Remember the day when you bought CDs? Whole “albums” with 10-12 songs on a disc? Hard to remember those days, I know. Apple revolutionized the purchase of music by offering $0.99 individual songs. No more buying a whole CD because you liked a song or two, and then being disappointed in the rest of the project. No more “concept albums” that wove a theme together through 10 different – but complimentary – songs. No, I just cherry-pick my favorites and pay $0.99 per tune.

They’re different, I know, music and books. And I’m not suggesting you’ll be able to grab the first and last chapters of a new novel at the iTunes Store for $0.99 each. No, there’s something else happening in the world of print (be that ink or e-ink).

When Apple announced the iPad, Steve Jobs indicated a new, strategic price plan for downloaded e-books. One with the publisher getting to set the price-point. One which gives great profit margins to the companies who find and produce the best-sellers. A pricing approach that affords the dying publishing world a breath of new life – if they can squeeze more margins out of their business model. Mr. Jobs negotiated with the major companies and – ta da! – found a price point that was appealing to them. And they, in turn, pushed back on Amazon (which has moved a lot of books at $9.99).You can bet that the publishers are feeling some new-found strength, and that there will be other changes coming.

So, look for other pricing deals to be made, and watch the other, existing e-book sellers to roll out a similar pricing tier for e-books. It could signal new life for the publishing world, one which gives them some new revenue potential. That bodes well for them, and for those of us who love books. It could breathe new life into an old-media giant that has been in need of some good news.

And we’ll have Apple to thank for it? Who’d have thunk it?

It is obvious that Sony’s eReader, Amazon’s Kindle, and now the B&N Nook all have their merits. They make it easy to carry a lot of books and to read multiple titles any time a person wants. They all have an ability to download various books, at various prices and in various formats.

To date, though, none of them does other media very well. You can’t listen to radio, surf the web or watch video on their E-Ink gray scale screens, nor would you want to. This is where the iPad will instantly make itself more appealing to many people. One device that does…one thing? Not gonna survive. These days, how many people have a cell phone that just makes calls? Or who has an MP3 player that just plays songs? So, by limiting their functionality to books, a dying medium (I hate typing that, but its a fact that fewer people are reading – and buying books, so let’s just live with it, okay?), the current offering of “readers” will find itself looking for an audience while mainstream culture goes with the flashy, color-screened, multi-functional iPad.

Read a book? Sure, anyone can carry around a small tablet-sized screen on which to read – all these devices can do that. That’s easy.

Carry around a business book AND a “guilty pleasure” fiction, too? Yep, the “readers” can do that.

Read the local “newspaper” while I listen to some classical music I downloaded? No, can’t do that on the “readers.” They do text really well, but not much else.

Interrupt my reading so I can check e-Bay for that item I was bidding on? No, sorry, the “readers” can’t do that. You’ll need to have a better tablet for online use – these things are for…reading.

Finish that video I started online last night before I begin studying my textbook for that upcoming quiz? Don’t think Sony can help me do that with their “reader” (despite the fact that Sony makes some gorgeous televisions these days).

Take a break from my book to in order a photo book of pictures from my trip – so it is waiting for me when I return from this trip? Um, I’ll need something more than a “reader.”

I’ll admit that these are all nice, hypothetical examples of how the “reader” will want to be replaced by something more. They don’t necessarily describe your life and how you operate – yet.

By making the iPad a multi-media device, Apple has tapped into where many of us are at – living in a fast-paced, media-saturated world. Apple is correctly seeing that if you  do one thing really well, you’ll likely be obsolete very soon (this is why the iPhone is so popular. It does many things well. Not everything perfectly, but it has enough of the capabilities that I want, and delivers them well, so that I’m finding it hard to imagine life without such a smart “phone.”).

The truth is, we want more more more from our technology, and we want to do do do things anytime, all the time. Apple may have made a big mistake here, that is possible. My guess, though, is that in a few years the iPad, and its various permutations and the inevitable competitors, will change how we do books – and every other media, too.

My oldest son, a college student, told me today he has taken some drastic measures to manage his social media use. Like, shutting down Twitter. That’s fine, I can understand that. He did so because he didn’t see the utility of the tool, and he also found it too distracting. It isn’t that he sees no value in the micro-blog/news and info burst that is Twitter. Rather, he doesn’t care to engage in reading – or sending – tweets. He has other things to do, bigger things (like big reading lists and papers, and people, too).

I thought this was interesting, since I’ve been reading some things lately that indicate Twitter is tending to be an older person’s tool (apologies to the “older” 30s readers).  There is research that younger web users are not flocking to Twitter (pardon the pun):

8% of Internet users ages 12 to 17 use Twitter, but…73% of wired American teenagers use social networking sites (like Facebook)

Anecdotal evidence from other parents affirms what my 18 year-old son has told me: Young adults “just aren’t into Twitter.” Sure, they use Facebook, but not Twitter.

I’ve yet to really figure out the reasons for this. But I’ll admit that I’ve got a little voice inside my head that tells me they might be right here. “Maybe you’re fooling yourself about all this Twitter-mania. Maybe it isn’t ‘the next big thing’ that you hoped. Maybe you’ve been an early adopter on a losing technology/tool.”

Now, I’m not ready to give Twitter up yet. And I’m not suggesting that Twitter users don’t have other things in life, and so they waste hours a day broadcasting the littlest activities and thoughts.

I tweet a fair amount myself, although I am hardly a power user.  And I think the benefits of Twitter are here to stay, much like this writer in the New York Times.  At times I do wonder, however, if there’s going to be a positive, lasting effect to the time spent on Twitter.

Now, don’t share my self-doubts with my wife, please. She already disdains much of the web’s offerings, and I don’t need to validate any of her assumptions.

I’m not ready to say, “Bye bye, Twitter.” In fact, I’ll be tweeting a link to this post! But if you have thoughts – either way – about Twitter, I’d love to hear them.

It can take up to three months for money donated via text message to make its way to a charity. The wireless carriers need to make sure that customers pay their bills and don’t back out of their commitments, and then the transactions are processed by an intermediary.

I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t donate via your phone – it surely is an easy and painless way to send a gift. Just be realistic about the time it might take for your $10 to actually help the relief efforts. And the good news here is that the phone carriers are working hard to make the process faster…kudos to them for doing so!

And if you want to contribute to directly to trusted organizations which are already providing needed assistance to the people of Haiti, here’s a list to start with:

• Mercy Ships
• World Vision
• Samaritan’s Purse
• Compassion International

There’s great speculation about the size and capabilities of the new device, which I’d anticipate to be a game-changer for portable computing. Just as the iPod changed our music listening habits, and the iPhone changed the way we access our media, the folks at Apple must surely have an intent for how the iTablet should change…something. But what?

Here’s an intriguing look at how the iTablet could reinvigorate (resuscitate?) printed media…and forever changing how we “read” magazines and newspapers. What do you think? If the iTab – and other similar devices – can deliver something like this, would you want one?

UPDATE: Link to some specs and sales projections (10 million in the first year?!).

I’m not just saying that because I’m biased.

According to recent research,

• Broadcast radio reaches over 79% of all U.S. adults daily, who listen on average for over two hours daily.

And it isn’t just for an “older generation:”

• Even among younger adults (18-34 years old), radio reached more than 79% of the population –  with an average listening time of more than one and a half hours each day.

When I’ve run advertising campaigns, I’ve always included radio in the mix. There’s no reason to change, either. Smart money goes into smart radio buys. Use radio well, and it delivers exceptional results!

More encouraging data about radio here (see the report titled, “How U.S. Adults Use Radio and Other Forms of Audio from the Council for Research Excellence Video Consumer Mapping Study”).

And, related, the largest newspaper publisher in Europe suggests that there should be a payment system for news that we find on the Internet – so that link you follow from Google to a news piece could cost you. Monetizing the news departments of major daily newspapers might save them. If – and it is a BIG “IF” – folks like you and me will pay for that which has to this point been free.

And then I think about Chris Anderson, who argues that “Free is better.” In fact, he pushes for a free-for-all web, where free makes sense – even economic sense. I’m not sure that applies to newspapers, though.  Can Michaels turn around the Tribune with a free model? I rather doubt it. Will you pay for news that someone, somewhere, will offer for nothing? I don’t think so.

I’m not sure newspapers are going to make it. That’s a big deal to me. I’ve been reading papers on a daily basis since I was 10. Confession: I started reading…the Tribune. Every day I’d read it, after my Dad finished, of course. Now I get the Wall Street Journal, and consume as much as possible every day. Sometimes my kids read an article or two. But now the Journal is starting to charge for its web content. And I’m not paying for that, not while it is delivered to my door every day.

Can newspapers be saved? I hope so.

Here’s an article which captures 100 different ways you can measure the effectiveness of your social media effort. For instance, here are a few of the items listed:

• Downloads

• Uploads

• User-initiated views (e.g., for videos)

• Ratio of embeds or favorites to views

• Likes / favorites

• Comments

Check out the entire piece, and I’d especially point out the comments at the bottom.