iPAQ INN -- The Last PDA Report

Nanaimo, October 2007

And the winner is -- Mr. Malcolm Roberton of Nanaimo, British Columbia!

Screeeech! I’ll rewind a bit for those of you left out of the PDA
loop (and beg patience from the others). I had been disparaging the recent stylish but sadly impoverished offerings from Apple: iphone, itouch, video nanos, i et ceteras. The Quicktime featuring a perennially cool, and oh so smug Steve Jobs pandering to teenie-boppers with these admittedly sexy entertainment gadgets, leaving us more sophisticated aficionados of digital accoutrements and, for my part, a once loyal Apple customers in the lurch.

The iTouch is a would-be PDA with only a fraction of the capability I've enjoyed with the unit I'm typing this missive on, manufactured by Hewlett Packard four years ago. Jobs says the iTouch is a new "world wonder."

Clearly, it's part of an industry trend, the devolution of handheld
devices to the "narrow" parameters of the cel phone which indentures billions to ransom data transmission fees. Profits, not excellence drives this trend. One PDA Report reader put it aptly, the moral high ground is a convex affair-- like water, money flows AWAY from it. And it's an old story, superior technology losing out to the lesser due to marketing whims.

Back to Mr. Roberton. No contest had been intended nor implied. I had merely mused rhetorically, "Where am I to go once my iPaq packs it in?" One can't be too careful in asking rhetorical questions around some people. Comes Roberton's swift reply: the iPAQ INN! What's noteworthy is that Malcolm's sister Helen had won the PDA acronym contest with: PLEASE DO ANYTHING.

So there you have it folks, the World Heavyweight PDA Pundit
Champions! And they don't even own one.

Now I have no intention to stopping my own PDA punditry fashioned occasionally in various cafes and public spaces while traveling. Too much fun! While typing the initial Apple lament at Blenz on Robson a woman passed by and froze. An audible light switch went on in her head. Gaspingly she asked how it all worked. A few moments ago, two Asian women from the cruise ship in the harbour literally ambushed me with cameras (Bocca café Nanaimo).

All to say that the 'Last PDA Report' is to inform you of a change in venue. I will no longer ambush your inbox with these random
ramblings. Relieved? Instead, I plunge forward with.. wait for it ... a blog! Talk about devolution..

The mere mention of blog boggles, bores. The former because
like the moral high ground, first principles such as the distinction
between private and public speech is more or less meaningless on the Web. The latter because, well, nothing much has happened in the data deluge since 1996. A blog is an automated personal web page. If personal websites faltered in the late nineties because of onerous upkeep, what can be said of
the 80 millionth blog today?

Remember the days when "content" was purportedly "king"? The term content provider? Aside from the philosophical problems of private vs public, virtual vs corporeal, sacred vs profane there is the all too practical concern of how to make it pay. That is, creating worthwhile content requires hard work. Of course, in the loopy logic of the Web most everything is free, and if not, a few expert clicks can make it so. Unless one has corporeal objects/services for sale, one must invariably play the eyeball game to a) garner notoriety and b) attract advertising.

So, why work hard to create content no one will ever pay for? Better to have others provide it. The more content, any content will do, the more potential eyeballs. The problem here is that you’re then responsible for that third party content. Publishing in the ink and paper world (as distinct from bricks and mortar, heh, heh) has always been a complicated business. How so less on the Web?

Then again, only until Google comes calling.

------------