Commentary

But Can iPad Cure Cancer?

What a week. Butler came within two inches of winning it all, Tiger is back on the prowl, coal mines collapsed in China and West Virginia, the government of a country only referenced in Doonesbury cartoons was overthrown, and Spirit found a whole new way to insult travelers. But everything else paled compared to the coverage given the iPad. Ubercool Trend Analyst Michael Tchong says it will reinvent publishing citing improvements in how consumers can interact with books, catalogs, digital magazines, digital newspapers, digital cookbooks, movies/TV, and reference apps.

Meanwhile, in Adweek, Zeta Interactive's Al DiGuido worried about audience measurement for iPad ads, writing: "For example, how long did the reader spend with the ad? What action did she take? Did she buy anything? What section of the magazine is the target customer spending time in and which performs best in terms of the advertiser's goals? Which creative resonates best and within which editorial sections? If one aspect of the ad is changed, how does that impact results?"

I am not the earliest adapter. It was only when they stopped making stick shifts that I reluctantly moved to automatic transmission, I still keep a paper calendar of appointments and I got my first BlackBerry when my wife handed me her old one that still had a few months left on the plan (then showed me how it worked -- a few times). But I drank the Kool-Aid and got up early on Saturday and stood in line for a couple hours to get an iPad (not really, but the column really breaks down here if I didn't.)

The entire family gathered as I unboxed the device (well, my wife did -- the kids were still asleep and would only get up if a rock band was coming over for breakfast.) We admired the sleek design and feel and immediately started charging the power while reviewing which of the 3500 apps to get first.

My wife strongly wanted to get the Sub Hub app, which creates a virtual husband to accompany her and 1) never complains about how many different pairs she tries on; 2) always tells her what he plans to order for dinner without an accompanying snide comment; 3) never rolls his eyes when saying "Why, no that doesn't make you look fat"; and 4) always agrees that the film was moving and touching (even if it didn't feature any full frontal nudity or violent deaths). I downloaded the Deaf to Logic app, which reacts to anything idiotic your kids say with irrefutable facts and figures, countering each urban wisdom bit of misinformation with incontrovertible evidence. Does not stop until it senses quivering lips and/or emerging tears. Also works with spouses, but tends to contribute to domestic violence.

I also pulled down the Amazing Audience app, which allows media sellers to frontload equations with any voodoo math they like in order to show media buyers projectable audience sizes that routinely are six to eight times larger than the entire combined populations of the United States, Canada and Burkina Faso. Can cross-operate with Amazing Engagement app that shows that everyone, everywhere is spurning all other media to focus their attention on yours. Also works in sync with Amazing Branding app that takes aforementioned app numbers and translates them into a convincing argument that all of this will benefit client brands in whatever way makes them happy. Can be adapted to work with your "Place Another Order" API.

Since it was a beautiful weekend, I retrieved the Happy Yard app and assigned it to pick up branches blown down in a recent storm, weed the front flowerbed and toss some grass seed on the bald spots, but due to some sort of glitch it used branches to camouflage the weed it planted in the flowerbed and bald spots. Curiously, there are no complaints in the feedback section for the app.

The Walk the Dog app was clearly written by a teenager, since when you assign the task, it plays an hour of "Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2" and eats a bag of cheese doodles before fulfilling the command in a route so short the dog barely has time to lift its leg before it is back in the house.

The Egg Before the Chicken app is bound to find favor with my colleagues in the ad industry, since it can link to any ad in any medium and explain if it failed due to the targeting or the creative. When you hit the refresh button, it automatically reverses its decision -- leading to hours of, uh, engagement.

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