Yogi Land

Although the iPhone’s alarm clock is functional, it has limited features. If you use your phone to wake up in the morning instead of a standalone device, then you’ll want to get the most out of it.

There are a large number of alarm clock apps available in the App Store, but, almost unbelievably, not all of them work, and some of them are downright duds.

We’ve tried and tested five great alarm clocks apps for the iPhone and iPod touch that can’t make getting out of bed any easier, but at least you’ll be woken in a way of your own choosing.

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1. Radio Alarm

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Radio Alarm may be at the higher end of the pricing scale, but it’s a good looking creation that packs in a lot of functionality — you really do get what you pay for (and then some!) with this app.

As far as looks go, you’ve got a great retro design with a flip calendar, analogue clock and two “dials,” one for volume, which can be controlled in-app and — essential for a bedside alarm clock — a brightness control. There are three knobs that represent the three main functions: the alarm clock, the radio and the sleep options.

The “radio” can be listened to as a standalone Internet radio option and offers more than 30,000 stations from SHOUTcast Radio that be be browsed via genre, country or search, although you can manually add your personal fave Internet radio stations via their URL.

Alarm functionality is superb — you can choose to wake to a variety of what we’d call standard alarm sounds, your own music stored on your iDevice, one of the many Internet radio stations, one of the sleep sounds (more on that later), and there’s even the fab option to record your own sound or message to wake up to.

Alarm options include some nice touches such as vibration, the ability to “fix” the volume so you can’t turn it down accidentally, different snooze durations, and the option to have the sound “fade in” so you don’t wake with a start.

Finally, there’s an excellent selection of soothing sleep sounds, including waves, rain on a window, a campfire or the sound of seagulls. You can set the timer to turn the audio off after whatever amount of time suits you, and you can make it fade out quietly. This also works with the radio and your own music too.

There’s some design thought gone into this app — when you hit the radio knob a little analogue tuner comes on screen accompanied by tuning noise, and you can opt to shake your iPhone a certain number of times to stop the alarm. It’s little touches like this that make you smile.

Developer: EnSight Media
Cost: $1.99

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2. iFlipClock Plus

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There’s more retro to be had here with a classic, realistic flip clock design that can be jazzed up with a choice of 65 backgrounds, three colors for the numerals, portrait or landscape display and two different time display formats.

That’s it as far as the app goes for looks; simplicity is the key word here, and that theme continues with the settings which are bound to only one screen.

We can imagine the one-screen design will be too fiddly for anyone with big fingers, but it works for us — you can just zip around the screen touching various areas to change the settings. With the ability to set two alarms, you can leave the default alarm noise to wake you or select a song from your device.

Features include a snooze button, the ability to dim the screen for use on a bedside table and sound effects for when the time flips over. With simple, but perfectly decent alarm functionality, it’s a good-looking app for design lovers.

Developer: Exedria
Cost: $0.99

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3. Nightstand Central

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Another good-looking app, Nightstand Central’s design is somewhat reminiscent of HTC phones. With a big, easy-to-read flip clock, the date and the weather for your current location are also displayed. You can choose backgrounds from a selection of beautiful pre-loaded images or ones from your device, either as a static display or slideshow of multiple images.

The customization is great — you can move the clock and change its size by tapping on the screen with two fingers, have it display portrait or landscape, have alarms displayed, and to keep up with the weather, show the temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit or not at all.

On the alarm front, you can set as many alarms as you’ll ever need with an interface that’s very similar to the iPhone’s. There’s also “background alarms” that can be set up for those who want to be super-sure to get out of bed. You can give alarms names and wake to a range of sounds or music from your library. Snooze times can be changed and you can make the sound fade in so as not to be too abrupt.

The sleep timer will see you dropping off to a relaxing soundtrack (though without nearly as wide a selection as Radio Alarm, we must say), or your choice of music, while brightness control is very swanky — slide your finger on the screen to dim it.

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Lastly, Nightstand Central’s bonus feature is the “flashlight” (a white screen basically, but adequate illumination in the dead of night), which you can turn on and off by shaking your handset.

And if you’re not picky about using your own music as an alarm, or want to try before you buy, there’s a limited but decent free version of this app available too, although we think $0.99 for the full app is very reasonable.

Developer: Thomas Huntington
Cost: $0.99

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4. Alarm Clock Pro

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There’s more great design here with the Alarm Clock Pro, which shares a similar feature set to Nightstand Central, but has a very different, yet equally stylish look.

Alarm Clock Pro looks like a classic bedside alarm clock with a digital display. You can change the color of the numerals and what info is actually displayed, but as far as looks go, this app keeps it clock-like and simple.

Behind the scenes you’re looking at a very familiar iPhone interface that makes setting alarms easy. The options are similar to those we’ve seen in other apps — some pre-loaded alarm sounds, the ability to use your own music, snooze settings, fade-in options, background alarms and the great option to dim the screen with the slide of your finger.

Alarm Clock Pro also produces a white screen as a flashlight if you shake it and a sleep timer is promised in a future update, which will be a nice addition to a very competent, no-nonsense alarm clock app.

Developer: iHandySoft Inc
Cost: $0.99

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5. The Alarm Clock

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This alarm clock option doesn’t give you any meaningful way to customize the display, so it’s just as well the three-dimensional white letters on a blue background look as good as they do.

Alarm options are simple to set up and what you’d expect. You can name alarms, set them up to go off regularly on certain days, choose from pre-loaded sounds or use your own (we had a few crashes with this part, but did get there), set snooze times, auto-snooze, and there’s a sleep timer too.

However, where this app really shines is its ability to tell you the time at a touch of the screen. Hidden away in the app’s “Advanced Options” menu are some nifty perks that will let the app speak the time, say how long until the next alarm or speak the next alarm time.

You can set these up to work with one, two or three taps of the screen, and the robo-voice will speak up — a really nice feature for when you’re half-asleep fumbling with your iPhone to try and work out how much longer you’ve got in bed.

Developer: Kirk Andrews
Cost: $0.99

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BONUS: Nightstand – The Professional Alarm Clock

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This app gets an honorable mention as it offers some nice functionality. In addition to being a fully featured alarm clock with radio, there’s weather data and a “news and Internet” section that you can set up to display all your favorite sites from one page, so you can quickly get your dose of morning news from within your alarm clock.

Developer: hubapps.com
Cost: $1.99

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More iPhone Resources from Mashable:

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- 10 Mobile Apps for Movie Addicts
- 3 Innovative iPad Games That Use the iPhone as a Controller
- 10 iPhone Apps for the Global Foodie
- 10 Useful iPhone Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks
- 10 Useful iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks

More About: alarm clocks, app store, EnSight Media, Exedria, hubapps, iHandySoft Inc, iphone, iphone apps, kirk andrews, List, Lists, Thomas Huntington

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Everybody needs a good doodle now and then. Maybe your hands get restless while you’re talking on the phone. Maybe you’re stuck in a boring meeting. Or maybe you just want to reconnect with your creative, playful self for a while (hey, if Google employees get nap pods, you can certainly justify a couple minutes of coloring).

Besides, the worst part of art class was cleaning up the mess afterward. Now, the marvels of the Internet can let you doodle, draw or just play around online. No mess necessary!

Pen and paper may be on a fast track to obsolescence, but the doodle will live on forever. These 10 web doodle sites are some of our favorites.

Which are your favorites? What sites do you use to mess around with art? Let us know in the comments below.

1. Bomomo

The bubbles trail colors while following your cursor. You can choose what patterns they move in, but you don’t really have much control over what they paint. Still, it is oddly addicting.

2. Jackson Pollock

This classic take from Miltos Manetas has been around since 2003, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome. The URL opens to a blank page – until you move the mouse and start spilling ink. If you click, the ink changes color. If you linger in one place, ink collects and makes a bigger spot. The interactive artwork imitates the painting style of Jackson Pollock.

As of last month, you can play with the Jackson Pollock site on your iPad or iPhone.

3. Fluid Painter

3D animator Peter Blaskovic created Fluid Painter as part of his “I Am Artist" project. His site allows you to paint on a surface that seemingly consists of water. You can smear the colors around or simply watch them blend.

4. Flame Painter

Another component of Blaskovic’s “I Am Artist” project is the equally awesome Flame Painter. It’s a similar concept to Fluid Painter, only it allows you to paint with virtual fire. Adrian Tudor created the above image.

5. Flurrious

Digital advertising agency Digitas created this site as a holiday fundraising project last year. For every snowflake created and sent through the tool, the agency donated $1 to UNICEF. The agency reached its $10,000 goal within the first four weeks.

Since the snowflake creation site was so cool (ha!), the company decided to leave it up. Check out these great Flurrious flakes on Flickr.

6. Playdo Graffiti

Drawing on this virtual wall is just like real graffiti. Except for the undo button. And the many available colors on demand. And the ability to share your work over Facebook without fear of arrest.

OK, maybe it’s not exactly like real graffiti, but you do get the satisfying sound of a spray can being fired or shaken. The creator, Andreas Rehnberg, is the founder and lead programmer of a Swedish creative gaming studio called Playdo, which is where the doodle site gets its name.

7. Picassohead

For those of you who have ever spent time staring at a Picasso thinking, “I could do that,” here’s your chance. Place the provided shapes on the canvas to create your Picasso-esque drawing.

8. The Scribbler

The Scribbler is a collaboration between you and the site’s “Scribbler” tool. You provide the outline. When you start the Scribbler, it begins filling in your outline with random strokes. You can adjust the color, transparency, thickness and “scribbliness” of the lines, but otherwise the drawing is out of your hands. The algorithm inspired a robot that draws on paper.

Look through the doodling possibilities at the Scribbler’s Flickr gallery.

9. Scribbler Too

Inspired by the original Scribbler, this site takes the “Scribbler” feature and applies it in real time. As you draw, your lines sprout extensions like they’re crystallizing. You can adjust your brush, color and canvas as you see fit.

10. Artpad

There are two things that elevate this simple paint website to "doodle" status. One is the fun drawing tool that actually looks like a paintbrush. The other is the option to frame and post your work in a gallery of your choosing.

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More Design Resources from Mashable:

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- 6 Free Sites for Creating Your Own Comics
- 10 Captivating Time-Lapse Design Videos
- 10 Stories Beautifully Told with Animated Typography [VIDEOS]
- 8 Photoshop Tutorials for Retouching Your Profile Pic

More About: art, Artpad, Bomomo, Doodle, Draw, Fire Painter, Fluid Painter, Flurrious, Graffiti Playdo, Jackson Pollock, Picassohead, Scribbler Too, The Scribbler

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Adobe isn’t the only company being tempted by the sweet taste of HTML5, Microsoft has a hankering for the stuff too.

Despite its past efforts to shape Silverlight into the leading cross-platform runtime for the web and the desktop, Microsoft now says that its strategy and plans for Silverlight “has shifted.”

ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley spoke with Bob Muglia, the president of Microsoft’s server and tools business about the lack of focus on Siverlight at the company’s Professional Developers Conference this week.

Muglia’s response was pretty telling. Although he reaffirmed Microsoft’s commitment to making Silverlight the development platform for Windows Phone, he noted that the cross-platform solution Microsoft sees going forward is HTML.

Speaking with Foley, Muglia said, “HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform.”

This is a big admission from the company that has spent years trying to push Silverlight as a cross-platform technology forward. As a video technology — indeed even as an application technology — Silverlight and WPF are actually pretty nice. I attended a two-day XAML workshop held at Microsoft’s Atlanta offices in 2009 and was very impressed with the capabilities and the toolsets that were possible within Silverlight.

However, despite the prevalence of the .NET platform on Windows and in the enterprise, Silverlight has had a problem gaining traction across the web. With the exception of the Olympics and a few other live broadcasts, you almost never see Silverlight used on the web.

Likewise, the number of desktop applications built using Silverlight are nascent in comparison to the growing number of Adobe Air applications. Aside from Seesmic Desktop, it’s hard to think of any cross-platform apps that are built using Silverlight.

All the while, Microsoft is increasingly embracing HTML5. The company’s recent launch of Internet Explorer 9 beta was promoted using a number of different HTML5-specific web pages and promotions. Silverlight may not have been mentioned much during PDC, but HTML5 certainly was.

It’s clear that Microsoft — like Adobe, Apple and Google — sees that HTML5 is the technology that will work across the broadest stretch of devices — and more importantly, will work on future devices.

Yes, the W3C has stated that the HTML5 spec isn’t yet ready for full use, and in a broad, global sense, this is true. However, when you look at the types of devices that individuals will be buying today and tomorrow, and not the device they already own, it’s clear that HTML5 is the technology that is going to have built-in support.

As a technology, Silverlight has a lot of promise and we think it is still interesting. Still, we can’t help but think Microsoft is making a better strategic move to focus on HTML5 as its cross-platform solution going forward.

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Reviews: Google, Seesmic Desktop, Windows, adobe AIR

More About: HTML5, microsoft, pdc, Silverlight

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Chalk up one point for Google and another point for Yahoo; Google-powered signups for Flickr accounts are a win-win.

Flick announced today that Google would be its first partner in its introduction of OpenID for new account signups. Starting today, anyone can sign up for a new Flickr account using their Google account.

Existing Flickr users will still have to use their Yahoo identities to login, but Flickr says they’re working on making that easier and less frequent, too.

This is great for Flickr and parent company Yahoo, as it makes it easier for current Google users to use the former photo-sharing site as opposed to Picasa, a Google-owned competitor. But it’s not exactly a loss for Google, since it removes a big reason to establish and use a Yahoo account.

Of course, the real winner here is the OpenID community. Eric Sachs is on Google’s Internet Identity Team. He wrote today on the Google Code blog, “Google and Yahoo! are two of the many companies who have been involved with the OpenID community’s efforts to improve the process for how users log in and sign up for online services… While Google doesn’t yet support the use of OpenID for replacing passwords on its own sites, we’re involved in the OpenID community’s efforts to research how to best implement that type of support.”

Interestingly enough, last month Google announced it would be using OpenID to allow Yahoo users to signup for new Google accounts, a clear swipe at Yahoo’s userbase.

According to data gathered this summer, Google is the single largest “identity provider” across the Internet; Google represents the preferred sign-in option for 38% of users on sites with third-party sign-in options. Not surprisingly, Facebook holds second place, with 24% of users choosing that identity as a login option.

Do you think Facebook-based Flickr signups are coming any time soon, or do you think the battle to dominate online photos is too tense to allow for that kind of integration just yet?

More About: flickr, Google, openID, Yahoo

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After months and months of your cubicle walls contracting in on you like some kind of demonic fun house, it’s finally time for that most coveted of reprieves: a vacation!

Sun! Drinking! Ill-advised hookups with accommodating locals! (Hey, an exotic foreign bed beats the Four Elks Motor Lodge …)

While many of you may breeze out your office door, throwing around claims like “I’m leaving my laptop at home!” “No cellphone on this trip!” and “I might just stay and become Amish!” it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to completely divorce yourself from the technological realm the minute you pull on your fanny pack.

Why? Well, with the rise of the smartphone and the growing ubiquity of in-flight Wi-Fi, we’re about as addicted to tech as your average hipster is to heartache and broken dreams (read: very). Case in point: According to research from Xobni and Harris Interactive, 72% of people in the U.S. check e-mail during their time off.

Although we’re not advocating logging in to Gmail or Entourage while sunning on Hermosa Beach (that’s just indicative of a bleak, coffee-stained future), we’re all for staying at least a little plugged-in whilst unplugging.

Just remember, there’s a fine line between sharing your vacation with your associates at home and becoming that annoyingly tan, infuriatingly-drunk-at-3-p.m. layabout who texts pictures of sun-drenched beaches to her cubicle-shackled friends.

Read on for three ways to keep your clock-punching compatriots abreast of your holiday goings-on — without making them want to leap down the elevator shaft.

And so begins my Netiquette column — which I write with my Stuff Hipsters Hate co-blogger, Andrea Bartz — this week over at CNN.

Check out the column at CNN.com >>

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PeskyMonkey

More About: cnn, netiquette, Stuff Hipsters Hate, vacation

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The rumors are flying about the potential existence of the Nexus Two, the unicorn-like successor to the Google-branded Nexus One smartphone. Is it real though? And why would Google build it?

The rumors apparently derive from a report from City A.M., a London-based daily newspaper. It reports that the Nexus Two will launch before the holidays exclusively on Carphone Warehouse, an independent mobile phone retailer. The report suggests that it will run version 3.0 of the Android operating system, AKA Gingerbread.

Frankly, we’re skeptical of the Google Nexus Two report. While the original Nexus One launched to strong reviews, it was ultimately discontinued due to a failed distribution strategy an poor sales. Google also has a lot more wireless and hardware partners that might be angered with a new Google-branded smartphone stealing the spotlight.

Still, there are a few reasons why Google might be considering taking another crack at its own phone, and most of them concern the fragmentation of Android. While the company publicly embraces the fact that there are so many version of its operating system on the market, giving users plenty of choices, privately some people inside of Google are concerned about Android’s fragmentation. While Android continues to grow at a ridiculous pace, fragmentation can make the experience of using Google’s mobile OS so wildly inconsistent that users eventually come frustrated. At least that’s the argument Apple is making.

We were fans of the Nexus One, and we bet a Nexus Two would be one of he best Android smartphones on the market. Given the history of the Nexus One though, we’re going to label this rumor as unlikely.

Would you buy a Nexus Two?

More About: android, Google, nexus one, Nexus Two

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Google has just launched Boost, a location-based ad product for local businesses.

Built on Google Places, Boost beta is available in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago right now and will roll out to more cities soon.

Boost ads show up when users search for local businesses; they appear in the “sponsored links” section of Google’s web search and Google Maps, as well. Ads will appear when the right combination of vertical keyword (e.g., “restaurants”) and location keyword (e.g., “San Francisco”) is met.

The ads can contain basic location information, such as the address, business name and phone number, as well as more consumer-focused tidbits, including a star ratings, number of reviews received and a special Maps marker.

Business owners can create Boost ads from within their Google Places account. Initial setup is simple, and campaign management is automatic; all the business owner needs to do is set a budget, and Google’s advertising algorithm takes care of the details of placement and frequency.

We see this product as a preemptive strike against Facebook Places advertising. (To date, Facebook has only announced cursory guidelines for Places use by businesses; no ads are yet being sold for this product.)

These two companies are in a tight battle for ad dollars, and Facebook has been able to gain a competitive advantage by delivering hyper-targeted, highly relevant ads based on user-supplied information. With more location-based information flowing into the network via Facebook Places, Facebook is also poised to lead location-based advertising.

However, Google’s advantage here is that they’re capturing not only highly qualified but also actively interested consumers. On Facebook, the user’s ad viewing may be much more passive and less likely to end in a purchase or other desired action.

Here’s what Boost ads will look like (the blue marker indicates the advertised business):

Local and location-based information has been a focus at Google lately. The company announced it would focus on delivering more geo-specific search results earlier this month, right around the time it named Marissa Mayer, thenVP of search product, its location and local services chief.

Image courtesy of Flickr, laihiu.

More About: advertising, boost, geolocation, Google, google boost, google places, lbs, location, MARKETING

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In the days of cold, hard newsprint, only people who could draw were successful comic strip authors. In some cases, this resulted in comic strips that had very nice pictures, but weren’t all that funny (cough, Blondie). Thankfully, the Internet has taught us not to accept an inferior form of comic artistry, but a more flexible one.

Comic strip enthusiasts who want funny but don’t care about pretty drawing can have their strips, those who want artistry have theirs, and even those with very specific tastes can find something just right.

The best part about these developments is that they allow you, regardless of any talent as an artist or comedian, to create your very own comic strip. Depending on what you’re going for, you can use one of these six sites to help you do it.

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1. MakeBeliefsComix.com

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MakeBeliefsComix.com is easy enough for children to use, but there are enough options for adults to get a message across, too. Users can choose from 25 characters to fill a two-, three-, or four-paneled comic strip. Currently, the site supports typing in seven different languages. There are plans to add Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters in the future.

One limiting factor is color. Though you can choose a background color, the characters remain black and white. If you’re planning on printing your comic strip, this could be a good opportunity to pull out the old-fashioned box of crayons. But if you’re planning on sharing it online, it’s a bit restricting.

The pre-set options that make the site so easy to use can also be slightly limiting. Your comic strips will look pretty generic. There are only about four different expressions for each character. The upside of this is that you can finish a perfectly respectable online comic in about ten minutes.

The creator, Bill Zimmerman, is the author of 18 books — including Make Beliefs: A Gift For Your Imagination. “My hope is that by giving you a choice of characters with different moods and the chance to write words and thoughts for them,” he writes on the site, “you will tap into your creativity and explore new possibilities.”

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2. MarvelKids.com’s Create Your Own Comic

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If there’s any company that knows what it takes to build great comics, Marvel Characters does. So it’s no surprise that its DIY comic site is pretty awesome, considering its simplicity.

Features that make it awesome include choices for different styles of panels (not into boxes? try zig zags), the set-up for creating up to a 22-page comic book, and the Photoshop-esque tool dock that moves around the page. Your character choices include the stars of the Super Hero Squad Show, including The Hulk, Falcon, and Wolverine.

The site does have some rough patches. If you’re hoping to create an original-looking comic strip, you’re out of luck, because you are limited to Marvel characters. There are a measly five options for objects, and you can’t change the background. With no option to save your work on the site, it’s also unlikely you’ll be completing a full 22-page comic book in one sitting.

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3. Pixton

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This is the comic strip creation website for artists. The site allows for as much customization as possible without the need to build from scratch. Instead of just choosing the color of a character’s shirt, for instance, there are options to adjust the collar, shape, sleeves, and size of the shirt. Instead of relying on preset poses and emotions for each character, users are able to click and drag character limbs into new postures and can customize eyes, ears, noses, and hairstyles. It’s also convenient to add images from Flickr or Google images.

Successful comics vie every day for a spot in the prestigious Pixton top 10.

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4. ToonDoo

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ToonDoo hits the fine balance between creative versatility and user friendliness, ensuring that the final results look sharp. While there’s still an extensive library of characters and objects to use in your comic strip, there are also tools to create your own touches. The TraitR tool allows you to create custom characters and DoodlR lets you paint freely. If you want to use your own photos or another image in your comic strip, you can manipulate it through the ImagineR photo tool.

Unlike other sites, there’s an option to save your project mid-creation so that you can come back to it later. When you finish a handful of ToonDoos, you can compile a book. It’s easy to embed individual cartoons in a website or share them over networks, and you can buy print-quality images of your favorites.

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5. Strip Generator

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The stoic characters of Strip Generators lend themselves to sarcastic commentary. There’s not a whole lot of opportunity to create a personal style — you need to work with what the site gives you — but that doesn’t mean you can’t be creative. The community topic-themed galleries are testimony to this (check out the current theme, “Autumn”).

One unique capability is adjustable frames. If you need a specific cell to be a bit wider or longer, you can just drag the wall. Another stand-out trait is the personal library. When you tweak an image to get it just right, you can save it to use again later.

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6. Pikistrips

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Pikistrips takes your photos (er…”Pikis?”) and turns them into comic strips. Once you upload your favorites into a customizable comic cell format, you’re free to add text bubbles, speech bubbles, and objects. The object gallery is pretty extensive, and its contents aren’t random. Many of the categories — like hairstyles, hats, mustaches, scars, and tattoos — wouldn’t be much fun without using your own photos as a canvas. If you miss the cartoon look, you can apply the “comic” effect to your photo or choose from seven others.

All in all, this site is fun for tweaking your photos (also see the related Pikipimp.com), but is intended to boost the company’s custom printing business (you guessed it, “pikiprint”). On the other hand, if you want a custom mouse pad, bag, or cup with your photocomic on it, this aspect works out nicely.

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More Design Resources from Mashable:

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- Top 5 Web Font Design Trends to Follow
- 6 New Mac Apps for Designers and Developers
- 5 Free Resources for Learning Photoshop
- 10 Captivating Time-Lapse Design Videos
- 10 Stories Beautifully Told with Animated Typography [VIDEOS]

More About: art, Bill Zimmerman, Comeeko, comic books, comics, creativity, design, List, Lists, Make Beliefs Comix, Marvelkids.com, Pikistrips, Pixton, Strip Generator, toondoo, web apps

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Netflix just added a streaming-only subscription plan for some U.S. customers. It costs at least $7.99 per month and it gives you all the Watch Instantly content you can handle, but it doesn’t include any DVD rentals.

It appears to be available only to a few customers at present, as we’re not able to see a streaming-only plan on our account or when creating a new one. But tech blog Engadget claims that many of its writers are able to access the plans, albeit (strangely) at different prices. On one computer they’re offered a streaming-only plan for $7.99 per month, but on another it’s $8.99.

In either case, it appears that this test also brings a bump in DVD rental plan prices. The existing $8.99, $13.99 and $16.99 plans (for one DVD, two and three, respectively) have all gone up one dollar, presumably either to differentiate the DVD and streaming plans or even to subsidize streaming users.

As is the case with existing accounts, these streaming accounts work not just on your computer but through Netflix-enabled devices like Roku, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and others, and the Starz library is included.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has said on a few occasions that he believes Netflix will ultimately be a streaming company. With enhancements to the experience on PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and iPhone along with these new streaming plans, the company is getting closer to that reality.

It already exclusively offers streaming plans in Canada, its first market outside of the United States. No word yet on when the plans will roll out for all U.S. customers.

More About: entertainment, Film, Movies, netflix, netflix watch instantly, streaming, subscription, subscriptions, television, test, tv, U.S., united states, video, watch instantly

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More and more publishers are jumping on the iPad bandwagon — we’ve even discussed why we think this is the reinvention of print — but what are the sales stats for the first crop of iPad magazines?

Ad Age has taken an in-depth look at the first six months of iPad magazine sales. The verdict? Depending on the genre and the type of engagement, iPad sales represent a sliver or a sizable chunk of newsstand results.

The data, which didn’t include Hearst’s new Esquire app for iPad, unsurprisingly showed that Conde Nast’s Wired is the most successful magazine on the iPad.

The first issue of Wired on the iPad sold 105,000 copies, according to Ad Age. That was significantly higher than the print sales for the same issue. Since then, Wired for iPad has sold an average of 30,000 copies per month, or about 37% of the newsstand sales.

The fact that the core Wired audience aligns well with many iPad owners (raise of hands – how many of you hadn’t purchased a copy of Wired in years before it hit the iPad? I know I hadn’t), not to mention its marketing campaign, is likely responsible for the continued success of the magazine on the new medium. Likewise, the fact that sales of Popular Science for iPad are equivalent of about 12% of newsstand sales is probably indicative of a tech/science connection with early adopters.

In comparison, lifestyle magazines like Glamour and Men’s Health are pulling in less than 1% of iPad sales when compared to their newsstand counterparts. People magazine for iPad is averaging 10,800 copies a week. However, the People app is unique in that it is free for print subscribers. Time Inc. declined to breakdown how many of its downloads were from print subscribers. Regardless, like Glamour and Men’s Health, iPad downloads only equal about 1% of People’s single-copy newsstand sales.

Magazines like GQ and Vanity Fair, which like Esquire, go for more in-depth articles and longer sustained reading experiences, are doing better than the lifestyle magazines but not as well as tech. GQ for iPad is averaging about 7% of its newwstand counterparts while Vanity Fair is doing about 2%.

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Just Getting Started

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As Ad Age notes, most advertisers that are embracing the iPad as a platform recognize that the digital magazine world is in its infancy. As impressive as iPad sales continue to be, they still only represent about 5.2 million US owners and the device is only six months old.

It’s also important to note that where digital magazines are really poised to take off is with subscriptions. Apple and major publishers continue to hash away at terms that will bring subscription pricing to the iPad. We agree with Ad Age and with publishers, once subscriptions become an option, the iPad magazine game will get a lot bigger.

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Don’t Forget to Offer Value

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When looking at what magazine titles are succeeding on the iPad and what titles are faltering, we can’t help but draw some direct correlations between those titles that have invested the most in the technology and those that are simply just putting a glorified PDF in an iPad-app wrapper.

Esquire and Wired are two examples of magazines that are really designed to make the most of the iPad as a medium. As Josh Koppel of Scroll Motion, the company responsible for Esquire for iPad, expressed to us, “it’s about being additive, not reductive.” In other words, it’s not going to be enough to just offer a digital copy of text on a screen. Readers want a better experience.

At least right now, providing that experience takes time. However, in the future, more tools and solutions for creating more robust experiences on the iPad will be available to publishers.

It will be interesting to re-evaluate the state of the magazine industry on tablet devices in another six to 12 months. We think this is an area that is only going to get bigger over time.

More About: esquire, gq, ipad, ipad apps, ipad magazines, media, men's health, people magazine, publishing industry, vanity fair, Wired

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