I made this list over on Foursquare to help folks who are visiting and want to have an easy-to-follow plan. This is inspired by the number of times friends and family from my hometown upstate have done one of the day-trip-to-the-city packages, and I’ve taken them around. There’s a million other things to add (taking suggestions in the comments!), but this generally works for the timeframe allotted.

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It’s interesting how online banking in Germany differs from online banking in the US…

Arguably, they’ve been at this electronic banking thing over here longer than we have in the states – in fact, the routine writing of personal checks ended in Germany sometime well before the end of the last century.  But while the move away from paper has progressed much further here, funnily enough you can’t do any personal online banking at all in Germany without one very important sheet of paper: a TAN list.

A TAN list is a numbered list of unique codes (usually 50 per sheet).  Each time you make a transaction online, your bank’s website prompts you for a random code from the list (i.e. “Please enter code number 43“).  The idea is not only to present the user with an additional authentication challenge – a simple “What is your first pet’s name?” type of question  accomplishes that – but to also make that additional challenge unique to the transaction.

Why is a transaction-specific authentication challenge important?  It’s a way way to fight keystroke logging software – malicious code capable of quietly recording each and every keystroke you type (including, of course, passwords).  Until recently, my US bank had been addressing the key logging issue a bit differently, requiring that I enter an additional “Security Key” by clicking on the keys of a virtual onscreen keyboard.  That avoided the physical keyboard (and thus key-logging), but the problem remained that my single Security Key was static rather than unique to each transaction.  As a consequence, if just one of my transactions was overseen (or screen-recorded), I could still be compromised.

…which is why they just changed over to the system shown below:

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Writing from New York  a few hours before Irene is set to hit town, this seems genuinely the first broadband-generation social media-heavy hurricane coverage to strike our Northeastern states.

The New York City Mayor wrote me an email, and my Brooklyn neighborhood association sent one, too. So did my beach house community. Even my insurance company seems to worry about me these days.

What strikes me most amidst this blast of e-messages is how different public service announcement now disseminate and how they seem to have changed an entire city’s public perception about what constitutes appropriate disaster recommendations.

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Avid digitalmissive readers know, I have long considered the New York subway my prefered ad-hoc “test tube”, to get a read on the adoption status of the latest available digital devices and services. Turns out, when it comes to eReaders, I am really not seeing much excitement among my fellow straphangers these days.

Apart from the occasional Amazon Kindle, Big Apple subway riders don’t seem overly attracted (yet!) to the burgeoning world of portable electronic book and magazine devices.

How come?

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Although I’ve been thinking about this for a while, it took a recent Union Square Maoz lunch with the folks from Incubakor,  to write one more rave about how urban and digital lifestyles increasingly seem to meet and merge.

This one’s about the sizeable number of new sleek and modern looking vertical micro eateries that have popped up in Manhattan and other cities across the country.

Think Chop’t, Chipotle and Maoz respectively for do-it-yourself salads, burritos, or falafels. Think Rice to Riches for not-quite-your-mother’s-favorite milk rice. Or Yolato, Pinkberry, Red Mango and Berrywild , all eager to declare the next renaissance for frozen yogurt on-the-go.

Essentially, if your parent’s culinary experience at McDonalds, IHOP, or Olive Garden appears rather Web  0.0 passe to you, these aforementioned new and casual eateries are clearly all out Web 2.0.

For one, designed to have you pick-and-choose your items as easily as you select your favorite video snacks from your preferred YouTube channel, this new breed of fast food spots is all void of sit-down menus, deliberately limiting your selection to but a few tastes and choices.

Still sounds too close to the age-old salad bar approach? Not so fast.

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Have you recently taken the New York subway, let’s say, to 23rd, 66th, 86th, or 103rd street?

If you exit at any of these stops you’ll notice some of your favorite entertainment stores vanished. Shut down. Closed for good.

At 23rd and 6th Avenue Barnes&Noble, gone! At Lincoln Center Tower Records‘ flagship store, gone! Over at 86th and 2nd Avenue Circuit City, vanished. And at 102rd and Broadway Blockbuster Video closed its doors, too.

Be it for books, music, movies, or consumer electronics (for anyone 30 years or older), those were among the brands you would likely turn to first – to discover, buy and play your entertainment retail. 

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The other day I wrote about the New York subway (my favorite impromptu research panel), and a few “hang outs”, still more comfortable reading a real book rather than their e-version.

Of course, despite some anachronistic readership, the world of e-books continues its expansion undeterred. 

The latest: Online retail giant Amazon.com announced, the library of books available for it’s Kindle branded e-reader will now also be available on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.

Why is this big? 

If you hear yourself or anyone else equipped with either Apple-branded portable, we’ve all started asking what’s on it, as if asking what’s on television or on the radio.

Couple that with the by-now impressive depth and breadth of repertoire available for either device, Apple portables are anything but shy compared to, yet again, television or radio.

In other words, the iPhone / iPod combination of devices has become a media platform in its own right.

For Amazon to jump on board makes perfect sense.

More on the subject:

Amazon’s Apple Deal: Kindle Cannibal? (Business Week)

Amazon releases Kindle for iPhone, iPod Touch (LA Times)

Amazon launches Kindle application for the iPhone (TechCrunch / Washington Post)

First Look video: Kindle for iPhone (cnet)

What’s going on? 

Of the ten or so people sitting immediately around me on the New York subway from 14th to Wall Street, an impressive seven riders actually read a book!

Yes, actually reading hard and soft cover books, one page at a time, without the help of an iPod, or Kindle, or any other digital hand-held device.

Although completely anectodal (and statistically irrelevant, I know), behind my impromptu mini sample of “analog” readership, is there more than meets the eye?

Hey, it’s probably just a push back by a few, against the omnipresent popularity of overly slick and shinny digital rich media players packaged in 21st century form factor and UI.

Or maybe it is a case of “it’s the economy, stupid”.

People reading relatively inexpensive physical books today may be an indicator that previously released Zunes and iPods are now considered way to pricy.

My money, though, is on a different point: My seven fellow straphanges have either re-discovered the age-old value proposition of printed paper, or never actually abandoned their love for it.

To them I guess, when reading a real book, the tactile experience is unqiue and remains unmatched compared to any digital e-reader counterparts.

There’s also a certain emotional bind to turning pages manually, one by one. 

Oh, and if you are into dog-ears, try that with an Amazon Kindle – can’t be done.

Long story short, companies have long started working on e-paper and e-readers to recreate similar effects, but none seemed to have cracked the code on sufficiently simulating the organic experience of holding and reading an actual book. 

Until there is a similarly satisfying “touch and feel” reading experience with e-reading devices, I’d like to assume my seven subway mates probably are the equivalent of vinyl record fans amidst a sea of DVD owners.

Nothing major. Nothing to be concerned about. It’s interesting though, as the e-reader industry seems to still have ways to go.

PS: For those of you interested in “the latest and greatest” innovation in e-books, e-reading, and the like, check out these items:

In case you missed the first one, Amazon Kindle II is coming out

Amazon to offer e-books on Apple devices

Sony going next-gen with its own e-Reader, too

The bookworm project now supported by O’Reilly

Stanza, a prominent e-reader iPhone app

Google Books now officially online

Samsung has genuine interest in actual e-paper

Who knew? Porn on the New York subway. But then again, wasn’t it inevitable?

The place: A crowded afternoon N train from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The culprit: a Sony PlayStation Portable held by a young man sitting and watching in solitude, yet surrounded by plenty other strap hangers trying to get home.

What exactly happened here?

The first thing that got me was the audacity of it. With his PSP packed with genuine XXX fodder, simply put, what he was watching was nothing short of hard core pornographic visual certainly not intended for public transportation.

The next thing I noticed, no one seemed to pay attention. Hence – at least for the duration of my ride – no one seemed to mind.

What about the woman next to him, seemingly asleep? Another nearby busied herself reading, of all things, scripture. There were plenty  of other men and woman immediately around us while others got on and off the train.

Now, I know New York subway commuters have long learned to mind their own business.

But the video that unfolded in front of all of us (the sound was muted) clearly lowered the bar on anyone’s standard of privacy; clearly was so out of the ordinary that for it mere ostentatiousness I figured someone would have to bring it up.

Above and beyond my own discontent about the young man’s obvious lack of social skills, I quickly found myself rather intrigued by something else in this – the apparent disconnect between device and audience.

What used to be a consumer video experience “curbed” by the lack of technology’s reach, a TV set and a VCR simply didn’t lend itself to any practical use in full public view.

This kept anyone’s viewing choice a private matter. No matter how sexual, violent, or mundane the footage was, consumption and intent remained locked inside the home.

Fast forward, today’s “anytime anywhere” video consumption capabilities have changed the playing field. The new paradigm: Anyone’s personal video experience is super-portable, devoid of any particular time, place, and for that matter choice of companion viewers.

Think about it.

Sprint Nextel recently started delivering WiMAX-enabled wireless broadband service powerful enough to give you downlink speeds of 25 Mbps or more while driving down the highway.

Essentially an open pipe into and out of the World Wide Web, it’s going to be interesting to see what passing cars are watching in the back seats once content is no longer limited to wholesome satellite subscription services or Disney DVDs brought along for the kids.

And what about in-flight Web access, such as the service recently announced by American Airlines for select domestic trips?

No matter whether on a highway, on an airplane or inside a subway car in New York, what’s OK for the person to the left of you might be unacceptable to the one on the right.

Clearly, with the pervasive nature of digital content and enabling delivery devices, the meaning of “privacy” is undergoing change.

As to my personal opinion, I am in favor of self-regulating one’s public conduct. Anything beyond that might quickly collide with core principles such as net neutrality or freedom of speech.

Still, our old-world definition of privacy seems to be changing as more of our new world trends towards digital and portable at once.

It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

There it was. Noticeably forlorn between marketing for Dr. Zizmor skin treatments, ConEdison, and the Apex Technical School, a singular display ad for web darling cnet.com – of all places on New York’s subway, the C train from 186th street to Euclid Ave.

What struck me was the seeming lack of context. I have not seen any other c|net ads anywhere since. Not on the subway or outside.

So what’s the genesis of this oddly-placed ad?

Maybe it was CBS’ recent “digital” c|net acquisition that auto-triggered the new parent’s media agency to spend traditional “analog” ad money on what’s essentially a web-only property.

The big picture: To this day, long held dynamics between brand marketers, agencies, and media outlets continue to dictate where budget flows, and how much.

To that end, despite the significant increase in online ad sales (folk, these Lehman Bros. stats clearly are pre market melt down), brand marketers and their media agencies still are much more comfortable buying traditional marketing spots.

This is where the big budgets go, and with that, buyers’ year-end bonuses.

Hence my assumption: Once c|net became “analog”-owned – swoops – “analog” ad money was automatically allocated for, of all places, what seems to have been a single subway car in New York.

To me anyway, it seems as unusual a choice as somewhat misplaced – as I doubt the subway ad in  question will meaningfully spike “click-thru” for cnet.com.

Not to mention the rather “bland” poster design.

But hey.  Another morning on the subway in New York.

UPDATE

With my recent c|net display ad find, I have started paying more attention to seemingly misplaced ad buying decisions inside hybrid analog / digital media companies.

This one’s with McGraw-Hill’s Business Week magazine and their Technology & You podcast series of which I am a long-held fan.

Tuns out, what started with Intel and Audi branded audio pre-rolls, I am now greeted by, of all things, a pitch for Clinique skin products for men.

How did Steve Wildstrom’s decidedly (great) geeky discussion over the ins and outs of tech topics from Android phones and flash memory, to WiFi vs. WiMAX grab the attention of an ad buyer tasked to sell facial creams?

I want to assume that somehow this checked out as a targeted ad buy; that somehow this all made sense as part of a greater marketing mix.

In the meantime, this day and age, I wonder whether beauty cream products sold during a technology podcast are as smart as giving me diaper ads during The Simpsons or The King of Queens.

I am just not the desired target group.

This day and age, there are better, more targeted technologies to connect me with the right ad.

Why not try it?