Compare and contrast: downtown parking prices to the cost of an astrofish.net subscription.
This kind of image has long been a favorite. I started grabbing images of San Antonio’s parking lots and prices long before relocation. There was just something about the price and price structure that begged a comparison.
My prices, as it is a reflection of the times, have gone up. Way it goes, but please do compare and contrast, see what’s a better deal. Free stuff, usually worth every penny.
Not news, but part of the background, my university education was centered at Arizona State. Not proud. Not ashamed. In leading the way, I never realized it but I had the good fortune to work with a number of quality writers, journalists, all from the Journalism School.
While I was poking around on iTunes, I happened across a series of lectures from the now-highly regarded Cronkite School of Journalism (ASU). Free lectures about topical material.
The first one I grabbed, and it was a bit of balancing act, as I wasn’t familiar with the iTunes U app itself, was hairy as I careened up the highway to Austin, trying to manage a phone with multiple plugs, trying to get it to play through the little Honda Hybrid’s speakers.
I did get it to work correctly, albeit, slightly knackered, and I caught the first 15 minutes of the lecture just as I was getting into Austin’s legendary traffic. On the return trip, worn out from all day as a featured reader, I set back, relaxed, and listened to the whole hour-long lecture. Part of a series of the old news people, talking about current trends. As the date of the presentation was 2012, some of the data was less useful, hard stats have changed. The key take away points? Mobile and tablet traffic are important.
Up to 40% of the web’s traffic is “cellular” while designing for a 900 pixel wide screen, a 700 pixel, plus a tablet and a phone? Plus the added overhead of a sniffer to detect which screen is best for the device? More parts to break.
There were some comparisons, but the annoying ad for “get the app,” which appears when I hit a number of sites? Hopefully, that will soon be a thing of the past. The trend, as I read it, one site, one “skin” for the site that is responsive, which means, the skin adapts to whatever browser software is available.
I was leaning that way, but I hadn’t made up my mind. That lecture affirmed I was moving in the correct direction. The idea is one size can fit all (devices).
The material, dated that it was, the term “tablet” referred to 90% iPads, and the other 10% was (other).
More current, 70% — or more — of the “mobile” web traffic is from iPhones. Numbers might lie, but the question of how people access material? That tends to be tablet/phone/computer, although, anymore, it’s the new “phablet,” and I’ve watched, one friend does that exclusively. Too big to be a phone, too small to be tablet, might be the way of the future.
The real comparison, tough, was prices. Turns out less than 15% of the user surveyed, dated data but valid nonetheless, would pay for content. Still, for what I have?
Compare and contrast: downtown parking prices to the cost of an astrofish.net subscription.
- Books — astrofish.net/books are now available in Austin, at Nature’s Treasures. See listings for details, location, and number.
A new book is in the works, two, in fact. Stay tuned.