New Media’s New Frontier: Apple’s iPad.

When Apple makes a new product announcement, as it did today with its new iPad, I feel like I’m living in the future I grew up watching on The Jetsons.

Apple’s products aren’t just gadgets.

They are beautiful machines.

When I purchased the first Mac (a G5) for our mass comm department in 2004, I got a lot of quizzical looks from students.

There were many people who thought that the PC had simply “won” the never-ending battle of competing products.

Like VHS beat out Beta.

One media technology product is supposed to replace another.

It’s nature’s way.

Besides, everyone knows Windows. Why learn a different system?

But the iPod and iTunes and Drew Barrymore’s boyfriend changed all that in a very fast few years.

In 2010, everyone has an iPod. Everyone uses iTunes.

Everyone is getting very comfortable with Apple’s Jetsonian way of doing technology.

Today, the company changed the game again with its introduction of a 9.7 inch tablet computer that was talked about so much in the news my grandma said she was tired of hearing about it all day.

But I can’t hear enough about the iPad.

That’s because it opens up the market even more for the new media products we’ll teach students to create.

As another indication of how new media is beginning to heat up around niche programming, take a look at the buildup to this product announcement today …

Podcasters and bloggers  have speculated about an Apple tablet for over a year.

Sites like Gizmodo, Appletell, and Engadget had reported on rumors and posted Photoshopped pictures of what such a device would look like.

All of this talk lead up to today’s announcement, which was covered  live on web tv shows like Leo LaPorte’s MacBreak Weekly.

I watched the coverage on my laptop over lunch today.

At one point, Leo said they had 114,000 webcast viewers. To put that into perspective, some niche national cable channels are lucky to have 50,000 viewers at a time.

With the iPad in the hands of millions of web surfers when it goes on sale in late March, the audience for targeted new media content (audio and video podcasts, blogs, social media, Internet radio, live streaming events) will grow exponentially.

So, what do you think? Are you buying an iPad? Will it replace your netbook or laptop?

Tags: blogs, home electronics, Internet Radio, iPad, new media, new media classes, northland community and technical college, podcasting, podcasts, streaming video, Thief River Falls, Video Distribution, web video