Digital Age's Generation: What's Next?

Here is a revelation for you:

We live in a d i g i t a l  a g e!

And there's no more denial that we no longer limit ourselves to the traditional press. While TV still plays an important role in our lives - and I don't think it would ever cease to exist as we all enjoy our evenings and Sunday sport games in front of a big plazma TV - but as far as the print press is concerned - it is becoming obsolete.

It's been quickly replaced by the digital media and tech/gadgets that we use to access the information. And all thanks to Steve Jobs and his genius device - iPad, proceeded by the preparation to turn into the all-in-one-gadget-for-all-we-need-to-know-and-do device - iPhone.

However, slowly, but surely - except for a few individual progressive publications such as The New York Times and Wired - most of the print press took a note of the Appalachian iPad use and now most of the newspapers and magazines could be read on iPads and other tablets...

What is going to happen next, now that Steve Jobs is no longer with us? Would the new innovations be coming from the Apple Inc., or Samsung, or...? We don't know. We just know that with Hulu, Netflix, and similar online video content sites, where we can watch TV and movies from online streaming, our TV watching is no longer the same as it was just a year ago...

 Here is how it all happened:

(Courtesy of Newseum, www.newseum.org)

Here’s the a list of  some more Places To Watch TV For Free Online:

iPad: Circa 1994...

There is an evolution in everything: plants, animals, humans, gadgets...

At the time when Yahoo.com emails were very happening, and The Huffington Post and Gawker.com haven't existed yet, for the most part we were pretty happy with a modem Internet connection, now - only a few of us have it...

Here’s what an iPad looked like back in the days - in 1004, when VHS tapes were pretty cool and - happening - to have.

The New Yorker's Free Apps: Goings On and Festival. Cartoons come with it too

What I love about iPhones (and that's NOT an endorsement) is that each day there is a new cool  App for it - to satisfy any tastebud - from silly, entertaining ones to very helpful ones, like navigation, travel guides, traffic or personal organizer Apps. Moreover, now any company, organization and/or individual can create an application - and that's what they do and that's what makes me very envious of such enterprenural technical skills to do so.

Courtesy of The New Yorker

I especially like the media Apps, especially when it concerns a publication/site I read/follow. And this is exactly the case with The New Yorker magazine. It now offers - not one - but two FREE Apps:

French Use Social Networks, But Incorrectly

Apparently, Twitter and Facebook is no longer “American” social networks. They did originate in USA, but with a global take on growth and profit. With the introduction of the other language platforms, such as Chinese, Hindu and Russia – for example – Twitter and Facebook moved to the largest markets in the world, penetrated so deep that no longer the local social networks are capable to compete.

And other countries picked up. France, Germany, Sweden – you name it – all of the casual, business and charitiful networking is now happening on Facebook and Twitter.

Take me, for example – I follow Arabic, Russian, British world-changing sources of information and individuals who both inform and entertain me. I’m “friends” with the Egyptian bloggers and reporters, Russian fashion designers and celebrities, British press and trendsetters, and French chefs – it can’t get any better than that.

Katie Couric on iPad at CBS Evening News

However, for all the obvious things that we are using Twitter and Facebook, the American press, for example, does not hide the fact that they are using the social media to promote the stories and personalities. Moreover, all the prominent news and show are now running promos luring the audience to write, contact, and comment to them on their social networks. But – not in France!

Social Media for Safe Sex: anything goes...

There will be absolutely no need soon for pharmacies, grocery stores, and post offices - the Apps might replace these aspects of our lives. The only thing that might still stay is movie theaters and restaurants/bars - even gyms might soon become as an App program that allows to "customize your exercise routine, choose a trainer you find the most appealing and background motifs that speak to your physique"...either way - the "App-ful" future is here...

But for now, Apple has decided to simplify personal, intimate lives for New Yorkers by providing them with  iPhone App that assists in locating sites with free condoms within NYC. No more worries about going on a date without a condom. You've got it and it's - FREE.

Media succumbs to smartphones, but not to tablets yet

No matter how hard the editors and writers of the New York Times, featured in the recent documentary from the director Andrew Rossi Page One: Inside the New  York Times, tried to argue that the traditional media is neither dying out nor it’s being survived and replaced by the new media, the future, however, looks much brighter on the side of the latter.

David Carr at The New York Times stays true to the traditional media

David Carr, the notorious columnist of the Media Desk of the NYT in the film refuses to be succumbed to Twitter and Facebook, calling his colleague Brian Stelter who mastered up the new media better than anyone in the department (wanna succumb to Brian's Twitter?) - the DEVIL (or similar to it), who might soon drive the players of the traditional media out of business. However, at the end of the movie, the audience sees Carr using Twitter for his articles and updates and using iPad apps to read the press. (Check out The New York Times App for iPad here.)

I’m, personally, falling David Carr on the Twitter – as well as some of his colleagues, including the press I’m reading on a regular basis, like The Huffington Post, National Geographic, Daily Beast, CNN, and such. And this IS the future of the media, want it or not – the media future is in your phone.

Despite the fact that the “old school” journalists have it harder to adapt to the changing realities of the media - especially the execs - big media companies have never been comfortable with the web – they are, however, much more optimistic about smartphones.

TECH: MEDIA: National Geographic's Best-Selling Apps

Personally, anything by The National Geographic is fascinating to me. I’ve been subscribing to its Traveler magazine for a while now and aside from very lengthy, to the point of scientific description and exploration of a subject matter – anything from a Mammoth tooth to a deep sea soil, the content of the magazine is relatively entertaining. It’s diverse. It’d deep. It’s objective. It’s visual. And it’s – in a way – revolutionary, as it covers the subject matters way ahead of any other “travel, geography” publications. And now it's available in Apps.