musings of a social architect

Music & Kids

When my son Gabriel was a baby, I loved browsing through my extensive CD collection and playing different kinds of music for him. When iTunes came out, everything got easier -- we would put PartyShuffle on and dance around the kitchen while I prepared dinner. It was great to re-discover songs that I'd forgotton about - and even better to see my son light up with excitement and shake his little body to Kanda Bonga Man, Los Van Van and George Clinton.

These days, Gabriel's taste runs towards pop songs made famous in kids' movies like Shrek. But this morning, I read this article in the NYTimes and was reminded of those first heady years of my son's musical education. I love the author's attitude towards sharing music with his kid. Great read for any parent of young children in need of musical inspiration.

Link: Preschool of Rock

Surprise! Young people of both genders are avid mobile phone gamers

Glu Mobile recently released survey results showing that mobile gaming is dominated by young (16-25) people of both genders. This is not terribly surprising to those of us working in the industry - but it's a wakeup call to game makers who customarily market their products to men who are 18-35. The key takeaway is: skew younger, and skew female.

The mobile games supplier, Glu Mobile has conducted a survey into consumers. preferences for downloading and using mobile entertainment content. The survey found that the youth market is the fastest growing sector of the mobile entertainment industry, with 29% of 16-24 year olds using their phone as a gaming device.... The image of the classic gamer as 18 to 35 and predominantly male is a myth for mobile - in truth, mobile gamers are much younger and just as many women as men play on their phone.

The Personal Internet - research study

I stumbled across this Report from the Shosteck group today which strongly supports my sense that access to networked services is fast becoming device-independant. Almost all of our current projects involve cross-media design. It's good to see actual research on this trend.

According to a new Shosteck Group, the traditional concepts of Mobile Internet and mobile broadband are based upon incorrect assumptions. They are based on technology interpretations. They imply limited scope and they do not encompass the true integration of personal services over interconnected networks. Personalization and connectivity are the ultimate goals of end users, regardless of technology.

In its newest study, The Shosteck Group reveals that In an increasingly connected world, we are rapidly moving to a situation where services and content are the same irrespective of access mechanism. It is the standardized nature and the reach of the Internet that has made the Internet so successful. It is the lack of standardization and reach that has inhibited the Mobile Internet.

Welcome to 2006

Happy New Year to you all! May the coming year be filled with good health, good fortune, and good friends. I'm back from my holiday vacation, and ready to rock-n-roll. 2006 is shaping up to be an exciting year -- more on that soon.

During the winter holidays, we usually head down to Los Angeles to visit with family and friends. This year, we decided to drive -- which worked out great, thanks to our portable media players. Gabe (almost 7) spent most of the drive playing DVDs on Scott's PowerBook (that's him in the photo, watching Shrek 3D with the crazy glasses). Scott and I passed the time by listening to an audiobook version of "The Narnia Chronicles" on our sleek new iPod Nano. Having these devices along made a huge difference in our enjoyment of the trip. Sometimes, technology JUST WORKS - and oh what happy times those are!

As always, games were the highlight of our holiday festivities. We played endless rounds of Scrabble with our families, and delighted our nephews by gifting them with copies of We Love Katamari. We also recieved two games that we're especially enjoying: the tabletop game Yahtzee, and a dual-controller version of Guitar Hero. Happily, I can play both games with my son - who of course proceeded to whup my tuchas. That boy is a born gamer. I dunno where he gets it :-)