The Good Old Days

Stream of consciousness you say? Trying to find something on what used to be called the Internet is now officially a full time job. It’s not so much that various media strategies and hardware devices have carved things up into a tangle. It’s that what passes for interesting has been shorn of a reliable index in the move toward social filtering. We’re not there yet, the message seems to be. Is there a there there we are going to get to? Not clear.

Navigating Apple TV and its various peeks into the presumed future has been a valuable waste of time. For $100 plus an HDMI cable I get to sample various media dead ends including NetFlix, iTunes rental, buy, and streaming options, YouTube, and other stuff I can’t remember right now. In the past, I would have spent more time testing the work arounds for adding podcasts and ripped music to broaden the choices, but something about the device suggests we’re in such a rapid shakeout it might be easier to wait.

Want An iPod Nano Watch? So Does Everyone. Idea Poised To Be New Kickstarter King

We’ve talked a lot about Diaspora, the open-source Facebook-alternative, in recent months. One of the reasons for that is the massive success they had raising money on the crowdsourced fund-raising site, Kickstarter. The project raised over $200,000 from nearly 6,500 backers in just 39 days. Now a new project has already blown that tally out of the water: an iPod nano-based multi-touch wristwatch.

Scott Wilson, the founder of Chicago-based product and design studio, MINIMAL, set out with an idea: to create two watch enclosures for Apple’s latest iPod nano. He wanted the TikTok to be a low-end model ($35) and the LunaTik to be high-end ($70). So he put his project on Kickstarter with a goal of raising $15,000. So how is he doing?

News: Apple iOS 4.2 now available

One major update that many Apple fans have been looking forward to – iOS version 4.2 update is now available for download via iTunes. Not only does it give a number of new notable features to the Apple iPad, the new iOS 4.2 is also available for iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4.

My favourite feature of all in the new update will of course be multitasking for the iPad, others worth mentioning include AirPrint, AirPlay, Game Center, Unified Inbox and folders.

Apple’s Next Big Strategic Opportunity Could Be Mobile Payments

When an analyst asked Steve Jobs during Apple’slast earnings call what he plans to do with Apple’s $50 billion in cash, he replied that he wants to keep Apple’s “powder dry” in case “one or more strategic opportunities . . . come along.” Speculation started immediately about who Apple could buy with all that cash: Facebook, Sony, Adobe?

But Apple never makes huge acquisitions. It tends to make smaller talent and technology acquisitions instead.

Apple’s rumored interest in mobile payments startup BOKU would fall into that pattern. The fact that it is in M&A discussions with BOKU doesn’t mean a deal is going to happen, but it does mean that Apple is very interested in mobile payments.

Whether it builds or buys, or does a little bit of both, mobile payments could be a huge opportunity for Apple within the next few years.