Secret nerd

Ever since I got an Apple iPod, I've become a secret technology nerd. I'm not quite a "first-adapter" (getting the latest technology before anyone else), but I now admit that I'm a second-adapter. My iPod is a vintage blue "mini," though I also admit to owning an orange shuffle for portability (and because it's so cute...more on that later). If I had a steady income and was free from my Verizon phone contract, I'd buy an iPhone in a minute. I have been reading about it obsessively, especially David Pogue's posts. His videos are hysterical.
In my previous work life, I worked with a number of producers and arts administrators who were wed to the idea of getting their work heard through radio and tv. Period. The web was for listing programs but not much else. Streaming, downloads, podcasts were all completely foreign to me...and to them. But I started to see that these new technologies could be a really critical way to get cultural works out to a larger number of people. So I started reading, particularly blogs, as they are often on the front line of what's being developed and how it's being used.
The one I'm reading religiously these days is Scobleizer and I will admit, I often don't know what he's talking about. But it does give me a sense of what's happening out on the frontiers of technology and how people are using it...and more importantly, how it's changing communication. My own age shows when I hear my colleagues say "oh these kids and their iPods." I worry that they see technology like this as a fad instead of a communications tsunami that will wash over them and leave them stranded in the 20th century.
And now, friends, I will get around to book arts. Scobleizer alerted me to Google's new blog search. Just enter a subject and it will find posts on that subject. Bookgirl shows up on the first page after a book arts search and some others that I haven't had time yet to check out. But what a great way to find new blogging friends!