The latest (ridiculous) chapter in the bun fight surrounding the perceived impending tablet war is in full swing. Steve Jobs decided to “drop in [on the earnings call] for our first $40bn quarter” and had a few casual words to say about the launch of devices like RIM’s impending “PlayBook” mini-tablet–namely that these new smaller tablet devices will be redundant before they even launch.

I’m thoroughly enjoying the frenzy of the media trying to make this pass as “news”. Even better are the attempts of the other industry leaders to coast in Jobs’ wake by “responding” to his comments via the press. I find it telling that in all of the headlines on google news (like “RIM CEO Fires Back at Jobs’ Comments”) the head of Apple is “Jobs” and the rest are nameless figure-heads.

Jim Balsille (RIM’s co-CEO’s actual name) responded to Jobs in a most peculiar way. He actually said “We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple.” Now this is an obviously divisive statement to appeal to the public’s distaste at being told what to do, but there’s also a tell in his statement. Steve Jobs’ legacy at Apple has been one founded on his unique vision for the design of products and experiences that will be successful in the marketplace. John Scully pointed out in an excellent recent interview that while creating the iPod, Jobs would never go and ask the public what an ipod should do because nobody would have understood what one was let alone contribute an opinion on how one should work. Balsille appears to be characterizing this as telling people what to think rather than asking them what to do. RIM on the other hand is an engineering company. RIM works the other way around–they start with the technology and build towards the device housing the technology, then they market the device. They do ask the public what they want, and they build that. I can imagine a discussion that might have taken place last winter in RIM’s offices where they decided that since Apple had launched the iPad, they too need to be in that market. So how does an engineer make something better? They make it smaller. The RIM PlayBook might as well be called the Zoolander Tablet. To make matters worse, RIM is creating TabletOS — a brand new platform for developers to program on just for RIM tablets. This is once again an example of starting with engineering first. It’s already hard enough for companies to justify RIM-specific development efforts, this confounds matters further, no matter how wonderful the platform may be for developers (which is still up for debate in the case of TabletOS).

In general, nobody likes an egotistical, opinionated individual to deliver them bad news in a direct and somewhat impolite way. It’s even worse when they’re right. Jobs has a well-documented history of being of a differing opinion and standing apart from other product designers in the industry, and has almost always been right. Perhaps his causal comment carries such weight for a reason.

In short, the platform for taking payments just got itself slapped in the face. Square which is out today (US only as far as I know) allows anybody to accept credit cards via a mobile device of their choice, be it iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad or Android based handset. Now everybody has the ability to take credit cards. Moms at craft shows. Artists, even small businesses. Square is not only cool looking but its built in security features and paperless receipts are pretty rad. Not to mention that businesses can start to build real rewards systems for re-occurring customers. All this from the dude that helped bring you Twitter. Slamma cow!

Watch square in action!

SO what now? If I lived in the US I would have this in a heart beat, squaring up money with friends would be super rad, as well I find myself buying stuff for friends often, like from costco since people I know don have the easy access to one like I do, would make getting money back a snap. No more I need to hit up a bank machine. All in all I’m super stoked for this, and if I get the chance to use square in the US the next time I’m there I most definitely will.

For more info check out squareup.com

I’ve been following the antics of one Johnny Cupcakes for a few years now. This guy impresses like no other, his passion for what he does rivals only Gary Vaynerchuk in my book, and that’s a good thing.

Recently Johnny did something you never see from the face of a company, a throwback to his early days of hustling t-shirts out of his suitcase while on tour with his band. Johnny along with his crew of people have embarked on a “Suitcase Tour” visiting bake shops, galleries and toy stores nation wide. Check the video below for the full story.

So what? Some guy you’ve probably never heard of decides to pack up some t-shirts into an old suitcase and document their antics of all the tour stops along their journey. Why is this important at all? Why take the time? The effort? Proof of how awesome this whole concept is for the JC brand is immediately evident if you watch any of the tour stop videos. The lineups alone show the dedication of people to the cupcakes brand, their love for Johnny and his shirts. But it extends further. People tell their stories about how they first found out about Johnny, how they randomly connected with somebody over a brand of t-shirt. Like VW owners giving each other the friendly nod when they drive past. This brand has captured its fanbase and is actively participating with it, seamlessly, honestly and transparently. Even before the tour you might find Johnny tweeting out and posting to the Facebook page that if you just showed up to a spot that night with a cupcakes shirt on you could get a free icecream sandwich. (see below)

All of this does wonders for the people that love Johnny Cupcakes. The fans are rallied together to create a memorable experience that they’ll share with their friends and family for years to come. That kind of experience is seemingly simple to accomplish with a little bit of planning and the desire to meet with your fans, interact with them and give a part of yourself back. How much is that worth in the end? Johnny success relies heavily on his dedication to his fans. He lives out his brand to everybody doing that requires guts and persistence and you have to admit that seeing what hes accomplished is nothing short of awesome.

Skip on over to the JC blog and watch some videos, get inspired and figure out how this type of thing can be incorporated into the work your doing now. Yet another example of brands who understand their fans.

I save a lot of things online. I like stuff on vimeo which is where this video came from, via a friend on twitter (thanks zack!) I favourite videos on youtube, they auto post to facebook. I favourite tweets while on the train, they get auto synced to delicious via packrati.us. I post to my blog which posts to facebook, to virb (which I no longer maintain), same goes to my tumblr which held my interest for a short time relegated to be just a stream of what I’m doing elsewhere. My list of personal URL’s is long, peppered with different screen names, passwords, recent findings and abandoned ideas. Truth be told I manage them poorly, I update less and less and constantly look for the simplest way to integrate them all so they all don’t go stagnant. Maybe it is time to get up and go

Foursquare is celebrating! With just over a year of being active, and somewhere close to 750,000+ users 4SQ has flipped the game when it comes to location based social networks. With deals in place with Bravo, HBO and Starbucks it can only stand to grow.

4SQDay which was started on a whim by a Tampa Bay Optometrist, yes and eye doctor who dabbles in social media grew in strength seemingly overnight via Facebook and Twitter. No doubt that when the Foursquare guys heard about all this they were stoked to say the least. With 4sqday.com you can check out whats happening today in over 50 different cities, things like swarm meetups where 50 or more people checkin to a single venue to get the illusive swarm badge, to seeing what venues are promoting deals.

All of this bodes well for the location based startup, and while gowalla and brightkite are also great services, i’m finding there is a bit more heart with foursquare users, myself included. want to watch a neat little video about 4SQ? See below.

I’f your a fan of digg nation and I mean who really isnt… then you’ll no doubt know hippy glenn. Well here is a video re-cap from his perspective of SXSW. Pretty self explanatory.

For kicks please name as many people as you can in the comments.

p.s. I’m going next year for sure.

thanks Michael Lebowitz

Last week I came home to a brown box from the amazon.ca fairy. Low and behold it wasn’t my copy of New Moon on BlueRay (the only way to watch a teen vampire drama) Nor was it my book about Dieter Rams. What it was, was something more. 37Signals has been in my top tier of favorite places that consistently does great work. Chock full of smart people, with simplistic designs which I’m always looking at for hints on how to accomplish great functional designs. To say that I sometimes thing WW37SD? is an understatement.

REWORK is a book about business, from the perspective of 37Signals. Each chapter is like a punch to the face. I’m not much of a reader but I’ve read more of this book in the last week than I had of all the books I bought last year. (I like to buy books but rarely read them fully) If you cant take my word on the importance of this book then read the words of other more famous people from this link here. 37Signals – REWORK

If that doesn’t get you clicking “add to cart” hell I don’t know what will. Maybe watch those nice videos on that link too. Below is a video that 37Signals made as an attack style add against Karl Roves new book. Which was number 1 rework coming in at number 2 for its release week. Its a good watch, the book is an even better read. you should buy it. Plus its even got great illustrations from Mike Rohde.

Its not a lie. I’m late to the IgniteTo party. I know, I know shame on me for not keeping up but alas sometimes there are other things in my life that I need to do than hear smart people talk for 5 minutes about things I could or couldn’t care less about. More often than not, I like to hear interesting stories from smart and clever people, so it was without hesitation that I picked up some tickets to IgniteTo’s third offering.
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I’m used to pretty rad collaborations. NIKE x DQM, Burton x Futura, Colette x GAP. But those are strictly based in the streetwear/clothing world. When I was a kid I used to grab a Popular Science magazine at the library to see what the future was to hold. Those first few pages shat showed concept flying vehicles, hovering skateboards etc. always enchanted my young mind. Even Star Trek, looked to the pages of Popular Science to blend science fact with science fiction.

Now partnered with Google, Popular Science has offered up its entire “137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements.”

Now get to searching and browsing some old Pop Sci!