Well, part of me is relieved that I won’t have to brave the fanboy line anytime soon. That said, the consumer in me might be on board one or two iterations down the line. Apple did a pretty good job against my end-user wish list, but I’m not seeing anything earth-shattering from a media perspective. 

Book publishers seem to have a fair amount to be happy about – namely better revenue than they currently enjoy from Amazon, at least. 

And The New York Times seems to be totally on board (despite the whole no-flash-video thing!). From what I can tell, they’ve struck a good balance between digital and physical consumption of the newspaper, but I don’t see the iPad saving newspapers anytime soon – failing due to both audience mass and a lack of imagination with regard to ad units. I think this stems from the fact that everyone has concentrated only on the audience side of the revenue equation. While I agree that the audience experience comes first, it seems to me that for a publication, which for the first time has seen more revenue come from sales than advertising (and, trust me, that’s not a result of circulation growth or subscription price!), there would be much more emphasis on demonstrating the value that the iPad edition has for advertisers. I was surprised that there didn’t seem to be a magazine demo yesterday at all.

Today, I just don’t view it as a legitimate fourth screen – insofar as it only provides another route into two existing media (Internet, and to a much lesser degree, TV). It might put another nail into the WAP coffin, but it doesn’t displace SMS and is not a legitimate contender for what print dollars still remain out there. At this point, all it promises to do is reproduce print ads in all of their 2-D glory in about a third of the space – there’s no way I’m going to pay extra for that or the limited incremental circulation this will represent over the next two years. Where’s the interactivity? Where are the parameters for rich executions? Where’s my measurement data?

There’s potential (beyond super-absorbency – sorry, had to do it) in the iPad to be sure, but it’s not there yet, and I can only hope that it will be a catalyst for things to come.

I’ve been reading so much about the (presumably) soon-to-be-announced (tomorrow!) Apple tablet, that I (decidedly NOT a fanboy) am actually kind of excited. I do love this pre-release hype. It makes the Apple tablet out to be some sort of gadget geek dream receptacle. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement, but the realistic, logical side of my brain keeps reminding me that the long list of as-yet-unfounded “leaked details” reads more like the wish list of today’s über nerd.

I’ve heard that it is going to change TV viewership. I’ve heard that it will change newspaper readership. I’ve heard that it will be $1,000.00. I’ve heard that it will be substantially less than $1,000. It’s going to crush Kindle! Jobs has been “in discussion with Conde Nast”! It’s going to be an amazing gaming platform! It’s going to have facial recognition capabilities! It will be thin! It will Skype! It will have a massive touch screen keyboard!

Yeah, right. So, as long as we’re adding our wants to this thing, here’s my list:

1. I really do want to read magazines on it. I want to subscribe to them through iTunes. I want some of the pictures to actually be video. I want to flip through pages just like the real thing (like in that Sports Illustrated demo released a number of weeks ago). I want someone to get me the ad specs ASAP. I want built-in measurement of ad effectiveness.
2. I want the battery to last longer than 8 hours.
3. I want AR software (and a webcam) built in.
4. I want expandable memory (SD card slot, please. Just like on my non-iPhone, thank you very much).
5. I want it to be under $500.

If it can do everything above PLUS my list, then I’ll be in line at the Apple store on Thursday morning to get my fourth screen. (I’m a strong believer in redundancy, and actually pretty opposed to total convergence. I’m sorry, but until someone bests Windows phone on Office integration, I’ll happily run around with at least two screens!)

Seriously, though, if this can somehow help the print publishing industry, tell HR that I’m taking a personal day.

Everyone is predicting that the media recovery will lag behind the rest of the economy. Experts say we may not be out of the woods until the second half of 2010. Given that everyone misjudged how badly digital media would be hit this year, I’d venture to say that even late 2010 is optimistic, though I think there will be pockets of success and bargains to be had for those prepared to invest. 

This may be social media’s make-or-break year. I expect to see much more proof around the value of micro-targeting for non-long-tail advertisers, as well as for the value of friends and fans. It’s a balancing act to not overrun a wonderful forum with corporate messages and shills. If we, as advertisers, are clumsy in this space, we could end up really hurting it both for ourselves and our fellow social media users.

Mobile will be buoyed by the increasing sophistication and affordability of both the carrier networks and handsets, but is likely to remain a largely niche tactical tool. Because the phone is a two-way device, dialogue has to be part of the strategy in any mobile implementation. This, of course, is the basis of social media, so the good news is that those who master its application relative to specific goals within a social strategy should shine.

I’m still holding out hope for print, and I think we’re going to see good use of integration across digital and traditional platforms—a combination of bargain pricing and increased accountability will keep these options in play.

In my mind, everything hinges on what I call “turnkey accountability”—clear, unambiguous “results” that clients can take to the bank. We still bridge digital results very loosely to specific business objectives, and there’s still too much reliance on proxy-ing basic metrics for tangible goals. It gets even cloudier as social and viral strategies gain prominence, but it will be imperative to try and solve this over the next year.

What we’re likely to see more of this year is increasingly intertwined media and PR strategies, as well as a greater emphasis on communication strategies rather than media plans. This is a little alarming from a media professional’s standpoint, as it could imply that we do less buying and placing and more strategizing and collaborating as part of the media function. This is good in the long run because the actual investment is likely to shift away from space or time to the strategy itself. It’s bad because it acknowledges that media placements have become highly commoditized and because strategic planning is harder for agencies to package up and assign value to.

The near-term reality is that we’re likely to find ourselves trying to convince clients they need to spend nearly as much on the strategy and measurement of media as on the media itself. The problem is that while CPMs will continue to fall, the cost of determining effectiveness will remain high. The question then becomes whether the combined costs still compare favorably to the traditional perception of media efficiency.

Honestly, I don’t think 2010 is going to be all that pleasant, but I think we’re going to emerge with a higher degree of understanding and effectiveness than we’ve ever had before. If we don’t, I’m not sure we deserve to emerge at all.