Apple’s store of the future, just across the street from Store No. 1
By Mary Slosson
To the legions of Apple fans, any new store from the consumer electronics giant is cause for celebration. But the company’s latest, in Glendale California, is special for two reasons: it’s being touted as Apple Store 2.0, a model for others to come … and it happens to be just across the street from the very first outlet to carry the corporate logo.
Already inviting comparisons to Starbucks — notorious for opening outlets within a stone’s throw of each other — the latest addition the now-331-strong network drew hundreds of devotees to the Americana at Brand mall just north of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday.
Apple obliged with a DJ, dancing, and free gifts to the first 1,000 visitors (a t-shirt specific to the new mall location).
The full-glass-front store — California’s 50th – is reputed to be one of the largest in the company’s steadily expanding network, although an Apple spokesperson would not confirm that.
It shares the honor, with Apple store #1 in the Glendale Galeria mall, of being the two closest Apple stores ever – the mall complexes are separated by a single street.
“Twitter Revolution” in Iran aided by old media — TV, radio
Media outlets covering the street demonstrations in Iran have devoted plenty of coverage to the so-called “Twitter Revolution” and the role social networking Web sites like Facebook have played in circulating photos and video taken by protesters using cell phones.
But several of the Farsi-language satellite TV and radio stations based in Southern California, with its population of as many as 500,000 residents of Iranian heritage, also have become a bulwark of opposition to Iran’s controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed re-election last Friday.
Los Angeles-based satellite station Channel One TV, which is run by expatriate Iranians, has made contributions — some of them not so old, either, as one might think from an “old media” provider of satellite TV coverage. Shahram Homayoun, the president of Channel One TV, said that before the demonstrations – although not in preparation for exactly that occurrence – it mailed out thousands of camera pens to citizens in Iran to help them document events the government wants to keep quiet. The pens pull apart to reveal a flash drive for plugging into a computer and uploading video.
Officials with Channel One said they do not know how widely the James Bond-style pens are being used in the current demonstrations in Iran. But the fact that the station even shipped them out is an indication of how much pressure stations like Channel One are putting on the Islamic Republic’s government, which has worked to block their satellite signals.
In 2006, former U.S. President George W. Bush poured $75 million into “promoting democracy” in Iran, in part by funding satellite broadcasts. But Homayoun said his station does not take any money from the U.S. government, relying instead on constant televised appeals for funds, even during his high-voltage, excited coverage of street protests.
Officials with Channel One said that their station operates on a budget of nearly $2 million a year, with a staff of 40. Beverly Hills-based satellite radio station KRSI is a decidedly smaller operation, and one host there said the donations it receives are paltry.
On Wednesday, KRSI carried an interview with Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of Iran (pictured at left), who over the airwaves urged on the protesters and said the demonstrations were the biggest tumult to hit Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted his father.
hoipolloi,
1. I wasn’t talking about the pre-war protests in Iran but rather the worldwide protests as I said in the first line of my comments.
2. The Iranian opposition are strongly encouraging the current protests, is it making them less newsworthy?
