I don't usually follow every word that comes from Apple, but this message right now on Apple.com (below) has me intrigued. The blog rumblings and a little newspaper called The Wall Street Journal say it's Beatles-related. But if you were The Wall Street Journal, wouldn't you announce this news at the expense of being wrong? I can't imagine a story getting more clicks and blog buzz than two of the world's favorite topics... Apple + Beatles. Kudos WSJ.

As a self-proclaimed world's biggest Beatles fan, this news would make me very, very, very happy. I'm reading into the fact that there are clocks for London and Tokyo here.

However, as I already own almost every Beatles song, I would be very, very happy with an announcement about a streaming music service. iStream. I can get behind that.

Being a graduate student in the college of communications allows for wonderful access to the tools of the trade, including video recorders, professional-quality digital cameras, and iPads.

While test driving a few dozen iPads, our class discussed needs versus wants. Did any of us need an iPad in our lives? Why, or why not? We pondered:

• How does the iPad fit into our daily activities?
• How can an iPad enhance a reader's experience of books, magazines, newspapers?
• Where does an iPad provide useful applications in a business setting? Education setting?
  
• How can marketers use this technology to their advantage?
  
• What can an iPad do that a laptop computer can't? What can a laptop do that the iPad does not (yet)? Does an iPad complement a computer or do they cancel each other out?
  
• What does the iPad not do that we wish it did to be more useful?
• Finally, did we really need it? Or is it just for cats?

One thing we found out quickly is that the functionality of the iPad is directly related to costs. Keyboard, camera connection and other adapters sold separately. Many of the applications also have a pricetag.

As the owner of a MacBook, PC laptop, two iPhones, a digital camera, a half dozen iPods of varying capabilities, a Wii and two DVRs, I'm not sure I'm ready to let the iPad into my life just yet until I know for sure that the technology offers something I need vs. want. I recently found two sad, forgotten, irrelevant Palm Pilots and their nifty stylis pens in a corner of the closet. I'm not sure an iPad wouldn't meet their same fate.

I've seen the movie The Social Network, the movie about the founding of Facebook, twice now since its release. The movie has a 97% review rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has generated Oscar buzz.

One of the questions I walked away with is: Is Mark Zuckerberg really that big of a jerk? The other was: What's a final club?

Beyond the plot of the movie and the story of Zuckerberg's humble Facebook beginnings, it occurred to me how much there is to learn about Facebook - as a marketer, as a consumer, as a friend of some of its 500 million users, and as a citizen concerned about the right to keep my Facebook information private.

Where to start? There's no shortage of talk about Facebook out there, and it can be tough to sift through it all.

Brian Solis, one of my favorite social media bloggers, has some helpful resources that serve as a good starting point. Most recently, he posted a two-part Businees Guide to Facebook that I found helpful. After adding a ton of social media blog feeds to Google Reader, I've found Brian's posts to be the most thorough, original and thoughtful, rather than a regurgitation of content.

• The Business Guide to Facebook Part 1: Your Brand Page for the Social Web
• The Business Guide to Facebook Part 2: From E-Commerce to F-Commerce

I'll be continuing my search for the best social media resources out there!