Apple CEO Steve Jobs today introduced the Apple iPad – a new multimedia pad that promises to carve out a new category for mobile computing.

“This is best gadget ever made,” says early user Jason Calacanis,  “and NOT overhyped.” *

It’s conceptually a large iPod touch – but it’s really a new operating system, optimized for both the larger hardware and the types of tasks your likely to want to do on the iPad.

Apple demonstrated typical Internet tasks, including Web surfing, email and more, and also introduced versions of its iWork apps for the iPad.

Versions will be available with and without 3G wireless networking, and a $30/month unlimited 3G plan will be available from AT&T. It will be unlocked, though, so it can be used with other wireless vendors.

Apple also introduced a new section for the iTunes store, iBookStore, which will sell iPad-formatted ebooks.

Two recent Apple introductions – iTunes LP & Apple TV – are interesting technologies but have failed to wow customers.

The main reason for this has been a lack of content. Only a tiny number of albums are available as iTunes LP releases. And Apple TV is crippled by the paucity of content on it.

The Apple iPad is likely to be an ideal ereader & multimedia player. But it won’t take off until there are multimedia ebooks, movies and music media packages for it.

Because of this, it’s likely that Steve Jobs will introduce a new publishing application today – an application that’s designed to create content for the Apple Tablet, but also for Apple TV, iPods and Macs.

“The focus is going to be on content creation and participation,” according to a technologist with ties to Apple quoted by Wired. “If the tablet is going to be an answer to things like the Kindle, which are purely about consumption, what you’re going to see is Apple is going to be full-blown about creation.”

Could Steve Jobs’ “one more thing” today be a new publishing application – the GarageBand of multimedia?

Image: Fotoboer.nl

The Pigeon: Impossible video podcast takes a look at what goes into making a 3D animated cartoon short.

The cartoon, above, has received over 3 million views on YouTube alone. It’s a comic romp on the idea of a secret agent getting sidelined by a pigeon.

The “making of” video podcast for Pigeon: Impossible is embedded below.

Chris from Jupiter Broadcasting offers his take on the best podcasting microphones, including the Rode Mic, the Blue Snowball, the MXL 990 & the Heil PR-40 along the way.

Unfortunately, there’s really no “best podcasting microphone”. The best podcasting mic will depend on your budget, your requirements and your preferences.

If you can, try out the mics of podcasters that you know and see which one you like the best with your voice. Keep in mind, too, that the environment that you record in can have a huge influence on the results you get.

McGraw-Hill’s CEO Terry McGraw confirmed (or spilled the beans) some details on Apple’s upcoming Apple iPad computer.

In an interview with CNBC, McGraw says that the Apple Tablet is very exciting, will run iPhone OS and that it will be great for textbooks:

“Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while. And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now — we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

Skip ahead to about 2:45 to get to his discussion of the Apple Tablet.

If the Apple Tablet is a “terrific” textbook reader – let’s hope that it’s also a terrific platform for independent developers to publish content to. We should know tomorrow.

via MacRumors

From the Association for Downloadable Media:

“Please join the ADM as we present the results of our recently concluded Podcast Consumer Attitudes study. Together with Edison Research we surveyed nearly 5,000 regular consumers of audio and/or video podcasts and we will be sharing those results in a public webinar.

This free webinar is scheduled for Thursday, January 28th at 3:00pm EST, 2:00pm CST, and Noon PST. Interested participants can register here.

This groundbreaking look at the attitudes and behaviors of these active podcast consumers, presented by Edison’s Tom Webster, will include:

• A comparison of the effectiveness of advertising approaches across various new and traditional media channels;
• An examination of post-exposure purchase and trial behaviors for consumers exposed to podcast advertising;
• A quantification of the “halo” effect of podcast advertising for prospective brands and sponsors;
• A look at the rapid adoption of mobile audio and video consumption; and
• The effectiveness of pre-recorded advertisements, sponsorships and host-read messaging in podcasts.”

PodcastingNews.com has covered Edison Research’s annual report on podcast consumers since its first study in 2006. Previous articles on the subject can be found at this link.

Podcasting pioneer Dave Winer posted some interesting thoughts last week on reinventing journalism:

I have the same feeling about journalism today that I had about computer science in the 1970s. Sure, we had textbooks and teachers, and projects and grades, but there was also an opportunity to invent it as we were going along. Computer science felt like the greatest place to be because there were no older people entrenched with gates erected to keep out bright ambitious young people. That’s one reason I gravitated there.

I felt equally excited about media, as a grad student, but I didn’t go in that direction because intuitively I felt that I’d spend my career climbing a ladder, and as I approached the top, the ladder would be disintegrating. A better way to matter in media, I felt, was through computer science. That intuition proved correct.

Today, 2010, is Year Zero for journalism the way 1970 was the dawn of modern computer science.

Winer’s comments tie in perfectly with the expected announcement Wed of the Apple iPad.

This video of the rumored Apple iPad has turned up on YouTube, and has a lot of people wondering if it’s the first video of Apple’s new tablet computer.

Screams fake to me, though.

Let me know what you think! Real or iFake?

EmailWire NewsWire, a press release distribution service, is now offering podcasting as part of their services:

When a client purchases a press release distribution package for $199 or more, the summary, contact information and website address of the company’s press release is read by GroupWeb Radio’s host and podcasted to potential 38 million of listeners on iTunes, Zune network, mobile phones and podcast directories.

The transcript of each edition of a news summary is published and distributed to media outlets.

Here’s a summary of their podcasting plans:

• CEO Interview $595
  • 5 minutes interview with GroupWeb Radio host.
  • Interview is placed in your newsroom.
  • One press release is distributed nation wide with podcast link embeded.
  • We provide you with an MP3 file of your interview to place on your website
• CEO Interview with Unlimited Press Release Distribution Plan: $1549
  • 5 minutes interview with Radio host.
  • Send unlimited press releases nationwide for one year.
• Press Release summary on podcast $199
  • Summary of your press release is included in our weekly podcast.
  • Your press release is distributed to national U.S. media outlets.
  • Podcast will be embeded in GroupWeb Radio news summaries published nationwide.

While EmailWire NewsWire claims a potential audience of 38 million for these press release podcasts, it’s difficult to imagine anyone subscribing to a stream of random audio press releases.

Some companies my find a service like this useful to ensure that their press releases get indexed as media, in addition to text. Most companies, though, are better off focusing on trying to create content that people will seek out.

At the recent NAMM Show, an annual music and media event held in Anaheim, California, January 14-17, 2010, we were able to get a sneak preview of the Ion Twin Video, a video camera designed with video bloggers and video podcasters in mind.

The Ion Twin Video is the world’s first video recorder with front and back lenses. This means it can film both you and what you are doing, from your perspective, at the same time.

Here’s what Ion has to say about the Twin Video:

This easy-to-use camera makes vlogging, or video blogging, easy thanks to a few live editing features. Users will enjoy TWIN VIDEO’s front and rear lenses that they can control independently. While recording, TWIN VIDEO enables users to select and swap which picture is being recorded, split the screen to view both video feeds and even inlay picture in picture to create exactly the desired effect.

While TWIN VIDEO has powerful, advanced features and capabilities, users will find that it fits easily into their everyday lives thanks to its compact, handheld size. This web-friendly video device is designed to meet the needs of today’s highly social web. TWIN VIDEO creates videos that are perfect for sharing on Web sites such as YouTube.

Here’s Ion’s demo video, which offers examples of what the Ion Twin Video can do:

The concept behind the Ion Twin Audio is great. The quality of the video we’ve seen, though, isn’t HD and isn’t especially great for HD. The contact we talked to said the Twin Audio is still in development, though, and final specs are to be determined.

The Ion Twin Video will be available in Q2 2010. Pricing is TBA.