Lights. Camera. Drama.

With a April 3rd release date the tentative release date and the overexposure the Ipad has been receiving on the Internet for the past month, consumers are still wondering whether or not Apple's newest creation is a worthy marketing venture to invest one's money in. In my "Steve Jobs, What Have You Done?" piece, I strongly believed that the Ipad will become a marketing success and I continue with that proposition.

Imagine a world with iPads during your college days. It was literally several months ago for me. I remembered my heavy black backpack, full with books, notebooks, and the occasional laptop. What if I had replaced my current Compaq Presario CQ70-120US laptop with a 64GB iPad? Do you know how much bag space I could had with a two pound "netbook" on my back? I could have saved many days and many nights walking up and down the Smith College campus. The convenience is maddening. I could have done all my homework and online research more effeciently with an iPad.

The iPad is going to redefine "space" once again. With the iPod, the user controls the flow of music, his/her emotional capabilities, and the social environment around him/her. A iPod user can literally shut off the emotional and mental demands of everyday life by becoming one with the music. With the iPad, professors, students, business people, and other professionals will control their work and social media activities, the presentation of such work, and their social interactions with other people around them.

Want to show off your portfolio to a potential employer or favorite college professor? Bingo! Bring out your Ipad and demonstrate your skills in a more professional and timely matter. My only concern with the iPad and other e-book devices is the digitalization of books. I want my books in my face, not on my computer. Magazines, newspapers, scholarly journals, articles, and annual reports are the exception.

Print magazine publications such as Wired Magazine and the Wall Street Journal will be available on the Ipad in digital form. With the Wired Magazine demonstration, it is like having the physical components of Wired Magazine, but in Adobe Elements format. With the Wired brand's strong readership, I would not be surprised if its fans are willing to pay a monthly fee to use the new Wired application on the iPad. Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson stated about this digital evolution, "The point here is that we are entering a new era of media, where we finally have a digital platform that allows us to retain all the rich visual features of high-gloss print, from lavish design to glorious photography, while augmenting it with video, animations, additional content and full interactivity."

I could not agree more with Anderson, but I have some questions. If other print magazines followed suit with this concept, what will happen to the online versions of these print magazines? Should they be included in the reconfiguration of print magazines on the iPad? I personally think if Wired Magazine gets to be digitalized on the iPad, so should Wired News (wired.com). Secondly, do you think every print magazine and newspaper will follow Wired Magazine in this approach? With traditional print media dying every day, they will be only a matter of time when the Internet will take over the print industry.