Multimedia Reporting (Fred-Musser)

If you look for the much-hyped Zune – Microsoft’s music gadget released in November – at the Tech Shop in the Kansas Union, you won’t find it. To Zack McDougall, the Zune hype exists almost as a myth.

“I think I’ve only had two people ask for a Zune,” McDougall, technology consultant for the KU Bookstore, said. Amazon.com sang a similar song; three weeks after Zune’s release, it fell from the Web site’s list of 20 most popular MP3 players. Apple products accounted for 13 of the top 20 players.

McDougall said Apple’s large market share and the iPod’s user-friendly reputation obstructed sales of the Zune.

“It’s definitely a cultural icon,” McDougall said of the iPod.

What do Zune users think about this?

Students using the Zune proved to be a rarity on campus early December. For Zune opinions, bloggers offered some perspective.

“I bought something others didn't like and have enjoyed it, simple as that,” TDavid, main contributor of makeyougohmm.com, said. “We might be buying another for our teenager this Christmas.”

McDougall, who has been selling iPods since their original release five years ago, said the Tech Shop considered selling Microsoft’s new player.

“It’s got a lot of potential, just because of the features it does have,” McDougall said. “At the moment, I just don’t see it being the iPod contender that everybody was hoping it was going to be.” Zune’s biggest innovation is wireless music sharing between users.

If you go to Best Buy, sales employees will tell you songs can be transferred from one Zune to another, where their lifespan is three days or three plays, whichever comes first. They’ll also tell you iPods are still selling better than their newest contender.

The wireless Zune loses much of its functionality, “unless everyone you know has one,” McDougall said. “It’s not like you’re able to surf websites or download music over a wireless connection. It’s really more for sharing, sort of social networking, like MySpace.”

But instead of the Zune, McDougall said Apple’s new iPod shuffle generated the most consumer interest for the Tech Shop.

“Before I had two out of the box, I sold two,” he said. Apple controls over 70 percent of the MP3 player market, McDougall said. However, not every iPod user is proud of the media player.

“I just want to stop,” Dan Watson, Overland Park senior, said. “It hasn’t been a pleasurable experience, well, it’s just guilt. It’s become a massive phenomenon of isolation. Everybody’s got their iPod.”

Still, blogger TDavid thinks that among MP3 players, the Zune is a good choice.

“If you like the ability to have the greatest amount of music at your disposal, over a million songs, and don't mind a monthly rental fee, go with something like the Zune,” he said.

Alternatively to both the iPod and the Zune, Stefan Bachrodt, Algonquin, Ill. senior, decided to purchase a Zen, made by Creative. He said the Zen offered more options for a lower price.

"The iPod doesn’t seem like it’s that customizable to your own preferences,” he said. “It’s almost too utilitarian.”

Along with the Zune comes the Zune Marketplace, a store where a song costs 79 Microsoft Points – the equivalent of 99 cents. Just like when songs are downloaded from the iTunes music store, downloads are encoded with digital rights management, or DRM.

“If you don’t know what DRM is right now, you’re going know exactly what it is within the next year or so. It’s going to be a household word like iPod,” McDougall said. DRM is how copyright holders protect their intellectual property, he explained. Songs that TDavid might buy from the Zune music store can only be played on the Zune. For Watson, songs from the iTunes music store have a DRM only compatible with the iPod; Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM works with Bachrodt’s Creative Zen, but not with the Zune. DRMs also limit the number of computers a song can be on and the number of CDs songs can be burned to.

“It’s completely restrictive,” McDougall said.

As the MP3 player market continues to expand and become more complex in many ways, some people would rather stay out of the technology tangle completely.

“It’s not a big, pressing need,” Scott Pinkelman, Lenexa senior, said. Instead of an MP3 player, Pinkelman owns a Sony Walkman ESP Max CD player. “Considering how many used CD players there are around, it doesn’t seem to me like I need to get anything else.”

“It’s a little unwieldy, a little outdated, nevertheless, enjoyable,” he said.

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If you’ve written a check in northeast Kansas, Bob Featherston has probably handled one of them in his warehouse.

Featherston, chief executive officer of Jayhawk File Express, said banks are among the many businesses that rent file storage by the cubic foot at the record management company’s Topeka-based warehouse. The facility, a block-long metropolis of boxes stacked 16 feet tall, contains files from businesses in the Lawrence and Topeka areas. According to Featherston, Lawrence could be the home of Jayhawk File Express’ newest warehouse within the next three years.

“A lot of it depends on growth. We wouldn’t have made the commitment if we didn’t think there was an opportunity,” Featherston said. Jayhawk File Express, a 10-year-old company that provides records storage, media storage, document shredding, document delivery and document imaging has a five-acre lot in Franklin Business Park south of Kansas Highway 10 east of Lawrence specified for construction of a 50,000-square-foot warehouse, which will cost over $1.2 million according to Jayhawk File Express’ Web site.

Jayhawk File Express, owned by seven Topeka investors, also announced in late October the appointment of Cheryl Creviston as company president. Creviston said her role will replicate that of an orchestra conductor.

“We have a lot of tight deadlines, and we really have to be in sync to deliver a lot of those deadlines,” she said.

A number of records management companies exist in the area, including international companies such as Iron Mountain and National Records Centers, both located in Kansas City. Several shredding companies are also in the area, including Shred-Pro, a national shredding service and the international shredding company Shred-it. Featherston, who has been with Jayhawk File Express for two and a half years, says being an agile community business with state-of-the-art technology helps his company compete.

“With technology, there’s a lot of opportunities to grow and change and be able to capitalize on that,” he said. Jayhawk File Express’ main warehouse uses wireless barcode scanning devices; Featherston says total technology for the warehouse cost about $80,000 to $100,000.

Some small businesses choose to keep their own offsite storage.

Valerie Tarbutton, office assistant for Vold & Morris, a Leawood-based law firm, said her company has a makeshift file storage facility located in Lee’s Summit. Nicknamed “Fireproof,” the garage-sized storage facility contains several fireproof cabinets of documents.

“The benefit of it is you have 100% assurance that it’s getting done how you want it to be done. You control every aspect of it,” Tarbutton said.

The University of Kansas keeps many of its records in the University Archives on the fourth floor of the Spencer Research Library.

Rebecca Schulte, University archivist, said that the Spencer Research Library has about 20,000 square feet of records in it. Sports memorabilia, student records and over a million photos sit calmly in 30-foot-long isles; rows and rows of isles stretch nearly a football field in length.

“We’re very limited in space. Anytime we have to move something, we have to move something else,” Schulte said.

According to Featherston, Jayhawk File Express first began simply as a warehouse storage facility, evolving then to box storage and file shredding. A large conveyer-belt driven shredding machine and compacter can cost about $300,000, Featherston said.

“A lot of them can be one-time purchases, but when you’re growing, you have many one-time purchases,” he said.

More recently, Jayhawk File Express created a climate-controlled media vault, containing customers’ backup computer files and microfiche. Document imaging is also a new and expanding field for the company, Featherston said.

Featherston said that these integrated record management features have helped the company grow 30% to 40% in the last couple of years. He said the company had about a million dollars in annual revenue last year, and thinks the company will grow and additional 40% in the next year.

Both Featherston and Creviston attribute much of their success to their staff.

“I think the growth happens when you have good people out there,” Creviston said.

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Kids are what they watch.

According to recent research, children’s television programming influences language development in infants and toddlers. Different shows have different influences on vocabulary production in children.

The study, conducted by Dr. Deborah Linebarger, University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Dale Walker, University of Kansas, showed that some programs, such as Blue’s Clues and Dora the Explorer, resulted in a higher vocabulary than that of Barney & Friends and Teletubbies.

Although many programs increase children’s vocabulary by means of repetition and common themes throughout the show, Dr. Walker said that parent participation is vital for language development.

“When sitting a child down at the television, if a parent is sitting there with them, then it’s a very engaging opportunity,” Walker, associate research professor at the University of Kansas, said. According to Linebarger and Walker’s article, infants and toddlers spend about 75 minutes in front of the television daily.

The study, which was published in the American Behavioral Scientist in 2005, explored the effects of eight children’s television programs on infants and toddlers aged six months to 30 months. Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer, Arthur and Clifford all demonstrated gains in vocabulary in children by as many as 13 new words at 30 months of age. While Dragon Tales and Sesame Street had no affect on vocabulary development, Barney & Friends and Teletubbies both negatively affected youngster vernacular.

For Ted and Emily Semadeni, this is good news.

Their daughter Isabel, a small tot at two years old, watches Dora the Explorer nearly every day.

“Right when we get home from day care she’ll watch it at least once, sometimes two of them,” Ted Semadeni said.

Dora the Explorer encourages children like Isabel to talk to the television in a repetitive manner, exercising new vocabulary. The program also introduces not only new English words to a child’s lexicon, but also Spanish vocabulary.

“I speak Spanish, so I would do anything I could to encourage her to speak Spanish,” Emily Semadeni said. The encouragement has already given Isabel multilingual success, as she recognizes many Spanish terms, including parts of her face and simple expressions.

According to Dr. Walker, the format displayed by Dora the Explorer is what makes language development more successful in some children’s educational shows. Programs like Sesame Street, though meant for learning, lack these traits.

“Dora the Explorer is for a younger audience. There’s a lot more repetition in that show,” she said. “They have a theme, they repeat it constantly throughout and in short segments, and they always go back to that. There’s a lot more interaction, so they have children doing things. Sesame Street’s not doing that.

It’s like sitting back and listening to a professor, a little bit,” Walker said. Walker has been involved in the University’s Juniper Gardens Children’s Project since 1990. The program is focused on the improvement of children’s development and educational experiences.

Even less successful for vocabulary, according to Walker and Linebarger’s research, were the children’s shows Barney & Friends and Teletubbies. Children who watched these programs knew 10 fewer words at 30 months of age compared to those who didn’t view the show.

Though most shows were linked to have a positive or negative effect on vocabulary development, the article said neither children’s informational nor entertainment programs were notably related to expressive language. However, according to the study, the amount of single-word expressions children used was increased by adult programming.

According to the study, shows like Blue’s Clues and Dora the Explorer are more successful with vocabulary than others because they speak directly to the viewer; this in combination with parent interaction helps children understand language easier.

Dr. Linebarger and Dr. Walker’s article said that Teletubbies negatively impacted language development in children for a variety of reasons. The article states that “the multiple forms of imput, including music, visual stimulation, and language, were too difficult and complex to enable word learning.” Teletubbies was also suggested as using “baby talk,” negatively impacting the development of vocabulary in children.

Due to the impression that Ted and Emily Semadeni get from children’s programs such as Teletubbies and its newest successor, Boohbah, they have chosen to instead expose Isabel to programs like Dora the Explorer.

“I think Dora does a good job of not doing baby talk,” Emily Semadeni said. “It’s not educational as in documentary-educational. It’s a fun educational show, and I love the Spanish influence.”

Dr. Walker said that no matter what the program, the most important part is for parents to be involved with what their children watch.

“With infants and toddlers, what’s really important is that they’re exposed to language in lots of different ways from other children and other adults, and that they have opportunities to hear language and to practice language throughout their day”

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