition of a company is changing: it is no longer an office, a set of desks, and meeting rooms. The company is how and where you make it, and having a distributed company is more appealing than ever.

Automattic is a distributed company, with 75 employees in 25 countries and 65 cities. The highest concentrations of employees is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we have a Lounge that is not an office but an occasional event and meetup location. The second-highest concentration of Automatticians is in Sofia, Bulgaria (4).

Why should a company be distributed? As our CEO Toni Schneider said, “You can hire great people, wherever you find them,” allowing your company to grow organically where talent is to be found. The company receives applications from people all around the world, who would never have dreamed of applying if it weren’t a distributed company. Employees are not forced to move to a specific city with the company’s office and uproot their whole life in order to work for a great company.

Further still is the freedom a distributed company allows the employee to construct his/her work environment, from the location to the timing. The concept of: being in the office = productiveness is no longer applicable, and the flexibility allows the employee to work when they feel more productive, to take breaks when they aren’t, and experience other environments if desired. Of course, this has to be balanced with the demands of clients if the worker is client-facing, and also if the employee prefers to be around when the bulk of the company is online and tranascting business (many do, and adjust their schedules accordingly no matter what time zone they live in).

A subtext of working from anywhere and not working in an office is that proactiveness and managing one’s time becomes of utmost importance. (the photo is actually one of my colleagues’ photo – he often posts his interesting desks from wherever he is).

The second main point is “Be online.” Many companies feel that they are online because they have a website where they communicate about or sell their products and they’re present on a few social networks.

Be Online is about shifting the entire inner workings of the company to online – from discussions to decisions to documentation. Note: I don’t consider email online as it’s generally not consultable by others.

This is one of my favorite graphs which illustrates how a digital company can communicate internally – most of our communication happens on internal blogs, followed by IRC (a private company chat), Skype for personal, 1-on-1 communication, and a small percentage for email, which is mainly outgoing with clients.

Interviews, trial projects, and training all happen online, which reduces the need for in-person events, and it can mobilize a greater part of the company to participate since the geographic restriction is removed.

Here’s a picture of a traditional meeting – 6 people sitting around a table with computers open, dazed looks on their faces, and surely they’ve been in this meeting much longer than necessary.

Our meetings, when we actually have them, look more like this – different parts of the world connected by Skype for brief moments. Thanks to Skype video we see each other, too, but our team meeting is once a week and more about talking about things we didn’t discuss online and generally hearing how everyone is doing, outside of work, too. It’s more of a human meeting than one with action items, and we try to keep it short, just 30 minutes. Everything else is a non-meeting.

The third point is “Be Transparent.” Transparency plays a big role in a distributed company because physical distance between employees becomes less important than the distance between the employee and the information they need to get their job done, including the discussions and decisions I mentioned before.

Our internal blogs are broken down into teams, cross-functional projects, and also watercooler blogs which are outlets for us to chat and have fun, too. They serve not only as an intranet & knowledge, but they are our primary communication tools.

This works because as I mentioned before, discussions and decisions all happen ON these tools, and if a decision is made on IRC or in email, the decision is brought back to the blogs so there’s a record and further discussion can happen – the blogs remain the de facto place where decisions happen. If you have all these tools available but people revert to email for a decision, email will be the functioning tool.

All of these blogs can be accessed by any of the employees, no matter what their current projects, team or interest. If a systems team member wants to follow the design blog because they are interested and/or have something to contribute, they can.

The nature of these blogs means that all the content is searchable, available real-time, documented, and basically all those things I mention on the slide.

I think the results are obviously more important – it creates a collaborative environment where discussions can happen in real-time, from any part of the company, and results in a lot of distributed ideas, instant diffusion of information, and the ability to contribute at any level. The downside of having all this information is that it can be too much noise but there are a lot of ways to combat this including limiting one’s subscriptions to only the most applicable blogs, filtering messages and content based on keywords, and receiving alerts any time your name or a keyword you follow (like your product or team name) is mentioned on any of the blogs.

Of course, I couldn’t help but pimp the fact that we use WordPress to power these blogs, and not only WP but a specific theme that enables frontend posting and comments are immediately expanded and visible (comparable to a Facebook or Twitter environment – the backend is of no importance to most contributors) – read more about the P2 theme here (hint: it’s free!) and how P2 changed Automattic.

A final way we keep up to date with what’s going on in the company are monthly Town Halls with the President of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg. Often special guests (other employees) are available and any employee has the power to ask a question and hear the answer during the transmission.

The last point in the New Digital Company is “Work Hard, Play Hard.” A distributed company means that individuals don’t often see each other, so when they do get together, it’s important to remember to enjoy being with each other as well as all the hard work you do when you’re not together. Many meetups are spent doing fun activities and working on short projects that are outside the normal work scope.

A few days after I gave my presentation at the Digital Communication Forum in Milan, Automattic posted on the WordPress.com more information about How WordPress.com is made, which includes information about how our distributed company works. You might want to check that out as well.

A video about how the P2 theme works that’s worth a watch:

Below, the files on Slideshare – in English:

The New Digital Company

and in Italian:
La Nuova Azienda Digitale

And then we joined Facebook. We became “friends.” And I had a lot of friends, racing steadily towards 1,000 friends. Wow, I was popular! People liked me! What could I do with all those friends?

What could I do, indeed.

I started hiding people’s updates from my News Feed. Facebook said I could put people into Lists, so I did, and I dissected and debated contacts into this list or that one. I diligently managed permissions and access for people on those lists – this list could see my photos, this one couldn’t. This other list could see my Wall, and this one could not. I removed my comments on others’ updates from my own profile feed, as well as the notice of any new friends I added. I blocked applications. I deleted Like requests. I ignored Pokes. I change my profile picture about 1x year. I was updating about once a week.

And I started thinking, this is a lot of effort I’m investing in not furthering any of these relationships, and making sure they don’t intrude on any other relationships.

After the initial “Add to Friends”, and most of those requests included no personal notes or questions, there was still no communication. Nothing was strengthened. Nothing was reborn. Nothing was created. A few old contacts wrote me to say hi; others asked for favors. But most just stayed silent. Maybe they browsed my profile or my photos, or maybe they weren’t that curious after all.

So why does un-friending someone on Facebook feel like you’re rejecting them?

It’s a bandaid in our relationships. It’s not that I don’t want to be “friends” with you, it’s that Facebook doesn’t define what relationship I have with you. Most likely without Facebook, our relationship will remain the same as it has always been: casual friends, business-related associates, networking acquaintances, old high school friends, occasional chatters, daily Re-Tweeters, or even weekly emailers. Facebook doesn’t fundamentally change that.

But I’m not really worried about unfriending.

I am accessible; I was before Facebook and I am even more after I joined. I have websites. Many websites. All with forms and addresses to contact me. I hand out business cards with an email address. You can Tweet @rosso at me. If you search for Sara Rosso on Google, my sites are about 90% of the first page.

So why am I still on Facebook at all?

First, I have several fan pages for my websites and I do see a utility in keeping them – they’re an additional way for content consumers, if not friends, to stay updated with your very-specific content and to give me feedback.

Secondly, for some of my family members, who live more than 5,000 miles away from me, and for a few of my very close friends, it’s the only way they have decided they will participate in this whole online world. Email didn’t work, a phone call is expensive and different time zones can be challenging, and for now, I’m ok with staying in touch with them this way. But I know where they live, what their phone numbers are, and I’ve probably seen them in the last 12 months.

And for now, this small minority has priority over acquaintances, people I meet networking, and whoever else is online and has many, many, many other ways to stay in contact with me and what I’m doing other than Facebook.

I don’t know if I’ll ever leave Facebook completely. I’ll probably continue to cut down my friend list, encouraging them to interact with me in other ways.

But don’t take it personally if you get unfriended.

Do I want to be friends with you? Sure I do. But it doesn’t have to be on Facebook.

I believe it won’t, and before I explain why, for those that aren’t familiar with Diaspora, here’s a quick recap:

Diaspora is an open source “social networking software” that was started by NYU students in February 2010 and gained attention after being listed on popular crowd-funding site Kickstarter in April 2010 – it raised more than $200,000 from supporters. The premise was pretty simple: create a social network software where you can be sure you have complete control over your privacy and your data.

So will Diaspora be the next Facebook? Not likely. Even Diaspora co-founder Maxwell Salzberg says, “Facebook is not what we are going after.”

Here’s why I think it won’t be a threat to Facebook – from a concept point of view:

• Diaspora is a distributable software package, not a single website. Since Diaspora is open source software, that means that anyone can download and use it, and modify its code and redistribute it. There’s no need to sign up just in one place to use it, and therefore the mass of people replicating itself in the same quantity as Facebook is unlikely to occur.
• The people that cared about the privacy issues on Facebook are a small percentage of its users. Unfortunately, the number of people genuinely concerned with any breaches in privacy and leaving Facebook is not enough to make a dent – Facebook’s growth continues to soar despite its privacy debacles. Facebook is learning from its mistakes, too – it’s providing more communication about changes as well as teaching users how to opt-in or opt-out of services. It will take significant breaches of trust for users to consider abandoning Facebook now.
• Facebook is the new home page. For some users, asking them to move from Facebook is akin to asking them to switch email addresses, websites and phone numbers all in one – and with no obvious benefits. Facebook is their home new page, and changing that will result in isolating them unless their friends are using it, too.
• People “know” Facebook and “know” Mark Zuckerberg – they don’t know Diaspora. With the release and success of the Social Network movie, though considered a fiction and not a real-life story of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, the affinity between Facebook and its users has only been strengthened. After June 2010′s disastrous interview with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Mark has worked hard on communicating more and becoming a press-worthy figurehead of the company, and it looks like it’s working. Who, on the other hand, is Diaspora? Alpha invites went out at the end of November, and very little has been communicated since on the Diaspora blog.
• Open source communities traditionally grow organically from a devoted volunteer base, not starting with a capital injection. This perhaps is the most interesting point for me, as I work for a company whose business model rides on open source software: the community came well before the software-as-a-service and passion drove its development and features at the beginning. Has the capital injection Diaspora received really created a sustainable, passionate core development team? Before people jump ship from Facebook, they’ll want some evidence Diaspora is around to stay and that it has a future. Their code Roadmap hasn’t been updated since the end of October.
• Good software takes time. Facebook has several years’ head-start in code and feature development when compared with Diaspora, not to mention hundreds of people dedicated full-time to developing it and marketing it. Diaspora’s small team can only do so much, and if they grow too fast, they might run into other problems with the project’s vision, code quality and investor pressure.
• Facebook started with a niche, and grew outward. Facebook started with the Ivy League schools, and grew outward. MySpace started with eUniverse users and music lovers. It wasn’t lonely at the beginning. Diaspora doesn’t have a killer app or a niche it’s marketing to – thus is the beauty of open source, but it will also result in a lack of clear target for user migration.

Despite all of these reasons Diaspora won’t become the next Facebook, it in no way means it won’t be a success.

Here’s some reasons why I think it could be successful:

• Independence rocks. Different from privacy and data ownership positive points, the ability to download and install the software anywhere will be its biggest strong point. It can give many niche networks a new, independent home they can control and support over the life of the network, without worrying about being “shut down,” as many Ning users saw in April 2010 when the service went to a paid-only service. I’m sure many niche networks could build very nice new homes for their purposes.
• Development can go any which way. If the current core team doesn’t prove dedicated to the software, the good news is another group of developers can pick up where they left off. The project can fork – it can split off at any time and maybe that fork will become the next Facebook killer – that in itself is exciting.
• It has many alpha/beta users and an interested support base to help it get better. With all the press the project has gotten, people are clamoring for invites and the level of usage for the early releases will help the software get better, faster, if the feedback is properly collected and managed.

I was lucky to get an invite to Diaspora while I was writing this article. My first impression is as I stated above: Lonely.

Here’s a few screenshots from my home page. Maybe things will liven up?

Sign up and filling out your profile – the open text box on Gender has gotten some attention and props from users. No word on if “it’s complicated” will come into play with the introduction of a relationship status, too.

What I “shared” with the world (public RSS is enabled on these updates & they are visible to people not signed up on Diaspora).

Managing aspects – you organize your contacts into “aspects” – this drag-and-drop approach is interesting but I think it will not scale when I’m managing hundreds of contacts. They start you with two aspects – Family & Work, and you can create and add as many aspects as you desire.

What I shared with all my aspects - essentially, all my contact groups. The aspect naming is awkward and I would vote for it to be the first thing to change.

That’s about it for now – a simple, clean interface with nothing new or groundbreaking, and a whole lot of  features missing we’ve become used to through our blogs and Facebook. I’ll be keeping my eye on Diaspora, though.

What are your thoughts?

Writers*, the Internet and its images are not your ClipArt gallery.

Especially in the case of Cooks Source, an assumption was made by the writer that the material they found online was somehow “available” and could be taken, re-used, re-written and published, and including the original author’s name was enough to justify its usage.

Some people make a living publishing content and photos online. Some just enjoy it as a hobby. Some do it as a second job, hoping for something more. All of these people have the right to full control over their intellectual property’s copyright, no matter what you perceive their aim to be.

In this article, though, I want to focus on photography. While more and more people realize using words someone else has written is plagiarism, it’s not as clear to them how they can use / re-publish others’ photos in their content.

A Photo Illustrates Your Story, or A Photo is The Story?

I think the first distinction to be made is between a picture illustrating or visually decorating content, and a picture as the story. In the first case, the picture helps you, the writer, to illustrate your story to the reader through visual clues. People like pictures, it breaks up text, and it gives them different focal points. In the second case, the picture is the reason for the story. It’s news, a point, a counterpoint, or the basis for a discussion.

Example: this picture of gelato.

In the first case (a picture illustrates a story): the writer could decide to use the picture in a story talking about gelato, about summer in Italy, about ice cream even. They use the photo like clip art – to punctuate a textual story with visual elements.

In the second case, an article could be written with reference to the author’s original blog post where the picture appeared. Additional details like the original author’s name & link, point of view, perhaps even a small excerpt is incorporated into the story (not only a credit at the end) as the writer uses the author and her photo as a point of reference and source, and as a key component to the story the writer is currently telling that is related to the original author’s content.

Neither of these editorial approaches is more correct than the other. Most of the photos on When I Have Time are used in the first case, as they help illustrate my story, but they are not the story. Often copyright owners find more gratification from the second case – if my photo is your story, most likely I am getting publicity, interest, and hopefully credibility and traffic from its inclusion.

In both cases, the writer needs permission from the copyright holder to use their photo.

Case #1 actually happened to me and this particular photo, and it was included in a post as an visual without my permission. I feel no need to name the site as we rectified the situation cordially and they were very professional. But it became even clearer to me that the assumptions some writers are working on need to be set straight.

Respect Image Copyright

If there’s a watermark on the photo, you can bet the photographer cares about how that photo is republished and used. Even if there’s no watermark, there is copyright on the photo! {Read up on a Guide to Copyright and Creative Commons if intellectual property rights are fuzzy to you} If a photo is available for Creative Commons usage, the author will declare it somewhere in an easy-to-find place like their site sidebar, on their About page, or directly under the photo.

If you can’t find Creative Commons license information at first glance, don’t assume that photo is available for the taking. Assume the exact opposite. It’s not available, for any usage, and you should write the copyright holder for permission. When in doubt? Send the photographer an email!

Proper Usage and Crediting a Photo

If you find a photo available for usage that is Creative Commons, its license dictates how the photo can be used, modified and attributed. If you’re not sure your usage is ok, ask the photographer! Ask!

Some tips for proper usage and crediting a photo:

• Did I mention ask permission? When in doubt, ask. This step cannot be overlooked.
• You credit the name, but don’t give a link. A link is not required by law, but it is the Internet. Why not share the love back?
• Make sure you insert the link and credit before the post has been published (so all RSS readers see the link).
• Never put your own logo or watermark on the photo unless you have explicit permission to modify the photo (again, ask!).
• If the photo you’re using is Creative Commons, drop the author a line after the fact to see where their photo has been given new life – who knows, you may gain another reader or even an advocate.

Build a Relationship with your ClipArt generator, the Photographer

If you’re a site owner, or a community site writer, why not think of other ways to approach photographers so that they will be more interested in your request to republish their all-rights-reserved photos?

• Approach the photographer and offer to do a profile on your site about the photographer in exchange for a certain number of photos (i.e., 5) for other blog posts.
• Offer to pay the photographer (innovative, I know).
• Offer something else in exchange (perhaps you can barter its usage).
• Ask if they have any photos with Creative Commons licenses or available on stock photography sites – perhaps you’ll find a substitute photo that can be purchased cheaply or can be used with Creative Commons.

Are you a writer looking for images? Start with Flickr’s search for Creative Commons images licensed for commercial use.

Do you have any tips for writers on correctly finding and using images on the Internet?

If you’re a photographer, what would you prefer writers offered you, other than money, for using your photos?

*I use the term “writers” in this case to mean both journalists and bloggers – I have seen cases where both have overlooked copyright.

Photo credit: me, Sara Rosso

I won’t replicate the article here (here’s Google Translate for an entertaining English translation) but one thing I will share:

Is there a reason not to buy it?

In my opinion, I don’t think it’s a perfect solution, today. But you need to think of the iPad (and the iPhone OS in general) as an organism that is continually developing and improving and therefore is becoming more interesting every day.

WhenI bought my iPad, it didn’t take long for me to get up to speed with it. If you’ve ever used an iPhone or iPod Touch you’ll be instantly familiar with its interface and special functions.

I wanted to add some quick thoughts and feedback after having an iPad in Italy for more than a month. Note that the iPad has been released in Italy only on May 28th.

• I’m still not comfortable using it on public transportation.

As a woman using public transportation every day in a city where safety is not a guarantee (a woman was raped a few hundred yards from my house), I’m hesitant to pull out the iPad on the metro unless I’m pretty much alone. Sometimes when I’m reading out in public I disguise it behind one of those free newspapers. I suspect this will ease after the iPad comes out in Italy (May 28th), and I can get a case that will make it less conspicuous.

• It’s the most interactive gadget I’ve owned, including my computer.

When I say interactive, I mean it morphs into what I need depending on where I am and especially who I’m with. It manages to involve the other person in a way no other gadget I’ve owned has done, which in part is due to the screen size, but also to the variety of features and applications available. I have yet to find a person whom I can’t excite by showing some fun things or how I’m productive using it.

• The speakers

I was expecting to have to use the device exclusively with headphones like I do with my iPod, but the speakers are pretty powerful. I watched a movie at home on it – we don’t have a television. I also listened to music in the office. It’s not a stereo system, but sharing music and giving a quick listen with friends becomes much more enjoyable.

• The screen

Yes, it gets filled with fingerprints easily, but I carry a microfiber cloth with me (to protect the screen in my purse) and in a few swipes, it’s clean once again. Summer is just now getting into full swing, so I’m curious to see how it will be at the beach. I often read with my iPod Touch at the beach by shading it. I don’t expect it to work in full sun, which is a negative, just like I don’t expect to read a paper book in the dark (whereas I can read on the iPad in the dark).

Some side effects

• I stopped pulling out my Moleskine for quick notes.

A lot of times I wrote in my Moleskine for ideas and designs, and then transferred a more organized or final version into a presentation or email. I find that I’m using the iPad more and more an enhanced note-taking device.

• I’m reading fewer books.

Since the introduction of the iPad, things have gotten worse for the ebook market. Prices have gone up, availability has been reduced across the popular ebook sites and many apps available on the iphone are still not available on the iPad which means those books I bought can’t be read on the iPad. Most iPhone apps can be enlarged for use on the iPad but text is one of the things that suffers the most. The only two apps ready for the iPad in this moment are iBooks and the Kindle app. Stanza, a popular app used to read ebooks and is owned by amazon is still only available for the iPhone. Update: Stanza was released for the iPad on June 3.

• I play more games in dead times.

I’ve never considered myself a gamer but with the iPad I am definitely gaming more – I play a quick game of air hockey with a colleague or 10-pin bowling by myself when I just want to let off steam. This point is a direct consequence of the above point. In the past when I might have opened up the latest book I was reading, now I might play a quick game.

• I make more playlists on the go.

One of the things I didn’t like was the On-the-Go function that small screen, and searching for a particular artist or song took forever. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Now the iPod function is almost exactly like the iTunes experience – I can do a quick search in my library to find an artist, keyword or song title, and make an instant playlist. I can edit playlists very easily with just a few taps.

• The iPod Touch screen seems really, really small.

After using the iPad for a few weeks, I sometimes go back to my iPod Touch to read some books with apps that aren’t available for the iPad yet, and it feels very small, something I never noticed before.

Here’s some of the articles I’ve written in January – I hope you enjoy them. Let me know!

• The Stats of Life – What is it about statistics that makes a geek jump for joy? I talk about some great sites to start collecting, organizing and analyzing your life’s statistics

• The New Age of Patronage – Centuries ago, patronage referred to the act of kings or important figures like the Pope sponsoring artists or musicians for the creation of their art. Now, we all can be patrons, with small money but without inauguration. A great site that puts patrons close to the arts is Kickstarter.com.

• Google Wave - Google Wave has introduced a ripple in the way we collaborate. Six months ago, when it was previewed, it seemed like a very intimidating service with the promise “to communicate and collaborate in real time.” I talk about the differences between Wave, email and wikis, and some suggestions to get you started using Wave.
  

• The Internet in Times of Tragedy – The Internet has changed us profoundly, from how we seek information to how we react in times of tragedy. Especially in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, we have more options and ways to react. Here are some of them.

• Apple, our modern-day oracle? – When Apple makes a move, it sends shock waves in every direction. Why do we feel the need to speculate on what Apple’s doing? How Apple’s moves affect our hope and imagination about the future.

• Ebook Format War: There Will Be Blood - There is a war going on. A war for a format. And until there is a universal format for ebooks, the consumer will be the first to lose. But many companies will lose, too. An update on the war for a universal ebook format.

• Solving the Babel Problem – Translation services are trying to make the citizens of the world just a little bit closer – If we can’t have a universal language, Google Translate wants to make communicating as seamless as possible.

• Tackling Indecision: Automate Destiny – Sometimes the most difficult thing about making a decision is not the result, but the process of making it. These decision and recommendation websites like Hunch.com, Yahoo! Answers, Let Simon Decide and Vark.com want to take the place of your best friend in the decision-making process.

Image by thetrial / CC BY-ND 2.0