What Apple does and doesn’t do

For a clue to how Apple approaches the video market, you need look no further than how it’s dealt with every other part of the media ecosystem to date: It creates good user experiences across an ecosystem of great products that publishers can sell their content on.

It introduced the iPod and iTunes and allowed the music industry to sell their songs on the platform, and it took a cut. It introduced the iPhone and the App Store and allowed developers to create games, utilities, productivity tools and the like, and it took a cut. It introduced the Apple TV for the Hollywood studios and TV networks to rent and sell their movies and shows to consumers, and it took a cut. It introduced the iPad, iBooks and the Newstand and allowed book and magazine publishers to sell digital versions of their titles to consumers, and it took a cut.

You notice a trend here? Product, platform, revenue share. That model has been extremely profitable for Apple, in part because it’s had to bear little risk to collect whatever revenues and profits come from its partners’ content sales. What Apple does not do is pay upfront to have the luxury of carrying content and then shoulder all the risk while attempting to create a sustainable new business model for its partners.

The economics of the situation

But let’s talk about the actual economics of subscription pay TV. Time Warner Cable announced in its earnings Thursday that it paid somewhere around $25 a month per subscriber in content costs last quarter. Think Apple could do better? It can’t. Any new entrant to the pay TV market acquiring content licenses does so at rates higher than what others have previously negotiated. This was true when the satellite TV companies entered the business, it was true when Verizon and AT&T began offering IPTV services, and it will be true for anyone that attempts to create a virtual cable company.

Starting costs for Apple — or anyone else for that matter — to build a subscription TV service will be in the mid-$30s at the very least. Which means it’s not going to roll out a $25 or $30 subscription service or undercut your local cable company on price anytime soon.

You know how every quarter analysts dissect however many billions of dollars Microsoft has lost in its Internet services business? That would be Apple TV’s media business, quarter after quarter, if it decided to go down this road. Sure, Apple has a lot of money. And sure, Apple could bear those costs. But why would it? What’s the actual benefit for Apple or its investors?

The misplaced dream of a la carte

“But what if I don’t want all of the channels? That’s where Apple could really disrupt things!” It’s a familiar refrain to hope and wish and pray that a company like Apple will be able to do what others have failed at so far, and negotiate a la carte pricing for individual networks. That sure sounds good, and I’m sure consumers would love it! That is, until they saw the price tags associated with each of the networks that they would want to buy.

Even if Apple were able to convince Disney, for instance, to separate ABC, the Disney networks and ESPN’s sports networks from the bundle, it would be just like breaking up any other bundle: the cost to sell each network separately would be egregiously expensive. Prohibitively so.

As a consumer, would you pay $5 just for ABC? Another $5 each for CBS, NBC and Fox? Then $15 or $20 for ESPN? And $25 for HBO? It’s not like these guys are just going to give those channels away at a small premium over what they get from cable. If they’re going to break the subscription bundle, they’re going to want to get paid to do it. In that world, how many channels do you think you could buy before the cost became more than what you already pay for a cable subscription each month?

The actual market opportunity

Put all that aside, though, and the truth of the matter is that streaming video is still a relatively niche market. How many people are out there who actually have an interest in a streaming TV service? In theory, the addressable market is every broadband household that also pays for cable service. But take a look at the number of Apple TVs that are out there (just 4.2 million) or the connect rate on smart TVs today, and you see that very few people are actually taking advantage of broadband-delivered video. That could change with the introduction of the mythical iTV, but it seems pretty tiny today.

Sure, Apple created the modern smartphone market with the iPhone or the tablet market with the iPad. But it’s not into creating new services. And it seems unlikely that Apple would introduce a new service like this, especially one that is likely to be risky, unprofitable and targeting a market segment that doesn’t yet exist.

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Pen and paper may be hovering somewhere between retro and extinct these days, but Kevin Purdy, for one, feels that there is still a place for ballpoints and notepads in our lives. Writing on Fast Company, Purdy highlights tasks he believes are better suited to exercising your (probably rapidly deteriorating) handwriting:

• Lightning-strike ideas. “Carrying a notebook with you at all times is cheap and easy,” writes Purdy, and, according to Marina Martin, a business efficiency consultant quoted in the article, “even the most fluid, thoughtful electronics introduce too much friction into the process of thinking, writing down, then thinking further out.” Pen and paper is better for recall as well. “By committing your thought to paper, you’re also doing more to lock it into place,” writes Purdy. “Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, has the brain scans to prove it.”
• Better to-do lists. “The role of paper is ‘changing from information recording and archiving, to a more temporary role of containing transient information,’ says Jenny Englert, senior cognitive engineer at Xerox,” writes Purdy, who continues, “In other words, paper still makes for a great to-do list.”
• Jobs and events that seem overwhelming. “One thing that reliably helped very smart students with major test anxiety was writing about their anxieties to ‘off-load’ them. And that was very specifically noted as ‘writing,’” says Purdy, citing the work of psychologist Sian Beilock, an expert on choking under pressure.

Purdy’s article is lengthy and well worth a read, going into much more detail about why these situations are best handled with old-fashioned tools, but a rough outline of his argument is a great spark to get gadget lovers thinking about what situations, if any, still call for a pen.

Personally, my to-do lists have long ago gone electronic and I’m perfectly happy with that, but I agree that handwriting still channels emotions better, whether as a diary-like anxiety-control exercise or in that supremely old school gesture, the personal note or letter.

When, if ever, do you still reach for a pen?

At Net:Work 2011 this week we will discuss how the way we work is being transformed by breakthrough tools. The event will be held in San Francisco on Thursday, Dec. 8. 

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The iOS launch comes three months after Astrid raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Google Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners.

Astrid is already very popular on the Android platform on which it originated last year: The app has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times in the Android marketplace in the 15 months since it launched, having gained traction with a range of users from multi-tasking parents to power-using “life hacker” types. As we’ve written before, Astrid’s mobile app allows users to make to-do lists and share them with certain individuals or groups of people. Astrid lists can also be made entirely public, or completely private.

The app’s aim, Astrid co-founder Jon Paris says, is to help users get more things done through a healthy amount of social pressure. For example, my friends can give me a hard time if they see I haven’t gone to the gym this week like I planned to (a purely hypothetical situation, of course). Now that Astrid has crossed the iOS launch off its own to-do list, it will be interesting to see what the company does next.

Here are some screen shots of Astrid for iPhone (click to enlarge):

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That kind of drudgery is exactly what a new startup called Tout is trying to eliminate. As WebWorkerDaily’s Simon Mackie reported last month, Tout’s app allows users to create email templates and schedule and send those emails through a unified dashboard. The app also allows users to monitor the effectiveness of different email templates through a fairly comprehensive analytics system.

It’s a fantastic idea, but at its launch Tout only plugged into a user’s Gmail and Twitter contacts. But many people in fields like sales and marketing use LinkedIn for a good chunk of their lead generation efforts — a lot of cold calling these days is done via electronic messaging.

That why Tout’s new integration with LinkedIn could be a major boon to a number of the app’s potential power users. Now, all of a users’ LinkedIn connections are available within Tout, and users can send LinkedIn messages directly from the app, according to a blog post published Friday by Tout’s founder Tawheed “TK” Kader. Tout can also integrate with such CRM applications as Highrise, CapsuleCRM and Batchbook.

Utilizing Tout’s template services within LinkedIn could be a huge time saver for a lot of people in communication-heavy fields. Overall, this could be the feature that helps the Tout app take off in a real way.

Here’s a video from Tout explaining how the integration works:

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“We didn’t raise the money we did simply to be a to-do list company,” Astrid co-founder Jon Paris told me in an interview this week. He was short on specifics, but it seems that Astrid may be keen to expand its services beyond task scheduling — and into helping with task completion.

To date, Astrid has focused purely on helping people make to-do lists — albeit in a very unique way. Astrid’s mobile app allows users to make to-do lists and share them with certain individuals or groups of people. Astrid lists can also be made entirely public, or completely private. Astrid is currently available in the Android app marketplace; an iOS version is in beta testing now and will launch to the public later this month.

Astrid for Android has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times in the past year alone, and it currently has more than 250,000 active users monthly. The reason for Astrid’s popularity is two-fold, Paris tells me: The simple user interface attracts the multitasking-mom contingent, but the app has power features under the hood that satisfy power using “life hacker” types.

Meanwhile, Astrid’s social features add fun to the often staid practice of task management, Paris says. “When my buddies see that I haven’t biked to work in a week, they like to give me a hard time about that,” he said, adding that sharing goals also makes people more motivated to get them done. The CEO said he likes to joke that Astrid is a “cure for the lazy husband and nagging spouse” cliche, since it allows couples to check in and remind each other of things that need to be done in a quicker, less direct way.

But now Astrid has a bigger picture in mind. Paris told me the company plans to put its new funding toward building offerings beyond its signature to-do list app. “We’re trying to discover how to give more help to people to help them be more productive,” Paris said. “I think there are a lot of really interesting ways we can help people get important things done.” Given that one of Astrid’s new investors is Jack Herrick, who co-founded the crowdsourced how-to website WikiHow, does this mean the company could start providing the capability to outsource the completion of certain tasks on their to-do lists to other people — or even robotic services? The question elicited a smile from Paris, but he made a point of holding specific plans close to the chest: “We’re happy to have the domain expertise that every one of our investors bring,” he said.

The task completion space is certainly heating up at the moment: TaskRabbit, an online marketplace where people can pay others to run their errands, recently raised $5 million in funding and is actively working on a nationwide expansion; and new startup Fancy Hands promises to provide virtual personal assistants at affordable prices. Astrid already has the list-making process down pat; it may be smart for the company to get further into helping people cross things off their to-do lists, as well.

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Video game design expert and author J.C. Herz has some ideas for creative professionals. She recently gave the commencement speech at Ringling College of Art and Design, in Florida, and rather than offering bland encouragements to reach for the stars or be of service, Herz got down to business, addressing the nuts-and-bolts issues of arranging your life as a creative professional.

It’s a wide-ranging and thoughtful speech that’s well worth a read if you’re a web worker who regularly has to come up with ideas for a living. Among the many tidbits of advice (make your habits intentional, procrastinate productively, join CrossFit gyms), she offered a taxonomy of different types of creative block and how to handle each:

Getting stuck is a big part of creative work, and it’s really important to be good at getting unstuck. There are two main reasons why creative people get stuck on a piece of work: The first is, you don’t actually have an idea. You may have requirements, and you may have tools. But you don’t actually have an idea that’s going to carry the day, and you’re going to be stuck until you get a solid idea.

The second reason creative people get stuck is that, while they have the idea, executing the idea takes a lot of work, and not all of that work is fun, and basically you don’t want to do the work, because having the idea in the first place was the fun part. The problem is, you don’t get to say “check mate in four.” You actually have to finish the project. So you get mystically “stuck” after the brilliant sketch is done.

It is very, very important to accurately understand which of these problems you’re having when you get stuck. If you don’t have an idea, you need to play around a little, take a walk, have a good conversation, open the aperture. As they say in drawing class, explore the negative space. If you’re balking at the work, you need to stop playing around, sit down, shut up, go offline, and focus single-mindedly on executing the work, and make it real. In either case, if you try to solve one problem when you’re really having the other, you’re going to waste a lot of time.

How do you go about getting unstuck when you feel completely unable to get down to work?

Image courtesy Flickr user Vince Custers

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Customize Your Monitor Setup

The easiest thing you can do is to change your screen settings to become more eye-friendly. This document from Cornell University and this guide from Charles Poynton have some suggestions that you can use as a reference. Some of these include placing the monitor 25 to 30 inches from your eyes, matching the screen brightness and contrast to your work area, and tilting the monitor so that the bottom of the screen is a bit closer to you. Here are some additional factors you should consider:

• Display width. Some people argue that using larger monitors or multiple monitor setups improves productivity. When it comes to reading, though, you have to make sure that the paragraphs you’re reading aren’t too wide. Yes, a 23-inch monitor can be handy, but not when you read blocks of text that stretch out across the entire screen.
• Focus. Though this is more of a problem for CRT monitors than LCD ones, everyone who spends a lot of time reading on the computer should ensure that the text is in focus. Even slight blurring on the edges will strain your eyes, because they’ll attempt to correct the focus themselves.

Use Tools for Easier Reading

Apart from changing your monitor’s settings and position, you can also use tools that make online content easier to read. Many browser add-ons and extensions do this. Examples include the following:

• Readability. This bookmarklet removes the clutter from text you’re reading online. You simply choose the style that’s easiest for you to read, then add the Readability button to your browser’s bookmark toolbar. Every time you click on the button, Readability will format the text on the current page in the style you selected.
• TidyRead. TidyRead is a Firefox add-on similar to Readability, but it gives you the option to change style settings every time you use it. It also has a “Smart Mode” feature that detects article pages so that TidyRead is automatically activated when you open an article page. There’s also a version for Chrome.
• Reading Glasses. This Chrome extension allows you to select the text you want to read and then lets the rest of the page become less visible. It prevents your eyes from being distracted by ads and other unnecessary clutter.
• Reasy. Reasy is a browser add-on based on the concept of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP). This means that the text you’re reading will be presented to you one word at a time — kind of like flashcards. The benefit of this approach is that it increases reading speed. Reasy has versions for both Firefox and Chrome.
• NoSquint. Apart from some minimal style edits on a page (such as text color and background), NoSquint is a Firefox add-on that lets you set zoom defaults for the sites you visit. Just as the name implies, you don’t have to squint to read small text or view fine details in the sites you visit.

Of course, none of these tools and techniques will really work if you constantly abuse your eyes. A previous post tackles how we can take better care of our eyes even if our workload requires a lot of online reading. By combining proper habits with the right tools, eyestrain and fatigue from online reading will no longer be an issue.

Share your eyestrain avoidance tips below.

Photo by flickr user Toms Bauģis, licensed under CC 2.0.

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Getting Things Done (GTD)

GTD is a productivity system from David Allen’s book of the same name. It focuses on recording tasks in an “inbox” so that they don’t clutter your mind. GTD involves placing to-do items in an inbox and processing them accordingly. You’ll identify next actions, projects, and which items you’re waiting on.

Because of its popularity, especially among IT workers, there are many available tools based on GTD, including:

• Thinking Rock. This desktop app has a free unsupported version and a more up-to-date paid version that includes support.
• GTD Agenda. GTD Agenda is a paid web app (there’s also a limited free version). It also has mobile access and can integrate with Evernote. You can add tasks via Twitter and MS Outlook. You can also use GTD Agenda to implement Leo Babauta’s Zen to Done system.
• Nozbe. Nozbe is a paid app that has email integration, and works with other apps like Gmail, Twitter and Evernote.

Seven Habits

Stephen Covey’s book, “The Seven Habits for Highly Effective People,” has an organizational method that focuses on personal development and relationships. It’s about making intrinsic changes so that we can develop the habits needed to become effective.

Week Plan is a web-based tool that helps you plan and review your week based on the principles behind Seven Habits.The app GTD Agenda I mentioned above can also be used as part of the Seven Habits system. There’s also a printable Seven Habits planner template (PDF) available online.

The Pomodoro Technique

Based on the book by Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro Technique is a time management methodology. Basically, you’ll assign each task a set number of “pomodoros” (25-minute uninterrupted working sessions followed by a five-minute break, named for the simple kitchen timer that inspired the technique) and work on them until they’re complete.

The official site contains the necessary worksheets such as the activity inventory and the to-do sheet, but there are also apps that can help you to implement it. One of them is Focus Booster, an Adobe AIR app (an online version can be found here). Right now all it has is a timer and session counter, so you can substitute it with almost any app that can serve as a stopwatch (such as TimeMe and E.gg Timer). But Focus Booster will soon have additional Pomodoro Technique-inspired features, like session notes, ratings, shareable sessions and an online community.

Do you use an established productivity system or did you create your own? What tools do you use to implement it?

Photo by stock.xchng user photodria

While the inspiration generator I envisage remains just a dream for now, there are other apps you can use to help when you’re feeling stuck. One type of tool I use often is a writing prompt. These provide words or images that help you start writing. My favorite writing prompt is OneWord, which posts a random word at the top of your screen and gives you six seconds to write about it. Other writing prompts include The Blog Post Idea Generator, Random Word Generator, and Imagination Prompt. What you write using these tools may not be Pulitzer material, but at least you’ve started typing something; it’s easier to write after you’ve got going.

If you’re a more visual person, you might want to try more design-oriented tools. Composition with JavaScript is an example, which allows you to play around with an alterable version of a Piet Mondrian painting. The experience is similar to playing around with layout grids, so this might be a fun toy if you’re working on a layout project. Procedural drawing tools such as Harmony and ScribblerToo can also help you loosen up if you’re stuck on a design problem. For those who want to play around with color, ColourLovers and kuler are good places to start.

When you look at all these tools, you’ll see that they have one thing in common — play. Not to have fun per se, but to solve challenges without taking them too seriously. To me, this approach has often been the best way to break any mental blocks caused by pressure and monotony. In the end, it doesn’t matter so much if you use the above tools, modeling clay, a Rubik’s cube or Obscure Strategies. The important thing is to find new patterns of feeling and thinking.

Just remember that while using these tools can allow you to think outside the box, they can also become addictive — thus negating any positive effect they may have on your work. After a while you eventually need to stop playing and move on to doing your work. After all, isn’t that why you needed the extra inspiration in the first place?

What apps or tools do you use to generate ideas and boost inspiration?

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