Soon On The Shelf: 2013

Let’s begin with the last post of last year:

18 December 2012
Until next year (if it happens)…
Like The Mayans, NostraChuckus unleashes prognostications not limited to calendar years.  Often he foretells decades in advance.

Of course, that Great Seer of The Mundane and The Obvious was highly profiled in 2013.
First post of the year:

01 January 2013
Windows 8
… Redmond screwed up a bit with their new OS. Lots of folks aren’t happy with the Start Screen. You can do your own binging about the brouhaha. It has to do with the touch interface when there’s no touch. The OS works flawlessly on phones and tablets, not so well on desktops and laptops with regular ol’ monitors and screens. Third-party workarounds are available – and I use them.

News article, December 9:

Windows Start menu to return in Windows 8.2By Mark Hachman
In what could be one of the more startling reversals since New Coke, a report released Monday claims that Microsoft will bring back a Windows 7-style Start menu to what is being called Windows 8.2.

Second and third posts this year:

07 January 2013
Tablets
Moses and the pharmaceutical industry once had exclusive dibs on this word.  Nowadays, tablet commonly refers to a specific type of computer doodad technology.
14 January 2013
Tablets Redux
… Researchers have developed a revolutionary tablet screen as thin as a sheet of paper that can be twisted and dropped without damage - and it could replace your laptop within five years.

Need I say more?  Watch TV, zip through magazines and newspapers.  Tablets are taking over the world.  More ‘traditional’ advertising will follow. 
Scroll to #3:

I believe that we will stop seeing media as social and start thinking about our media as being either active or passive.

Active, Passive, Smartphones, Tablets:

04 November 2013
Smartphones & Tablets
Clients and just about everybody else seem to be confused about advertising on all these new-fangled gadgets. Added to the mix are odd, stupefying concepts like digital and mobile and native. Most of this stuff is gobbledygook, but I’ll try to separate the chaff from the chaff…

My favorite post this year, probably because someone else wrote it:

15 September 2013
Boomer Gnashing Teeth
What the hell’s with all the packaging and options? I just want a simple, effective toothpaste like there used to be in the (19)60’s. I don’t want flash marketing. I don’t care if it’s “Complete” or “With Scope” or “Whitening” or “Cinnamon” I just want a god damn mint toothpaste with a simple screw cap.

And check out a series of posts about AARP – with a focus on their magazine and media:

The AARP PostsThere is a slow overhaul of AARP Magazine going on, no doubt for the better ...

Happy New Year.