The Public Editor Joins the Cocktail Party

Arthur S. Brisbane, the public editor of The New York Times, turned his attention this week to the newsroom's use of Twitter. He quoted from an e-mail interview with me, which I am posting in full here, with a few tweaks and links. The Public Editor: I’m working on a column about how Times staffers use Twitter: the journalistic benefits, the marketing benefits and any other benefits – as well as the costs, whatever they might be. I am, I confess, a newcomer to using Twitter and wonder whether it is a boon or a waste of time.

@palafo: Is talking to people a waste of time? Sometimes it is, I guess. Twitter is a conversation. You get what you put into it. I don’t think talking to our readers is ever a waste of time.

That’s the short answer. Here’s the long one.

I view my Twitter account @palafo as part of my identity. It does not belong to The Times any more than my name does.

But The Times is part of my identity, too, because I am an editor here. For that reason, I behave on Twitter as I do in the newsroom or on a public panel. I try not to say anything on Twitter that I wouldn’t say in front of a live microphone with cameras rolling.

Background: I joined Twitter in 2007 when few people in the newsroom knew what Twitter was, and I didn’t hide my Times employment, but I didn’t advertise it at first, either. At the time, I was on the Metro desk, where I was editor of the City Room blog. We were always looking for ways to engage online with New Yorkers. The blog had an automated Twitter feed, but it had fewer followers than my account (still true, alas). It turns out that a personal touch on Twitter was more successful than spitting out headlines. So I identified myself on Twitter as the blog’s editor and started interacting with readers through it.

In my current job, editor for news presentation, I oversee copy editing and production for print and Web, and I continue to experiment with all the social media tools, including Twitter. I have a responsibility to understand the digital media innovations transforming journalism and the news business.

But I admit it: I love this stuff. I’ve been on the Internet since it was the Arpanet, when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Twitter reminds me of the computer bulletin boards, Usenet newsgroups and other online forums of the early days. The rest of the world has finally caught up.

Now, to your specific questions...

The Public Editor:What are the benefits to you of tweeting and what kind of content do you tweet?

I follow about 1,100 news organizations and blogs, competitors, Times colleagues and other journalists, people who follow the news closely, media critics, tech experts, some friends and acquaintances and anyone or anything anything else that catches my interest. I try to pare the list back from time to time. It was easier to follow when it was closer to 500. I also have a number of Twitter lists with even more accounts that I consult from time to time. I have a list that shows how Twitter looks to me.

These Twitter users “curate” the Web for me, which means they find, analyze and comment on useful links that interest me far more quickly than I could ever do for myself. If they link to something that grabs my attention, I will generally look at it or save it for later. I don’t read everything. I dip into Twitter when I have time. The analogy is a cocktail party. You can’t join every conversation, but you drift through the crowd and stop now and then. Important or significant news gets repeated, and it sometimes shows up in the trending topics.

Often I learn about news from Twitter. Your predecessor, Clark Hoyt, wrote about Twitter’s role in a big story in 2009 that was an aha moment for me and the newsroom, when a jetliner landed in the Hudson River.

But Twitter is more than a tip sheet or a place to find sources. It is important to remember the “social” part of social media.

Since the people on Twitter share so much useful information with me, I try to give back to them by interacting there. I don’t write about my lunch, or anything too personal. Mostly, I share links. The links are generally to news articles, blog posts, interesting uses of digital media, pictures, video, you name it. I follow our newsroom policies for personal Web writing, which permit journalism reflections, and lively commentary on one’s avocations like music and food, but forbid taking stands on divisive public issues.

I am not a Times spokesman or a marketer. I share a lot of our journalism on Twitter, because it is excellent. I don’t feel obligated to do so, and I don’t share everything. The article has to interest me personally as a reader and be something that I think my Twitter followers will like. People can tell when you are just randomly pumping your own stuff or your employer’s offerings. Luckily, Times journalism — I am biased about this -- is almost always of a high caliber.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter is asynchronous, so I am followed by about 10 times more people than I follow back. Sometimes they want to talk to me. So I read all “mentions” directed at me on Twitter. People know I’m busy, so they don’t abuse the opportunity. I ignore anonymous gripes, but people who use their real identities are generally polite even if they are upset about something The Times has done. If someone like that has a question, a correction, or a criticism, or a technical problem, I try to answer it or find someone who can.

The Public Editor: Do readers benefit and, if so, how? Does The Times benefit and how?

As everybody knows, over the last several years Twitter and social media have grown at a great rate, and many news sites, including The Times, now receive a growing amount of traffic from referrals on Twitter and other social media sites. Having our journalists on Twitter also translates into credibility with readers who live their lives online. It shows we understand the digital world and how it works.

More important, The Times and its readers benefit from a newsroom that understands digital culture and is familiar with the conversations about the news on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, blogs and similar sites.

The news report and readers also benefit from the news-gathering power of tools like Twitter. Brian Stelter has used Twitter to develop ideas that have turned into articles.Rob Mackey of The Lede blog (@thelede) has shown how news events from earthquakes to political revolutions have played out on Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms.

In general, sites like Twitter have accelerated news competition. Not all of the effects of high-speed social media have been positive. Rumors and bad information spread faster — but they are also debunked faster. The pressure to compete in real time, and the transparency and immediate feedback from readers can be nerve-racking and destabilizing. But competition is good for everyone. We are closer to our audience, and they are closer to us. That results in a better news report.

The Public Editor: Are there any costs to you, or the Times, of using Twitter as a tool? Surely, it takes time. Does that time subtract from the time available to do your job? Any other costs?

It doesn’t take away from the job. If anything, the job probably eats into many more hours of my personal time than it should. Or so my wife tells me.

Part of my job is to read The Times and its competitors, a task that could fill every hour of my day if I let it. Twitter is a useful tool for figuring out priorities for my attention. It doesn’t take that much time. At work, I use an iPhone app, and there’s always down time, walking down the hall, waiting for stragglers at a meeting, riding the elevator, while I’m grabbing a bite to eat. It only takes an extra second to save a link or share it. At home, I’ll look at Web sites and Twitter on my laptop, phone or iPad while I’m watching TV or listening to music, a podcast or an audiobook. I am busiest on Twitter at night and on weekends. The Web and Twitter have definitely cut into time I used to spend reading books.

Another cost is the occasional irritation of family and friends, although e-mail is a worse cause of inattention and wasted time. I’ve been trying harder lately to turn off devices and get off the grid away from work. It’s not easy. The people I know are like me: They talk about the news a lot, and they want to know the latest news, too.

###

Addendum:As I mentioned on Twitter, I might have chosen a different metaphor had I known the headline was going to be "A Cocktail Party With Readers." The analogy is as old as Twitter, and useful for newbies, but it doesn't capture everything:

Other analogies for Twitter: Cafe. Neighborhood. Village square. Crowded public meeting. Parade ground. War zone.Sun Mar 13 15:41:30 via webPatrick LaForge

palafo

@palafo Classroom back row. Street corner. Water cooler. Kindergarten. TED.Sun Mar 13 15:48:12 via EchofonMiss Scorpio

gemini_scorpio

@palafo Real-time peer-review; collaborative footnotes and bibliography.Sun Mar 13 16:07:31 via webJenny K

jenny_flaneuse

@palafo Roman bath house with hash tags. #TwitterSun Mar 13 15:44:18 via EchofonDavid Herrold

davidherrold

@palafo I thought analogy worked well to convey level of involvement in conversations, but i'd prefer cafe for a.m., maybe mosh pit for p.m.Sun Mar 13 15:55:36 via webSasha Koren

SashaK

@palafo@thepubliceditor How bout lifeline? http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/the-internet-kept-me-company/Sun Mar 13 17:30:20 via webSandra Barron

sandrajapandra

[See also: Basic Twitter Tips for Journalists.]

A Ride to Kaffe 1668 for Los Volcanes

One July weekend, I had the opportunity to combine two of my favorite activities -- riding my bike through Manhattan and visiting new coffee shops. My family was traveling elsewhere, and New York had not yet fallen into the drippy hot torpor that has marked recent days. I rode down the west side a bit, diverted to to the Hudson River trail, then passed through TriBeCa, Chinatown, SoHo and my old East Village stomping grounds before chugging up the East Side -- a loop of sorts.

I made a pass by La Colombe Torrefaction, but I had already tried beans from there via B. Koffie, so I decided to check out Kaffe 1668, one of the shops highlighted in The Times a couple of months ago. Coffee Guatemala Antigua Los Volcanes

Purchased July 3 at Kaffe 1668, 275 Greenwich St., TriBeCa.

Roasted on June 27 by Plowshares Coffee Roasters of Hillburn, N.Y.

Description Creamy body; delicate, clean acidity; milk chocolate and orange citrus; smooth, sweet, dry finish.

In the cup I picked out this particular coffee because I had not tried anything from this roaster before. In the shop, I had a coffee brewed expertly by the cup in a Clover press. That was a Panama variety from Denver-based Novo. Full bodied, and smooth, with a milk chocolate flavor, this coffee was delicious, as anything brewed in an $11,000 machine should be. I drank it hot, because that's how I like coffee, though it would have been a good day for cold brew, which was also available.

The shop, located across from a Whole Foods, adds some style and ambiance to an otherwise mall-like block of sterility downtown. The front opens out on the street, and there are interesting light fixtures and a communal wood table, where I sat. I was able to lock my bike within view on a low fence around a tree, and there was more ample bike parking across the street near the Whole Foods.

There's free WiFi with your purchase, which I used to browse the shop's Web site, with its entertaining cartoons. As best I can tell, Kaffe 1668 doesn't have its own roaster, but features beans from Intelligentsia and other high-end roasters like Novo.

I left with a bag of this Guatemalan strapped to my bike. The bag itself is an impressive bit of green-ish technology, made from paper with a ziplock that can be resealed.

Plowshares, which has an excellent Web site, gives this description: "Los Volcanes coffee is grown in the valley's rich volcanic soils that were formed by the three volcanoes (Agua, Acatenango, Fuego)... Most of the coffee here is cultivated at 1,500 - 1,700 meters above sea level which helps gives this coffee a pronounced acidity that is clean but not overpowering." The Antigua valley is a prime coffee growing region about 40 kilometers from the city of that name in Guatemala, according to Plowshares. The beans with this name come from 34 growers who banded together in a cooperative in 2000.

I have been drinking a regular cup or two brewed at home every morning for the last couple of weeks. I don't have any complaint about it, but it hasn't been bowling me over. It does pass my no-milk test, which means it is not overly acidic to my taste. The citrus didn't overwhelm me, which is sometimes a complaint I have with the single-origin coffees promoted by many coffee aficionados. It is remarkably light-bodied and smooth, which is good on these sweltering days, though I tend to prefer a fuller flavor and more than a trace of chocolate.

Still, it was well worth the ride.

Since I am still dabbling with social media, I also documented this trip on Foursquare and Posterous. And now I am promoting this Wordpress blog post on Facebook and Twitter. On some level, I suppose this is a longer, multi-platform version of the classic Twitter update, "I am eating a sandwich."

(Yes, I am drinking a cup of coffee.)

First Minutes With the Apple iPad

It's still syncing. While I prepare myself for the inevitable post-purchase depression and "why can't I do that, Mr. Jobs" revelations, here are some unboxing pictures and a video from my Posterous page.

At some point I'll list the pros and cons. But I'm done with the posting and tweeting today. I doubt there's much new that I could say about it.

Technology isn't my beat, so I'll leave the iPad news and reviews to my colleagues at Bits. (Here's an earlier post about how I made the purchase decision.)

For me, the iPad is first and foremost a book and media reader. My Kindle died a while back. I expect to make heavy use of not only the native iBooks reader but the Kindle for iPad reader [iTunes download], and a variety of customized apps from newspapers, magazines and comic companies, including this new app from The New York Times [free iTunes download].

I also expect this device to be good for casual gaming and for watching movies and TV, as well as casual Web surfing. It doesn't seem like a work device to me. It's more of a toy.

And if you wonder why I need a book reader, just look at this picture below. I have six more like that in our tiny Manhattan apartment. I do not want to be a latter-day Collyer brother.

A Side Trip to Stumptown, Manhattan

People I know who have spent time in the Portland area have raved about Stumptown Coffee for years. They roast the beans right in the store! Nothing on the East Coast compares! So after the second-day-of-school parents' breakfast on Friday, my wife and I tagged along through the rain when another parent suggested we walk over to the new Stumptown outlet in the Ace Hotel in an area that some people are trying to call SoMa (for "South of Macy's") in the high 20s off Broadway. The shop was nicely appointed, with a classic feel, more upscale than your average grungy coffee shop. The baristas wore neckties and jaunty hipster hats (which were mocked by some on Twitter when I posted a quick slideshow on Posterous).

The service was great. This is not one of those places where people linger over laptops. There are no chairs, which keeps people from lingering too long. Diner's Journal declares the shop's style to be distinctly New York.

My wife ordered a soy decaf latte, which she declared to be just fine. She's not a big coffee fan.

I had a house espresso, which was tasty and as good as shots pulled at Cafe Grumpy and Ninth Street Espresso, my other favorite Manhattan coffee haunts. Was it better? No, sorry, Stumptown fans. Something else was missing: Unlike in Portland, the beans are not roasted on the premises. Stumptown imports the beans and roasts them locally in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

I ended up spending my last dollar on this bag of beans from Costa Rica, because Stumptown wasn't taking credit cards. Dudes, nobody carries money in New York anymore.

Name Montes de Oro

Origin: San Pablo de Tarrazu, Costa Rica

Roasted: Sept. 6 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Sept. 11 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description From the excellent, detailed Stumptown Web site (includes video): "Rainier cherry and clementine orange flavors meld harmoniously with sweet notes of honey, caramel and milk chocolate."

In the cup There was no real description on the bag, so I went with my gut, having had good experiences with Costa Rican coffees (tthough not always). I definitely got lucky. First of all, if you've read my past entries, you'll know I tend to have a sweet tooth when it comes to coffee.

This coffee is delicious and left me feeling warm on this chilly, damp Saturday morning before I took my daughter to her gymnastics class, where I'm taking advantage of the free WiFi at Chelsea Piers upstairs to write this post during the class. I have a great view of my kid walking backward on the balance beam. I'm also playing Calexico on the iPhone because the chattering parents around me are making me a little nuts. My multitasking life.

Stumptown reports: "The producers behind Montes de Oro, Emilio and Laura Gamboa, cultivate their coffee in San Pablo de Tarrazu. Emilio personally oversees the processing each and every night of the harvest. He ensures strictly ripe cherry and fully washes it with INGESEC technology. The coffee is gently dried on African beds, which provides time for sugar development." Oh, just go watch the video.

Other reviewers of this coffee, including the 2008 vintage, have described it as fruitier -- pineapple, thistle and kiwi? Maybe a little clementine orange in there? I didn't pick up on any of that. Maybe those flavors come out in a regular coffee. I made this as espresso in the Jura and was grooving on the caramel, honey and chocolate. Sweet, but not too sweet.

I highly recommend this one, and I guess I'll have to leave some extra time now and then for another side trip to Stumptown to try some of the others. They had a whole assortment.

Third-Party iPhone Apps I Actually Still Use

Update: New list for October 2014 is here.

More often than I care to recall, I have impulsively downloaded a fancy new iPhone application, only to have it languish on my phone. That was the inspiration for the first "list of iPhone apps I actually use" last year, after the iTunes store started selling third-party applications. Since then, the number of new applications has grown rapidly. Now there's a cottage industry of lists, blogs and podcasts devoted to reviewing applications. Here's a recent Techcrunch list of the "best" apps, which notes the store had 300 new apps rolling out every day. Here's a similar post at Gizmodo, which put the total number of apps at more than 74,000. Many of the lists that try to sort out the best applications seem to focus more on flash than substance.

In August, I finally renewed my AT&T contract and upgraded to the iPhone 3GS. It seemed like the right time to reconsider the programs I had loaded onto my phone. Did I actually use them?

Here's my revised list:

Bento This has quickly become one of my favorites. For the Mac, the $49 Bento 2 is a quick and easy database program that works with spreadsheets and other data sets, like staff lists, to-do lists, project tracking, and so on. The iPhone Bento software syncs beautifully with it, so you have all your important data on your phone. Too bad it's not free with the computer software, but I didn't mind paying $4.99. This could work as a standalone iPhone application (if you live in a Windows PC world, say) but a warning: There are a number of bad reviews on the iTunes store from people who tried building databases directly on the iPhone. I haven't tried; as a way to sync and render Bento 2 files on an iPhone, this app is great.

Google Mobile App I still use this application quite a bit to search the Web, bypassing Safari. It used to be the only way to search the contents of the phone (now the iPhone OS can do that, too). Voice search is cool, but it's still something of a party trick. The word recognition is getting better all the time, though it has trouble in loud places like the sidewalks of New York. I hope they keep tweaking it. I also enjoy Google Earth, another nifty iPhone toy.

MightyDocs If you use Google Documents, this gives you fast access to them over the phone. And if you are going to be away from easy Internet access, you can cache them all on your phone. It now has basic spreadsheet support, which was missing in the original. And it's still free.

ReaddleDocs But you may have documents you don't want to keep in the cloud. This $4.99 app offers a drag-and-drop solution from your computer over a WiFi network to the phone for a range of documents, including Word docs, spreadsheets, PDFs and more. A lot of people seem to use the similar Airsharing tool, but ReaddleDocs has been a smoother experience for me, with more features and flexibility. It comes with 512mb of online storage, syncs with MobileMe and iDisk, and a variety of other Web cloud solutions. It even has a built-in browser that lets you save Web content, making it a possible replacement for bookmark/clipping applications like Evernote, which I still have on my phone and computers but don't use much.

Echofon Pro (formerly called Twitterfon) is my main choice for a Twitter phone client. It handles retweeting seamlessly (without giving you attitude, like its competitor Tweetie). It can show tweets and replies in a conversation format, among other cool features. The free, advertising-supported version is just as good.

Facebook Newly updated, this application is nicely put together, attractive, with intuitive navigation of the Facebook site. Some reviewers say the iPhone version is better than the Web site, and perhaps that is a hint about the mobile future to come, when computers go the way of typewriters and most of us carry the Internet in our pockets.

PicPosterous One-click picture and video posting to a Posterous photo blog page (here's mine), for quick sharing with friends. It will also autopost to other social media sites like Facebook, Friendfeed and Twitter. This app is a snap. Here's an auto-slideshow I posted of the aftermath of a taxi fire near my apartment.

Textplus AT&T used to include 200 free SMS text messages a month with the iPhone data plan. Now it wants you to pony up a monthly fee or pay by the message, making those bits some of the most expensive on the Internet. I don't use enough text messages to warrant paying for a plan, so I'm a la carte. One way to keep costs down is with this free ad-supported application. It gets around the cost by setting up a Web-based group chat with you and your correspondents. Once you text their phone numbers they can reply at no cost to you, even if they don't have TextPlus themselves. With push notification, it behaves like the native SMS client.

AIM Another free alternative to SMS is instant messaging via mobile. I have a lot of work contacts on AIM, gChat and similar networks. This application loads those contacts and lets me chat by phone (again, without per-message charges).

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary At $49.99, this is the most expensive application on my list, and possibly one of the most expensive in the iTunes store. It has more than 600,000 words and definitions, a distillation of the 20-volume O.E.D. into just two volumes. It includes all words in current English from 1700 to the present, and includes a word-of-the-day feature and a randomizing feature for browsing. The best resource for learning the derivations of obscure words.

Shakespeare The complete works of William Shakespeare in a well-designed reader. Follow along at Shakespeare in the Park. Free, from Readdle.

Kindle for iPhone Many people don't agree, but I think that the e-book reading experience on this application is better than the actual Kindle, especially if you like to curl up with your reading material at night without bothering with a booklight. And now I don't have much choice, since my Kindle 1 exploded, and I'm not ready to commit to a new one. At least I still have access to the books I bought with this free app. Kindle newspaper and magazine subscriptions don't work, nor can you read documents you have sent to yourself or ebooks from sources other than Amazon. The coolest feature is the Whisper Sync: It takes you to the most recent page you read, whether on the phone or the Kindle.

Stanza This is an even better e-book reader, a competitor that Amazon bought out. Alas, it doesn't connect to the Amazon store or read the Kindle format (yet). The library connects to Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks and other services that offer free public-domain texts of many classics. You can also buy books from certain indie operations. The page-turning, fonts and other features are superior to the Kindle for iPhone application. You can even put your own documents and ebooks into Stanza, a feature supported by the Kindle but not its iPhone cousin.

iWant For when you just want to quickly find a nearby restaurant, bar or gas station, without gee-whiz graphics to impress your friends. It's free.

Yelp The user-rating restaurant/bar/etc site powers many other location-based restaurant apps, so you might as well use Yelp's app, which works well and is attractive. Just be sure apply a grain of salt to the reviews by the site's notoriously cranky and vengeful users.

UpNext 3D NYC If you want to show off gee-whiz graphics while out on the town, this $2.99 mapping application is a great option, so long as the town is Manhattan (sorry, rest of New York City and the U.S.). The map is rendered in 3-D with each building's contents inventoried, and listings features will zip you around the map to newly opened restaurants, bars and so forth.

Urbanspoon Some people swear by this random restaurant finder, an early application in the store. I think it's gimmicky and annoying, but I do resort to its roulette wheel charms when I'm in a large group and we can't agree on a cuisine or a price range. It's also a good app for showing off the phone to newbies.

NYTimes The first version of my employer's fre reader was too slow for some, but the latest update is pretty snappy. The articles download faster, you can bookmark them and share them via e-mail. Since my Kindle had its meltdown, this is my main portable way to read the paper. If I know I have a long subway ride, I download the news before heading underground to the land of no Internet. There is a menu that shows all the photos from the paper, and it's pretty easy to customize the sections you want to see when you first open the application.

WSJ Why pay for online news from The Wall Street Journal when you can get it free with this nicely done mobile reader? But note the warning: "Access to subscriber-only content available without charge for a limited time only."

NPR News My wife can't bear to be separated from National Public Radio, and I am a sometimes addict myself. But when we travel, we sometimes find ourselves out of range of a good public radio station. This audio player is great for listening to any NPR shows at any time, either recorded versions or live streaming from NPR stations. The unrelated Public Radio Player is pretty good, too, and lets you listen to streaming content from a long list of local public radio stations (not just NPR).

AOL Radio, Last.FM and Pandora. Another way to turn the iPhone into a radio is with one or all of these free players. Lilsten to Internet radio, create streaming customized channels, and even buy music.

Remote This was one of the earliest and coolest free iPhone tools. Turn the phone into a full-featured iTunes remote for your computer or Apple TV. Browse your media library in the palm of your hand.

i.TV Television listings on your phone, with push notifications to remind you of upcoming programs and user reviews. The new version will eventually allow the phone to be used as a remote for Tivo HD (but not my 10-year-old TiVo Series 2, alas). It also has movie reviews and Netflix integration.

Amazon So you see a product of interest somewhere -- on a train, at a friend's house, in a brick-and-mortar store. No more scribbled notes or typing. Launch this application, and take a picture for the "You asked us to remember" function. In a few minutes, Amazon will find a similar item in its store. It worked the first time for me with a fairly poor quality picture of an obscure book's cover; no bar code required. It worked with a picture I took of a review on the cover of The New York Times Book Review. And it's not just for books. It worked for a demitasse. And with a picture of a cordless phone handset wanted to replace (alas, that model is no longer manufactured, but Amazon had a product page). It recognized a plush dinosaur toy someone bought for my daughter. You may be obsessed with finding objects it can't identify. Or you may find yourself taking pictures of every object of desire. If you're doing this in a real store, you may have to confront ethical questions. That's your business. Just watch out for the Amazon one-click -- the path from looking something up to an immediate impulse buy is nearly frictionless.

1Password The day you lose your phone, you'll be happy the person who found it doesn't have access to all your sites, accounts and passwords. This secures and encrypts them, and it syncs with the passwords on your computer. (This app was free, but you do have to pay for 1Password software for your Mac itself).

Wikipanion Look it up on Wikipedia with a few touches. But please don't cite it in your term papers if you are one of my wife's students. I tried a few Wikipedia apps and settled on this one for its easy lookup functions. I'm testing the official Wikipedia application, as well as Wapedia, and will revise this post if I come to like one of them more.

WikiHow A free version of the popular how-to Wiki. It includes a bonus survival guide stored on your phone, for emergencies how-to situations (My favorite: "How to Escape From the Trunk of a Car.")

Mixologist I'm mostly a wine-and-beer guy, but every now and then I find myself at a beach house with an odd assortment of liquor and mixers. This 99-cent application lets you search for the drink you can make with the ingredients at hand, using a nice interface. There are many other cocktail recipes for the amateur bartender. There's also a liquor store finder built into it. If this application sounds more appealing than it should, you might consider this one.

Brushes This simple finger-painting program is a favorite of artists and was famously used to create a New Yorker cover. Now it has layers and photo-importing, and even the most artistically challenged painter can create beautiful images.

I Dig It, Waterslide, Parapanic, Jelly Car, Tapword, Bejeweled, Toy Bot Diaries, de Blob, Stone of Destiny, Scrabble, Enigmo, Tetris, Super Monkey Ball, DizzyBeeFree, BattleAtSea, Bubblewrap, Morocco The iPhone is a great gaming platform. Games tend to a few dollars or more on iTunes, so you have to choose carefully. These are among the best, based on extensive kid-testing with my 9-year-old daughter and her friends (I helped). Several take great advantage of the touchscreen, accelerometer and other functions in clever ways.

Shazam and Midomi Fun with music. Amuse your friends. Hold Shazam up to a playing music source, and it identifies the song. Midomi is similar, but you can also say lyrics or hum to get a list of possible song titles. One day at work we were all standing around singing songs into it. Karaoke without background music, a terrifying spectacle. The link shows a Shazam-Midomi face-off on YouTube; Shazam won for reliability and usefulness. Both are free and worth having, although the novelty of these party tricks wears off eventually. Another fun music application is the Ocarina, which turns the phone into a musical instrument broadcasting on the Internet, but I don't use it that much.

Live Cams Another useless stunt app. Browse public Webcams, and view your own private cams if you know the address. Pretty much a waste of time, but interesting. The marketing suggests you can use it to watch semiclad people on beaches, but, uh, there might be easier ways to find that on the Internet. I like to look at Times Square to make sure it's still there. New parents might want to use it to set up a babycam in the nursery.

iHandy Level Sometimes you just want to know if that table is level. This is a sometimes-useful tool that will impress old timers who think the iPhone is a useless tool. Free (for now). Is there a great or useful application I've missed and should try? Tell me in the comments.

Taxi Fire, With PicPosterous

I tried out the new PicPosterous iPhone app today to take some pictures of the wreckage from a taxi fire in front of Maison restaurant in Midtown, at 53rd and 7th. The fire was put out pretty quickly. Nobody was hurt. Afterward, tourists were standing around snapping pictures of each other in front of the wreck. City Room has more details. So does the local CBS site. My wife was walking by when the taxi was still ablaze and alerted me, but I missed the flames. (We live nearby.) The rest of my pictures are over at Posterous.

I was impressed with the ease and speed of PicPosterous. It uploaded the pictures quickly and automatically from my iPhone 3GS, creating the blog post and slide show. The name of the gallery in the application becomes the headline of the post. You can also set it up to autopost to Twitter, Facebook, and many other services.

Next, I'll have to figure out the best way to upload video from the iPhone. This is pretty cool:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m2cylpQIjw&hl=en&fs=1&]

Exit the Kindle, in a Splash of E-Ink

Well, this is one cost of early technology adoption. I bought an original Kindle in April 2008, and it has served me well, so I can't complain too much. Recently, I noticed a sort of smudge developing in the upper left corner of the screen, even when the machine was turned off. There were also slight streaks of white lines going vertically down the screen, with a washed-out appearance at the top. I could still read books, but it was sort of annoying. I decided to see if Amazon tech support could offer any advice.

I wasn't looking for a replacement, although I wouldn't have minded a sort of cash-for-clunkers trade-in discount on a Kindle 2 or a DX. Mainly I was hoping this was an easy problem that they had learned how to fix. If they couldn't, I would live with it. So, first I sent Amazon Kindle support a note explaining the problem, and got this reply from Bobby Chowdary:

I truly understand your concern in this regard. Please check to make sure your battery is fully charged or that your Kindle is plugged in using the power adapter. If your Kindle's low on power, the screen may not refresh properly.

You can also clear the screen by restarting your Kindle. Visit Kindle's Settings screen by selecting that option from the Home screen menu. When you're on the Settings screen, select Menu again. You'll then see a "Restart" option you can select to reboot your Kindle.

If restarting Kindle doesn't help, please give us a call so we can try some real-time troubleshooting.

As I had mentioned in my email, the Kindle's memory was full, so I deleted a bunch of old NYT Kindle editions, some books I had read and private documents I no longer needed. Then I charged it overnight and used the reset option on the screen menu. The smudge was still there the next day.

This time I called Amazon, or, rather, put my cell number on the Kindle support site, causing them to call me back in a matter of minutes. The support person on the phone walked me through a reset procedure that involved putting a paperclip into a small hole in the back of the device.

When the device reset, it was as if the e-ink had exploded. "Amazon Kindle" was now visible behind the text, and dark and white streaks were much worse (see picture). The text was basically illegible.

The Amazon helper explained that my device was out of warranty (it had been covered until June) but that I had two options: I could buy a Kindle 2 at full price, $299, or they could ship me a discounted original Kindle for $180. I said I was a bit reluctant to shell out money for a device that might not last another two years, especially with so many other competing toys being rumored. And I certainly wasn't going to pay $180 for a beta device that "had a lot of problems" that had been solved for the Kindle 2. We went around a bit, and I could hear her whispering to a supervisor.

When we ended the conversation, I told her I wanted to be marked down as dissatisfied.

I then posted what happened on Twitter, in between denial-of-service attacks from Russia. I also used my iPhone to post a picture on my Posterous page.

By going public, I am tying my hands, ethically. Even if Amazon changed its mind, I couldn't accept a replacement unit or even a discount at this point, lest someone suggest I'm using my position as a journalist to get a better deal than anyone else. And that's fine. I just want to warn others who might face the same problem.

Today, somebody named Irshad of Amazon wrote in response to my follow-up email:

I'm sorry for any trouble that has been caused with regards to the Kindle device. I have reviewed your order, as well as the notes regarding your phone call to our Customer Service department on August 08, 2009. I know this may be frustrating; however, please understand that the One-Year Limited Warranty for your Kindle expired in June of 2009. We can't offer warranty support or repair services for this Kindle. However, as one of my colleagues mentioned, we can send you a refurbished kindle with charges. If you're interested in receiving a refurbished Kindle, please write back to us and let us know.

No, thanks. Kindle 1 prices on eBay range from $100 to $227, so I could probably get a better deal if I wanted another one of these.

I wrote yet another message to Amazon urging them to add some notes to their tech support guide on this problem. Customers should be warned that resetting an original Kindle with these symptoms might end up turning it into a useless brick. The customer might want to choose discretion and see if the device can be nursed through a few more months. (I am not the only one who has encountered this problem.)

(The following day, I tried resetting the Kindle again, with no effect. The e-ink problems persist on the screen even after the thing is fully powered down. I am tempted to disconnect the hard-wired battery, just for curiosity's sake.)

As tempting as the new Kindles (the 2 and the DX) look, the rumors of an Apple tablet-sized iPhone-type device have kept me from taking the plunge. A full-color computing device with an e-book reader and continuous Kindle-like wireless would be a category-killer. [Update: See this.]

For now, I'll live with the Kindle iPhone app. This morning, I canceled my NYT Kindle subscription, since that doesn't work on the iPhone. That and reading my wife's manuscripts was the main use I had for the Amazon device, though I am in the middle of a few books.

Oh, well. No doubt I would have moved on to some new device in the next six to nine months.

The fatal plane-helicopter crash over the Hudson on the same day put it all in perspective, too -- there are worse things than a broken e-book reader.

I thought the @replies from my followers on Twitter were interesting (a selection):

(Sept. 21 update: To my surprise, I find myself returning to print books, reading them faster and appreciating the superior interface. And several readers have recommended the observations on Kindles vs. books in this excellent New Yorker piece by Nicholson Baker.)

April 2010 Update: I bought an Applie iPad and wrote about my experience with it.)