Now this is funny - but sad too - tomorrow Pussee goes to her new home

Things are moving so fast! In a month the iPad will be here. The shift from traditional computers to Mobile will take off.

But Pub Media are still coming to terms with the web itself. There are still holdouts for Digital Radio. Many hope that Digital Stations for TV are the future. After all huge sums have been spent on them. Many still deny the web. We can see this in the resources applied to it – in most stations less than 20%.

But it is clear now. The Web is it. The web is where we will consume media.

The decisive shift will be 2011 after the iPad has taken hold.

And the part of the web that will be THE place will be Mobile and I include iPad in Mobile.

So is all lost? No!

The Public Radio Player is surely the place to use as a beach head? It has been very popular with 2.5 million downloads in the Apple Apps store (includes upgrades). It has great functionality. It ties nicely back to the stations.

Let’s get a project to build of this and to include TV!

The iPad is ideal for watching video – please please please – make it easy for me to watch the great content of the public system and to integrate it into radio too.

Here is my vision:

• Radio and TV content is integrated – I can search for say Jane Austen and find video and audio and text – I can find other Jane Austen fans in my city – we can get together – we can create a community around out topic
• I can do this for news and opinion – I can follow a topic and draw on all sources – AND from my local community
• I can do this for music, documentary, whatever

The key is to offer the place where the full resources of all the system comes together in one device and in one place and where the community is added too.

The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio (NPR) will be launching custom-built iPad-only websites next month when the new Apple slate computer known as the iPad is made available for sale. Both sites will automatically detect when web surfers arrive via an iPad device and will then show those visitors a special version of the site, customized exclusively for the iPad. How exactly will these sites compare to the web pages regular site visitors see? There's just one difference: they won't feature any Adobe Flash technology.

NPR's New iPad Site: Entirely Flash Free

According to reports from MediaMemo, NPR is removing all traces of Adobe Flash, which powers its website's media and graphics, from its iPad-only version. Although many news organizations use Flash to display multimedia presentations and audio and video content, NPR in particular was going to be heavily affected by Apple's refusal to support Flash on the new iPad devices. That's because a key feature on NPR's website is its Flash-based audio player, something that's featured on nearly every webpage site-wide.

Kinsey Wilson, senior vice president and general manager of NPR Digital Media, recently told Poynter that their developers decided to work around the problem by implementing an HTML5-based player instead. Wilson also noted that the company has a "launch sponsor" for the iPad-only site, since it won't be able to support web ads, which are often coded in Flash.

WSJ: A Flash-Free Front Page

The Wall Street Journal, a News Corp. property, is also building an iPad-only version of their site - well, actually just an iPad-only front page. Unlike NPR's iPad site, which will be 100% Flash-free, WSJ visitors who follow links deeper into the website will soon discover that not all its page have been converted. Here, they'll run into the soon-to-be-infamous "blue box," the lego-like symbol that appears where a Flash content should have been.

There aren't any demos or mockups of these new websites available, so it's unknown at this time if they're being changed in other ways to accommodate iPad visitors. That is to say, it's unknown if they will be exact replicas of the non-iPad versions but just with the Flash content removed, or if they will perhaps sport an entirely new design.

Start of a New Trend?

With these two leading media companies making this sort of change, it's reasonable to imagine that others will soon follow. And while iPad owners will certainly appreciate the adjustments - that blue lego is such an eyesore, after all - the need for so many custom versions of the same site may become a burden on businesses who need to reach a wide audience.

Maybe smart - Robin - "late majority" in many ways is hardly able to wait for her iPad - it will fit exactly how she uses the web.

As an "Innovator" myself I can see how others still yearn for a more open web, a bit like those who love to tinker with old cars or motor bikes - but for the mass market - all they want is to be able to turn the key and go.

Important not to underestimate them. Look at iTunes - by making downloading easy and legal - my point!