With Samsung at the Galaxy Tab 10.1 booth at BlogHer '11

Almost six months ago, I upgraded my phone from an iPhone to a Motorola Atrix 4G, with AT&T. I was tired of the terrible service and, having been an AT&T consumer since I moved back to the United States in 2007, I knew that the problem wasn’t the carrier. I was right.

Annoyed with the treatment users received from Apple despite our excitement, support and evangelism — from Steve Jobs telling us that the problem with our devices was how we held them instead of taking responsibility for how they were made, all the way to the attitude of people working at the various Genius Bars I approached when I had one problem or another — I quit iTunes in favor of Pandora, Amazon and WinAmp, and ditched my iPad.

Admittedly, letting go of my iPad was a difficult thing to do, as I’d grown fond of reading the Wall Street Journal on it every morning. I spent the coming months without a tablet considering those that were on the market, especially the Xoom, as I already had another Motorola product, but the negative reviews kept me from taking a leap.

And then there was Samsung. I didn’t know about the Galazy Tab 10.1 until I read about Apple’s lawsuit against them. You know the saying — any enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine. When Samsung contacted me about trying out their tablet, I was all too eager to accept.

Even so, the tablet they sent sat on my counter for a day without any interaction. I’d read that the visual display had beat even Apple’s iPad 2, but what if it was otherwise a failure? I realized immediately that I was emotionally invested at this point: I hate the way Apple does business. I hate the way they treat the people who brought them their success. I hate their closed, secretive, litigation-happy market-hoarding. It’s bad for innovation and it’s bad for the consumer. If Samsung, which is quickly becoming a contender, couldn’t step up to the plate, I wouldn’t just be disappointed in the product; I’d probably throw up my hands and give up.

I’m happy to report that I wasn’t disappointed.

The tablet is 10.1 inches by 6.9 inches (hence the name Galaxy Tab 10.1), and is 0.33 inches thick. For those of you that prefer a more visual illustration, you’re looking at something a little smaller than a copy of your favorite magazine, perfect to throw in most handbags, unless you’ve gone back to clutches this season. The screen has a 1280 x 800 LCD display, which presents images beautifully at 149 pixels per inch — a plus if you use your tablet as an on-the-go photography or modeling portfolio.

It weighs about 1.24 pounds – less than the iPad 2, and what a difference do those extra grams make when you’re holding the tablet for extended periods while reading or recording. It also enables me to type one-handed while holding the tablet without needing to rest it on my lap, or fearing that I might drop it. The more prepared may not think this sort of thing matters, but when you travel as much as I do and don’t always have the luxury of your stand and keyboard, or even your knees on which to rest the tablet on, you quickly find out that it does.

Being an Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab supports Adobe Flash and has access to a large marketplace of apps, and for those of us who still read, the Samsung readers hub offers 2.3 million ebooks, 2,000 newspapers and 3,000 magazines.

For music listeners, you have surround-sound speakers, and a system that accepts mp3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, and RA. The HD camera doubles for video recording on the back as well as on the front-facing camera.

I was recently at BlogHer ‘11, a huge conference for women bloggers in San Diego, where I put the tablet to work for long hours of continuous activity. Verizon never blinked despite the number of people present, and the battery held me over each day so I never needed to fight for an outlet.

It’s everything one could want from a tablet — and Samsung will never tell you to hold it differently if something doesn’t work. They make their components (and up until recently quite a few of Apple’s chips as well), so when something goes wrong, they’re interested in hearing about it so that they can ensure it is addressed as quickly as possible.

My only concern with the tablet was the apparent lack of auto-complete and spell-check, which I am told will be made available with a future update that will also implement Samsung’s own keyboard, in the event that the Android keyboard is too clunky for your liking. Once I have all the details about this update, I will add the information to this post. But don’t let that be a deterrent for you: if you are tired of the way Apple is doing things, this tablet is the most effective, comfortable and efficient way to join the resistance.

I joked at the time that this was all the reason I needed to keep chatting. The truth is, by 2008, I’d largely quit using most chat programs, except for Gtalk, which I used to talk exclusively to my friend Dean, who excels at coworking. And when I say “excels at coworking,” I mean he never makes casual conversation, largely stays on topic of whatever we’re writing at the time, and leaves long pauses between messages be. He’s busy — I’m busy. He gets it.

Time went on and, as I used that Gmail account for more interviews and personal things, a lot of people were added to my chat list. It was convenient because having them on my IM list meant that if I needed their help for something we were working on, I could reach them right away.

But then something terrible happened. People started to message me all the time. Now, I dig all of you, and I would love to talk to all of you, but the bottom line is that you’re not the only ones messaging me and I don’t have time to chat with all of you. I can’t just switch back and forth between something I’m writing and the chat window. I envy you your ability to multitask and the fact some of you have the ability to play at work – I do. If you have openings to sit around and blog and chat at your company, totally contact me.

As it is, I don’t have that luxury. The bottom average for me is six posts a day – and that doesn’t include interviews and research I am doing for future posts. I need the time I’m at my computer to focus on what I’m doing.

And apparently, no one gives a damn if someone’s status is set to Busy.

I’m tired of explaining that I’d love to talk but I can’t. I shouldn’t have to explain to every single person who messages that I can’t chat when my status has a paragraph describing that I’m not available and I’d appreciate no messages unless they’re work-related.

So last night, I quit Gtalk. And guess what happened? I got everything done that I needed to do. And I loved it.

This is what it means: if you’re a good friend and you need me for something, shoot me a text. One text, I don’t need more. I’ll get back to you when I can. If you don’t have my number, direct message me or @reply on Twitter, or send me an e-mail. If you e-mail, keep it simple. I need to be able to get the gist within the first two seconds of opening it. The inverted pyramid – you know how newspapers do it? Who, what, why, where, when, how, in 28 to 32 words. Like that.

As for calling – I hate speaking on the phone and will avoid it as much as possible unless you’re my parents or it’s business-related. So don’t be hurt if you get shot to voicemail immediately. It’s not you, it’s me.

I sincerely appreciate it.

Good things cost money to make and consumers like good things. The media/internet/etc 2.0 mindset is that everybody wants to shop at the flea market when in reality, plenty of consumers are willing to buy Christian Louboutin.

I could get all the free fashion content I want online but 98 percent of those sites don’t have access. They don’t get to pull in any sample they want, they’re not flying to Market and Fashion Week, etc. around the world to find the things I can’t find myself. So, in addition to consuming the stuff people are giving away on the internet, I pay to have greater access through other outlets because for me, that’s the value.

This is how consumers operate. It’s why despite that there are free football games all weekend long, hundreds of thousands of people pony up major cash to have subscription packages. What drives consumers to want to pay for things (including content on platforms) is value, driven by either access or quality.

Free also signals that something isn’t worth paying for, even if it is. It’s something people see all the time in service industries like consulting and PR. The second somebody says, “I won’t pay to have XYZ from a company,” it signals that the company has little true value to that person. By giving away your product for free out of the gate, you’ve trained them on this perception. The only way out is to create a second channel of value and work to migrate them over. Some will go, some won’t. That is how it goes.

Charging consumers for quality and access doesn’t mean they won’t like you. In fact, it’s likely the other way around. Getting them to adapt to paying for products that cost money is more a marketing than a business problem. Create value or the perception of value, and work to migrate those who are interested towards it. It’s a basic truism in any business on any platform, offline or not.

1. You and 6,302 People

I work from home, which basically means I don’t have the luxury of leaving work at the office. The workweek for me is seven days long – the only difference is that on some days, the post office and bank don’t work. In order to ensure against having no life and dying a miserable career death due to burnout, I divide my engagements into two categories: business and social.

Because so much of my business time is devoted to content creation and managing blogs, unless what you’re doing is directly related to what I do, I’m not going to be inclined to meet you. It’s not that you’re not amazing, I’m sure you are. There are just hundreds of people doing sex research and writing books on relationships that I’m going to want to do lunch with first.

Though, for the record, allow me to say that it’s far more likely that I’ll interview these people over the phone or e-mail than actually meet them in person.

Oh, I don’t think I need to mention this, but “let’s meet to talk about sex,” is not a loophole into my day-planner. If I had a penny for every time a man said that to me, I’d be able to fish this country out of debt, buy it, and then have you removed to Guantanamo for immediate waterboaring. I am so serious, that I’d go as far as to strongly recommend you don’t even joke about this to me. Unless you want to elicit an eyeroll and my immediate disdain, of course, in which case, by all means feel free.

2. Bait Me

My experience in a corporate environment has taught me that nine times out of 10, meetings are totally pointless. I must be baited, and since this is not a social situation, your winning personality won’t register as bait. Incentivize me.

And by that I don’t mean some nebulous “let’s meet to talk about how maybe we can [insert idea you can't or aren't really willing to make happen].” I mean “let’s meet and talk about [thing] so I can get started on [concrete things to mobilize aforementioned thing].” If that statement implies we’ve already spoken before, you’re half right.

Due to time constraints, I probably won’t be doing much (or, more likely, any) talking with you on the phone. A successful business meeting will come to pass after we’ve exchanged a few e-mails. These e-mails will not be “hi, how are you? My name is so and so and [insert entire CV] and I was thinking we could maybe talk about some opportunities together.” They will be relevant and concise: “You: sex blogger. Me: [profession]. I am working on [project] and I think it would be mutually beneficial if you participated by [activity].”

That’s all you need. Amazing, isn’t it? You don’t even have to tell me why it’s beneficial! Like obscenity, I will know beneficial when I see it.

3. It’s Money, Honey

If there is no relevance and no real incentive and especially if you have the audacity to use the words “pick your brain,” you better be willing to pay me.

I know you’re sitting there thinking “who the hell does she think she is”? I’ll help you out. I’m AV Flox and if you want to meet with me to pick my brain, it must be because you find my ideas valuable. Guess what valuable means? That’s right. That it has worth. And guess what? You’re paying. And when I say you’re paying, I don’t mean for dinner (though if you asked, you will be paying for that, too). I mean you’re paying for the value of my brain, which I have set at a starting rate of $2,000, in full and up front.

Nothing personal, baby. Business is business.

“We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

Forrester estimated that three million e-readers will be sold in the United States this year, up from a previous forecast of two million. They foresee e-reader sales doubling to six million in 2010.

It’s the end of an era. The digital age in which we now live is officially impossible to ignore.

“In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event,” Frank Cooper, senior vice president of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, told the Wall Street Journal.

Pepsi’s new strategy is a combination of web-focused advertising and cause-marketing. They plan to kick off “Pepsi Refresh Project” in a few weeks, a program that enables consumers to pick community projects for the softdrink giant to sponsor. Pepsi told the Wall Street Journal $20 million of its ad dollars have been set aside for the grants in 2010.

As for the web, Pepsi says it will spend 60% more on online ads in 2010 than it did this year. This, they know, is the best way to reach younger audiences who comprise Pepsi’s primary target–as well as to keep consumers engaged.

“You can’t just go to market with a TV ad anymore,” says Lee Clow, chief creative officer of Omnicom Group’s TBWA Worldwide, the agency behind the new campaign, and one of the creators of Apple’s infamous 1984 Super Bowl commercial.

He might be right, but the pioneering decision carries some risk. First, it leaves the field open to Coke, which made its comeback to Super Bowl advertising in 2007 after an eight-year break, and has been giving Pepsi some serious competition since. Two, consumers have come to expect Pepsi’s entertaining spots and their absence could trigger a backlash.

Pepsi, however, has weighed the risks.

“Brands should not blindly anchor themselves to history,” Cooper said.

We’ll see how that pans out.

Information from the Wall Street Journal, via @Nordette_Verite.

“People, organizations, and businesses quickly began leveraging the open nature of the network to share anything they wanted, completely ignoring the original question,” writes co-founder Biz Stone. Users were “seemingly on a quest to both ask and answer a different, more immediate question, ‘What’s happening?’ A simple text input field limited to 140 characters of text was all it took for creativity and ingenuity to thrive.”

Sure, someone in San Francisco may be answering “What are you doing?” with “Enjoying an excellent cup of coffee,” at this very moment. However, a birds-eye view of Twitter reveals that it’s not exclusively about these personal musings. Between those cups of coffee, people are witnessing accidents, organizing events, sharing links, breaking news, reporting stuff their dad says, and so much more.

The fundamentally open model of Twitter created a new kind of information network and it has long outgrown the concept of personal status updates. Twitter helps you share and discover what’s happening now among all the things, people, and events you care about. “What are you doing?” isn’t the right question anymore—starting today, we’ve shortened it by two characters. Twitter now asks, “What’s happening?”

In a post discussing the change, social web genius Brian Solis elaborates on how we have grown to use Twitter: “Our updates on Twitter symbolize so much more than we may realize. If, for but a moment, we can catch a fleeting glimpse of our personal significance right here, right now, we would recognize our instrumental role in the complete transformation in how information is reported, discovered, broadcast, and consumed. Perhaps most significantly, Twitter represents a collective collaboration that manifests our ability to unconsciously connect kindred voices through the experiences that move us. As such, Twitter is a human seismograph. Through it, we feel everything that moves us.”

Yes, but this has always been the case for most of us. What does the change actually mean?

“We don’t expect this to change how anyone uses Twitter,” said Stone. “But maybe it’ll make it easier to explain to your dad.”

After years of debate, the decision to make the web more inclusive in this way by the nonprofit board’s 15 voting members received a standing ovation after a week-long series of meetings in Seoul, Korea.

This will allow governments to submit requests for specific non-Latin domain names, as soon as mid-November, and we’ll start seeing them used early next year. Non-Latin versions of “.com” and “.org” won’t be allowed for a few more years, however.

On October 29, 1969, the Internet came in not with a bang, but with a “lo.”

Letter by letter, UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock sent a message from his school’s host computer to another computer at Stanford Research Institute. Kleinrock was trying to write “login,” starting up a remote time-sharing system, but the system crashed after two letters, and lo! The Internet was born with the first data message sent between two networked computers.

To be fair, the creation of the Internet was peppered with other milestones that could be considered more or less historic. After all, at the core of the Internet was packet-switching–the process of breaking down data into blocks and routing them individually–and in 1968 Donald Davies of the UK’s National Physical Laboratory gave the first public presentation of the idea.

But if we can all agree that communication–e-mail, chat, social networking–is what makes the Internet tick, Kleinrock’s first message was the most significant early step towards what we have today.

Look how far we’ve come–and how much further we’ve yet to go. The internet started with a lo, evolved into a social stream–what will come next? How much more pervasive will it be in another 40 years?

I can’t wait to find out.