As a disproportionate amount of my time and energy this weekend has gone to procuring an iPhone 3G (and no, I was not one of those crazed fans who stood in line for one for any length of time), I have to admit that I’m extremely disappointed with the way Apple has handled the distribution process.

Seth Godin points out that artificially imposed scarcity can damage customer loyalty (thanks for my friend Jardel in Brazil for the link), and outlines a number of ways that Apple could’ve prevented those hours-long lines that almost certainly pissed more customers off than they pleased.  (I myself am included among those who are upset; if you’ve been looking at my Twitter feed over the last couple of days, you probably noticed that I went to the open-24-hours-365-days-a-year 5th Avenue Apple Store at 1am last night only to be told that “the line forms at 2am” for iPhones, though they wouldn’t actually be available until 7am.  What?!)

I tend to agree with just about all of his assessments, especially the idea of allowing advance orders. Bookstores do this with eagerly anticipated books like Harry Potter ; even the company that I work for full-time occasionally offers pre-orders on products, and it almost always gives you a better handle on how many you’ll need to order/have manufactured to prevent backorders.

There was really no reason that Apple/AT&T couldn’t have planned for the release better.  Amping up an already-eagerly anticipated product like this one creates frenzy, injuries and frustration rather than enthusiasm and goodwill.

Now that I’ve been done with school for several months, I’ve been in the process of trying to determine what, exactly, will come “next” for me in professional, academic and personal terms.  I’ve been doing a significant amount of work for my clients as a freelancer, but I’ve also picked up a number of small personal projects, including:

• A weekly collage/mixed media class at Cooper Union, since I’ve largely worked in digital media and have kind of neglected physical media over the years
• A modified version of my friend Ray’s “365 Days” photo project, in which I use my point-and-shoot camera to capture a picture of myself or something significant every day for a year
• An ongoing “micro-blog” via Twitter
• Establishing a collaborative story writing site (Room506.org)

I’m particularly proud of myself for sticking with these new projects, but I believe the reason that I’ve maintained interest in all of these endeavors is twofold.

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As I was reviewing my checking account statement the other day, I discovered two charges that I didn’t recognize, both from the same business and for the same dollar amount.  I did a Google search to see if perhaps I was just forgetting a transaction or two, which happens from time to time, but Google was unable to give me literally any information on the company.  I looked up the telephone number and even called it, but the guy who answered didn’t seem to have any idea what I was talking about.

As a result of all of this, I had to call my bank to dispute the charges.  Annoyingly, because it was a debit card-related transaction, my debit card (which, coincidentally, I use for literally all of my daily purchases) had to be cancelled; a new one will allegedly arrive in "seven to ten business days."

Are magnetic cards really the best medium to use for financial transactions?  Newer cards include "PayPass" or similar tap-and-go technologies that utilize a short-range RFID tag embedded in the card, but those are troubling, as theoretically someone unscrupulous with a RFID reader could discreetly scan the posteriors of passersby and collect all kinds of information that they would have previously needed physical access to.

I tend to think, at least upon initial consideration, that biometrics are the future of this kind of application.  It’s laughable to think that someone would attempt to make a transaction in a store using a severed human hand or with an eyeball stuffed in a plastic bag.  The back-ends of biometric databases are the problem–we’re still living in an era where laptops are misplaced and hard drives are stolen and suddenly the personal identifying information of thousands is compromised.  So while a retinal scan may be virtually impossible to forge, we’re going to need to see some major advances in data security before I think such scans can go mainstream.

I was watching American Gladiators the other day (cut me some slack, it’s a guilty pleasure–I used to watch it when I was younger and was very excited to hear that NBC was bringing it back) when I noticed some "liberal editing" that seems to have been going on for several weeks now.  After the third or fourth commercial break into the hour, the program returned with a "recap" showing several events that had been excised from the show altogether along with a missive to "go to NBC.com to watch the events" in their entirety.

Here’s the trouble with that.

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A few weeks ago I received a BuzzFeed newsletter (it’s really great, and I’d recommend that you sign up for it if you haven’t already) that featured a "brand timeline " that had been created by an advertising account executive.  It was surprisingly revealing, and it made me realize that in many instances a brand name or logo alone is enough to conjure up an entire story.

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