One analyst just raised his 2010 sales number for the iPad to 8-10 million. Which is a ridiculous amount when you consider the category doesn’t exist yet. Which is silly for me to mention it’s not like the analysts spotted the housing crash, the dot com crash or any of the other eighty three recorded fiscal bubbles…but still, they are analysts and presumably they have more wisdom in their domain than I, so I listen.

But what I am guessing and feeling is that the iPad is going to revolutionize in a different way. The notion of personal browsing. That ecommerce+ will be at your fingertips  and it will be incredibly powerful. This is not a browser who’s history you have to wipe to keep corporate from reading it, but instead your own that you carry with you…history of all messages, commerce browsing, blogging, writing, photography. The iPad will be the window into your own lives and others.

Ecommerce only represents 6% of total commerce in the US…but it’s the fast growing segment  and will be for years to come. It is expected to grow 2% a year for the foreseeable future and that is without mobile factored in. The iPad will do an interesting thing in that it will help migrate those who have been resistant to ecommerce by way of a more friendly environment where commerce will, perhaps feel less threatening. So it will increasingly steal from the physical side of commerce. For the cognoscenti ecommerce will grow faster due to a deeper wallet share. Suddenly commerce that never would have happened over the web will be possible, be it the hot dog vendor or bike parts for a kick ass bike/community/commerce app. Those who comfortably spend on the web now will see their spending accelerate as the software grows to meet capabilities in the new hardware.

And in that way the iPad will work to combine the aspects of commerce that are already appealing with those of geo-tagging, nearest physical product, best price within five miles,  and much more to move a large percentage of wallet share to the web. So ecommerce will grow, again at a much faster rate than it has. And it will grow in new, unexpected places that get the distinct advantages of this format. For instance in-game digital product sales might well grow at an astonishing rate.

And Android will follow along with their impossible to beat “Better Than Free” model and slowly and they will own the lower pricepoints. Yet this is a market that is already proven, the $275 netbook is very desirable. Add in a touch screen and phenomenal OS and it will be a dream browser. The Tablet is here to stay. And so is the app. A web page is nonspecific brochureware for the dying 2000s and  an app is the perfect hyper-focused one purpose tool for which this generation was born to use.

High price-points will be Apple‘s as there is something luxurious in software and hardware designed together. But Android’s breadth of connectivity to massive data sets creates opportunities that I don’t have the brain power to imagine. Apple and Google do something that no other companies do, they create moments when the current and future exist at once. It’s this strange feeling, as if for a moment, we get a moment of living in the future just by way of a new product release. What a cool capability.

Tablets will not have to war for its share of computing. It will instead be the third form of computing and within 36 months the primary mode for ecommerce.We won’t stop using our laptops and desktops and we can’t give up our mobile phones.” The world never converges, it only diverges into more ways that we can stay in touch, buy, say hello, record our thoughts, support our existence.

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Every since AOL spammed the planet with discs, et al. there has been an never-ending strata of web users who just can’t seem to get the simplest aspects of the web. I’m not sure if people have stopped explaining it to them or if these things are real stumpers. I’ll try to clarify. It’s not that I have extra knowledge, I failed algebra four times in college. There are plenty of simple things that I just can’t get the hang of, like shoe-laces and brussel sprouts.

For the web stragglers, here are a few simple things:

1. Facebook‘s message queue is not email. Really. It can forward to email for some. But for many of us Facebook is kind of losing it’s appeal. So I never check the message queue. Yet my siblings write away as if my email address has in some way changed. It’s just another private message system, no better than the one at Ebay.com. Worse actually, Mom doesn’t write me at Ebay and the get teary-eyed when I don’t respond.

2. The navigation bar and Google‘s search input are separate things. Really. You can type a company’s domain (company name) in the navigation bar and press enter, and skip the step of typing it into the Google search field and then clicking their number one paid result. Save the world some money and save you time.

3. Etsy is the new Ebay. Sorry Ebay. You had it all for so long and we all miss you.

4. Never reveal anything on Facebook or a blog that you wouldn’t happily chat about with your manager or someone who you may have to interview with someday. In fact, don’t say anything to anyone that you wouldn’t like to share on TMZ or some such thing.

5. Give Your Child a Pseudonym: He or she deserves an ability to make mistakes and have them photographed or videoed and yet not connected with their real name for the rest of their life. We all did things when we were younger that we wouldn’t want to have on Facebook now…at least I did.

6. Internet is to the mobile internet as silent film is to TV.

7. www is dead. Long live direct navigation. When you are typing www before an address your just trying to be old school.  and away from specialization was just wrong. And I wish I could fix it immediately.

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The problem in Pepperdine’s integrity goes as least as deep as its marketing department and its inability to write a survey. And writing survey’s is kind of thing one at a business school. Kind of the med school equivalent of  stitches.

Yet at the end of their survey they ask this question which is nothing more than scum sucking attempt to either force an honest person to lie or they can choose to tell the truth and sign up for either the Presidential spam package or the Executive.

“* Would you like to learn more about Pepperdine MBA programs

The correct thing to do would be to offer a fourth option, something like, “No thank you, I’m not interested in your marketing materials.” No need to debase those confused few who do not have MBAs and have yet to discover the many study’s that show  that an MBA is as wise an investment as multi-level marketing or making deals to help the daughter of the ex-president of Zimbabwe free up some of her father’s cash which is unfortunately held by hooligans.

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Oh, and just a quick FYI to POWDR Corp…you misspelled powder. Awkward at this point but the way you’re snapping up resorts you might want to fix that before somebody notices. You don’t see people struggling to spell all of our other synonyms for snow: ice, graupel, sleet, knee-cracking glacial death crust, etc. And really Powder is the best variety, no matter what the corn snow advocates would claim. So, y’know, kick down another “E”; we won’t confuse you with the magazine.

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“After I placed my order, I sent their customer service folks a mail telling them how much we loved their site and asking for the shipping to be adjusted to reflect our original wish to combine shipping. I fully expected for them do graciously do so, but was absolutely not expecting the response I received:

‘Hi Andrea,

Thanks for contacting us at Steepandcheap.com.  We love you, too. We would marry you if you weren’t already married. And we weren’t a company, but rather a young shy boy lost in the throes of love, yea, a misty-eyed dreamer looking towards the future, still unscathed and unpolluted by the hardships of mid-adulthood. We would ask your housemaid to deliver white flowers to you, with an anonymous note that read “Heaven nor hell could provide me the joy and pain your approval or lack thereof might impose upon me.” Then, that very night at midnight we’d stand outside your window playing a love sonnet on the violin–a heartfelt ribbon of swaying notes and flittering string plucks. You could get out of bed and come to the balcony to listen. Instead of saying anything, you might drop a single white handkerchief slightly soaked with your tears.

But none of that could ever happen, so instead I just gave you a full refund on your shipping costs. I think it was like 8 bucks. Thanks for the love.’”

Wow…how unusual. Here’s her full post.  http://www.foolsandsages.com/2009/12/03/making-customer-service-fun-what-a-concept/

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“National Geographic Adventure will cease operations, it was announced today, a victim of the down economy and systemic changes in publishing. The final issue is December/January.”

Bummer. That about covers that. No need for me to do any clever editorializing. I’m sad to see it go; it’s been a solid bastion of true adventure journalism amongst the thick weeds of men’s magazine‘s that offer editorial breadth of a weightlifters glutes: Endless teasers which claim they can make any desired body part either grow or shrink, depending on the need.

Steve Casimiro was the west coast editor…a title that seemed odd for an adventure magazine that covered the globe. It didn’t seem the title stopped him from taking a bevy of hot models to Ibiza to test “30,40,50 SPF – We Tell You the Truth.”  Steve has lined up the finest jobs in the magazine world as the most well known editor of Powder magazine and the co-creator  and first editor (with Rob Story) of Bike magazine. Casimiro is a man who knows the soul of adventure. I’m hoping his next beat will be another great step in the life of one of the finest adventure writers and editors in the world. He’s also handy with the Cannon Snappy.

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The wind off Swaner Nature Preserve had a November bite this morning. The dark clouds were vogueing above Square Top like it was a winter day. Just idle posturing, no snow fell, but the threat was real and strange for August in the desert. I stopped at the ski rack in the garage to do a quick gear check. What’s going to the Park City ski swap? What do I need to replace?

Sadly it looks like it’s time for my XXXs to wrap up their career. They were a gift from George at Rossignol. He said, “I’m sending you some new tongue depressors, I think this fat ski thing is going to take off.” Seven years later, hundreds of thousands of vert on their scarred bases, one serious injury, two near avalanches, three jobs, four countries, four A-stars, one Bell JetRanger, three pairs of bindings and countless ski resorts…and some kid is going to take them off my hands for $50. There ought to be a graveyard for skis like these; a solemn resting place for workhorses that have done more than their duty. In these hammered bases I see my ski history, each weld represents a gamble that paid off or a bad decision narrowly won. The TGR sticker on the tail is from the Harvest year when my allegiance to one movie company was strong, but it’s scratched to hell and I think I’m past my sticker days.

But next to the XXXs is a spanking new pair of Atomic ReXs with Naxo alpine touring bindings. I skied them three days in the spring and they grooved like pole dancers through every type of snow. But I have yet to use their super-slick touring functionality.

My wife gave me a pair of Atomic TMeXs with Burnt Mountain TeleBulldog step-in bindings. I whaled and flailed my way down the mountain like a movable yard sale, but I can now say I drop the knee. Riding in my pack they felt as light as a pair of cross country skis and every step in the bootpath was easier. They make the peaks seem a little nearer, a little more accessible.

The final pair in the rack is the absurdly wide Fischer Big Stix 10.6. They wait for the deepest days that are sure to come. I live five minutes from the gondola…fifteen minutes from first tracks. The strange weather of this summer hopefully bodes well for an insane winter. And that’s the heart of the Big Stix—deep in the 60” storms, days when crashed snowboarders bob and flail in the bottomless pow like ocean buoys in a hurricane.

But I’ll need something new to fill the slot left empty by my XXXs. Time to begin my new history.

Thanks George.

–John Bresee

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I’m not sure when it happened but one day after years of making beautiful cars Ferrari suddenly became the province of the gold chain, Members Only jacket, Polo wearing crowd. I think it may have been the day that Magnum P.I. first burned grass and rubber in Hawaii in his 308. Over the years I think it evolved and Robin Masters replaced it with a 328 Quattrovalvole near the end of the shows run. But that seemed to be enough mass market exposure and Ferrari went from being cool to an embarassing thing that one doesn’t want to be seen in…or near. Since then Ferrari has done a beautiful job of fighting out of that hole by making ever more amazing cars and raising the prices to astronomic levels. And it’s helped. But Porsche has helped more.

I always wanted a Porsche. Since I was old enough to read I studied every car magazine, memorizing the specs. I could rattle off the 0-60 numbers of anything with wheels. And I’d read these magazines in the back seats of my Dad’s seemingly endless Volvo wagon’s; always colored the same as some form of human effluent. I can’t imagine how he could go down to a dealership loaded with blue cars and red cars and black cars and come home with some new shade of brown. The 70s were a dark period.

The Porsche Turbo was the coolest thing ever. So much power that many magazines said it wasn’t safe to drive. That sounded perfect for me. But then over the years Porsches became the province of the gold chain set. One day I realized I no longer wanted one. They had become the new Corvette.

And now Ferrari is releasing their new car and I have to say it’s beautiful beyond words. I covet one again.

Ferrari 458 Italia

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