Today's users want everything to just work! Who can bring enterprise level inter-interoperability to the average user? It would seem that Apple has made some huge strides, and might be gearing up for another one, with big hopes for new announcements at WWDC. I think it is an extremely smart idea for a company to focus on getting things that users want to simply work together. Gone are the days of stand alone apps that can't share data. We have entered a world of open API's and amazing web services that can join together to allow a user to grab exactly what they want and create their own, custom, and best solution.
I hear the term "New Media" thrown around just about as much at Web 2.0. It seems that it is hard to define these terms at a time where so much can change from day to day. What is it that changes? The technology is certainly changing, with the onset of new portable media products such as the iPhone and the Kindle just within the last year, new power has been brought to the palm of the user. That seems to be the biggest trend in "New Media" and "Web 2.0" The power being shifted to the consumer. We no longer depend on big business for providing the content on their terms.
Perhaps you've heard about the newest addition to the Mac OS X News Reader application pool. [Times](http://www.acrylicapps.com/times/) brings your Really Simple Syndication (RSS) into a layout very uncommon among the current world of RSS readers. That layout is simply that of a standard newspaper. This breaks the mold against the normal list centered applications we've been seeing for years.
I'm a very big fan of [37signals](http://37signals.com). I don't use any of their products regularly, but only because I don't feel I really need to. As a company however, I greatly admire what they've been able to accomplish in recent years, as well as how wonderfully they treat their employees. Their blog [Signal Vs Noise](http://37signals.com/svn) is a great one to read.
So I moved out of my apartment into my town-home and didn't have the internet installed until today since that was the earliest Verizon could come. So after my first few hours with FIOS, I've got to say I'm very happy. I used http://www.speedtest.net/ which I know nothing about, just found it today, but it seems cool. Anyway, I got exactly what I expected.
So I joined Twitter (more on that in another post) and I saw a tweet from [@lhnatko](http://twitter.com/Ihnatko) about a MacBreak weekly drinking game [MacBreak Weekly Game](https://web.archive.org/web/20080228010316/http://www.marusin.com/2008/02/20/the-macbreak-weekly-drinking-game/) If you know the show, then you'll get a kick out of the list of things. Never would of thought of doing a drinking game to a podcast. Another piece of evidence that everything and anything can be thought of, and shared via the net. Awesome.
In a previous post I wrote about how great podcasting can be when it brings people together to discuss issues with a variety of perspective. I recently listened to a great example of this during episode 138 of TWIT http://twit.tv/138.