Against a backdrop where a Facebook inspired student walkout of schools over State cutbacks with some adminstrators talk of student repercussions its curious that a New Jersey principal Anthony Orsini at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood N.J. sent parents an e-mail to parents to get all students off social networks and keep careful track of their text messages.

The question is should kids be using social media tools when they are suppose to be learning in the classroom or is the technology an easy target by a misguided school principal? Putting aside the genie long since out of the bottle with respect to texting and use of social media sites like Facebook and MySpace, there is a greater opportunity for teachers to embrace these tools and integrate them into their lesson plans as opposed to hysteria about the ills of social media and the destruction of our youth...

Medicine is a high technology field with state of the art diagnostic equipment, yet it generally lacks the use of technology that could foster better communication, better reporting of patient records and generally better communication between healthcare providers and users. The upcoming Social Communications & Healthcare forum will seek to offer Healthcare professionals a bridge of understanding on the use of social media and its tools. ipTVe, will tweet from the event and also cover for a post event article.

The 2nd annual Social Communications & Healthcare - Case Studies and Roundtables conference will demonstrate the best examples of how leading healthcare brands are accomplishing business objectives with social media and social networking. We will address the FDA's position/role and what can be expected from future guidance. We will also explore how leading pharmaceuticals, medical technology companies, and hospital groups are integrating their social projects into their existing marketing, communications, education and service platforms.

The conference uses a proven half-day event format from 8:30 AM until 1:00 PM at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York in midtown Manhattan, New York City. The agenda will consist of several case study presentations in the general auditorium with 350+ attendees. The presentations will be followed by two moderated interactive roundtable discussion group sessions with 8-12 attendees each on very specific topics. We will also host a networking breakfast and networking breaks between sessions.

Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Time: 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Location: The Graduate Center / CUNY; 365 Fifth Avenue; New York, NY 10016

Website: Social Communications & Healthcare
For more information, including registration, please click here to visit the event website. Use promo code IPTVE for a discounted rate of $155.

Beyond the noise, real-time blogging from Apple stores and videos of people opening the box of their new iPad, (seriously, the NY Times posted such a video) there are some important questions about the direction the iPad is taking developers and in effect consumers. Will the platform spur new innovation? Innovation for developers of video programming, Transmedia Storytelling and other applications (not just Apps), or will it be a one-way consumption only device, a device where Apple sets all the ground rules for both users as well as developers?

The term economic moat coined by Warren Buffet refers to one companies competitive advantage over another, in this regard Apple is employing all its resources fair and not so fair to keep invading armies (Google, Microsoft and their hardware partners) out. Some of the areas that define an economic moat consist of;

Branding
This is where the iPad (and to a much larger extent Apple) has been very effective, drawing on the companies excellent communication skills in video and print advertising to create a desire or perceived need for the device even if its daily use may be undefined by some of the people purchasing the product. Apple has created strong brands with great UI's and form-factors, the Mac Book Pro is as beautiful as it is functional and strong.

Low cost
With a starting price of $500, the iPad can not be thought of as an impulse purchase or even low cost by consumer purchasing criteria - but pre-order and first day sales would contradict that notion, is it brand loyalty, being the first on your subway car to have one, great marketing, offering a true transformative product, all of the above or some combination? The question is, will people once they've spend a couple of months with the device continue to think they got a bargain and will Apple need to become more competitive as similar devices enter the market, will consumers feel they overpaid?

Product differentiation
If it looks like an e-Reader and walks like a large iPod and quakes like a DVD player, is it an iPad? I've not had time to stroll into an Apple store, no doubt I'll venture by this coming week to touch, feel and do some people watching. But since I'm not the target audience it does not really matter, what will matter is the student, housewife or even the faithful who dropped their hard earned dollars on the device, will it meet their requirements and will it replace the Kindle or Netbook? In the case of the Kindle it does one thing but it does it really, really well. In the case of a Netbook you can get a lot more for $500.00.

Tim Bray, XML co-inventor who recently became a Developer Advocate at Google, for the Android said,

Apple's legal tactics might be phrased as: create, then litigate. Tim Bray has a good story about patents and computer software worth reading. While Apple is pursuing a legal tact, it is singing the songs of open standards for HTML5 which is sees as a more stable and easier partner to dance with then Adobe - not withstanding that the final specification is years away.

APP Developer Control?

Did this classic '60's TV series portent the kind of control that Apple would have over developers of Apps as well as consumers who purchase them?

In their March 9th article, All Your Apps Are Belong to Apple: The Electronic Frontier Foundation cited the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, a one-sided contract outlining the terms of creating an Apps, among the passages, the following was rather disturbing.

In his blog, Cory Doctorow has crafted a well reasoned article about why the Apple iPad is actually an impediment to innovation, in creating a passive only viewing experience (at least for now) In it, he cited William Gibson, master craftsman of such books as Pattern Recognition and Neuromancer.

Transmedia StoryTelling
When discussing the pending release of the iPad at the recent Cross Media conference in New York City, Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment alluded to the current limitation of the device as not allowing for transmedia storytelling, this since there is no ability to multi-task between applications. Jeff however, was of the opinion this would change over time.

Consumption Only, Verses Creation
Is the iPad a consumption only device? Certainly the inability to multi-task between applications limits user control as well as the inability to install programs of the users choosing, aside from Apps. I could see using in the field to capture video from Firewire or use to download and capture photographs into Adobe Lightroom for tagging and future editing, no such luck.

In his blog, Daring Fireball, John Gruber writes about a 13 year old app developer

This is a valid point and one in which an entrepreneurial young man was able to create an app with any or all of the features and functionalities afforded to a developer which the iPhone and iPad are capable of running - that the developer was not able to open the case and add to the device did not detract from his goal.

Mr. Gruber however, goes on to suggest that the iPad as web-client somehow is an open device for developers of web-based content. However, that's simply creating web-based content for any Internet capable device, it does not make the iPad more useful in this case. An aspiring Indie creative could build a site to deliver QT or HTML5 video wrapped UI content specifically for the iPad however, on-line monitization being what it is with ROI for an undefined audience would be a big gamble at this point in time.

So, what will the iPad mean for the future of media consumption? what does it mean for content creation? Will Apple open the platform to allow for applications and interoperability between those applications or Apps for Transmedia Storytelling? What does it mean for mobile platforms, e-Readers, slates and most importantly what will it mean for users of the iPad, will it make their lives easier and fill a need, a void better then what is already on the market, the iPod succeed because it was a truly transformative product I am not yet convinced about the iPad.