Morozov examines Iran's “green revolution,” as a case study for overemphasizing the effect of the social web and efforts of change. He mentions the empathy that witnessing the protests with less mediation than normal gave people a feeling of investment.

“(S)uch networked intimacy may have also greatly inflated popular expectations of what it could actually achieve.”

What it actually achieved was, arguably, not much, not on the ground for those who took part. Yet the discussion of Twitter, of how this was a “Twitter revolution” was widespread and non-stop.

Panem et Circenses

In his chapter “Orwell's Favorite Lolcat,” Morozov points up a thing we tend to gloss over if we spend any time online reading, or participating in, instances of democratic change. Most people don't. And even we do not spend most of our time doing any such thing. If I have a minute, am I more likely to read Foreign Policy or the Libyan Twitter stream; or am I more likely to read a quick post on io9? The latter. And I'm not alone.

For most governments, and perhaps repressive ones more than others, the use of the Internet as a modern arena for ludicrous and distracting ludi is a salvation.

The Western notion that informational outreach to repressed nations would create revolution is, Morozov says, off-base. The wall between “I'd like those blue jeans” and “I'm willing to risk jail and torture” is extremely high. Not to mention the fact that, if information as a whole is tainted, you probably aren't going to accept a new information stream from that same tainted well.

The Anti-Bloggers Fund

Iran and China have large, competent cadres of technical types and hackers who serve the state. Some search out, shame, report and censor their fellows. Others engage in more overt attacks, country-to-country.

Egypt had, at least prior to its uprising, a group called the Anti-Facebook Police. The Cuban government called upon its “journalists” to man the PR ramparts. And Nigeria tried to set up the Anti-Bloggers Fund.

“(It was) intended to raise a new generation of pro-government bloggers to engage in online battles with anti-government opponents.”

There are people who fear change, others who believe in the ideology or family that's in charge of their countries, or fear those who they believe would fill the vacuum. Still others simply need the cash. The social web allows a repressive government to employ people to muddy the social media waters. In other words, social communications technologies are a double-edged sword and governments have long ago lost any reticence they may have had to swing it.

Slacktivism

At the Committee to Protect Bloggers, we quickly discovered that the blogosphere was good for one important thing, one unimportant thing and little else. The important thing was quickly attracting attention to the plight of an imprisoned or threatened blogger. The unimportant thing was racking up clicks on a petition. The “little else” we did was not a function of the distributed nature of the blogosphere but old-fashioned activism. For instance, we found – through friends and phone calls – an attorney from Shirin Ebadi's Nobel Prize-winning practice willing to represent a young Iranian accused of “immorality” (he had posted satirical pictures of Iran's leaders). This was not a crowdsourced activity. By definition, it could never be.

Raising awareness to a point where coverage by news organs of social media users' troubles is common was a good thing. But it was what it was. It was limited. People will click a button to “free” someone. It makes them feel good. But has button-pushing ever freed anyone? I think it's the longer-term activities, that use the social web as a tool to, again, amplify and extend the reach of the people behind them, that creates change.

The efforts by governments like the U.S. to encourage the formation of Facebook groups devoted to democratic change are on a par with a business telling its social media specialist, “Do us up one of them 'viral videos.'” Wishing does not make it so. If the social web has a role to play in change it is, again, probably in the area of communicating information to a group of people predisposed to positively receive that change. This happened recently in Tunisia and Egypt. It is not happening to speak of in Saudi Arabia. The reason is, it is not Facebook per se that makes a difference, it is the people in their specific context.

Technology is Neutral

In his conclusion, Morozov warns against the “banal” belief that technology can be neutral.

“(C)ertain technologies, by their very constitution, are more likely to to produce certain social and political outcomes than other technologies.”

We are obliged to regard the “affordances” of these technologies. Affordances are the perceived qualities of action inherent in objects or technologies, such as the affordance of sitting a chair possesses. Comparing the affordances in a technology should give us an idea as to its overall utility, or danger. Morozov rejects the notion that the technology itself is neutral, that it depends wholly on who is using it for its ethical coloring.

“(U)nder no circumstances should we be giving technologies – whether it's the Internet or mobile phones – a free pass on ethics.”

Asserting that “because it can be done, it will be done” technologically, Morozov warns policymakers, and us as adjuncts to them, to analyze the affordances of information technology prior to promoting them as tools for democratic change. When we examine issues of democratic change, stop the cyber-utopianism, stop the Internet centricity and stop to consider the implications of what a product or process can do.

In other words, stop believing and start examining. While you may be able to believe a non-existent thing into being, you cannot believe an untrue thing into truth. If we wish to encourage the creation of native democracies, we may wish to spend carefully on training and strategy (on people, in other words) instead of blindly on machines.

Morozov's “cyber-realism” encourages thoughtful consideration not of sociological ideas, but of specific situations and how a given technology might effect them. The former, in the end, are hard to get wrong, given their squishy vagueness. The latter, in the end, are hard to get right, but when you do, you change the world.

Gesticulating Morozov photo by Nurgeldy | samizdat via Raquel Baranow | quadriga photo by Martin | Slacker poster from Wikipedia | Da Vinci drawing from Wikimedia Commons

Morozov examines Iran's “green revolution,” as a case study for overemphasizing the effect of the social web and efforts of change. He mentions the empathy that witnessing the protests with less mediation than normal gave people a feeling of investment.

“(S)uch networked intimacy may have also greatly inflated popular expectations of what it could actually achieve.”

What it actually achieved was, arguably, not much, not on the ground for those who took part. Yet the discussion of Twitter, of how this was a “Twitter revolution” was widespread and non-stop.

Panem et Circenses

In his chapter “Orwell's Favorite Lolcat,” Morozov points up a thing we tend to gloss over if we spend any time online reading, or participating in, instances of democratic change. Most people don't. And even we do not spend most of our time doing any such thing. If I have a minute, am I more likely to read Foreign Policy or the Libyan Twitter stream; or am I more likely to read a quick post on io9? The latter. And I'm not alone.

For most governments, and perhaps repressive ones more than others, the use of the Internet as a modern arena for ludicrous and distracting ludi is a salvation.

The Western notion that informational outreach to repressed nations would create revolution is, Morozov says, off-base. The wall between “I'd like those blue jeans” and “I'm willing to risk jail and torture” is extremely high. Not to mention the fact that, if information as a whole is tainted, you probably aren't going to accept a new information stream from that same tainted well.

The Anti-Bloggers Fund

Iran and China have large, competent cadres of technical types and hackers who serve the state. Some search out, shame, report and censor their fellows. Others engage in more overt attacks, country-to-country.

Egypt had, at least prior to its uprising, a group called the Anti-Facebook Police. The Cuban government called upon its “journalists” to man the PR ramparts. And Nigeria tried to set up the Anti-Bloggers Fund.

“(It was) intended to raise a new generation of pro-government bloggers to engage in online battles with anti-government opponents.”

There are people who fear change, others who believe in the ideology or family that's in charge of their countries, or fear those who they believe would fill the vacuum. Still others simply need the cash. The social web allows a repressive government to employ people to muddy the social media waters. In other words, social communications technologies are a double-edged sword and governments have long ago lost any reticence they may have had to swing it.

Slacktivism

At the Committee to Protect Bloggers, we quickly discovered that the blogosphere was good for one important thing, one unimportant thing and little else. The important thing was quickly attracting attention to the plight of an imprisoned or threatened blogger. The unimportant thing was racking up clicks on a petition. The “little else” we did was not a function of the distributed nature of the blogosphere but old-fashioned activism. For instance, we found – through friends and phone calls – an attorney from Shirin Ebadi's Nobel Prize-winning practice willing to represent a young Iranian accused of “immorality” (he had posted satirical pictures of Iran's leaders). This was not a crowdsourced activity. By definition, it could never be.

Raising awareness to a point where coverage by news organs of social media users' troubles is common was a good thing. But it was what it was. It was limited. People will click a button to “free” someone. It makes them feel good. But has button-pushing ever freed anyone? I think it's the longer-term activities, that use the social web as a tool to, again, amplify and extend the reach of the people behind them, that creates change.

The efforts by governments like the U.S. to encourage the formation of Facebook groups devoted to democratic change are on a par with a business telling its social media specialist, “Do us up one of them 'viral videos.'” Wishing does not make it so. If the social web has a role to play in change it is, again, probably in the area of communicating information to a group of people predisposed to positively receive that change. This happened recently in Tunisia and Egypt. It is not happening to speak of in Saudi Arabia. The reason is, it is not Facebook per se that makes a difference, it is the people in their specific context.

Technology is Neutral

In his conclusion, Morozov warns against the “banal” belief that technology can be neutral.

“(C)ertain technologies, by their very constitution, are more likely to to produce certain social and political outcomes than other technologies.”

We are obliged to regard the “affordances” of these technologies. Affordances are the perceived qualities of action inherent in objects or technologies, such as the affordance of sitting a chair possesses. Comparing the affordances in a technology should give us an idea as to its overall utility, or danger. Morozov rejects the notion that the technology itself is neutral, that it depends wholly on who is using it for its ethical coloring.

“(U)nder no circumstances should we be giving technologies – whether it's the Internet or mobile phones – a free pass on ethics.”

Asserting that “because it can be done, it will be done” technologically, Morozov warns policymakers, and us as adjuncts to them, to analyze the affordances of information technology prior to promoting them as tools for democratic change. When we examine issues of democratic change, stop the cyber-utopianism, stop the Internet centricity and stop to consider the implications of what a product or process can do.

In other words, stop believing and start examining. While you may be able to believe a non-existent thing into being, you cannot believe an untrue thing into truth. If we wish to encourage the creation of native democracies, we may wish to spend carefully on training and strategy (on people, in other words) instead of blindly on machines.

Morozov's “cyber-realism” encourages thoughtful consideration not of sociological ideas, but of specific situations and how a given technology might effect them. The former, in the end, are hard to get wrong, given their squishy vagueness. The latter, in the end, are hard to get right, but when you do, you change the world.

Gesticulating Morozov photo by Nurgeldy | samizdat via Raquel Baranow | quadriga photo by Martin | Slacker poster from Wikipedia | Da Vinci drawing from Wikimedia Commons

“His goal was to get on Twitter so he could reach out to his audience as fast as possible,”Rad said. Rad is unbelievably transparant about the whole process which involved giving advice on how to tweet, @reply and what a hashtag is. It seems like Sheen caught on pretty fast.

And while Sheen is in the Ad.ly network, which means that Ad.ly is mining his follower data to present to advertisers for tweets, he as of yet has not become a publisher, (“we have no plans right now”) which means sending out a lucrative tweet endorsement. Ad.ly tweet endorsements run anywhere from $1000-$20,000 depending on the celebrity Rad told me. For the less famous members of the Ad.ly network, like our own Erick Schonfeld, those numbers are less underwhelming.

While the idea of seeing an in a tweet stream is off putting for some (myself included), Rad sees more and more celebrity advertising, which he says makes up 30% of ads, coming online. He also sees himself as sort of a celebrity herder in the process, “What Twitter does and what Facebook does is allow celebrities to speak directly to their audience and bypass the layers of media, creates a distribution channel for a celebrity to talk directly to their audience.”

For the past day, Sheen has been tweeting out images of brands, in a sense giving free advertising to Pepsi’s Naked Juice and Direct TV.

When asked what he thought about Sheen specifically, Rad said,“I don’t really want to pass judgement on the guy, but I think it’s amazing how he’s using social media to get his message across.” As to what that message is, Rad did not exactly know, “He’s definitely stirred up a lot controversy.”

Image: Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen did a live webcast. And reports and Twitters suggest that many concluded the “winner” is a “loser” — no matter how much money he has, how many porn stars are living with him or whether CBS ultimately kowtows to big bucks temptation and invites him back to resume filming on the mega hit show “Two and a Half Men” or not.

Sheen has become a major cultural commodity these days: with a hit show (due to his impressive talent, sharp writing and supporting cast) now in limbo, a Twitter account that got more in 24 hours than my Twitter account will in 100,000 Joe Gandelman lifetimes, and he has been on so many talk shows that the networks may as well just carve out 15 minutes a day for him on all networks in a simulcast. (I mean, “DUH! Ratings winning!”).

But if this is a winner then they need to redefine it in the dictionary:

Charlie Sheen lost Saturday night, blabbering endlessly on a live webcast that quickly lost viewers and drew heaps of online scorn.

Sheen’s show started with fart noises and endless references to “winning” – and ended with the troubled actor drinking from a sippy cup and repeating the word “duh.”

“This was just sad, and boring, and pointless,” a viewer with the Twitter handle Sasu_Uzumaki posted online.

The forgettable 50-minute webcast, dubbed “Sheen’s Korner,” featured Sheen and a group of his misfit pals, including “goddess” girlfriend Natalie Kenly.

With more than 100,000 viewers tuning in, the former “Two and a Half Men” star opened the show with a “big shout-out” to his children. “Daddy loves you, and if you’re watching, tell mom to leave the room,” said Sheen, wearing a black hat and black T-shirt with a neon dollar sign. “It’s on.”

Much of what he said afterward was unintelligible. In one of his few moments of clarity, Sheen revealed that he got the word “Winning” tattooed on his left wrist.

“Guess what we were doing all day, every second of the day? Winning,” Sheen jabbered.

I guess.

And by that standard, if I eat four pizzas, I’m dieting.

Here are some Tweets on his webcast.

Under Charlie Sheen webcast we find this:

EricStangel Eric Stangel
Watched Charlie Sheen webcast. Ladies & Gentlemen, we now have a cultural moment lower than LeBron James Decision special
10 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Top Tweet

And under Charlie Sheen, here are a few relevant Tweets:

SarahKSilverman Sarah Silverman
My thoughts and prayers are with Charlie Sheen tonight, as he’s been diagnosed with Full Blown Busey
2 Mar
Top Tweet

CharIieeSheen Charlie Sheen
When cocaine wants to party, it does Charlie Sheen.
4 Mar
Top Tweet

CharIieeSheen Charlie Sheen
by sarahhogeboom
I wake up and I’m like, wow, I’m Charlie Sheen and you’re not. #winning
23 hours ago

boyfulani Felix Mind
by donhangani
How much coke did Charlie Sheen take? Enough to kill Two and a Half Men. #MkZ
1 hour ago

denn62 dennis
Charlie Sheen rambles in Internet broadcast: Charlie Sheen, in a nearly hourlong Internet broadcast from his She… http://bit.ly/gldlU4
1 minute ago

pNibbler phantom duck Nibbler
by savagecabage
Charlie Sheen for Irish President #vinb
2 minutes ago

ArtemusDark M Cid D’Angelo
Charlie Sheen: This sudden limelight is not good for you and your career. Take a sabbatical; the distracted public will forgive and forget.
1 minute ago

kinnghusso Hussain Ahmad
@
@StephanieDion charlie sheen lost his mind..
1 minute ago

JamesPeart James Peart
…..I think my subconcious is either telling me to never be a stockbroker or to stop reading Charlie Sheen tweets.
1 minute ago

nprscottsimon Scott Simon
by mdomb
Modern perplexity: same technology that helped world hear Egyptian protesters enables Charlie Sheen to have on-line show.
49 minutes ago

capricecrane caprice crane
by twilite547
Paris Hilton tweeted at Charlie Sheen: “I think I might have Tiger Blood.” No, cutie. That’s just your garden-variety herpes.
12 hours ago

weinmanj Jaime Weinman
by hamster_lips
Charlie Sheen has gone from making millions on a show with 15 million viewers a week, to 100,000 viewers for free. He’s outsmarted us all.
10 hours ago

MsPurrty_Ire Ms Purrty
Since when is Charlie Sheen the new thing? And men love him! #SickAsses if he didn’t have that money he’d be a f—– p druggie to people
2 minutes ago

Shenique_E Shenique Edwards
Charlie Sheen even has merchandise with #winning on it. 2011 catchphrase of the year
2 minutes ago

Under Charlie Sheen Internet we find this.

indyjohn John Strauss
Charlie Sheen live on the Internet: “sloppy, self-indulgent bit of cringe theater”: bit.ly/hNQCPb via @EW
39 minutes ago

DiogoAkira Akira
Carnaval is fun….on the street and on tv but on the Internet…noooooo! Please gimme a break!!! The same works for Charlie sheen
1 hour ago

zack263 zack263
Charlie Sheen: The Debut Episode of “Sheen’s Korner” http://bit.ly/eDyoHL
1 hour ago

bleebasket Bernie Lee
I feel asleep early last night did Charlie Sheen kill a panda on the internet last night for an encore?
1 hour ago

BoydiiMo Damon Boyd
100 Thousand People Wanted To Watch Charlie Sheen On The Internet: Charlie Sheen is wasting our attention. http://bit.ly/hSPRYi
1 hour ago

Variety uses the phrase “Big B.O.” to refer to big box office.

Sheen’s webcast has been deemed by many to be Big B.O., too, but the kind of B.O. that stinks up the joint.

For instance, the Daily Telegraph:

CHARLIE Sheen has gone from online sensation to online denigration after his bizarre new internet TV show got a touch of the Ben Eltons yesterday.

It’s not often that 60,000 people are prepared to watch a nondescript set of beige cupboards but that was the situation yesterday as viewers piled on to Sheen’s Ustream site in anticipation of the show Sheen’s Korner at 2pm AEDT – 10pm Saturday night in California.

Ten minutes before the broadcast and the numbers watching grew by something like 100 every second, all glued to a camera pointing at nothing and punctuated by the occasional bump or moving shadow in the increasingly familiar Sheen household.

By the time the 45-year-old actor took to the screen there were more than 100,000 people to witness his big opening act, tearing off a bandage on his wrist revealing a tattoo of the word “WINNING”- his new world famous mantra – in large black letters.

But despite such promising beginnings it appears Charlie peaked too early.

After a meandering and largely nonsensical chatter between himself and what appeared to be a random selection of his entourage – including one of his so-called Angels – the group on camera ended up being reduced to chanting “Winning! Winning! Winning!” over and over.

It was not long before the peak of 115,000 viewers early on started to taper off as bored viewers abandoned the show. At the same time the Twitter feed to the side of it, which was so bombarded it was almost impossible to read each tweet, started to get a little negative. Sheen had committed the unforgivable showbiz sin of going from crazy and entertaining to crazy and boring.

Afterwards film director Judd Apatow – the man behind hits such as Knocked Up – was lethal in his assessment: “@charliesheen going from a hugely successful show which pays you millions to a free podcast might not be ‘winning’. Depends on definition.”

Indeed, if you haven’t already, be sure to read my Cagle.column on Sheen earlier this week HERE.

In financial terms, Charlie Sheen may be a winner with a big, fat bank account, access to network talk shows whenever he wants, millions of followers — and poised to make a fortune if he sells merchandise with his name, face and verbal tics plastered all over them.

But in many other respects, he is in last place.

Sheen’s long range problem: it will be difficult now for him to get anyone to insure him for future projects. And he has just wiped out venues for his talent since (you heard this here first) many directors will llikely not want to cast him in major drama or comedy projects in the future unless it’s just for reasons of notoriety since he has destroyed his usefulness as an actor who can get audiences to put aside the realization they are watching an actor and focus on the script and film or TV show. To really work most movies and films must get audiences to suspend disbelief and believe what they are seeing is for that moment a reality. That media overdose narrative on Sheen and Sheen’s own insistence on keeping it alive, could get in the way of that.

A little nuttiness can go a long career destruction way.

Just ask Tom Cruise if he’d jump on a couch again on national TV.

test
google (test)

Keep Moving, There’s Still Nothing to See Here

Posted by Neal McCluskey

In dribs and drabs the plot thickens in the quiet little saga surrounding the GAO's brutal and broken August report on for-profit colleges. The latest development is the near-silent transformation of the GAO office that produced the knee-capping report that was later quietly reissued with lots of new, for-profit-exonerating material.

I say “near-silent transformation” because word about it somehow got to the Coalition for Educational Success, a career college advocacy group.  Yesterday, CES issued a press release on the matter, and this morning I contacted GAO's public affairs office about it. To the GAO's credit, their public affairs folks quickly sent me a copy of a memo announcing the end of the Forensic Audits and Special Investigations (FSI) team. Sadly, it was clear that there would be no public announcement of the change, which is utterly consistent with the behind-your-back way GAO has handled every development in this story. Well, every development save the very public release of the original, fatally flawed report.

Especially concerning is the following passage in the memo, which suggests that the for-profit college report provided the ultimate impetus for giving the FSI a new identity. This despite the FSI having done investigations in numerous other areas:

Since the Forensic Audits and Special Investigations team was formed in 2005 the team's body of work has resulted in numerous accomplishments and benefits to the Congress and the public. To ensure good work continues and to bring greater management attention to the group and more seamlessly integrate its work with GAO's program teams as well as the audit and investigative sides of the unit, today I am announcing several changes. These enhancements will also ensure greater attention to the issues that led to the need to produce the errata to the for-profit schools report and by the subsequent inspection.

So why does the group need “greater management attention”? And what exactly are “the issues that led to the need to produce the errata” to the August report?

As a member of the public it sure would be nice to know the answers to these questions, especially since these are the guys who are supposed to be holding the rest of the federal government ”accountable.” For proprietary schools' employees and investors — the people who were most hurt by the dubious August report — these are thing they absolutely should know. But the GAO insists on telling us that nothing major went wrong while refusing to share information we'd need to confirm that. It's not only totally unsatisfactory, it only makes you even more suspicious.

Visual source: Newseum

Robert J. Geller:

As I type this at my home here, every television channel here is devoting almost all of its coverage to reports of the staggering damage caused by the earthquake that occurred Friday off the Pacific Coast of northeastern Japan. The shaking itself, and the tsunami and fires caused by the quake, have combined to cause staggering damage. Based on past experience, it will be several days before the scale of the disaster fully emerges, as communication with the most damaged areas is still cut off.

Wesley K. Clark:

Gen. Wesley Clark says Libya doesn't meet the test for U.S. military action

National Journal:  

Paul Maslin: 'VICTORY'???!!!  Pyrrhus Had Nothing on Scott Walker.

I was Gray Davis’ pollster from 1993 through his two gubernatorial victories and his ultimate defeat to a recall movement and Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.

Make no mistake, the union-busting strategy whose true nature was finally completely unmasked by the junta-like power play at the State Capitol in Madison last night will lead to Walker’s premature ouster from office. He has been trapped by too many lies and the punk nature of the attempted suspension of democratic principles (Lincoln had an actual war to fight when he suspended habeas corpus; Walker is trying to beat up on elementary school teachers) by him and his cronies. Whether or not we succeed in ousting enough Senators from office this year, and Wisconsin politics will be dominated for the next several months by those recall campaigns, the ultimate fate for Walker is sealed: he will be recalled from office as soon as legally possible.

The Fix:

There is no official campaign for Palin or any other major potential presidential candidate, but she is getting judged by voters as if there is. And so far she's moving in the wrong direction.

For a long time, it was accepted that, while she might not be broadly popular, she would at least have enough juice with the base to perform well in the primaries. Recent polling in Iowa and New Hampshire, though, shows her dropping in those two states — including her ratings in Iowa, which would be a very important state for her. And Thursday's Bloomberg poll suggests we might be getting to the point where Palin is a bona fide liability – ala Pelosi – for the GOP.

So far, Palin has been a limited feature in Democratic attacks, but rest assured that Democrats are recording everything potential GOP candidates say about Palin from here on-out.

Sarah Palin has become a joke, and not a funny one. Fact is, she doesn't have the right stuff to be President. But only a handful of Republicans realized from the get-go that she never did.

Tom Jensen/PPP on swing state polling for 2012:

Why is Obama doing better? It's actually not because he's become more popular. His average approval rating in the three states was 47% in late November/early December and now it's…still 47%.

It has more to do with the unpopularity of the Republicans.

David Corn:

Before the 2010 congressional elections, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his fellow GOPers developed and implemented a simple campaign strategy: say “where are the jobs?” over and over and over. Even though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had declared thst President Barack Obama's stimulus package had created or saved about 3 million jobs and a recovery (albeit weak) was under way, the Republicans blamed Obama for screwing up the economy (not Wall Street or the Bush-Cheney administration). In politics, an attack doesn't have to be fair or accurate to work—and this one did.

Since then, have you heard Boehner screaming about jobs? No.

Charles Blow:

Should the government have a significant role in reducing childhood obesity?

That’s the question the Pew Research Center began asking poll respondents a few weeks ago. Nearly 60 percent said yes. Only about 40 percent said no.

This is a remarkable change in public sentiment from 2005 when the Harvard School of Public Health asked a similar question and got almost the exact opposite result.

So what happened in the intervening years? One major occurrence has been the push by the president and first lady to combat the problem. Their initiatives promote commonsense approaches like increased breast-feeding, better diets and more exercise. Who could argue with that? The right, that’s who.

True to form, anything the Obamas support, no matter how innocuous or admirable, the right reflexively rejects, sometimes in malicious tones. Rush Limbaugh went so far as to comment on the first lady’s own weight as part of his criticism last month. (I have to bite my tongue and bind my fingers to keep from pointing out the obvious hypocrisy.)

Instapaper is already a killer iPhone app: just click a bookmarklet in your desktop browser, and a cleaned-up, highly-readable version of the current page is sent to your phone to read later. Imagine what Instapaper can do for the iPad, a device that — unlike the iPhone — is built for heavy-duty reading. Instapaper's developer, Marco Arment, has done more than imagine: he might have Instapaper for iPad ready to go by iPad launch day next week!

In a blog post about the process of getting Instapaper ready for the big screen, Arment explains his motivation for creating an iPad specific version of the app: “I saw the pixel-doubled version of my app in the simulator. It sucked, and it was completely unusable by my standards. I don't think I'll want to run any pixel-doubled apps on my iPad in practice.”

So, instead of an ugly pixel-doubled version, we're getting a sexy reader that's iPad optimized and based on Apple's own design practices. When it came to dealing with the split-screen landscape view, Arment borrowed a page from the iPad version of Apple Mail. Despite some of the design restrictions of the device, and the fact that developers don't actually have iPads to test on, the screenshots look great.

Arment says an iPad without Instapaper isn't a device he wants to own, and I agree. In fact, Instapaper is really making me wish I had pre-ordered Apple's new device for myself.

Apple’s iPad georetardation policy, where the new device will be available in key markets outside of the US a month after the US drop date, is a slap in the face for the many developers outside of the US who have made the app store what it is.

Let me give you an example that’s got me a little fired up.

Firemint are the makers of the massively successful and multi-award winning iPhone apps Flight Control and Real Racing.

Flight Control has sold over 2 Million copies and the free version of Real Racing GTI has been downloaded over 5 Million times.

The only problem is that Firemint is based in Melbourne, Australia and the secret sauce to their success has been developing with the device in mind…and in hand.

That’s right. Unsurprisingly, part of the reason why Firemint has created some of the most successful games for the iPhone is because they develop for the physical device, not just for the OS running on it. That means that while the iPad emulator is good as a starting point, the team will rely on having an actual device to perfect its apps.

I don’t know this for sure, but I’m certain that many of the other top development teams have a similar philosophy.

So what do you do when Apple’s georetardation means that because you’re Australian-based you get the iPad 1 month after developers in the US, limiting your ability to apply the secret sauce to your apps?

Well, it seems that the team from Firemint have an old-school solution.

According to Community Manager Alexandra Peters, they plan to  get a friend in the US to buy a bunch of iPad’s when they drop and FedEx them to Australia.

A simple solution, no doubt, but astonishing in my mind, that it’s come to that.

Why a company with $35-odd Billion in the bank wouldn’t fly over some of their community’s leading developers to sit in  the rumoured  room with no windows where people are allowed to  play with an actual iPad, is beyond me.

Even if they didn’t do that, why not offer to send those developers free iPads when they drop, so they don’t’ have to travel to the US and  line up  (or get someone already there to line-up and FedEx them) just in order to be able to make you more money!

Think about that. With over 2 million copies of Flight Control having been sold for $0.99, and Apple taking a 30% cut, Firemint has made Apple at least  $300,000, yet if Apple had their way Firemint would have to wait one month after US-based developers to get their hands on the new device.

That’s dumb.

I should make it clear at this point that it’s me, not Firemint, complaining.

When asked about the iPad, Firemint’s Peters had this to say:

“We’re really excited about iPad, as well as being the first device that’s both immersive and personal we think it could open up entirely new audiences to gaming. Nobody saw the App Store coming, we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple not only revolutionises another media segment but also introduces games to people who might not have played them before.”

But you’d understand if they, and the many other developers outside of the US that have made Apple a gazillion dollars , felt a little hard done by.

It  should be said that Firemint aren’t sitting on their hands. They’re actively working on updates to Flight Control HD to specially adapt it to the iPad. So if you’re one of their many fans, you can look forward to more great apps when you get your hands on the new device.

But back to the main point.

Apple, if you’re listening, please do the right thing and treat your kick-ass developers right. We all know that the iPad is a platform that will live and die by the support of great developers – so hook them up.

Apple sent the following email to developers today signalling that they will now accept apps made for the iPad.

Guess we'll start to see what is out there pretty soon.

Verbiage:

iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today. Submit your iPad app now for an initial review by the App Review Team and receive feedback on its readiness for the grand opening.
Submit Your App by March 27.
•
Build and test your iPad app using iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 available on the iPhone Dev Center. Only iPad apps built with iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 will be accepted for this initial review.

•
Upload your distribution signed app through iTunes Connect by Saturday, March 27, 5pm PDT.
•
The App Review Team will review your app on iPad and email you details about the readiness of your app.
•
You will also receive additional information about submitting your app for final review before iPad ships.
•
Only apps submitted for the initial review will be considered for the grand opening of the iPad App Store.

In order to have access to iPad testing units, developers and testers had to agree to keep the device tethered to a fixed object in an isolated room with blacked-out windows, according to a report by BusinessWeek.

That’s pretty hardcore. It’s unclear from BusinessWeek’s report if that was a condition enforced before the iPad was unveiled to the public or if it’s something that will be kept up until the April 3 launch date.

Apple is a notoriously secretive company, especially when it comes to new products. Outside of partnerships with content publishers like The New York Times, Wired and The Wall Street Journal who have either confirmed interest or already shown demonstrations of their applications, the few developers that do have access to the iPad are keeping their mouths shut.

It also appears that in order to be on the list for the iPad, developers or companies had to be pretty high on the totem poll. Not even Trip Hawkins, who founded Electronic Arts and once worked at Apple, could get a testing unit for his new company, Digital Chocolate.

Now, not having physical access to the device doesn’t preclude developers from creating apps for the iPad — Apple actually started accepting apps for review today — but it does make refining the app much more difficult.

As was the case with the iPhoneiPhone, we expect the best iPad apps to be those that can take advantage of multi-touch in ways that just feel better. Gestures and interactions on a bigger screen are probably features that will need to be refined over time — just as they were with the original iPhone.

The degree of Apple’s iPad-related secrecy might sound well, paranoid, but the fact is, at least for now, the company can get away with it. The mobile ecosystem is so hot — especially for the iPhone — that getting on the iPad and getting on early is worth the hoop-jumping for many developers. Some would even to settle for using an emulator until the product is officially launched.

What do you think of Apple’s corporate culture of secrecy? Let us know!

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