Omnifi DMP2 Networked A/V Car Audio Player

"The Omnifi DMP1 was one of the first networked car audio products that gave users the ability to sync up their car's Omnifi hard drive with their home PC's music collection over a wireless connection. Now Omnifi is getting set to introduce the Omnifi DMP2 that will, in addition to streaming music, will stream video (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, and XviD) from its 60GB hard drive for viewing in LCD equipped automobiles. So instead of fumbling around for DVDs on your next road trip, you can pull up "Finding Nemo" at the push of a button." [eHomeUpgrade]

This sounds mighty sweet - music and video on the go in the minivan!

Born with the Chip by Stephen Abrams

"Librarians have adapted amazingly well to the challenges of an Internet-enabled, web-dominated world. It's been quite a ride as we worked with digital content, learned new search tools, and strived to get our many and varied systems interconnected. Now the roller coaster really begins as we deal with the next generation—those "born with the chip"—who have grown up in the 1980s with computers and don't think of them as technology. They are part of their cultural DNA....

Although NextGens despise and reject labeling and we recognize there are exceptions based on individuality and the remaining digital divide, we have identified nine aspects of their behavior that we believe differentiate this group from its predecessors. They represent fundamental differences in the use of information, personal interactions, and social values....

Members of this generation expect information and entertainment to be available to them whenever they need it and wherever they are, thanks to Wi-Fi, wireless PDAs, and digital phones. After all, the web is 24/7. This expectation is about more than convenience; it indicates a major shift in behavior.

Short messaging services are growing exponentially as users have access to an extended multiplayer gaming environment. Trusted personal networks are coded into such programs as email, instant messaging (IM), screen name, and phone number lists—ready to access at the push of a button. This generation has moved far beyond downloading new ring tones into downloading applications that will be essential in their work environment....

The content that libraries license will need to appear on a variety of devices. Some publishers, initially in the medical field, are using the new XML standard to reformat content to properly display on a small digital phone, PDA, or a larger-screened laptop. If library services—portals, OPACs, databases, and web sites—are not accessible on the devices being used, then we risk being irrelevant in the Next-Gens' world. Just as having no web site today renders a library invisible to the world at large, having no web-based services ready for the wireless world will render your library invisible in the coming years....

They are coming. We had better be ready." [Library Journal, via Library Autonomous Zone]

And here's my favorite part, which is based on a line he used at the Computers in Libraries conference in March:

"It seems libraries are often run by Lisa Simpsons trying to herd a crowd of Bart Simpson users. Now that the technology is ready to support more styles, we need to be willing to explore them and recognize that what worked for us won't work as well for many of the coming generation."

Couldn't have said it better myself....  ;-)   I *could* have quoted the whole thing because it's the embodiment of shifted, so be sure to head over there yourself and read the whole thing!

So everyone is weighing in with an opinion about the new licensing scheme for Movable Type 3.0.

"Now these limits may sound a little restrictive. Some go so far to say, 'Six Apart has gotten greedy!'. No, they haven’t. They are a growing company. Growing a company takes dollars. This is no volunteer organization, you know. They have real-world bills to pay. Ben and Mena have poured everything they have into their products. And for nearly three years, they’ve given it away. That’s not greed— that’s generosity. Now they are charging for their product (what a concept!), something they had a right to do with their first release." [Brad Choate]

"...to those who feel MT should be free: get a life. The good people at SixApart are not Satan, nor are they a charity. Any sense of entitlement you have is your fault. It is SixApart's software they licensed to you after you agreed to their terms. Moreover, it has been known for some time that they would charge for a professional version.... Unfortunately, and again I'm speculating, I think the current pricing structure is too restrictive for those of us who might want to spawn off a new weblog to cover a particular topic for a short period of time, such as a photoblog entitled '40 Days of Porpoise.' " [Heal Your Church Web Site]

"Enterprise blogging is a team sport. So are grassroots, educational, and community blogging.... I can no longer, in good conscience, recommend MT to small businesses, workplace teams, or any of the 1000 Kerry grassroots teams any more. They'll max out any of the five MT licenses in six months. Or minutes. My East Bay Kerry communications teams (writers, speakers, media relations, rich media) have more than 100 volunteers.  Repeat that for every county in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, etc." [a klog apart]

Karen Schneider sums up my biggest concern about the current situation:

"Also, they failed to recognize the needs of institutional users, such as educators and library consortia. These organizational elephants often rely on a specific price (which, note, had been 'free') to make their decisions. There were several ways to handle this, but suddenly announcing a price structure where the previous price had been 'none' was not a good option. Their previous, loosy-goosy 'give us what you think we are worth' was ignored by institutions not because Movable Type isn't worth anything or because they didn't want to contribute to this product, but because purchases at the institutional level need to be based on solid prices you can see and touch. And it's agony if the price changes mid-year, which is why so many institutional purchases require some kind of license or contract. Six Apart will still need someone to help them negotiate the complicated world of institutional purchases. (If you're a librarian looking for work, why not pitch this to them as a PT gig? Gee, if I weren't gainfully employed and painfully overcommitted, I'd do it myself!)" [Free Range Librarian]

I've promoted MT to libraries for the last two years specifically because it allowed multiple authors and multiple blogs from one installation, so this is a curve ball in a game of fast balls for me. I did not like being put in the position of having to go to my boss on Friday to give her a heads up that we might have to change our "get a Movable Type blog for free" offer for our member libraries. Granted, there was always the chance they would start charging libraries for it, and I actually think this is an appropriate time to announce a pricing scheme (before the official release), but the timing really stinks in the library world. There isn't a single license Six Apart offers that my public libraries could use and afford this late in the budget year and they've already set their budgets for next year. And they probably couldn't lobby their administrators to pay for this kind of software when they are free alternatives out there (it is taxpayer money, you know). It's unfortunate, but it's the economic reality of the moment.

As many others have noted, possibly the biggest issue is that even for a $700 commercial license, you don't get unlimited blogs. There is no unlimited license, which becomes a major problem for the University of Minnesota Libraries' uThink project, Indiana University's upcoming project (darn, can't find the link right now), and even what Moraine Valley's Library is doing.

As Liz Lawley says, this limbo that educational institutions are now in presents real problems for those of us that are trying to jumpstart blogging in those settings.

"And while I’m grateful for the promise of significant educational discounts, I think the decision not to publish that information publicly is a mistake. If you force people to come after you for the information, you’ll lose some of them—particularly when there are other tools that they can explore instead. The most important users for them to target in education right now aren’t the institutional purchasers—for them, hundreds of dollars (or even thousands, if the software is important) is not an issue. It’s the individual teachers and students who serve as change agents in their organizations. If you put barriers in front of those early adopters, they’ll simply go elsewhere. And the timing of the change was awful in that regard, given that so many competitors are emerging right now with viable alternatives." [mamamusings]

So at SLS, we'll start examining our options. We could keep current and future users on MT 2.6x indefinitely, but eventually development will pass that version by, which could become an issue. With all of the budget cuts we've gone through (and may still go through), I doubt we can pay any fee, so we might be forced to a different software package.

It's disappointing because this week Aaron will be teaching our second "Blogging with MT" class for our members (both were full!), and now we might have to change things for future sessions. So instead of teaching more librarians how to blog and getting them set up, I may be spending my time helping those who already drank the koolaid migrate.