iPad, first thoughts

Finally I have it. The joy and excitement that comes from unboxing is a thing that all need to experience.

Seeing it there, the glass plate, blackened and reflecting my smiling face, brings a huge sense of pride in ownership. Taking it out of the box it feels heavier than you expect and also smaller. The face is about the size of a standard hardback book.

When it turns on you have to go through the standard first sync with iTunes, choose which apps from your iPhone you want to port over. Much to my dismay though the App store was locked out for me by virtue of it realising I was a UK customer and not a registered US resident. So I am currently only able to experience a cut down version of its offering. But even so it is still something to behold and will easily become the default access point to the Internet at home.

Browsing the web is a joy. Until you see it and use it you just don’t really believe it can be that much different but it just feels so much more natural. Even my non tech friend fell in love with it and was able to access the internet and book flights with no instructions from me (a non iPhone user to boot so was really a first time for him in the OS). His words after were that he wanted one.

As for the issues of typing on it, well I think that will come as the biggest surprise to all- There aren’t any really. You just need to let yourself go and do it. It is surprisingly fast and easy. your brain wants to complicate it but actually it just works. Yes there are the occasional, mistypes but that comes from the keypad being too sensitive if anything. I have written this on the iPad and can really see myself using it for work, not as the default machine but certainly as something that works and is a lot easier to carry around than a laptop.

Sent from my iPad

Oliver Newton is i-level’s Head of Emerging Platforms

Follow Jam at the Social Media World Forum

Today the Social Media World Forum kicked off at the Olympia in London:

Consumers are fed up of seeing brands fan sites pop up all over the web, with little or no thought to the value they can offer that community. They’re tired of hanging out in their favourite virtual world only to be interrupted by companies who have nothing to say. Consumers are savvy and are not prepared to be marketed to in the traditional way any longer. Social Media has all the power of an adult but is behaving like a teenager.

Jam are returning to the Social Media World Forum to look at the increased value that Social Media can offer if only it would grow up.

You will find us at stand 16 so come down to have a chat! You should of course also follow our live tweets from the forum on twitter.com/spreadingjam.

You will also be able to listen to presentations from Alex, Head of Jam, and Oli, Head of Emerging Platforms at i-level, at the following times:

Monday 15th, 2.50: “Social Media is out of control”
Alex Miller & Oli Newton

Tuesday 16th, 10.30: “Benchmarking Advertising on Social Networks”
Alex Miller

See you there!

It’s time to grow up – Jam at the Social Media World Forum

Consumers are fed up of seeing brands fan sites pop up all over the web, with little or no thought to the value they can offer that community. They’re tired of hanging out in their favourite virtual world only to be interrupted by companies who have nothing to say. Consumers are savvy and are not prepared to be marketed to in the traditional way any longer. Social Media has all the power of an adult but is behaving like a teenager.

Jam are returning to the Social Media World Forum to look at the value that Social Media can offer if only it would grow up.

Come and chat to us on stand 16, or see what Alex and Oli have to say at the conference.

Monday 15th, 2.50: “Social Media is out of control”
Alex Miller & Oli Newton

Tuesday 16th, 10.30: “Benchmarking Advertising on Social Networks”
Alex Miller

Call waiting…

With the eagerly awaited Google phone (Nexus one) now officially in the wild, I sit here wondering what could have been and saddened that we are not seeing the new dawn of mobiles but simply another very good handset.

Google, I am guessing , didn’t want to have to do a deal with an operator for this. Just as we saw with the Sat nav market, get involved, get what they want then launch their own product to usurp the competition. The campaign for Google taking over the mobile world started a few years ago.

It was the quest to get free wifi across the US and other major cities. Free wifi means no need for operators. Google voice and the recently acquired Gizmo5 would allow Google to host the whole conversation without needing to rely on the network operator and really threaten the system.

We saw a brief example of what it could be like when Google was able to sponsor free wifi at the majority of US airports over the festive season. As it is, wifi coverage isn’t yet good enough and the affectionately termed ‘dumb pipes’ (the operators) will continue to be involved for the time being as a point of necessity rather than anything else.

Oli Newton is the head of emerging platforms at i-level

Oli Newton on the mobile advertising opportunity

Naturally, social media folk tend to focus on how dramatically the digital landscape has been altered by the daily emergence of new social technologies, platforms and modes of interaction.

Touchscreen handsets and operating systems revolutionised the volume and manner in which the UK uses mobile to interact with eachother, brands and the internet (usage grew 28% to 11m people last year alone).

However, this mobile boom requires infrastructure developments beyond the app store or an update in Tweet Deck or Facebook for iPhone.

i-level’s prolific Head of Emerging Platforms Oli Newton discusses in his recent article for U Talk Marketing the need for ad serving technologies to develop and standardise if brands are to reap the benefits of this dramatic increase in use and opportunity.

He also reveals his latent desire for a mobile sponsored Britney reunion in 2020.

Oli’s full article can, (and should) be read here (you could even click that little button that says ‘recommend this article’)

Waving, not drowning

We’re pleased to present what we hope to be the first of many guest posts on spreadingjam.com. Mr Oli Newton (@olinewton) is the head of emerging platforms at i-level.

At the moment Wave is an undefined shell. Its core description is probably along the lines of an uber wiki based collaborative document editing tool. But that is pretty dull compared to “the next revolution in email”.

Focusing on the undefined shell though, we can picture various uses and evolutions of Wave. The problem though is that what we see now is not what will make Wave the must use, rather than the ‘must have’ (the crazy eBay prices have rationally started to fall). Like Twitter, it needs other people, applications and interfaces to help define it.

We’ve already started to see basic robots created to scour Amazon and help sell you books and DVDs, others that feed in live stock prices or tweets. The eco-system is being generated.

So for those of you who currently have it and wonder what you do with it. Don’t worry, don’t get disheartened and consign it to hype over substance, accept that we are on the cusp of something new and revel in the fact that you were there early and will be able to see it evolve and become useful. Then in 6 months or a year when it is totally different and useful, smugly tell people you were one of the first to get an invite.

Check out: http://completewaveguide.com from the First Lady of Wave Gina Trapani to really help you navigate your first attempts.