Recently, journalist and novelist Dan Gearino moved to Texas to spend a month documenting life in Stephenville (population: 15,000). Finding humorous and charming stories and a cast of memorable characters is nothing new for him. Previously, he was a longtime local columnist for The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, where we were colleagues. What's new this time is who's footing the bill. Dan, now a freelancer, was hired by Carpenter Co., which makes cushioning used in pillows and mattress pads, and his Stephenville Dreams blog appears on SleepBetter.org, the company's consumer-information site.
Given the corporate backing, the project doesn't sound like journalism, at least not in the conventional sense. The blog is the social media component of a marketing campaign, which also piggybacks on Jewel's latest album, Lullaby. Stephenville, located about 90 miles southwest of Dallas, wasn't a random pick. Jewel lives there.
But what's intriguing to me is how this walks the line between journalism and marketing. On the one hand, Carpenter is paying Dan to live in town and write. But it doesn't tell him what to write or not write, doesn't edit him, doesn't pay him to shill its bedding products. This isn't the same thing as the sponsored mommy blogs that have generated recent controversy because of purely positive product reviews. Dan's free to chronicle small town life as he sees fit. So he roams Stephenville, capturing residents' hopes and dreams and idiosyncrasies and taking literal and figurative snapshots. How a 30-year-old rodeo rider built a half-million-dollar-plus cowboy hat store. How Stephenville lost a raffle against a California town using the same slogan, "Cowboy Capital Of The World." How a fellow named Boots, the high-school football radio broadcaster, had to leave town to find himself a bride.
Dan understands that Carpenter is funding his writing and reporting to drive traffic to its site. But the gig reminds him of the Federal Writer Project, when the government paid thousands of writers, including the likes of John Cheever, Saul Bellow and Studs Terkel to capture everyday life during the Depression. In his initial blog, Dan suggested that the Stephenville project is "revolutionizing the underpinnings of journalism." Perhaps. Given the increase in laid-off journalists, it's not hard to imagine a free-lancer seeking corporate underwriter as an artist pursues a patron.
These are crazily experimental times in journalism. Just look at all the sites coming onto the scene to fill the holes left by cost-cutting papers, sites with various business models and niches. You've got ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative site; Kaiser Health News, a non-profit site covering a specific industry; GlobalPost, a for-profit international news site funded by ads, syndication, and paid members who vote on which stories to cover; and Spot.Us, a San Francisco non-profit that relies entirely on crowd-funding, allowing donors to sponsor specific story pitches and beats (they're $1,800 shy of funding a "city budget watchdog" to chronicle ongoing budget problems). Recently, Arianna Huffington announced the launch of Huffington Post Investigative Fund (the goal is $1.75 million) to cover in-depth and expensive projects.
So maybe there's a role for corporate-sponsored journalism and a way to do it without turning writers into NASCAR drivers or shills--starting with the corporate sponsor keeping a safe distance from the journalism. Of course, if it doesn't help sell more bedding, dream on.
As I mentioned in last week's dispatch, when Tiger Woods came to New York City recently, I was able to pick his brain a bit about Twitter, Facebook and the changing landscape of sports marketing. Today, the topic is video games. After all, that's what brought him to Niketown, following the U.S. Open. EA Sports just released Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, the latest version. (You can sign up for the beta of the upcoming online version here).
Unlike those endorsements where it's hard to imagine the celebrity using the product, much less contributing to its formation, Woods is an eager collaborator and pointed critic of the video game that bears his name. Growing up, he was a gamer. "From the Atari 2600 [game console] days," he told me, "to the 5200 and on from there."
Like a lot of gamers in their 30s and beyond, Woods struggles to find the time to play regularly. The best-known athlete on the planet puts in some long hours, travels constantly, and now has two children under the age of three. Last year's knee injury may have prevented him from winning more tournaments, but it did wonders for his video game skills. "When I had surgery, I couldn't move for three weeks," he says. "I was immobile, sitting on the couch, so I played all the time."
Woods wants his digital golf game to be fun, of course, but what drives him is a desire to make it as true as possible to the experience of being "inside the ropes"--the ropes separating fans and players in a tournament. "In terms of innovation, our specific area is realism," he says. "Having spectators moving and talking, the roar of the gallery from another green, the changing leader board. They're all distractions, which we see and hear, and you have to focus quickly and try and execute. We've incorporated these things into the game."
The newest feature, dynamic weather, is especially appropriate given the U.S. Open's wet conditions at Bethpage State Park. Using information from weather.com, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 recreates the actual conditions at whichever course you opt to play (except for lightning, which would suspend play, perhaps forcing players to hang out in a virtual lockerroom playing video games within a video game. Very meta).
The digital courses have gotten so accurate that Woods says he and other pro players will familiarize themselves with sightlines in the video game before they play the course for real. "It's nice to get some reference in your head before you go," he says. "The blind tee shots at Bethpage look the same in the game. It has the same tree I was aiming at every day."
When the Wii version of the game came out, Woods welcomed a controller that players swing like a golf club, but he saw room for improvement. "It was too easy," he says. "If you rotated the [club] face, nothing happened. Now if you rotate your wrists, it changes your shot. The ball goes to the right if you under-rotate, which is what happens in a golf swing."
Even so, it's still video golf. The Wii doesn't require you to control your whole body while performing a smooth yet powerful twisting motion, the way you make an actual golf swing. And the PlayStation and Xbox controllers involve little more than a serious thumb workout.
What appears on the screen, however, is an impressive simulation of Woods in action. At Niketown, he sat beneath a large screen showing highlights from the game, and both versions wore his Sunday uniform--red shirt, black slacks, black Nike hat. The digital Woods has even changed his swing along with the real Woods.
"Every time I change my swing--I've made two evolutionary swing changes while working with EA--I have them mo-cap me again," Woods says of the motion-capture sessions that translate his movements into digital form. "I want to make sure the gamers are getting my golf swing. That's something I believe in."
It's a subtle change, one that casual players might not even notice, but it reveals rather wise instincts. Woods, the consummate gamer, knows his audience. And in video games, as in golf, the details matter.
If Tiger Woods were hooked on Twitter like Shaq, he would have gotten thumb blisters posting updates during his whirlwind New York City visit last Thursday:
Alas, those are tweets we can only imagine. The world's most famous athlete hasn't jumped into social-networking yet. "We're starting to get involved in it," he told me. We? "I'm not personally doing it yet," he conceded. For now, the Woods camp maintains a Facebook fan page (700,000-plus fans and counting), featuring a handful of family photos.
Sports Marketing is much more complicated for pro athletes today than for those in previous generations, who had few endorsement opportunities and fewer media outlets covering their every move. The conversation reminded me of our recent cover on Shaun White, another mega-star athlete who also balances the demands of his brand-building and his sport with aplomb.
Woods' model has long been M.J. "Everyone looks at Michael Jordan, because he broke the mold. He was able to get into Fortune 500 brands and represent them with the excellence he had on and off the court," Woods said. "Now the difference is, there are different ways for an athletes to get out there and create a brand. There are so many more outlets. That's definitely changed, even in the last few years with the advent of Facebook and now Twitter. You have to figure out what you feel comfortable doing without going beyond your core values. That's the most important thing. You have to understand where you come from and who you are. There are so many things to do now and it's only going to get worse."
I got 15 minutes with Woods. While that's obviously not enough time to get to know who he is, I got a glimpse of his unwavering focus. We were sitting in black leather chairs, almost knee to knee, smack in the middle of the lobby in Niketown. A half dozen dark-suited beefy bodyguards formed a half circle between us and the gawking fans who couldn't believe their luck to encounter Woods upon entering the store (this was an unpublicized stop). They called friends on their phones. They snapped pictures. They lined the floors overlooking the open-air lobby. "This is going to be a mob," one of the bodyguards had warned about Woods' short path from the store to the black SUV parked outside the store.
Despite the frenzy, Woods rarely broke eye contact with me. He leaned forward on his knees--and listened. And thought about the questions. I've interviewed enough celebs and athletes over the years, including Jordan, to know how rare this level of attention is. It's part of Woods' charisma and a key to his success. He honed that ability to focus on the golf course, where the crowds surrounding him are the often genteel sport's version of a mosh pit.
In his trademark black Nike cap and red golf shirt, I couldn't help but picture Woods crouched over a putt on the 18th green in Augusta or St. Andrews or you name it. How he curves his hands around the frowning bill of his cap, slows down, and blocks...everything...out. Now I know how that ball feels.
Late last week, the Web site Politico ran a story claiming that Olive Garden was pulling its ads during The Late Show with David Letterman because of the late-night comedian's recent joke about Sarah Palin's teenage daughter. The story quoted a letter that the company's guest relations manager apparently sent to "Letterman's critics" (no details on who or how many), apologizing for the joke and insisting that it didn't represent the chain's values.
The company has denied cancelling any remaining ads, explaining that the campaign had simply expired. But the timing of its finish was, well, curious.
The Letterman-Palin kerfuffle is unusually spicy territory for Darden, which we profile in the July-August issue of Fast Company (Why America Is Addicted to Olive Garden). It's one of the quiet giants in business--the largest full-service restaurant company in the country and one of the few bright spots in an industry hit hard by the recession, yet virtually unknown outside of the restaurant world. Darden owns and operates three of the largest casual-dining chains, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and LongHorn Steakhouse and generates $6.7 billion in annual revenue.
Its business is understanding and pleasing its customers. Because the company was once owned by consumer product giant General Mills, it conducts an extraordinary amount of research about service and menu items and customer perceptions of the brand. So it must have made Darden executives squirm to hear a protestor last week outside Letterman's studio declaring on Fox News that he would no longer eat at Olive Garden. Or to read comments to the Politico story along the same lines (at last count, there were more than 1,350 comments, a predictably charged mix of voices). The timing certainly isn't ideal; Darden is busy preparing its earnings announcement tomorrow.
This is the double-edged sword of advertising during late-night comedy shows. Companies target the audience they're after, but their ads may occasionally follow off-color jokes or political humor that is the polar opposite of their brand. So be it. Customers know how the game works: Advertisers don't approve or write the material. So they shouldn't be blamed for lousy jokes any more than they should get credit for funny ones.
1. Tim Leiweke, CEO of AEG Worldwide
His company owns and operates professional teams and facilities around the globe, and his latest high-profile projects should transform the industry. AEG is building arenas across China to help the NBA expand into the world's most populous country. And L.A. Live, a 27-acre campus that hosts Laker games in the Staples Center, the ESPYs in the Nokia Theater, and ESPN broadcasts in its new studio, embodies Leiweke's vision of merging sports and entertainment.
2. Hank Adams, CEO of Sportvision
The yellow first-down line on the TV screen. The nifty NASCAR graphics that identify racecars traveling bumper to bumper at 200 mph. The dissection of a pitch's movement, velocity, and spin. Adams is the man to thank for making your games look so good.
3. John Henry, CEO of New England Sports Ventures
Henry's winning on the field and off. His Red Sox have become two-time World Series champs in recent years, and his brainchild, Fenway Sports Group, keeps coming up with new and unexpected ways to generate revenue, from NASCAR ownership to bull riding marketing deals and pro golf.
4. Kevin Plank, founder and CEO of Under Armour
This former special teams captain at the University of Maryland continues to stretch his company into Nike's territory. First, it was stretchy sweat-wicking shirts and other must-have workout apparel. Now, shoes.
5. Shaun White, Olympic gold medalist
Not because of his jaw-dropping creativity on the board (of the snow and skate variety), but because of his creativity in elevating action sports with Target, HP and other partners without losing his red-hot cool.
6. Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers
In the middle of the Cavs' series with the Orlando Magic, Gilbert inked a deal to make an investment group in China a minority owner in the team, opening up a world of marketing possibilities for league MVP LeBron James. It'll take that kind of savvy and creativity to re-sign the most sought-after free-agent-to-be after next season.
7. Nate Silver, statistician and inventor of PECOTA
He called Obama's victory long before anyone else dared to, but even more impressive was Silver's prediction of the Tampa Rays' dramatic reversal. Using PECOTA, an algorithm that has changed how baseball nerds interpret stats, Silver determined that the team, which lost 97 games in 2007, would win 90 last year. The Rays actually won 97 games and went all the way to the World Series.
8. Daryl Morey, GM of the Houston Rockets
He's doing in the NBA what the Oakland A's Billy Beane did in baseball: looking beyond the box scores to find unappreciated players who help the Rockets afford big-ticket stars like Yao Ming and win.
9. Michael Lewis, best-selling author
If you want laughs, you read Rick Riley or watch Tony Kornheiser. If you want to mine the psychology of an athlete, you read Gary Smith. But if you want the sort of insight that changes the way you watch a sport you've watched your entire life, you read Lewis--and take notes. He followed Moneyball with The Blind Side, explaining how the role of the offensive left tackle evolved, earning once-overlooked giants big bucks. (See also his NYT Magazinestory featuring No. 8 on our list)
10. Dave Mellor, director of grounds, Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox's Dustin Pedroia may be an artist on the field with the glove and bat, but the field truly is a canvas for Mellor, Fenway's head groundskeeper. He has developed new mowing techniques that have allowed him to create elaborate designs that are copied throughout the Majors and that add undeniable flair to the diamond.
"Follow the money" is not just a maxim for investigative reporters; it's also good business. Launched in November, IBM's Smarter Planet initiative--its ambitious approach to health care, energy, infrastructure, and other problems--sounds like a marketing campaign. On the ground, though, it's a rallying cry that focuses every aspect of the company on doing what it does best: solving problems through well-coordinated data-driven systems.
It's also a grab for the estimated $101 billion in IT spending on U.S. projects triggered by the stimulus package, according to market forecaster IDC. Although IBM has laid off nearly 8,000 employees so far this year, some groups are pursuing and winning new business.
The global energy and utility team, one of the company's fastest-growing divisions, helps utilities cut costs and modernize. The typical utility company doesn't have enough real-time info about how much electricity customers are using, so it builds in a cushion--the sort of inefficiency that IBM targets. "If the airlines operated this way, they'd have 10% more planes at the gate in case they needed them", says Allan Schurr (pictured right), a VP in IBM global energy.
Six months ago, IBM began "adding intelligence," as it puts it, to the grid north of Dallas. Oncor, a local utility, has been installing about 15,000 smart meters a week in homes and businesses. Instead of monthly readings performed in person, the new meters inform Oncor's network about energy use every 15 minutes. IBM analyzes the new data to let consumers monitor consumption, like tracking phone usage online; the utility expects power usage to drop by 10%, which corresponds to a similar cut in carbon emissions.
The smart grid creates other savings, too. There's no need for the utility to dispatch a truck for readings or to switch on power. And Oncor can offer more targeted service that wasn't previously possible, such as identifying an outage at an individual home.
Oncor's plan to install 3 million smart meters by 2012 is just one of about 50 IBM smart-grid projects already underway. In another promising project in Washington State, IBM software prices electricity according to supply and demand, and customers can adjust power-gorging activities, such as cooking or doing laundry, to cheaper, off-peak rates.
"There's an urgency now like I've never seen, coming from all over the world," says Schurr. "The utilities are acting all at once to change their business."
To read about how Cisco, Corning, Intel, and Charles Schwab are weathering the current economic storm, be sure to check out "Through the Fire" from our June issue.
If anyone should be able to build a shatterproof fortress, it's Corning. But during the telecom crash earlier this decade, the specialty glassmaker for everything from medical devices to consumer electronics to cars saw revenue nosedive from $7 billion to $3 billion in 18 months.
Corning almost burned the village trying to save it. "We did a deep retrospective of what had happened and vowed never to let that happen again," says president and COO Peter Volanakis.
To prepare for the next economic upheaval, Corning's executive team, the same senior managers as during its epic fall, instituted an early-detection system to identify signs of trouble as well as four "operational rings of defense" to help it manage through a crisis in a measured, strategic way.
The first step? A good offense. Corning created its own market-research system, relying not just on its customers but also on its customers' customers, even checking stores to measure demand for the products it helps to create, such as LCD TVs. Corning also stockpiled cash, which enabled it to absorb a $400 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2008 without selling off part of its business, as it had to in 2002 to make a debt payment. And it helped that the company modeled worst-case scenarios and a response to each.
As trouble started brewing last summer, Corning implemented its first ring of defense: discretionary spending cuts, reduced production, and hiring limits. As things got rapidly worse through the fall, management quickly implemented the second and third rings: shorter work weeks in Europe and Asia, limiting its use of contractors and temps, and, finally, layoffs.
But as hard as it was to trim the staff by 13%, that was a far cry from the telecom crash, when it shed 21,000 of its 43,000 workers. This crisis feels more under control, the actions "more thoughtful," Volanakis says. "The shock cases that we have modeled are far worst than anything that’s going on now."
Most important, Corning has avoided the last ring, which would include reducing its $630 million annual R&D spending. Its lifeblood is new products, such as those it's aggressively pushing this year--scratch-free touch-screen glass for cell phones and laptops, smaller next-generation data centers, and a laser-light engine that turns a laptop into a projector.
"Over time we want to grow as a company faster than GDP, and that growth comes through new products," Volanakis says. "We're an R&D-based company. R&D is the absolute last thing we'd cut."
To read about how Cisco, IBM, Intel, and Schwab are weathering the current economic storm, be sure and check out "Through the Fire" in our June issue.
As we explored this month in "The Doctor of the Future," the doctor-patient relationship isn't what it used to be. Take primary-care physicians. Because insurance companies pay them considerably less than specialists, they rely on volume. The more office visits these docs can squeeze in, the more procedures they can perform and bill for. But getting paid by tight-fisted insurers requires a tenacious staff to file endless paperwork and engage in the reimbursement dance of procedural codes and multiple phone calls.
Today in Boston, at the Health 2.0 conference, which focuses on innovative health care, Dr. Jay Parkinson and Dr. Sean Khozin of Hello Health in Brooklyn unveil a different kind of medical practice. Paradoxically, it allows them to devote more time and attention to patients by often employing remote medicine.
A few weeks ago, Parkinson, an inveterate blogger and the chief concept officer at the software company Myca, gave me a sneak preview of the platform. It's part electronic medical record, part practice-management system, and part social-networking site, complete with profiles and photos of doctors and patients, all in a secure environment that complies with federal privacy standards. Unlike traditional electronic medical records, which are designed primarily to facilitate billing, this application is primarily about enhancing communication--between doctors and patients, as well as among doctors.
Your patient home page displays your medical team, which includes your primary-care physician and any specialists. You choose them by location or patient ratings, or go with the experts listed on your primary-care physician's profile. To schedule an appointment, you simply pull up a doctor's schedule, select a half hour or hour time slot, and indicate the type of appointment--in-person, video chat, email, etc. You also describe your complaint in a text box, which allows the doctor to think about the issue beforehand. After the appointment, you--and your doctor--can review the visit, a smart solution to avoid forgetting what was said. That alone could lead to dramatically improved care.
Joining the Myca platform is free; doctors set their own fees per visit, and Myca gets a cut. "It's like Zipcar, but instead of renting a car, you're renting a doctor," says Parkinson.
True, all the kinks have yet to be worked out. Insurance companies, for instance, haven't fully embraced e-visits yet, but they're beginning to cover them. It feels like it's only a matter of time, though. Patients--and their doctors--will soon expect and demand this kind of convenience and access.
In his new movie Duplicity, which opens tomorrow, and 2007's Michael Clayton, Oscar-nominated writer/director Tony Gilroy deftly exposes the backstage drama in business. The petty battles between rivals. The big-time and bit players running the spin machine behind a high-stakes product. It's the sort of complex and revealing portrait that journalists aspire to create. Fiction definitely has its advantages.
When I met Gilroy recently in New York City, I asked why he's so drawn to tackling business. Turns out, he's not. It's work that intrigues him. How people do their jobs. How they navigate the politics of an organization, in business and elsewhere (think of the Bourne trilogy, on which he was the screenwriter). The individual decisions people make, which eventually have huge ramifications.
Gilroy: "Right as I went on the press tour for Clayton, I remember reading in The New York Times a tragic version of what happens in the movie. A company in Florida was manufacturing some spray for your home. I don't remember the details, but a guy had found out there was a bad run. And this guy in the warehouse is sitting there looking at 80,000 units, knowing that if he doesn't ship them, the company is in huge trouble. But if he lets them get on the truck, there's a chance that somebody is going to get really hurt. And he makes the decision to send them out. That act, that binary switch of saying yes, is what it's all about. Someone says, 'Yes, I'll do that.'"
Duplicity, which stars Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, represents a stark departure from the darkness of Clayton. It's a romantic comedy. Okay, a romantic spy comedy. Why the change in tone? "That's the great part of this gig," Gilroy says. "I wanted to do something different, to be afraid."
What was he afraid of?
"It's always scary to do something you haven't done before. I'm trying to be light and amusing in this film, and it's much more difficult and complicated than the other. If you're doing Clayton, you're navigating to the same North Star every day: It's ugly and cold, and there are no leaves on the trees anywhere and everyone's unhappy. It's very easy to figure out where you're going and to steer there. The difference between that and a movie like Duplicity is like the difference between making bacon and making a soufflé."
One of my favorite scenes is during the opening credits. It's a fantasy sequence in which Tom Wilkinson, the CEO of a consumer products global giant, charges across a tarmac in his power suit, his lieutenants in tow, the corporate jet parked in the background, storm clouds looming overhead. And charging toward him is Paul Giamatti, the CEO of a rival company, with his lieutenants in tow and his jet behind him. The confrontation is in slow motion, which turns this metaphorical showdown into a monumental life-and-death battle right out of Braveheart. It's the juvenile clash that rages beneath the surface in business. And it's hilarious.
As the media huddled outside the Morgan Library in Manhattan this morning awaiting the unveiling of the Kindle 2, the big question was: when can we touch it? Sure, we came to hear Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tell us how skinny it is (25% thinner than an iPhone, although he never mentioned Apple's phone by name) and how many books it'll hold (1,500 books), and how many are now available in e-book form (230,000). And it was a kick to hear featured author Stephen King read from his Kindle-inspired novella, Ur.
But really, we just wanted to get our paws on the thing. Which I finally did, for a quick page-through.
I knew I'd be reading Kindle today, but I didn't expect it would read to me. The new text-to-voice feature is one of the ways that Amazon realized it could distinguish the Kindle from an ordinary book. As goofy as it sounded to hear the Gettysburg Address read by a computerized voice on the Kindle's upgraded stereo speakers, it's also easy to imagine how convenient this would be when your eyes and hands are otherwise occupied, say, while driving. You can choose a male or female voice, and select one of three speeds. (The fastest speed is best; it sounds better than Amtrak’s Julie or Hal 9000 in 2001). I couldn't tell about the volume, though. The lobby where we tried the demo units was crowded and you had to crane your neck to make out Ms. Kindle reading from The New Yorker, a new addition to the Kindle store as of today.
Kindle 2 is more eye-catching than the original, more Apple-like. Amazon got a lot of heat for the retro look and feel when it launched in November 2007. Critics compared it to a 1970s calculator or medical device. Some said it felt like a prototype that wasn't ready for prime time.
In that respect, Kindle 2 is a big improvement. It feels sleek, with a brushed metal back and pencil-thin profile. It's as though the Kindle raided the iPod's closet and hired its personal trainer. For the most part, the much-needed makeover is excellent. Just as iPod envy befell everyone who encountered the white-earbudded early adopters, Kindle 2 ensures that Kindle envy will set in when you notice a fellow traveler reading one on the subway or on a plane.
The paperback-size screen, which was already glare-free and remarkably easy to read, is even more satisfying. Kindle 2 incorporates the latest e-Ink technology, and it shows. Turns out, those 16 new shades of gray (up from four) make the photos in The New York Times even more vivid. The only problem is, my iPhone has spoiled me. I can read The Times on my phone and the photos are in color, just as they appear in the newspaper.
One complaint about the original Kindle was how easy it was to accidentally turn the page while holding the device. Amazon solved that one by reducing the size of the page turn buttons on either side of the device. That's a nice fix. (Imagine Joannes Guttenberg’s press conference for the second version of his printing press: “I know some of you lost your fingers in the original press. Not to worry, the new streamlined press is finger friendly.”)
The page turns themselves take less than a second – 20 percent faster than before, according to Amazon. Searches felt a little longer but not annoyingly so. Overall, the Kindle 2 is speedier.
One of the reasons Amazon was able to make a thinner device was because it eliminated the slot for a memory card. Although this sounds like a trade-off, it’s more than justified by the seven-fold increase in internal memory. You can store 1,500 books, more than most people read in a lifetime.
The navigation is also an improvement, but it definitely takes some getting used to. It's better than the clunky original, but the five-way controller, which works like a tiny joystick, is not as intuitive and responsive as I'd like. It felt too small but maybe you get used to it. Even so, it doesn’t delight the way the way Apple’s wheel on the original iPod did. It's nice to see where the cursor is on the screen, though. Previously, Kindle simply indicated the cursor's position on a vertical bar on the right, really primitive stuff. Amazon fixed this, but again, if you're accustomed to the ease of a touch-screen, the navigation feels a little dated, circa 2004.
Amazon is trying, though--as evidenced by the announcement of Whispersync. This technology sounds amazing. Without explaining exactly how it works, Bezos said it will allow you to download an e-book from the Kindle store to another device, such as a cell phone, allowing you to read a book on both devices. When you pick up your Kindle again, it'll know which page you're on. That's Amazon's way of acknowledging that people aren't wedded to a single device. We read on multiple screens and multiple devices, and they should all be in sync. Personally, I'm ready for Whispersync today, but Amazon didn't say when the service will launch or which devices it'll be available on.
One of the features that’s improved considerably is the Kindle dictionary. As you scroll through a text, the definitions pop up at the bottom of the screen. No need to look it up.
The Kindle 2 battery is good news/bad news. It lasts 25 percent longer, but you can’t replace it yourself. You have to send it to Amazon to have the $59 battery installed. How often you need to charge depends how you use the Kindle. If you turn off the wireless capability and average about two hours of use a day, the unit should last two weeks.
So, should you run out and buy the new Kindle? I suppose that depends if you're reading this while "networking" in Starbucks, having just been laid off. Folks, the Kindle ain't cheap. At $359, it remains a luxury item for most of us. And with the latest upgrades, you can see what a luxury it would be to carry over 1,000 books, newspapers, magazines and blogs around on a single device.
Bezos is right when he describes it as a device suited for long-form reading. You can lose yourself in the text easily on a Kindle. But in the current recession, when everyone's working harder to do more and saving at every turn, the new Kindle will most likely be a nice-to-have, not a must-have.
A few other highlights from today's event:
While we were waiting for presentation to begin, Amazon displayed a variety of quotes extolling the joy of reading or the power of a good book.
“Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.” – Ezra Pound
“Outside a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog. it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx
The Morgan Library was a curious setting for Amazon to unveil its new electronic reader. Imagine the launch of the new robot dog taking place at the Westminster Dog Show. Or a jet-pack inventor taking the stage at the Detroit Auto Show.
Bezos inadvertently reenacted the scene from 30 Rock in which Alex Baldwin’s character doesn’t realize his mic is on while he’s talking backstage. Moments before appearing on stage this morning, Bezos’s voice could be heard in the packed auditorium saying, “Hey, what can I say?” In the name of Jack Donaghy, check your mics next time, gentlemen!
Stephen King was today's featured novelist and Kindle fan. He bought his a month after the original came out. The only thing scarier than a good King story? King reading his literary product placement with a straight face. Actual dialogue: “It’s pretty neat. You can download books from thin air. Also, books are cheaper.” But he did promise that the Kindle in his story has more imaginary features, such as access to other worlds. No word, though, on if his Kindle kills off any characters.
As I mentioned in 
The newest feature, dynamic weather, is especially appropriate given the U.S. Open's wet conditions at Bethpage State Park. Using information from weather.com, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 recreates the actual conditions at whichever course you opt to play (except for lightning, which would suspend play, perhaps forcing players to hang out in a virtual lockerroom playing video games within a video game. Very meta). 
I got 15 minutes with Woods. While that's obviously not enough time to get to know who he is, I got a glimpse of his unwavering focus. We were sitting in black leather chairs, almost knee to knee, smack in the middle of the lobby in Niketown. A half dozen dark-suited beefy bodyguards formed a half circle between us and the gawking fans who couldn't believe their luck to encounter Woods upon entering the store (this was an unpublicized stop). They called friends on their phones. They snapped pictures. They lined the floors overlooking the open-air lobby. "This is going to be a mob," one of the bodyguards had warned about Woods' short path from the store to the black SUV parked outside the store.
Late last week, the Web site Politico ran a 
"Follow the money" is not just a maxim for investigative reporters; it's also good business. Launched in November, IBM's 
The global energy and utility team, one of the company's fastest-growing divisions, helps utilities cut costs and modernize. The typical utility company doesn't have enough real-time info about how much electricity customers are using, so it builds in a cushion--the sort of inefficiency that IBM targets. "If the airlines operated this way, they'd have 10% more planes at the gate in case they needed them", says Allan Schurr (pictured right), a VP in IBM global energy.
The 
Corning almost burned the village trying to save it. "We did a deep retrospective of what had happened and vowed never to let that happen again," says president and COO 
The paperback-size screen, which was already glare-free and remarkably easy to read, is even more satisfying. Kindle 2 incorporates the latest e-Ink technology, and it shows. Turns out, those 16 new shades of gray (up from four) make the photos in The New York Times even more vivid. The only problem is, my iPhone has spoiled me. I can read The Times on my phone and the photos are in color, just as they appear in the newspaper. 
Amazon is trying, though--as evidenced by the announcement of Whispersync. This technology sounds amazing. Without explaining exactly how it works, Bezos said it will allow you to download an e-book from the Kindle store to another device, such as a cell phone, allowing you to read a book on both devices. When you pick up your Kindle again, it'll know which page you're on. That's Amazon's way of acknowledging that people aren't wedded to a single device. We read on multiple screens and multiple devices, and they should all be in sync. Personally, I'm ready for Whispersync today, but Amazon didn't say when the service will launch or which devices it'll be available on.
