How much more can Apple really do with the tried and true mp3 player? There’s always changes to its form. This year, Apple shrunk the Nano and gave it touch screen controls. They made the Touch thinner and added two cameras. And they brought back the old design of the Shuffle, adding buttons again (thank goodness). And they can make changes to functions as well. Against Steve Jobs’ claims that no one listens to the radio anymore, iPods gained radio reception (FM anyway) last year (or the year before?). The Nano gained a camera last year, then lost it this year and gained a touch screen. The Touch added cameras and FaceTime video chat.

But these new forms and functions don’t really change what the iPod is. It’s still primarily a device used to play music, though the Touch comes closest to a pocket computer. And slowing sales are actually an indication of market saturation rather than declining interest. Consumers, in general, aren’t interested in updating their music players every year or two. And new features unrelated to music may not be enough to drive new sales. Further, redesigns focused around getting smaller don’t drive sales when the initial product was already plenty small. These factors all combine to give Apple a tough time selling the iPod as a continual source of increasing profits.

That’s not to say, however, that iPods are getting tired or boring. True, smart phones are getting better at music (the iPhone is already an iPod, and Android has some good music management apps), and smart phones are getting more popular. But for large segments of the market, the iPod is still a desirable product. Slowing iPod sales may be a concern for investors but us ordinary consumers have no reason to worry. The iPod isn’t going anywhere, any time soon.

But there’s trouble with new communication technology, especially once it propagates to younger people. Tweens and teens set the standard for usage extremes. Think of instant messaging with a dozen windows open at once, thousands of text messages sent every month, phone bills a mile long, and hours logged on social networking websites. And along with these extremes come the negative sides of these communication technologies: cyber-bullying, hate-speech, hurtful false online profiles, “sexting” and its associated negative consequences. What is it about youth that brings out these negative effects?

How long will it take before some tween or teens uses FaceTime for something inappropriate? My guess is it will be something sexual, reported on by the mainstream media as a “parental caution” but really because its titillating for the editors and advertisers. Perhaps a young woman or young man exposes herself or himself to what she or he thinks is one other person but is really a roomful. Or perhaps the video is recorded and posted online or emailed around. Or it could just be something done between two infatuated youths, only to be caught by parents. It won’t be long now, mark my words.

Until we crack the puzzle about what it is with young people that causes them to push these new technologies to extremes, all we can do is offer advice for parents looking to protect their children. Make sure your family computer is in a centralized location with easy monitoring. Set limits on screen time. Keep portable internet devices away from children (you can use parental controls to allow only certain apps on an iPod Touch). Keep laptops out of bedrooms. And, if you do just one thing, talk to your children about the risks inherent in misuse of these technologies. The more your children know, the more they can avoid negative situations before something really bad happens.

The rest of my day tomorrow will be spent wrapping up the designs of two posters for the annual Institute on Aging’s Colloquium, basically a public outreach event designed to share with the public research relevant to older adults. I’ve got my own research to present as well as research with another professor, and I’m using InDesign to make both posters. If InDesign wasn’t so darn expensive, I’d probably buy it as it is one very fine product with an extremely intuitive interface. Rather than buy it, though, I’m depending on Adobe’s generous 30 day trial (full featured!). My own poster is designed to look like a Facebook profile “wall” with messages from various people (actually the individual predictive factors from my research).

As much as I would have liked the few days before school starts to be relaxing, I have been pleasantly busy meeting all kinds of new people. Last year, my specific area (comm. science) in my department (comm. arts) was pretty small; we had three professors and nine graduate students. This year, we’ve really ballooned – five professors and eleven graduate students! And the best part is that everyone gets along, making us a formidable bunch. I’m looking forward to planning many social events as the semester gets started.

Speaking of fun social events, UW-Volleyball season kicks off at home on Friday! Lauren and I will be there wearing red and ready to cheer. This year’s team looks pretty talented, and we’re looking forward to a winning season (unlike last year’s disappointing finish). Lauren will no longer be a student, as she finished her master’s degree in the spring, but luckily she’s starting a new job next week so the $5 charge (as opposed to $2 for students) won’t be too much of a burden.

For everyone starting class, have fun! For everyone else, enjoy a totally unusual Thursday.

First, let’s separate out the two key factors at play in the higher education classrooms at Northern Arizona University. The first factor is learning; obviously NAU wants students to learn when they come to class. The second factor is attendance, which NAU has identified as a priority. There is obviously some covariance among these two factors. You can imagine a two by two matrix related to the material and the class: learned/not-learned crossed with attended/didn’t-attend. NAU wants to eliminate the didn’t-attend row in an effort to decrease the number of students in the not-learned column.

It’s a worthy goal, but it falls short of what the goal of the university should be: getting students to learn the material evidenced by performance on evaluation tools. In simpler language, students who learn should pass the test; students who don’t learn should fail. Nowhere in that construction do we find rewards for a student who did not learn the material. But NAU has just created some by awarding points for “just showing up.” NAU has taken the covariance observed and attributed causality to it.

The true cause of passing a test, of course, is learning the material (removing any variance caused by cheating or random variation like guessing successfully); passing is not caused by showing up to class. For instructors who don’t recognize this, the punishment for low attendance should be placed on their shoulders not on the students’. If the instructor, for example, uses tests produced by the textbook company, giving students who read carefully and learn visually no reason to attend class, then that instructor has earned his low attendance rates. If an instructor is a poor lecturer (and anyone who has ever been to college has had this experience), then that instructor is causing his low attendance. If students learn the material, then it does not matter how they learn it because the learning is the only outcome that matters.

The counterargument to this position is presented well by NAU. In the NPR story, they point out that each institute of learning has a vested interest in retaining students. Students who do not fail classes are students who are allowed to keep taking classes. Yet I know of no evidence that suggests mandatory attendance reduces dropout rates. Research (e.g., Marburger’s 2006 “Does Mandatory Attendance Improve Student Performance?”) does indeed support the impact of mandatory attendance on test performance, but this should come as no surprise to anyone! Of course being taught the material results in learning the material. But we don’t yet know how this might fit into a broader picture of overall student satisfaction with and desire to continue college education. It is most definitely possible for a student to attend every lecture and still fail the course. NAU’s argument may be valid, but more research is needed in this area.

In the end, my gravest concern with rewarding attendance is that it systematically disfavors students who cannot attend class as frequently as other students yet make up for their lack of attendance with intense studying and office hour visits. Rewarding a student who shows up and reads the newspaper during lecture makes no sense if we also punish a student who could not come to class because of a sick child. In the end, the college classroom is not about rewards or punishments; it is about testing the amount of learning completed by the student. Points given for just showing up undermine this goal. Students earn their grades by learning the material not by filling the seats.

Here’s the problems we’re seeing in the housing market. First, those markets where prices rose the fastest are also places where prices fell stupendously. Places like Florida, Las Vegas, California, and Arizona saw incredible rises in home prices. And builders kept producing more homes and high-rises, especially in the western states where federal and state money made habitation possible in places that were dry desert previously. The housing market has most decidedly bust in these places. So lesson 1: big gains mean big busts; avoid markets driven by irrational exuberance.

Second, the housing market has always functioned best in the long term. An oft-quoted statistic is that the average length of home ownership is 7 years. In this particular economic time, when faced with the greatest recession since the Great Depression, it’s no wonder people who bought homes just a few years ago aren’t able to make a profit. And with new lending tools, including monstrosities like “no money down” mortgages, there is no possible way these buyers have made progress in paying down their principle. They have a few years of interest-only payments to make before the amount they owe goes down. But for someone who bought their home 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago, they will still come out well ahead in almost all cases. My grandparents bought their house in a tony neighborhood here in Madison 50 years ago. When they sell, they will make 20 times what they first paid. Lesson 2: in tough economic times, don’t expect to make a profit from short-term home ownership.

Third, home prices have taken bigger hits in areas harder hit by recession. It should come as little surprise that the housing market is affected by the forces of supply and demand. In an area like Detroit where there are few good paying jobs to be had, there isn’t much demand for new houses. This lack of demand, combined with a glut of homes for sale, naturally drives prices lower. This is a hard thing to swallow for people who have been living in an industrial area; things have changed rapidly these last few decades. But there have always been signs that economic tough times are coming. With each round of layoffs and each factory moved overseas, it wasn’t hard to see trouble on the horizon. Lesson 3: when bad signs arise, get out while you still can.

Fourth, in an ideal world, your mortgage payment should make up one third or less of your income (same goes for your rent). This should give enough monetary wiggle room to put money in other places. Any smart investor knows not to put all her money in one place and the same rule holds true for anyone seeking a return on their home. For those hoping to sell their home for a handsome profit, they should have enough economic flexibility to wait a few years to sell and enough investments that their home wasn’t the only thing they were banking on. Lesson 4: owning a home is no excuse for a lack of savings.

Here’s what I want to know: during the boom times, especially 2004-2006, there was a lot of talk about the American way of life not being sustainable. Remember when the US savings rate dropped into negative territory? For each dollar earned, Americans were spending even more. Clearly, that wasn’t working. Now there’s nothing but talk about why the economy isn’t back up to steam. The fact is that the economic boom times under President Bush came from reckless consumer spending. The last thing we need now is to begin those habits again. The American way of life is NOT sustainable and a major home price correction is just the first step in getting us back to living in line with our means.

Pot growers, in an attempt to evade law enforcement, have taken to cultivating their crop in the middle of large, forested areas. And it just so happens that these areas are frequently national forests or national parks. Take, for example, this recent bust in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest right here in Wisconsin. Says the Associated Press, the growers “transform[ed] part of a national forest in northeastern Wisconsin into their own private pot plantations [and] left behind irrigation pits, clear-cutting of trees and bags of fertilizer.” The ring operating this site has had 12 total sites raided in the area. And this style of operation is linked to Mexican drug cartels, though this specific site hasn’t yet been linked. These marijuana growers, no matter how much their clients believe in sustainable growing practices, are interested in making a profit, not in helping the earth.

This is not to say that all marijuana sold in the United States is grown in clear-cut, chemically ruined parts of national forests. Certainly, for those people advocating pro-marijuana stances, there are sources of pot produced in small batches in hidden green houses and the like. Or perhaps the marijuana comes from California, where it can be legally grown with the right set of licenses. Not all pot is grown at the cost of the environment and our national treasures.

But to advocate a pro-marijuana position requires recognition of the responsibilities associated with illegal drug consumption. A curious young person, interested in trying marijuana, may be pushed further toward the drug by pro-pot propaganda, which downplays its health consequences (as less than tobacco) while talking up a natural experience. This young person has few options when it comes time to purchase, resulting in marijuana more likely to be grown to make a profit, perhaps in a national forest and perhaps by a drug cartel. Unless the advocacy of marijuana use comes with a strong condemnation of such cartels and growing practices, such advocacy is deeply irresponsible.

This screen measures 1.7 inches diagonally, making it pretty small. The screen on my third-generation iPod nano (the fat one) is around 2 inches diagonally. Speculation has suggested that this screen will either go into the new iPod nano or into a new or completely re-imagined product like the iPod shuffle. It would certainly be incredible to see Steve Jobs reverse his position on a screen on the shuffle. You may recall that when the shuffle first came out, Apple was criticized for not adding a screen to it. Two redesigns later, the shuffle has gotten progressively smaller, losing all buttons on the device in Apple’s latest iteration. To add a touchscreen would be a large change.

If the screen is not destined for the shuffle, where else could it be used? Surely it wouldn’t end up as part of a redesigned nano! After all, Apple only recently added video capability to the nano, including a video camera announced just a year ago. To move from a 2.2 to a 1.7 inch screen would seem to be a big degradation in consumer perceptions of product quality. Indeed, the nano seems like the product least likely to receive an update this year, other than an upgraded camera and some new colors.

Other than into the nano or the shuffle, I don’t know where else this little screen could end up. Could Apple be inventing some brand new product (maybe a touch-based Apple remote control)? Or intending it as an addition to an existing product (perhaps a small touch screen for a redesigned AppleTV)? If Apple shows off the new screen at their event, then we don’t have long to wait. But if they don’t, then I look forward to increased speculation about just what Apple might be planning.

With such a great subject for a story, how could the Daily Show get it wrong? For half the story, they don’t. Ms. Cardoza-Moore is the perfect subject for the story; she is completely delusional and reports that her knowledge of Islam comes from Google. But, unsurprisingly, the Daily Show screws up big for the rest of the story. Mr. Mandvi eggs on Ms. Cardoza-Moore by playing the role of a secret terrorist, including pretending to call someone when Ms. Cardoza-Moore says there are terrorist camps in the United States (“she knows about the camps, you idiot!,” he whisper-shouts into his phone); but he does not relinquish this character when interviewing the spokesperson for the Muslim community center located in a nearby community. And instead of trying to bait that woman into castigating him for pretending to be a terrorist, he pretends to mishear the woman when she says that she’s a mom. “So you’re the imam here?,” he asks; his misunderstanding is then intercut with brief clips of the Three Stooges. From laughter to stone-faced silence and back to laughter was my reaction to the story.

Not that the Daily Show has been so great recently. I’ve tried to document this occasionally, comparing the Daily Show to the Colbert Report, criticizing Jon Stewart’s conservative streak, and the Daily Show’s frequent racism. There’s nothing so terrible about the most recent story, other than the fact that it shows very clearly that the Daily Show lacks good editors and fails to understand what it is that makes their show funny.

To understand how this report should have gone, we first have to look at what type of news reporting the bit is satirizing. It’s the classic reporter against corporation or government, “man of the people” kind of reporting. I’m not sure who first popularized this type of story, but I recall watching John Stossel do it repeatedly on news magazine show 20/20. In this type of story, the reporter takes on an everyman approach to uncovering the injustices of the world. The reporter is cast as the hero and a large bureaucratic body usually serves as the antagonist (though the story could also be done focused on an individual trying to make a difference with the reporter as an advocate; or as a group of people or even an individual as the antagonist). The story usually culminates in an interview with the antagonist in which the antagonist says very incriminating things; ideally, there would be a followup interview of the reporter by the show’s hosts in which the reporter reveals that justice has been served. This is the basic formula that the Daily Show’s segment was meant to parody.

You can see the potential for humor in this type of story. For example, the reporter could pretend to be fighting for support of someone who has a very backwards position. In this way, the humor comes from mocking the protagonist. But the key to this humor is casting the right reporter for the story. We wouldn’t want to see Christine Amanpour doing a report on inaccurate grocery store scales; she would seem out of place. Instead, the best reporter is one that the audience can identify with. In this way, the Daily Show got the story spectacularly wrong. The best way to use Mr. Mandvi is to have him use his own religious upbringing to mock the antagonist; some parts of the story do this very well. But Mr. Mandvi is not convincing as someone interviewing the spokesperson for the local Muslim community center. To allow the spokesperson to contradict claims of widespread terrorism within the Muslim community, she needs a foil who is willing to repeat the claims of the antagonist verbatim and with a straight-face. Mr. Mandvi cannot reasonably sympathize with the antagonist nor can he antagonize the spokesperson and thus, the story fails for half its content.

It’s not shocking to see the Daily Show get it wrong AGAIN. But it is still disappointing. The Daily Show is the show that, supposedly, young people watch and listen to. I’m not trying to make the Tucker Carlson argument that Mr. Stewart should take his responsibilities more seriously. There are obvious challenges to putting on a comedy show that is also supposed to change the world. But for Mr. Stewart to fail so spectacularly at both the comedy and the change part is unforgivable. I don’t care how popular the Daily Show is, it still has a responsibility to get at least the comedy part right in the stories it puts out.

1. Update profile information (change biographical information, favorite music, movies, etc.)
2. Change profile picture
3. Post a message that all social contacts can see (a “status update,” a “tweet,” etc.)
4. Post a public message to another user (write on someone’s “wall,” “tweet” with an @username, etc.)
5. Send a private message
6. Engage in real-time chat
7. Post pictures
8. Create a social event and invite contacts (create a Facebook “event”)
9. Join a group
10. Indicate support for a person, cause, company, or organization (“like” a page, “follow” a celebrity, etc.)
11. Make new social connections with people you know (“friend” someone or accept a “friend request,” “follow” someone, gain a new “follower,” etc.)
12. Make new social connections with strangers
13. Spend time looking at your profile
14. Spend time looking at someone else’s profile
15. Post a message related to the message of another user (post a comment on someone’s “status update,” “tweet” in reply to another user, etc.)
16. Post a message that relates to your current location (“check in” at a restaurant, use Facebook places, “tweet” with your location, etc.)

The options for frequency are 1-Never, 2-Less than half of the time, 3-About half the time, 4-More than half the time, 5-Almost every time (that the user logs onto the website). There is also the option to indicate that the participant’s favorite social networking website doesn’t offer the feature.

So, what am I missing? What other things might people do on a social networking website? Comment or email your suggestions!

The main reason this is a battle about data and not about features has to do with the feature’s potential for profit generation. It’s easy to understand how a company could monetize location based services. In fact, users of these services are basically holding a sign that says, “market to me!” It allows businesses to get data on what types of customers are visiting their businesses, especially if they are willing to pay for that data. It allows consumers to receive specific special offers, even directly from the business itself. For example, you can imagine a cafe offering $.50 a cup of coffee if the user “checks in” before purchase. And the real-time nature of the feature means businesses can get a minute-by-minute account of their customer makeup.

But to do all that, the feature must be widely used and thus an instant advantage of Facebook over other such services. As Facebook becomes the ubiquitous social networking site (for now, anyway), this feature is just another way for Facebook to gather data about you. Facebook can roll out ads based on where users are in addition to what they like, all because users give that information to Facebook.

This is just one step further into Facebook’s eventual plans to offer advertising on third-party websites, a feature I have argued is just around the corner, especially if Facebook ever plans on going public. And like most of Facebook’s changes, it has nothing to do with offering a better user experience and everything to do with getting rich. Privacy groups are already angry about the new feature, and who can blame them. It’s another auto-opt-in change, that allows users to tag other friends’ location without their permission unless they specifically turn off that feature. I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about these changes anymore.