The Strip by Brian McFadden

After the Consumer Electronics Show binge in Las Vegas last week, the guilt and remorse settle in — kind of like the day after Thanksgiving.  Was it too big?  Too flashy?  Why did we collectively gorge on stuff that we don’t really need?  Shouldn’t we reflect more upon the slave labor that makes these toys for us, rather than on the superficial novelty they provide?  (The cartoon above, and Flip The Media’s excellent Your Phone Was Probably Made in a Sweatshop expose this harsh reality).

Then there was the oft-shared Fevered Dream of a Guilt-Ridden Gadget Reporter:

There is a hole in my heart dug deep by advertising and envy and a desire to see a thing that is new and different and beautiful. A place within me that is empty, and that I want to fill up. The hole makes me think electronics can help. And of course, they can.

They make the world easier and more enjoyable. They boost productivity and provide entertainment and information and sometimes even status. At least for a while. At least until they are obsolete. At least until they are garbage.

And I couldn’t avert my eyes from the Wall Street Journal’s above-the-fold front-page headline trumpeting the much-anticipated Chinese uprising, but then throwing in the twist: not due to politics, but because of the newly-released iPhone 4s.

Fine.  It’s all true.  And all many of the tech blog post-mortems have concluded that this year’s show as more evolutionary than revolutionary.  However, as I consider what I saw — from fridges, to cars, to TV’s — it’s pretty clear what’s driving this consumer electronics gold rush (this year’s CES after all, had the most attendees and the most exhibits): mobile and social.

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Like any devout follower, writer and performer Mike Daisey was reluctant to ask questions about his favorite religion—the church of Apple. A self-professed gadget freak and number one fan of the ubiquitous technology company, Daisey’s reluctance is probably familiar to all of us.  In his most recent monologue on NPR’s popular series, This American Life, Daisey renews the debate about “fair trade” electronics by traveling to China and investigating working conditions at Apple’s main manufacturing plant, Foxconn.

Listen to his story here.

Is anyone truly surprised by what he found? Should it come as a shock that while hundreds of thousands of Americans are perusing the latest gadgets at this week’s Consumer Electronic Show, children as young as 12 are working full-time in China in conditions so poor their manufacturing plants are surrounded by suicide-thwarting nets? Read more…

As everyone who follows news closely has noticed, the big breaking news story is easily available. If you are on any social network following news outlets or have news hound friends, the bare facts of the major stories (Michael Jackson dies, Congress revokes Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) appear almost instantly. So what value can a news organization truly add with a mobile phone app? As the host of a daily news/talk show, I’m intent on staying up on news. Here’ s a look at the mobile apps from five leading news sources with commentary on their individual strengths and a few thoughts about where they fall short. All were used on an iPhone 3Gs.

AP MOBILE – Fast and comprehensive, it’s a quick way to follow up on the headlines and see photos while on the move. It allows you to designate one or more locations under the ‘Local’ tab. Seattle users see headline from the Seattle Times and Seattle P.I., but the story list is incomplete. Many top Seattle Times stories are withheld. It has an option to send photos and video, but that’s buried  under the ‘More’ tab. It’s got the best weather option I’ve seen but developers could add more categorization to the ‘Local’ tab. Under the current configurations sports, tech and breaking news are bunched together.

CNN – Like AP, it’s a good first stop for an overview of national and international stories. The ‘My CNN’ tab includes local stories from KING5 TV and local blogs, but lacks the depth the Seattle Times and P.I. stories provide. The big draw is watching the TV stories and live feeds from breaking news events like presidential press conferences. Prominently featured is the ‘I-Report’ tab, an entire section of user-generated videos and stories. You are encouraged to report by uplinking video and there is even an assignment page where the day I looked users were assigned winter news reports.

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The Seattle Times has a couple of niche sports apps on the market right now and both are doing very well. As a newspaper guy, this is exciting. There is likely a future here for newspapers and plenty of money to be made. Identify a niche audience (that you already write for) and develop an app that caters to their interests. I’d pay lots of money for these Seattle Times apps, they are that good.

I have a journalism degree and daily newspaper experience, but I’m also a digital media nut and a huge Husky football fan. Imagine my euphoria when I first saw the Seattle Times was launching a Husky football app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Their Husky football blog is like the Bible to me, and an iPhone app sounded too good to be true.

But how useful would it be? Would I trust the content? How about the functionality? I didn’t want this to be a giant advertisement for the Seattle Times.  I wanted it to be all Huskies all the time. One season in, I’m happy to report this is purple and gold nirvana. It’s the most immersive, accessible and, of course, portable Husky football experience I have ever known. Thank you, Seattle Times!

OK, OK. Enough gushing.

I respect this app. It’s a big step for journalism and the newspaper industry in general. Readership is down across the country. Revenue is shrinking, and newspapers are struggling to reach new audiences in a digital age that crippled their business model long ago. Enter the niche app. This is a new dawn for newspapers.

I could already find the information and stories featured in this app on my iPhone using mobile Safari. But I don’t always want to tap dance through various bookmarks and zoom in to the content I want to read. The app puts it all in one place. It costs $2.99 for a one-time download, but I would pay $2.99 a month for this. I’m not the only one, either. Managing Editor Heidi de Laubenfels told Lost Remote the app reached “20 percent of our total expected sales in the first two days and continues to do quite well.” The Times’ latest app, one for the Husky men’s basketball season, currently ranks on the iTunes list for top paid sports apps.

My question initially was whether or not I would trust a similar app released by a non-objective news source. The UW Athletic Department did just this, releasing a Coach Sark app not long after the Seattle Times released its football app. The content, not surprisingly, was not as deep. The interface was wonky, and it wasn’t objective in the slightest. Not even the fact that proceeds from the $2.99 purchase went to charity could rescue this app from the bottom of the league standings.

Time and trust are in limited supply these days. The Seattle Times is an organization I trust and provides me with content I believe in. Newspapers everywhere should take notice of this endeavor. Find a market—foodies, concertgoers, American Idol-lovers—and meet them where they are. Smartphones are growing exponentially and apps such as this are, hopefully, a sign of things to come.

I love free stuff, but this is the kind of content I want and will pay for. Are you listening, newspaper executives? I would pay for this. I would pay monthly. And I would pay a lot more than $2.99.

Will Richmond (FierceMobile) tackles AntennaGate today. I didn’t see his referenced Steve Jobs quote when I went looking for facts-and-data on Friday, but I think it sums up the state of much of what passes for “news” on the web today:

Sometimes I feel that in search of eyeballs for these web sites, people don’t care about what they leave in their wake.

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Social media has made today’s marketing less about controlling the message and more about asking questions. While Twitter and Facebook want to know what’s happening, Foursquare and other location-based social networks wonder, “Where are you?”

For those unfamiliar with Foursquare, the service lets users “check in” to a location via their smartphones or laptops and logs their positions on a map that others can see. The more you check in, the more badges and bragging rights you earn.

“The X-factor appeal of Foursquare is in its social currency,” says David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at digital agency 360i. “Giving Foursquare users these badges for completing explicit tasks adds an element of surprise, like a scavenger hunt.”  The badges also help users show off their interests to others, enabling them to connect with like-minded people and keep the “game” going.

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The other day I received an email appeal from Free Press, “a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to reform the media,” to urge the FCC to end unreasonable penalties for switching cell phone providers or cancelling service.

Free Press’ mobile phone campaigns fly under a “Free My Phone” banner and feature a cell phone angelically equipped with white wings. For this specific campaign, though, the phone has been retouched with an angry facial expression and the indecorous exclamation “ETF, WTF?” The ETF stands for the “early termination fees” charged by cell phone carriers. And you know what the WTF stands for.

Free Press is fuming that “carriers still force us to pay outrageous penalties — up to $350 — if we cancel our phone service or switch carriers. There’s one question on everyone’s mind: WTF?” (Not everyone may phrase it that way, but it’s certainly a good question why termination fees are so high. After all, if you want to cancel your cable service, providers don’t hit you with exorbitant fees.)

Apparently, the FCC is asking the same question (though, perhaps, without the “WTF?”) Read more…