Naomi Reiter

Google Promises no Changes to Picnik—Yet

I'm a big fan of open-source image editing service Picnik. I like it so much, I even shelled out around $25 to become a premium user this year. Not only is it the only well-oiled cloud-based image editor I've found, its freemium model is generous—all essential editing features are included in the basic service. Photoshop may still be king, but for small netbooks like mine, three-year-old Picnik is the way to go.

When I received an ominous email from Picnik (ominous not in design—Picnik is notoriously upbeat—but for the fact that no news is good news) March 4, I naturally became apprehensive. Was the service discontinued? Did they decide that their fair premium price was a little too fair?

It turns out the big news is that Picnik was purchased by Google (the deal was announced March 1). The service will remain the same, for now, and Picnik users will not be required to set up a Gmail account—yet. (But, really, who doesn't have one of those?)

Let's just hope that, as Google slowly but surely takes over every facet of our lives, it remains a kind and generous leader.

Cozy up to 2010 Olympic Games on Twitter

I can't even stand how excited I am for the 2010 Winter Olympics—too bad I live 3,000 miles away from this year's host, Whistler, British Columbia, and I'm really bad at showing up for TV shows on time. But I do have UberTwitter installed on my BlackBerry, which is how I get most of my news these days (I know).

So, clearly I'm going to have to appease myself with a whole lot of Winter Games coverage via short-burst text messaging. Interested?

Here are 5 Twitter profiles to keep you abreast of what's going on up north:

@WhistlerBlckcmb 

@CityofVancouver 

@Shaun_White 

@ApoloOhno 

@verified/olympians 

Go U.S.A.!

Sa Pa Se?

I've always believed that disasters of any magnitude occur to shock us out of our self-absorption and remind us to be a community. Whether or not that level of organization to the universe exists is a mystery, but the fact remains that it is time for us to pull together as a global community to help the people 
of Haiti.

We can't even begin to comprehend what they are going through. Give up your lattes this week, do your own manicure this month, stay in for game night for a few Saturdays, anything to give a little to people who have nothing. 

Long term, Haiti now has a generation of amputees and Healing Hands for Haiti is going to need help to build the island's first physical medicine and
rehabilitation institute. 

We're all in this life together.

Map bule.

Back to Basics: Ed2010 in 2010

We love Ed2010! It helped us get a toe hold in this slippery industry called publishing. Take a look at this chat with founder and president Chandra Turner (also executive editor at Parents magazine—ooh-la-la-la!).

B&N Nook: What Goes Around Comes Around?

I've been reading up on e-readers lately and it appears that one of the most interesting features of Barnes & Noble's Nook is its "LendMe" technology, as described on the company website:

Share favorite eBooks with your friends or family. Most eBooks can be lent for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the eBook you want to share and send it to your friend's nook – or to any PC or Mac OS® or any iPhone™ or iPod touch® with the free Barnes & Noble eReader software downloaded on it. *BlackBerry® & other smartphones will be coming in early 2010.

The tagline for LendMe is "What goes around comes around." So, if I buy a B&N Nook ($259, back-ordered until February 2010), and pay around $10 to read a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife, then "lend" my copy to my friend who bought a Nook ($259), B&N makes $528—instead of $538, had my friend bought her own copy of The Time Traveler's Wife to read on her Nook. (However, B&N probably only has to pay one licensing fee for the copy of The Time Traveler's Wife that I bought, rather than two fees had each of us bought a copy.) 

Further, B&N has tapped into a tried-and-true psychological phenomenon that has worked for everyone from the airport beggars of the 70s to the neo-hippy kids of the 90s: Give a person something—no matter how small—and that person will feel compelled to pay you back in some way. For example, my friend and I are in B&N and see that if we both buy a Nook, we can share books, so one of us gets free books, or we both get them for half the price if we work together. We each buy a Nook and B&N has already made $518 off of the two of us, and will continue to make money off of us, either incrementally as we purchase one book to share, or in upgrades as we become accustomed to using our devices and will need the latest models.

Of course, if I share the content to my friend's PC, Mac, iPhone or iPhone Touch, my friend will have had to register with B&N and download its e-reader software, with the added bonus that any content I share will act as a personalized advertisement for B&N's Nook. Apparently, what goes around does come around—right back to B&N.

Shiny New Ad Models

I posted this poll nearly a year ago when the sky was falling. In the end, the majority of respondents (46 percent) thought that magazine ad revenue would have bounced back by now. Maybe it has--People Stylewatch gained more than 87 ad pages in December (year-over-year), according to min editor-in-chief Steve Cohn. 

Twenty-three percent of my poll respondents thought that print and online magazine ad sales would come around in 2010, but I see exciting new platforms, apps, blogs and other hybrid new media innovations that will at once make our lives ever more interesting, and kill off legacy media ad sales for good. 

When I first posted this poll, my vote was for 2010, but that's right around the corner and I can't wait to see the new ad models that will emerge with each shiny new toy.

Facebook, Please Don't Invite Myspace to the Party

I used to love Myspace back when, as a non-developer, I thought it was cool to populate my profile with music, images and other bells and whistles. I'd "pimp" (read: personalize) my friends' profiles for them and I loved reconnecting with long lost everybody. Then, two things happened:

1) I went to law school and discovered Facebook via the recent college grads in my class, and

2) Myspace developed an embarrassing addiction to porn, with which it chose to spam me daily.

Not all relationships are meant to last forever, and I ended mine with Myspace this year when I simply couldn't take it any more ("OMG my high school English teacher sent me a message! Nope, just more porn.")

Now, I get that musicians still use Myspace for its band pages function. My cousin Zak Freedman's band, Halos, uses it to showcase their amazing music (not biased at all). But, as a social network, Myspace is out. (You're either in, or you're out--right, Heidi Klume?)

That's why I'm a tad alarmed about news that Facebook and Myspace may partner to share information. Listen, Facebook, if you want to access Myspace's music profiles, that's one thing; but if you're planning on exchanging my user info with that porn-loving party crasher, you may be on the outs with me, as well.

Heartfelt FB to Assist Winter Paralympics Team

This is the kind of thing that gets me fired up about
social media.

I posted this on Twitter today: "RT @SBJSBD: U-Ice-A? Colbert Report sponsorship of US Speedskating raised $202k in its first week. http://bit.ly/2JNuue'"," which updated my Facebook (FB) status, where my old friend Clay Snider saw it and sent me this message:

I'm pleased to see that Colbert's sponsorship has benefited the speed skating team so much so fast. This story brings up a point that I am personally passionate about.

As you might know Sarah and I lived in Steamboat Springs, which is a huge youth training town for various winter sports, and is the first town in America to have skiing be part of the curriculum in their school system. This has been promoting many kids to strive for the Olympic level ever since. 

I had the priveledge of working and being neighbors with Olympic coach Greg Rawlings, the man in charge of the U.S. Paralympics cross country ski team. He's one of the best men I've had the pleasure of knowing, as well as an amazing dad to two little mini-speed demon skier prodigies. I've never met someone more compasionate and dedicated to others, and he does all of this on top of working a 50 hour work week doing construction!

As you would imagine, the Paralympics don't get a fraction of the attention that traditional winter Olympic teams do, and even though there's a ton of available funding, the U.S. Ski Team's policies state that no program can be funded more than another. All of that funding disapears and they are forced to operate on the shoestring budget in a field that requires very expensive gear and accessories to compete at a global level.

They do their best to deal with what they have to work with, and manage to put a few athletes on the podium every year. But because this is a Para-problem, it doesn't receive as much attention as it deserves. Quite a few of the athletes are disabled veterans, which is why I am prompted to write this today of all days.

Sounds like these folks need some sponsors for Vancouver!

Future of Networking: Toss Your Business Cards

The Poken device is my latest obsession. After hearing about Poken at a recent media conference, I researched the device for this story and immediately knew I had to have one. And so did my P.I.C. 

The time saved in the networking process will be priceless—once New Yorkers catch on and Poken use becomes as wide-spread on the East Coast as it is in Japan and Europe (or so I hear).

Guess what I'll be giving out this holiday season, friends and colleagues!

'Golden Age of Publishing' Means Users Do Work

It's been a while since anything's been posted here because I've been doing a lot of writing for eMedia Vitals, which has involved participation in this year's tentative media conference season. From what I've seen, folks seem to be getting serious about their brands' digital components and the exciting possibilities emerging as more and more in what's been called the Golden Age of Publishing, the future is now. 

One of the themes buzzing around these events like a tenacious bumble bee in the Carnegie House garden is user-generated content (UGC). Collecting and curating it, finding trusted sources and generating engagement are the topics of conversation as publishers dream of the time quality UGC could buy them.

I reached out to iStockphoto—the entire inventory is user-submitted—to chat about how the iStock community came to be. Check it out here.