frivolous motion

Can You Feel The Nostalgia Tonight?

2009-03-27T08:44:00.003-04:00

Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” played in my iTunes library last night.

I haven’t heard this song in years.

It’s been nearly 15 years since Disney’s “The Lion King” was released.

And what I want to say about it is probably the reverse of what you’re thinking.

Most people yearn for what they say was the simpler, gentler, safer, time of “X years ago.” They say the world is getting worse, America is getting worse, that it’s harder and harder to get up in the morning and push through the day, harder to see why it matters.

But for some reason I don’t see this. I hear the lyrics of the song and it still resonates:

Can you feel the love tonight?

The peace the evening brings

The world, for once, in perfect harmony

With all its living things

Times are tough, I know, but there's so much to be thankful for. So many incredible things - even just in the world of technology - that are bringing people closer together in a way never before possible.

Facebook lets you connect with old next door neighbors (people your parents' age!) and your middle school best friend's Mom (you know, the awesome one who made you Taquitos and Pizza Pockets?)
Twitter connects people 24 hours a day over trivia, thoughts, feelings, opinions - everything uncensored, unfiltered, in real time. The Beat Poets would have killed for something like this.
The next version of iPhone software has the real potential to save lives (think the diabetes software/peripherals demoed a couple weeks ago) and connect people around common interests. You can play games together, collaborate on a finger painting masterpiece, share photos, videos, voice notes.
You can read books on portable devices. Start reading on your Kindle in bed, pick up where you left off on your iPhone during lunch, and if you lose interest or finish, a new book is a couple taps or clicks away. You no longer have to drive to the bookstore or wait a few days for something to arrive in the mail. New universes are seconds from being born.
Five years ago, you taught your mom how to use email. Now you're showing her how to manage a site using a custom installation of Wordpress, and set up a Facebook Page to connect with her church congregation and share news, events, and thoughts for the day. For goodness sake, your grandparents even have email and Blackberries now.
The President of the United States communicates with regular people, has a video podcast, takes questions from website visitors, and doesn't let the only message we hear be something filtered through a partisan media.

There's so much more than just that, but essentially what I'm saying is that things are oftentimes more awesome than they seem on the surface. Even in an age of economic and social turmoil, there are amazing innovations, and people and companies are doing amazing things that are bringing us closer and closer together.

There's peace and stillness to be found amidst all the noise and distractions.

"There's a calm surrender to the rush of day" lurking beneath the surface, if you're willing to scratch it.

You’re Thinking Like A Marketer, Not A Customer

2008-06-05T22:49:00.010-04:00

If you’re running a site to promote something (a product, an event, a way-of-life), and you’re doing so not simply out of the goodness of your heart,* but for financial gain, chances are you’re doing it totally wrong.

And if you are doing it wrong (and you probably are, trust me), then you’re losing money, losing audience, and losing sight of what makes your product/event/philosophy remarkable.

Nine times out of ten, the big problem is that you’re thinking from the point of view of a Marketer rather than as a customer. It’s nothing new to say this, of course, but I wonder if you could recognize it when you see it.

This is one of the biggest signs, and it turns people away before they’ve even had time to figure out where they are:

A homepage that screams “Buy This Now!,” instead of posing a polite, quiet, “How can I help you find what you’re looking for?” or even, “Hi! How are you today? Please feel free to take a look around and let me know if you have any questions.”

There’s a reason that brick-and-mortar salespeople** and cashiers and waitstaff and receptionists and pretty much everyone else use polite language like that above. They are there to serve you and assist you in paying for what you want to buy, not shove the Bison Burger Special down your throat.

Consider this bit of analogy:

It is raining. Hard. You don’t have an umbrella, but need to walk another twenty blocks down Fifth Avenue to get to your job interview. Crossing 36th Street, you glimpse a rack of umbrellas inside a store you’ve never shopped in before, a place called Jerry’s Stuff On Fifth. Sweet. Salvation. You open the door. *Ringaling!* You step inside, casually scanning the room from side to side to locate the rack of umbrellas you had noticed through the window, as you shake off a little of the rainwater and try to calm your breath. Without warning, you are ambushed by sales associates on either side, yelling and arm-waving and shoving Plastic Thermoses in front of your face.

“$9.95! Two for $15!!! Tell A Friend!!! Buy Now! Buy Now! $9.95! Two for $15! Only today! Special Special!”

You try to speak: “But...but...I just want an um—”

“Thermos Special! Buy Today! $9.95! Two for $15!”

If you don’t go running back out into the thunderstorm after enduring that, then I’ll eat my shorts. (Oh wait, I already did that.)

Make sense yet?

Here’s a translation of my little allegory:

Rain = Google

Umbrella = Search Query

Jerry’s Stuff On Fifth = Your Website

Plastic Thermoses Salespeople Of Doom = Bullshit Links and Flashing Banners and Fancy Rollovers and Embedded Commercials and BUY NOW MOTHERFUCKER Buttons that have absolutely, positively, NOTHING to do with what your customers want because you haven’t even bothered to ask them.

Any questions?

----
*Of course, even people doing stuff out of the goodness of their hearts routinely make the same mistakes. But the stakes are frequently higher when money gets involved, and for some reason, folks working for-profit tend to approach things with a much higher dose of ego, self-deception, and propensity for outright lying and other unethical behaviors that basically define “Marketers.” (Sub-note: marketers are not intrinsically evil. Marketers (capital M) are.) Go Back Up

**I am aware that a lot of salespeople are assholes. These are not the ones I am referring to. Have you stopped to think that your site acts like the very worst of the worst Timeshare salespeople? Go Back Up

5 Things To Think About

2008-03-24T00:32:00.004-04:00

1. Are there more days between today and your next birthday, or today and your last birthday? If the former, be happy, your birthday is coming up! (Like mine! Woo hoo!) If the latter, what the heck happened to all those awesome toys that you wanted so badly?

2. How many books are you in the middle of reading? If 0, get thee to Amazon! If 1-2, why are you spending so much time watching American Idol and enduring some excruciatingly awful mellismatic atrocities, when you could be enduring some excruciatingly bad examples of critical thought or science fiction writing? If 3 or more, take your bookmarks out of all three, go buy a John Grisham novel and read that this afternoon. Don’t stop reading until you know if it was the Assistant District Attorney or the 9th Circuit Judge.

3. When is the last time you made yourself your favorite dinner from childhood? If your answer is “more than a month,” you either need to go visit your parents, or stop ordering Chinese food every night. However, if your favorite meal consisted of 15 scoops of Neapolitan ice cream, hot fudge, nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry all piled on top of a “Big Foot” pizza from Little Caesars - go another 10 months, at least, before indulging in that awesome creation. (Let me know yours in the comments!).

4. Why do you spend the last hour of every night watching videos on YouTube instead of going to bed “early” for once? I don’t have much insight on this, as I am trying to figure it out for myself...

5. How long has it been since you last listened to the opinion of someone with whom you strongly disagree and didn’t attempt to argue back? Try listening without judging. Show the person that you respect him/her as a human being. That you care about what s/he has to say. This person probably already knows you disagree, but will be startled and shaken by your genuine attempt at understanding. You’ll probably learn something, too.

Fucked By Free

2008-03-21T21:21:00.001-04:00

Subtitled: Kicking Yourself Ain’t Worth The Knee Strain

Backstory: Back in November, “Web2.0 Blog of Blogs,” Mashable held a teensy little design contest to avoid paying a fair market price on a look for a t-shirt (snicker). The prize: An iPhone and some other boringish stuff. But mostly, the reward would come from the glory obtained by rising to the top of the community-generated content heap, and being deservedly recognized by the A-list crowd for one’s mad skillz. This was one of those half-assed design competitions that didn’t even include the usual “all intellectual property rights are hereby relinquished and exclusive commercial rights granted to [Company] upon submission of design work” disclaimer. Nope, just a super-casual, super-laid-back, “meh” of a contest.

And it ended up getting some pretty nice entries. The winning design - a cute little potato (get it? Mashable?) - is really polished, and a few of the others are remarkably wearable.

Naturally, I entered this contest (otherwise, why blog about it?). I couldn’t sleep, had read practically everything remotely interesting that had been posted to the internet that day, and decided - what the heck! - to fire up Adobe Illustrator to design a couple shirts.

This was 2:00 a.m., mind you.

At 3:00 (a mere 4 hours before I was to get ready for another grueling Monday at my former job), I submitted my designs. All 15 of them.

I went with a pretty tried-and-true form for all the designs: clever, slightly off-color slogan, centered on the shirt - and a simple, but cool giant M! on the back. Totally original, I know. Still - they felt appropriate to the Mashable brand, and I quite like a couple of the slogans I came up with (particularly the “Mashable is sexy in Helvetica, too.” shirt, which is the only one with a different layout, and not set in Myriad Pro.). But would I win? Nah. Never would’ve expected to. I contributed the designs partly as an embrace of the culture of free, partly out of boredom, and partly out of some insomniacical mania.

You see, growing up I had a lot of trouble falling asleep. And in my waking hours - especially those spent in high school and college - I found that I was drawn to extreme amounts of repetition and, in this, creativity. One night, I somehow managed to write 30 pages (single-spaced) of statements that began with the words “Staying up to...” Get the picture?

OK, now, fast-forward to today.

Mashable has opened a cool, new t-shirt shop using Zazzle.com (Zaz-what?!) that contains “40 different designs to choose from to show your love for all things Mashable, including submissions from our t-shirt design contest.”

“Sweet,” thought I, “Maybe they used one of mine.”

Well, yeah. Actually 12.

Twelve of the forty designs are mine. Take a look:

Oh, but wait!

These aren‘t my designs at all! What in God’s name is Arial Rounded doing in the place of Myriad Pro in some of them? I cry foul! Sure, Arial Rounded is oh-so-typically Web 2.0, but come on, guys. Eww. But yes, all of those corny slogans are mine.

OK, now what’s my point? Am I looking to be compensated for my grievances? No, no, no. Nor am I trying to bash Mashable for their behavior.

What I am doing is trying to provide a tiny bit of caveat emptor to folks who might decide to enter similar contests in the future. Rules are important. Rights are important. Your creative work is important and has value. And if you wish to give it up, you should do so willingly, knowingly, and with a clear understanding of what it means to relinquish control of your intellectual property without fair compensation.

In my case, this means I have to watch as Mashable launches an online store from which they stand to make thousands of dollars in profit doing little more than leveraging their (deservedly-strong) brand, with an inventory of products created at no cost to them. Brilliant for Mashable. Shitty for the ladies and gents who did the hard work designing the shirts. Shitty especially, for me, upon realizing that fully 30% of their catalog is work I produced, and for which I received not even a mere hyperlink to my blog. I was credited for my designs on the Flickr pool, but not linked. Meh.

Certainly, all of this would have been nice: a link, share of the revenue, free copies of my shirts, a free iPhone to supplement mine which is looking a little sad after doing some pavement surfing a couple months ago, fame and glory. But I’m not asking for any of that. And I am surely not asking that Mashable remove my designs from their store. A part of me thinks that it is seriously awesome that my work is being sold by one of the biggest blogs on the web.

All I want is for a few of you out there - in situations similar in some degree to mine - to be careful. Free is a business model. Which means thinking long and hard about how choosing it benefits you, benefits your intended market/audience and benefits the world.

Looking back, I still would’ve made the same choice, even if the moment of “sticker shock” was profoundly unsettling.

Oh, I nearly forgot: here is the store.

Election 2008: Racism Still Exists

2008-02-06T09:11:00.000-05:00

This morning, two of my coworkers asked me who I voted for in last night’s primary. Upon hearing that my support went to Barack Obama, they responded with absolute horror. No, not just incredulity. Horror. Shock. Disgust. I’m serious.

“What do you think is going to happen to America if that guy...you know he’s black...you kids don’t know...you don’t know what it was like...when that black guy was Mayor of New York - Dinkins - do you think that was good...I’m telling you right now, white people are going to have a hard time...I would never vote for him...” and on and on.

Effectively what they were saying was that electing Barack Obama as President would turn the United States of America into the United States of African-America, a place where blacks hold uncompromising power over whites and other minorities.

To which I say, quite frankly, “What the fuck?!”

These women - one is from Russia and the other from Peru - both U.S. Citizens now (interesting, perhaps, though I’m sure that has less than nothing to do with their feelings) - just shook my faith in the American electorate. Not because they want someone other than Obama to win (one of them didn’t even vote, and hundreds of thousands of other people want someone else, too), but their (lack of) reasoning for it. I mean, I’m not asking other people to carefully consider the policies and qualifications of the candidates. I guess all I’m looking for is a shred of rationality - even merely a little excitement about one candidate in particular - a sense that the motivation is rooted in something other than being strongly against (and especially for racist, sexist, or related reasons) the others.

I tried to argue that just because they didn’t like New York City under Mayor Dinkins (and here my other coworker piped up to say that he liked Dinkins), that didn’t mean that America under Obama would be remotely similar. The assertion that not all black people are exactly the same, just as not all white people are exactly the same (duh) fell on deaf ears.

One of these women actually indicated that if Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic race, she would, without a doubt, vote for “that other guy” - a politician on the “other side” whose name she didn’t even know.

I have never - never, not once, ever, in my entire life - personally experienced the expression of sentiments like those to which I was a witness this morning. Never.

How naive of me to think that we had somehow moved past this kind of hateful, hurtful stuff. The way they said to me, “You want a black man to be President?” with such disregard for the possibility that I might have black relatives or close friends - just an assumption that I was somehow betraying my “race” - really hurt. And it was really disappointing. I really hurt for them, too.

One thing I agreed with: “You kids don’t know what it’s like.”

Nothing could be more true.

And, given the taste I got this morning, nothing could be more welcome.

Why I Don’t Care About A Recession

2008-01-31T09:40:00.000-05:00

Subtitled: Why I Should Probably Never Consult On The Economy

So, everyone and her mother is fretting about the American economy lately. It’s of the major issues influencing the Presidential Primaries, and was the main subject of President Bush’s State of the Union earlier this week.

But I guarantee - guarantee - that if you ask people what exactly is wrong with the economy, the median answer will be (verbatim), “It’s bad,” whatever the heck that means.

Well, what does that mean, anyway? Not much. In fact, if you’re like me and actually think about how this (here or not yet here) recession affects you, you’ll see this so-called recession as a positive thing.

Check this out:

The Fed is lowering interest rates, which means my student loans (all $500 Million of them) are decidedly more manageable. At last, I’m not being screwed into paying more in interest than the actual cost of the loan. Just barely, mind you, but lower interest means I can make a big payment on my loan and not have it all be meaningless. But where am I getting the money to make this big payment at a time when the economy is so “bad?” Well, that’s my next point.
The government is going to be sending me money. Free money. No strings attached money. Assuming Congress is able to pass an economic stimulus package (which, yes, is a big assumption), most of us will be receiving a substantial check on top of our tax rebates. How substantial? I’ve heard numbers around $500, which isn’t too shabby. That could buy you an iPhone. Or two Zunes. Or three bundles of Rock Band. Or four things that cost $125 each after sales tax. But don’t rush out and spend that money on any of the above (except maybe Rock Band, because it’s amazing, but only one copy and maybe an extra guitar controller if they are ever released). That’s just what they’re expecting you to do. That’s what they want you to do. They who caused this whole mess in the first place. Why in Xenu’s name would you play into their hand? Dumb. Instead, do this: keep the money. Horde as much as you can. Keep your tax rebate, too. And the money your grandmother gives you for your birthday. Put it all in secret locations around your house. Put it in a savings account. Or, take advantage of the low interest rates and use the money to pay down some debts. Whatever you do, don’t encourage businesses and government by giving them the money. That’d just be enormously foolish. Remember: It’s all their fault.
Everything I have any interest in buying still costs the same. I don’t know what other people are buying that is more expensive now. Maybe gas, but if you’re driving a car, I personally blame you for 95.7% of this country’s ills anyway, so I couldn’t care less about your transportation expenses. Apple computers still cost the same, iPods still cost the same, iPhones and the AppleTV are actually cheaper! I don’t usually buy food, so I can’t say anything about those prices, but I can tell you that the Chinese/Mexican restaurant that delivers to my apartment hasn’t raised their prices. And if they did, well, I guess I wouldn’t eat three nights out of the week. Whatever. A sacrifice during wartime for the greater good. Call me a hero. Call me John McCain.
I still have a job. And they still pay me the same amount of money. So, um, some math here - a word problem, in fact: Kevin’s boss pays him $500 a month, and his rent is $125 a month before the recession. Now that there is (allegedly) a recession, he earns and spends exactly the same amount. How little does he care? Please show your work and express your answer to 5 significant figures.
What about those Americans who are out of work, who can’t get hired because the job market is awful? Won’t they be devastated by a slumping economy? Well, yeah, but I have a very simple solution for them: Build up your credit rating by spending every last dime in your possession, and take out a $5,000 loan. Spend $2500 on a new MacBook Pro and a copy of Windows XP, which you’ll install and run using Boot Camp. Spend $100 a month on a Triple Play package (cable, internet, phone). With the remaining cash, buy every single O’Reilly book on Amazon, read them, and learn how to program. If you are artistically inclined, you can instead spend the money on a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3. If you are artistically inclined, but uncharacteristically financially intelligent, then spend the money on the programming books, and pirate a copy of CS3 via BitTorrent. Then call me. I will pay you to do my work. Whoever said nobody is hiring right now obviously only asked Yahoo.

See, things aren’t so bad, now are they?

Copyright Morality: The Kids Don’t Care

2007-12-21T09:40:00.000-05:00

David Pogue, NYTimes Technology-writer extraordinare, writes a common-sense, but thought-provoking and foreboding (if you’re Old Media) account of the coming shift in perception about what is and isn’t regarded as moral and ethical (perhaps eventually legal) regarding copyright infringement and piracy.

It’s one of those, “Well, duh” articles that seems like anything but to the record and movie and TV industries, who are (a “scant” 10 years after Napster shook everything up) finally (barely) beginning to realize that things might be different than they used to be.

But while I (and you, most likely) certainly have a pretty strong grasp of the moral grey areas of copyright and know that things are changing fast, many folks (espec apparently don’t, and Pogue’s article does more to illustrate the coming shift than anything else I’ve read.

Pogue describes a presentation he often gives, in which he asks the audience for a show of hands regarding whether or not the copyright-related behavior he describes is OK.

‘I borrow a CD from the library. Who thinks that's wrong?’ (No hands go up.)
‘I own a certain CD, but it got scratched. So I borrow the same CD from the library and rip it to my computer.’ (A couple of hands.)
‘I have 2,000 vinyl records. So I borrow some of the same albums on CD from the library and rip those.’
‘I buy a DVD. But I'm worried about its longevity; I have a three-year-old. So I make a safety copy.’

He goes on, and with each successive question, more and more hands go up, indicating a perception that the behavior described is not cool, not right, not allowed.

The exercise is intended, of course, to illustrate how many shades of wrongness there are, and how many different opinions. Almost always, there's a lot of murmuring, raised eyebrows and chuckling.

But then, something remarkable happened. Pogue gave this exact presentation at a college - the first time he’s spoken to a crowd consisting only of “young people” - and it totally “bombed,” as he puts it.

Of the 500 people present, Pogue could get no more than 2 hands to raise for any of his questions.

Finally, with mock exasperation, I said, ‘O.K., let's try one that's a little less complicated: You want a movie or an album. You don't want to pay for it. So you download it.’

There it was: the bald-faced, worst-case example, without any nuance or mitigating factors whatsoever.

‘Who thinks that might be wrong?’

Two hands out of 500.

College kids. The very same 18-24 demographic so prized by the content industries. I shudder (can one shudder with joy?) to think what the high school kids would have to say about this. The next several years will be interesting.

Read Pogue’s article here.

Online Shopping And Painful Shipping

2007-12-20T09:04:00.000-05:00

It’s definitely crunch time for holiday shopping, and if you haven’t finished yet, well, get to it!

What I’m interested in knowing, though, is how much of your Christmas/Hanukkah/etc. shopping is done online, and how much is done by getting in a car (or by subway or bike or foot) and walking inside a store. What about for the rest of the year?

Marion Jensen, writing for TechConsumer, has a nice story about the convenience offered by shopping online.

Access to research. Access to a community. No lines. No paper coupons. No parking. No driving...What’s not to like?

I agree, and in fact, this Christmas - with the exception of an awesome winter coat for my girlfriend that she picked out - every single gift I’m giving was purchased online. Most through Amazon, of course, but I found a couple other great shops. Heck, even my Christmas cards were ordered online (yes, I actually bought stamps to mail these - all the while feeling like a freakin’ caveman, to be honest).

As I mentioned in a comment on the TechConsumer post, my biggest issue with ordering online has very little to do with the e-tailers themselves, and almost everything to do with deficiencies in the various delivery services (USPS, UPS, FedEx - they all have their issues). Ordering stuff is a snap. Click - done. But actually getting what you ordered is frequently almost impossible - especially if you live in a apartment building.

UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturday, for example, and after three attempts, they’ll return your package - even if you call them to reschedule. They also rarely read or listen to any instructions you try to give them. A couple months ago I ordered a nice dresser set from Target, and by some stroke of complete idiocy, they decided to ship this piece of furniture using a service that only delivers during business hours. As a result, the dresser was returned to Target, my order automatically cancelled, and I refused to place it again. Both Target and UPS lost money because of this lack of judgment.

The United States Postal Service is even worse. They won’t ever leave a package at my door - and of course they only deliver during the day - which means I have to go to the post office to pick it up. Fine, I can deal with that, I have a branch that’s a 10-minute walk away. But wait - it is only open until 5 p.m. during the week, and for only three hours in the morning on Saturdays. How often do I get home before 5, and how frequently am I around on Saturday? Never, and not so frequently. USPS also has a terribly antiquated tracking system that hardly qualifies to be called such, and their phone service is unbearable.

Of course, there are those who recommend having packages shipped to your workplace, and sure, this is usually a better option. But sometimes this is impossible - furniture, large boxes full of Christmas presents: this stuff can’t be carried on the subway.

Is this an argument for buying a car and moving into the suburbs? Some might try to turn it into that, but I’m convinced it is less a deficiency of my lifestyle choice (which I share with millions), than a case of delivery services failing to keep up with the times, and focused far too much on their corporate customers than little people like you and me. Come on guys, surely there’s a better way. Maybe making the shipment tracking better would help? Some communication, even?

I don’t think I’m asking too much. All I want is a fast, reliable way to get my Christmas presents.

What has your online shopping experience been like?

“Arial: Shameless Impostor” Desktop Wallpaper

2007-12-18T13:42:00.000-05:00

Are you masochistic? Do you have negative feelings toward someone this holiday season? Well, look no further than this totally free “Arial: Shameless Impostor” desktop wallpaper. Set in one of history’s lamest typefaces and in eye-bleeding black and hot pink, this 1920x1200 pixel work of Bad Art is the perfect cure to your suicidal/homicidal tendencies.

But seriously, though, if you’re on the edge, setting this on your computer’s desktop could push you over. Use with caution (just like the typeface).

(Click to download full size)

Some Helvetica wallpaper available here, if you don’t feel like inflicting pain on yourself and your loved ones.

ReadWriteWeb Redesign Analysis And Critique

2007-12-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

ReadWriteWeb, a popular technology blog started by Richard MacManus launched a redesign yesterday (by San Francisco-based Ideacodes). The new look was greeted with a reaction ranging from “it’s awesome” to “Worst. Look. Ever.” with a lot of stuff in-between.

Before I get into my opinion on the design, let me just say that ReadWriteWeb is one of my top-read blogs. MacManus is a smart guy, and his team of writers are pretty high-quality, too. It’s good stuff. I wouldn’t be so picky if I didn’t care.

And this is precisely why the new design is so unfortunate. I won’t pretend to remember what the old design looked like (and the WayBack Machine is down at the moment, so I can’t check), but what was always important to me about ReadWriteWeb was its content. Well-written, well-researched articles offering an interesting and original point of view. The site made sense. And now it’s all over the place. Navigation is redundant, inconsistent, and lacks hierarchy. I don’t want to click anything at all. There are all sorts of little issues with the redesign, and I’ll touch on some of them below, but the biggest issue is this lack of hierarchy - fueled, at least in part, by the tendency of successful blogs to become “content networks.” GigaOM recently relaunched version 2.0 with a similar focus (and a redesign by the same company - coincidence?) and TechCrunch has long been a poster child for this type of “community” of related sites linking to one another. But it just convolutes things and it’s impossible to know what content you should actually care about. What’s important here, and how are these elements connected?

Another huge issue for me (and a quite unexpected one, to be honest) is Richard MacManus’ response to the criticism in the comments. He posted two very long and detailed comments of his own addressing the negative reactions, which, on the surface, might sound like the right thing to do. Isn’t that part of the Web 2.0 ethos, after all?

Yeah, it is, but not the way MacManus handled it on this occasion. I won’t spend too much time talking about this, because you should just read his responses for yourself, but among other things, he even goes so far as to state that he doesn’t respect certain commenters - not their comments - but as people. His justification for this is that they didn’t show respect for himself or the designers, and I don’t see this at all. Two of the three commenters he singled out actually had positive things to say about the design, and I fail to recall a rule somewhere that specifies that all opinions on the subject of design have to be justified by technical know-how.

Not everyone is a designer. Not everyone knows how to explain what they don’t like about a design. You can’t ask readers for feedback and then say that only qualified, properly-educated professionals are allowed to have an opinion.

Here’s another thing that really got to me. In his response, MacManus writes:

Winston said: "Guessing that this may be the result of attempting to appease conflicting opinions through out the design process. Save opinions till the comp is fully fleshed out, then select one.. no mixing and matching."

RM: This is an extraordinary assumption to make. "Conflicting opinions"? There were none. Winston, up to this point your critique was valid. I didn't agree with a lot of it, but at least it didn't jump to conclusions like this.

He claims Winston made an absurd jump to the idea of conflicting opinions leading to issues in the design process (all too typical, gotta say). But in the article announcing the design, MacManus actually says pretty much exactly that.

Personally I love the new logo and header, but I am certain they will provoke different opinions. Why? Because that was the case with the ReadWriteWeb authors during the design process!

I’m not saying that MacManus was wrong to respond, nor that he is wrong about everything he defends. Some of the commenters were indeed disrespectful - it’s the internet, after all - but when MacManus says, “Anyway, enough of me on my high horse,” that’s a clue that he took the wrong approach in his response, and failed to attempt to understand why the reaction was so negative and why “much of the critique here did not mention how clean, modern and fresh the design is.” Could it be because it’s not? Is that even a possibility?

Let’s take a look at the design itself, now, starting with the new logo.

(ReadWriteWeb logo: Before and after)

Comments on the original logo:

The slash is a little awkward and has too light of a stroke.
The color is a little unbalanced - too much red on the left.
The flat yin/yang is just fine.
Interesting typeface.
Clear separation between the Read/Write part of the name and the Web.
Perhaps too thin to be reproduced at small sizes.

The new logo, however, takes these problems and expands on them.

Univers is a poor choice as the typeface. The condensed version here, with multiple point sizes being mixed together in CamelCapsStyle and with a hierarchy of blackness makes it pretty unreadable, even if the focus should be on the initials. (sidenote: are they trying to purchase the rww.com domain?)
Why the subtle gradient on the Yin/Yang? The rest of the site and the logo use flat colors.
I actually like the deep red color, why is the logo just black and grey?
Why did they flip the Yin/Yang over?
I know MacManus likes the Yin/Yang but it doesn’t work with the new slash-less branding. It’s also an extremely overused graphic symbol, and can’t stand on its own.
The logo is really horizontal and has to be reproduced at a relatively large size to be readable.
It really does just look awkward and unprofessional.
Why the rounded rectangle enclosure for the YinYang? It it supposed to be the same as the GigaOm branding?
Kerning (space between letters) is bad. Looks like the default, and makes it seem like there is an actual space between Read and Write, while Write and Web are more snug. Look closely at the dWr and eWe groupings to see this imbalance.

Moving on. My least favorite part of the redesign is the header. Here’s the first piece.

Logo aside, what are the issues? Well, as I mentioned earlier in the post, there is no clear hierarchy to the navigation. Some links on top of the (admittedly odd) rounded rectangle, and some underneath, separated by little shims. Everything gets a decent white rectangle on hover, but the sharp angles don’t quite fit with the rounded corners of the larger box. I actually tried to click the “RWW Network” text several times before realizing it is not a link. The light grey doesn’t do nearly enough to communicate “I am not a link, even though I’m in a really prominent position on the page.”

What is Last100? AltSearchEngine? How are these related? Is the CamelCaps supposed to be enough of a clue that these are sites in the RWW Network?

EverybodyUsesCamelCapsNowadays.

The right half of the header actually irks me more than anything else on the site. First, more links. How many links can you fit in one header with absolutely no hierarchy? RWW has 16. Seventeen if you count the logo, which takes you back to the homepage (sigh, even when you’re on the homepage!). Seventeen links and not a single one is remotely more important than the others.

But that’s not the bad part. The bad - awful - painful part is this collection of subscription forms and Feedburner chiclets. So many boxes, offering so little functionality to a regular reader. It clutters things up and isn’t even clear that the Feedburner chiclets are linked to entirely different feeds than the forms beside them. RWW looks too much like RSS. The custom “Go” buttons looks odd, and what does that mean anyway? Where are you going to go when you click it?!

Why not a single text area with a check box or radio buttons that let potential subscribers select daily or weekly email feeds? Make daily the default and only require someone to do something if they want a non-default setting, rather than forcing every potential subscriber to look at all these boxes and buttons and image links (and don’t forget the “Subscribe” text link, which points to the XML file) and decide between them.

And then there’s another text box underneath, making the header a veritable forest of forms. Can I submit my CV there, too?

I hope you’re not browsing with a font size larger than the default. If you are, you’ll notice that the header navigation is completely broken from an accessibility standpoint. Links disappear, everything overlaps (including forms, which I had no idea was even possible!).

OK, that’s the big stuff. Now to some littler comments on other aspects of the redesign:

This I don’t understand. Why does the footer look like this on the home page:

And like this on another page?

The “Earlier This Week” section is just fine.

And I like these post boxes on the home page, with the related images and preview of the post.

Featured Posts is also nice, but too far down the page to actually be “featured.”

Decent main content on the home page. Latest post and popular posts are featured. My beefs with the design are a lot less with the way the content is presented than with how it is structured and the navigation.

Look, more links! Lots more links in the footer. All the links in the header are down there, too. Why not put a : after RWW Network to separate it more, rather than a | which again makes it look like a visited link

OK, what’s going on here with the formatting for the comment form? Look at that (lack of) alignment! I don’t love it, and it takes away from the cleanliness of the design and the occasionally nice light grey horizontal rules.

And finally, we get two sections in the sidebar with tag clouds. One labeled “Popular Tags” that contains at least 50, and then a totally gratuitous Swicki widget, of which there are two in the sidebar (one with tags, and one that is just a Search form). Tags are cool, but this is overkill and totally non-functional.

What do you think?

The Case Against Undo

2007-12-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

Paul Buchheit (via Google Blogoscoped) is calling for more use of “Undo” in software - particularly for GMail to add it to the “Send” command. He says, “this will require adding a short delivery delay, like 10 sec, but it's worth it.” Philip Lessen of GB basically supports this assertion, though he adds:

...there’s still the problem that we’re not used to an Undo option suddenly disappearing, which would be what happens after the 10 seconds... maybe there needs to be a countdown ticker as well, or is all this just shifting the same problem around?

I get where they’re coming from. We have, in many ways, been trained that you can always take back your actions on computers - at least when it comes to word processing, browsing websites (though not Flash-based ones!) and using other applications like Photoshop (though only a specified number of steps - so take snapshots!). But one action that there has never (to my knowledge) been an undo associated with is email, and adding it now overcomplicates a commonly understood action.

If implemented in the manner Paul advocates, an “Undo” action adds time to a medium already slower than other forms of messaging that are becoming widely used (IM, SMS, etc.). 10 seconds is a long time on the web. I, for one, do not want to have my email queued for any amount of time to compensate for others acting without thinking and sending messages unintentionally.

And why 10 seconds, anyway? Why not 5 minutes, while we’re at it? You know, just in case you click send, go make a cup of coffee, and while waiting for the water to boil realize that you actually just sent that angry email about your boss as “Reply All” instead of just “Reply to your secret girlfriend in Accounting.”

Just because it’s possible to take something back on the web doesn’t mean that it is a good interaction model, and online communication is one place where I’d argue that it would actually be a negative presence - reinforcing problematic behaviors like carelessness and lack-of-attention. You can’t take back what you say on the phone or in person. Why should we expect to be able to do so online?

That said, I think a feature checking for an attachment whenever you write “attached” or similar (like this Greasemonkey script does) could be a welcome addition.

Ultimately, technology can’t make up for human error - nor should it be expected to. If you screw up and mis-send a message, or forget the attachment, there is always a solution:

Apologize, re-send, and, if necessary, deal with the consequences of your recklessness and haste.

You know, just like in the “Real World.”

50 Critical Questions About Your Website:

2007-12-12T12:34:00.000-05:00

Can you tell someone how to get to your site without having to spell anything?
Are the URLs human-readable or are they full of special characters and dynamically-generated gobbledygook?
Do you have an About page?
Can visitors tell what your site is about without visiting your About page?
Is your contact information readily available on every page - or at least from every page?
If not, what are you hiding from? Your customers?
Is your home page doing you any favors or is it merely an “Enter Site” gateway?
Do you have an RSS Feed?
Did you decorate for the holidays?
When is the last time you added new content?
Why has it been so long?
Is your site ranking highly in search engines for relevant keywords?
What about for your name? Or your business name?
What are your relevant keywords, anyway?
Is anyone linking to you these days?
If not, what can you do to make this happen?
Who are you linking to these days?
How long does it take your site to load at your mother’s house?
Do you need to download anything on her computer to even see your site?
What is the single most important thing you want a visitor to do?
Is that clear from looking at your site?
Does your site look professional, or does it look like a teenager’s MySpace page?
Do you link out to your other web presences (social network profiles, Twitter account, YouTube page, Flickr photostream)?
Is it clear what content is protected by Copyright and what is free to take and re-use?
What one thing can you do to your site today to increase visitors?
Are you commenting on blogs and building relationships with other site-owners in your industry or niche?
How does your site look on a mobile device?
An iPhone?
Blackberry?
Cheapo-plastic-freebie phone?
Amazon Kindle?
Is your site usable with images turned off?
On a computer with no Flash or Javascript?
In every web browser?
How many clicks does it take for a visitor to give you money?
Is your site “fine for the moment” or is it flexible enough to be fine for the next 5 years?
Are your ads annoying?
How easy is it for a visitor to leave a comment or write a review?
Can your site run without you?
Is the entire site backed up?
Is the important stuff backed up multiple times in multiple formats in multiple physical locations?
How long would it take to turn your entire site navy blue with white text?
Is this time measured in seconds (awesome), minutes (good), or hours (you’re doing things wrong)?
Is your branding consistent between your site, your printed material, your storefront, and you as a person?
Do your product descriptions sound like they were written by a person or by a mentally-ill robot programmed with the vocabulary of an out-of-work Madison Avenue ad guy whose last account was for one of those food processors they sell on TV at 2am?
Do you care about your website?
Is it important to you?
Are your readers and customers important to you as people, not just as eyeballs with wallets?
Would you be sad - actually sad - if your site disappeared tomorrow?
What would you do if it did?

Are You Giving This Year?

2007-12-11T11:13:00.002-05:00

It’s that time of year, you know.

The Giving Season.

I’m not just talking presents to your friends and family, though. I’m talking charity, donations, pledges - giving to better the world.

Some questions to consider this year:

Who do you have in mind?
What charities do you support and why?
Is your gift to one person, one family, one organization, one town, or something even bigger?
Are you giving money, or time, or something else entirely?
How can you make the biggest impact?
Is your gift sustainable?
Can you see or feel the fruits of your contribution?
How does your gift reflect your own values?
How does it reflect your own biases?
Do you regularly give to the same organization or do you try to find new charities every year?

Finally:
Do you only give at Christmastime? Why?

Letterpress And The Death Of Print Design

2007-12-10T08:55:00.000-05:00

I’ve lately been really into letterpress prints, and just received a set of Christmas cards in the mail that I ordered from Etsy.

The cards I bought don’t seem to be in stock any longer, but they’re absolutely fantastic, and I can’t wait to address and send them to some of my relatives. There’s something really awesome about the human touch evident in letterpress work, and these cards are no exception. Each one is individual, and deserves one of those stickers they put on t-shirts at Target that lets you know that any inconsistencies in the coloring are totally intentional and critical to the design.

What’s odd to me about this latest obsession of mine, though, is that it comes at the same time I’m contemplating phasing out designing for print as a primary service that I offer through Frivmo Design. With the web there is just so much more than can be done - and for considerably less money. The best part, though, is that by designing sites using modern and standards-compliant markup, you are creating something future-proof, something sustainable, and something that is flexible in a way that print could never be. I find this openness and adaptability to be a thing of beauty, and I marvel at the possibilities offered by the medium. Every day brings the announcement of a new technology, a new approach, a new way of creating something incredible that allows people to connect in new and different ways.

This is not to say that I find print uninteresting. Far from it, in fact. I have always - always will, I imagine - been deeply moved by printed materials. From baseball cards, to comic books, to novels and books of philosophy and art - I have taken great joy in collecting and owning work on paper. I share a love for the tactility of the printed page with all true-blue book aficionados, and I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

But what bugs me about print, I guess, is that it is becoming less and less like the handmade letterpress Christmas cards I just bought, or the books and cards and papers I’ve collected over the years. Technology has made designing for print so much more efficient, so much more predictable, and by and large, it has lost the very uniqueness that makes it so special. It has become, in many ways, little more than a printed version of the Web, with less functionality - in a reversal of the “websites as digital versions of newspapers and magazines” trend evident early in the Web’s life, and still somewhat widespread. Just look at Wired Magazine for a glaring example of this reversal.

Print has lost its soul.

Yes, there are exceptions. Thank goodness for them. But I find myself less interested in the industry as a whole because new, exciting, and soulful work is so rare and so expensive. Mass production may have made print a viable and important art form, but the ultra-mass-production of today’s world is commoditizing it towards obsolescence.

All that said, I would love to learn the art of letterpress. If anyone has information about how to get started (and how to find an inexpensive and small, but still functional, letterpress machine), I would really appreciate your input.

Free Desktop Wallpaper: Putin Is Hot

2007-12-05T09:48:00.000-05:00

OK, so I made this desktop wallpaper last night to celebrate two of the best things in the world: Putin and Helvetica. Well, the Putin part is certainly debatable, but not Helvetica. And even if you, like many, have issues with the current Russian leadership, perhaps you’ll appreciate this wallpaper for its tongue-in-cheekness, or its judicious use of the best font ever, beautifully combining both Cyrillic and Latin letterforms. It says “Путин is hot,” which means Putin is hot.

The only version I have right now is 1024x768, but there will be larger sizes in the next day or so (up to 1920x1200). Edit: Added a gigantic 1920x1200 version. See below.

1024x768 PNG (151 KB)

1920x1200 PNG (308 KB)

5 Reasons Your Business Should Blog

2007-12-03T11:14:00.000-05:00

You should blog. Yes, you should. Especially if you have a business. There really aren’t any reasons not to, but here are some less-common reasons why it’s an absolute must.

Everybody else is doing it.
Sometimes the common wisdom is, in fact, wise. What do you think will happen if your competitor has a strong, personable web presence and your company has only a static site that looks like it hasn’t been updated since the great Bubble-popping of 1999? Well, nothing. And that’s exactly what you should be afraid of. Businesses without a big footprint on the web aren’t likely to hang around much longer, in this world where phonebooks and Chambers of Commerce and even brick & mortar storefronts are but artifacts of an age long gone.

Your product or service will improve.
Blogging actively is a great way to get better at what you do because it forces you to think laterally about what your company has to offer. You’ll find yourself doing research on topics related to your field, reading the websites and blogs of your competitors and learning from their mistakes (as well as their successes), and approaching your offerings with new insight gained from communicating with your customers on a regular basis.

You’ll like work more.
Every single time you post on your blog you’ll renew your commitment to the company, strengthening your investment in the business by approaching it from a deeply personal level. Meeting and debating with others in the industry, and sustaining relationships with your company’s biggest fans and evangelists, makes doing work less about the nitty-gritty businessy stuff, and much more about people and fostering connections.

Blogging is (practically) free.
Blogging is a wonderfully cheap and easy way to “keep your website updated” without having to call up your web designer every time you want to announce a special holiday promotion. If you’ve ever hired someone to design your site, you probably know that asking the designer to make your site easy to update alone adds a lot of development time and cost to the project. For most small business and individuals, paying for a custom Content Management System is totally unnecessary. Even using a simple, “free,” alternative CMS like Drupal or Wordpress adds substantially to the initial cost, and offers more functionality than most first-time site owners are likely to use.

If you’re at all like most small business folks, you have your plate full-to-overflowing without needing to learn the ins and outs of how to update your webpage, and certainly don’t have the time for it. Quite often, for folks with new businesses, all that’s necessary and practical is a set of static content pages outlining your product and your company and a frequently-updated blog where you can announce deals and new products, create some keyword-filled (but always relevant and helpful!) articles, and connect with your customers. And if you opt for just a blog, you don’t even have to pay monthly web hosting costs. Just be sure you hire a designer (Shameless plug: I’m available.) to get things looking professional. Few things will dampen your impact more than using a default template. Even better, if you get a good designer who cares about web standards, he or she will make it super easy to extend the scope of your website with little effort as your business grows and the money starts flowing in.

Blogging will keep you honest.
It’s all too easy to slip into the evil syntax of marketing-speak on your website and in your printed materials and this is precisely the wrong thing to do if you’re operating a small business. Nothing turns away customers faster than not-so-well-placed, and likely dishonest, “Number One In America Blue Ribbon Ultra Edition Highest ROI Billions Served Daily Bigger Than Amazon.” Having a blog helps you avoid these demons, because your customers and competitors and friends in the industry will no doubt call you out in the comments or on their own sites anytime you resort to such puffery. After a bit of time and effort and honesty, you’ll find the perfect blend of personality, approachability, and authority in your blogging voice.

Unfinished Business

2007-11-30T11:16:00.000-05:00

Titles of posts I started but never finished:

Web Apps vs. Desktop Apps And Who Cares If You’re On a Freakin’ Plane!

web apps on iPhone

about the forthcoming SDK release

Why Does Advertising Exist?

Future of Online Advertising

How Do You Want To Die?

own

Knowing When To Let Go Of An Idea

Ubiquitous Connectivity: How iPod Touch Changes Everything

Website Myths: If You Build It They Will Come

Facebook Photos Suck

Why I Probably Won’t Buy A Kindle (But Will Love It If You Buy It For Me!)

Kindle

Email And The Fight For Standards

2007-11-29T09:13:00.000-05:00

As a young web designer who cares about standards and accessibility, but also about paying the rent and having enough left over to buy some slick gadgets, I often find myself stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place when it comes to designing HTML emails for a client.

You see, on one hand there’s a strong part of me saying, “No! Don’t do it! It’s not worth it to revert to web practices straight out of 1999. Tables are bad! Inline styling is bad! People hate HTML email! Your code is ugly! Fish are friends, not food!”

But then the devil on my right shoulder (wearing a blue dress, not a blue beanie) speaks up to say, “Dude, you need money if you want that [insert latest Apple product here]. Clients will not settle for text-only emails, or at least they won’t pay you for them. And besides, studies show that HTML emails are actually much more cost-effective for businesses. Suck it up a code a table, you sissy. Everybody used to do it, why do you think you’re exempt?”

To some of you, this whole discussion might seem to be flying 50,000 feet up, but here I’ll try to summarize:

In web design, it is now widely accepted that using Tables (grids of rows and columns, just like one you’d create in MS Word) for the structure of a website is a bad practice because it doesn’t allow for the separation of content (the text and pictures and videos) from presentation, and requires a ton of maintenance, among (many) other things. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) emerged years ago as the solution to this problem, allowing designers to change the look of an entire site simply by editing a couple lines in a single external file (instead of every line on every page), and after a lot of activism in those early days, is now widely accepted as the proper way to code a site. Standards-compliant pages tend to load faster, have shorter development times, and are readable by every device now and in the future that has support for these standards.

The trouble is, most email clients don’t have this support, and some (like Outlook 2007) have even less support than their predecessors. Worse still, every single email client has vastly different support for various CSS/HTML elements, and will render your code in disgustingly problematic ways. So, by and large, many web design companies have abandoned email design, or if not, done it begrudgingly, ashamedly.

I’ve done my share, and it’s not glamorous work. Looking at what I’ve just written sometimes makes me want to cry (in pretty much the same manner that coding all-Flash sites does, but that’s a post for another day).

Finally, some of the big guns in web design and standards-advocacy are taking a stand and beginning to fight for standards support in all the major email clients, rather than ignoring the practicalities and pretending that HTML emails don’t or shouldn’t exist. That kind of denial sounds nice in theory, but in practice it’s totally flawed. Today, the default in nearly every email program is to send an HTML-formatted email. Any time you change the colors, or the fonts, or add some underlining or embed a picture - that’s HTML. So, if it has to exist anyway, shouldn’t it be done right?

These reasons (and others) are why the announcement of the Email Standards Project is such a big deal, and why I can hardly wait for the day when I’ll have coded my final bit of inline styling.

If you’re in the business, please join me in supporting this initiative. Here’s how you can help.

Never Buy Toilet Paper Again!

2007-11-28T09:29:00.000-05:00

The Problem
Why make a shopping trip once a month to buy toilet paper? (Or once a week if you live in New York and can only buy as much as you can carry on the subway.) Why should you have to remember to replace your toothbrush, or to buy more vitamins, or a fresh box of tampons, or those energy bars you eat every morning and buy in enormous quantities? Why, if you have a small business, do you pay one of your employees run to the store every week to buy more instant coffee? What about diapers? Babies poop a lot, and carrying huge packages of Pampers home from Costco every week is a major chore.

Constantly procuring all these everyday items, these necessities of living, uses up a lot of what might otherwise be free (or more productive) hours.

The Solution
What if you didn’t have to shop for these anymore? What if they just showed up on your doorstep every 1, 2, 3, or 6 months? What if shipping was free? What if everything was automated, yet you had the flexibility to change shipment frequencies with a click? What if there were a way to get toothbrushes every three months, vitamins and cereal and shampoo every month, and laundry detergent twice a year? What if it were possible to have coffee delivered to your office, tampons delivered to your apartment, and soap delivered to your ex-boyfriend’s place? What if there were no commitment, no minimum order, no fees whatsoever?

And then you save an additional 15% off your order. Off all your orders. Forever.

So About That Flying Car...
This awesome scenario is no George Jetson Pipe Dream, it’s a reality called Subscribe & Save, a new offering by - you probably guessed it - Amazon.

Sounds great to me.

The only slight problem I see is that most items are sold in bulk, which means having to clear out some space for storage. It’d also be great to have a weekly delivery option, but I understand the financial and logistical issues with this at the moment. However, a program like this is a wonderful step into the future, and will no doubt become even more flexible, and capable, as volume increases, and Amazon finds more cost- and time-efficient shipping methods.

What do you think? Useful?

What everyday items would you like to never have to worry about again?

Amazon to Re-“Kindle” Book Sales?

2007-11-19T09:00:00.000-05:00

Run, don’t walk to read this article on Newsweek announcing Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader. Though more official details will be announced later today, Steven Levy’s cover story, “Reinventing the Book,” is more than worth a read.

I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of electronic book readers, which some might find odd considering my near-fetishistic love of books-as-objects. What strikes me in the gut as an absolute truth, however, is this line by Jeff Bezos:

The key feature of a book is that it disappears.

He goes on to say this, in explanation:

I've actually asked myself, 'Why do I love these physical objects?' says Bezos. 'Why do I love the smell of glue and ink?' The answer is that I associate that smell with all those worlds I have been transported to. What we love is the words and ideas.

If I were to be asked why I thought that the Amazon Kindle would succeed where many others (like the Sony Reader) have failed, my answer would be, “Because Jeff gets it.”

By all accounts, Amazon has thought long and hard about what it means to be a book (they should know!), and what it means to improve upon this centuries-old form factor.

Here are some other reasons:

The Kindle is constantly connected to the Web via Sprint’s EVDO network, and this connectivity is free, allowing ubiquitous one-click downloads across the U.S. Talk about an easy impulse buy before a plane flight.
Book prices are standardized, taking a cue from iTunes.
You can subscribe to newspapers and blogs (and search Google/Wikipedia) on the device.
Millions of people already trust Amazon when it comes to books.
Amazon, better than pretty much anyone, understands how to make low-margin, high-volume profitable.

All of these are good reasons. But for me, the important thing is a gut feeling that they will get this right. It’s been nearly time for ebooks to take off for years now. Today, with Amazon’s announcement, the floodgates have been opened and the future is nigh.

This will be going on my Amazon Wishlist for sure.

Facebook Revolutionizes Advertising!

2007-11-07T08:35:00.000-05:00

Gaping Void

Are you a fan-sumer?

Does that term make you want to stab yourself on the inside of your elbow with an electric-pencil-sharpener-sharpened paper clip?

Well, beware of Facebook these days, dear friend. Today they’ve launched a new advertising initiative aimed at letting you do what you’ve always dreamed of: become an unpaid shill for products and brands you like. And, perhaps even more so, use Facebook to “stalk” Coca Cola or Apple or Product (RED). I know, I know, hold back the tears of joy.

Here's what is changing:
You now have a way to connect with products, businesses, bands, celebrities and more on Facebook. (You mean aside from the Sponsored Pages and Groups that already existed? Wow! Amazing!)

Ads should be getting more relevant and more meaningful to you. (Like this one?)
You now have the option to share actions you take on other sites with your friends on Facebook. (More specifically, you have the option to opt-out of sharing actions you take on other sites on a case-by-case basis, which for some will raise privacy concerns, and for others - like me - it will be seen as kinda stupid. )

Nick Carr:

Facebook, which distinguished itself by being the anti-MySpace, is now determined to out-MySpace MySpace. It's a nifty system: First you get your users to entrust their personal data to you, and then you not only sell that data to advertisers but you get the users to be the vector for the ads. And what do the users get in return? An animated Sprite Sips character to interact with.

Ultimately, I fail to see how this is new. Or interesting. And I’m sure Facebook will make plenty of money with it, but don’t think advertisers will fare as well. I stand by my assertion that the future of advertising is being shown ads when you are looking for something. Ads as information, not as roadblocks. Yes, I see the value in being able to befriend brands (and I’ve talked about this before, too), but what Facebook’s doing here isn’t new. MySpace has done it forever, and even Facebook has - though they used to charge companies for the “honor” of creating a profile page.

Now, you too can make a page for your product, just like I have here for Frivmo Design (new site on the way soon, by the way!).

Some screenshots:

More discussion here.

BREAKING: Microsoft Rips Off Companies Other Than Apple!

2007-11-05T09:14:00.000-05:00

This was the easiest Photoshop job ever.

Microsoft’s slogan for the new Zune 2 is “You Make It You.” The second part of that, which was removed at some point in the committee-run design process, was “We Make It Like Somebody Else.”

This time around, the fabled Redmond Photocopiers (great video by David Pogue here, by the way) turned their lasers on South Korean wireless handset-maker LG Electronics and its popular(?) “Chocolate” mobile phone. If we’re being generous (really generous), we’ll say that Microsoft did this on purpose so that fashion-forward (that term seems so inappropriate here) gadgeteers can purchase a music player that matches their cellphone (that, uh, already plays music). I guess it was too hard for Microsoft to copy the curves of iPhone, even though pretty much everyone else is doing it (check Gizmodo or Engadget for frequent cases of this phenomenon).

Gosh, can no one design their own gadget these days?

Just one more reason not to buy a Zune this Christmas (or EVER).

Special thanks to my one true human love for pointing this out to me last week, and to Microsoft for being exceedingly easy to mock.

It’s Not About Facebook

2007-11-02T08:53:00.000-04:00

Updates on OpenSocial:

It’s now live.
I don’t think this has anything to do with competing with Facebook. I don’t think Google cares about Facebook, to be frank. And I don’t think there’s a single thing worth being scared of.
MySpace is now one of the partners.
It’s in Facebook’s best interest to join.
It’s in our best interest that as many sites join as possible.
Dave Winer says this about Google: “It's the hurt of the software industry, moving away from serving users, and getting spun in its own drama.” In doing so, he completely fails to grasp what’s going on here, while coming across sounding like a crochety old man and small infant simultaneously, with his complaints about not being told about it personally (“But Google is keeping people like me far away, which suggests that there may actually be no “there” there.”). Boo hoo, Dave, sir.
Very interesting thought from Nick Carr: “But given the fact that the OpenSocial consortium includes Oracle, Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, and Google itself, it's clear that businesses are an important target of the initiative.”
OpenSocial brings everyone together. Just like in real life, social networks will be connected. The new leading social network is not Facebook, not MySpace, not Orkut. It’s called The Internet.
I wonder what kind of monetization will happen.
This has a lot of Google Apps implications.
Facebook is the soupe du jour. It’s hip and cool now, but users like to move around to . The brilliance of OpenSocial is that it’s not an all-or-nothing approach. It recognizes that there is a benefit to niche communities, and that not all users have a desire for an all-in-one portal-style network like Facebook or MySpace. Allowing the niche players to communicate and connect is a big deal.

BlogRush Sends Evil Emails

2007-11-01T15:13:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: After a comment from Andy Beard, I have changed the title of this post, because accusing (even hyperbolically and in the heat of the moment) John Reese of spamming me is wrong, and potentially harmful to his reputation and business. The email is clearly not spam, and I am, after all, on a list that I (apparently) opted into when signing up to try out BlogRush.

I’ve pretty much ignored other emails I’ve received from BlogRush in the past couple weeks (about one a week), but this one caught my eye, because I was genuinely surprised by the subject line. I read it, and, as I mention in my response to Andy’s comment below, I was insulted and offended by the assertion that if you aren’t a totally hardcore member of the BlogRush network, then they have no desire for your business and will delete your blog automatically. This is, in my view, an unfortunate move for such a new service, and raises some real concerns about the strength of the network, which, by all accounts will only work well if made up of power users. To me, this is a shift from the initial promise of the network, and now sounds like another “fat get fatter” kind of thing. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’d love the hear that I am, because BlogRush did seem interesting at first.

All that said, my main point - which is that the email is horrifying - still stands. From a buzz standpoint, it has certainly worked, but the long, rambling, finger-pointing, and LOUD message isn’t something that works for me when it comes to selling your service. If I were to write a tutorial on how not to do business email newsletters, this would be a prime example.

Anyway, my apologies to John, who I’m sure is a really great guy. Here’s the rest of my original post:

One day late for Halloween, I received a horrifying email in my Inbox from BlogRush, a traffic-building widget service I got wind of from Andy Beard’s Niche Marketing blog and tried out for a couple weeks back in September. At the time, I was making some layout tweaks to my blog, and ultimately decided against keeping the widget on my site, and I haven’t paid much attention to how BlogRush has been doing since then.

Until now. Or rather, ten minutes ago, when I received this most terrifying message with a subject line so spammy I’m surprised it made it past Google’s Spam Filter (“42% Increase In Free Traffic”), and I am now reposting it below with comments in brackets, emphasis (though not capitalization) entirely mine:

THIS MESSAGE CONTAINS *CRITICAL*
INFORMATION. PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT
TO READ IT RIGHT NOW. [Holy God, Save Me]

In This Message:

- TrafficJam.com Is Coming [Woo!]
- 42% Increase In Free Traffic [Double Woo!]
- Widget Performance Monitoring [Blah...]
- All Members Must Be Displaying The Widget [WTF?]
- Closing In On ONE BILLION Blog Headlines [Nice work, BlogRush]

We’ve received TONS of positive feedback on the
release of “Phase 2″ for BlogRush! [And boy is it heavy! Whew!]

Members are really happy with the new Dashboard
stats and reporting as well as all the new
features — including the new “thin widget” option
and “BUZZ” meter. And many are especially excited
about the important news we released about our
upcoming “TrafficJam” sister site.

If you haven't yet experienced the new
"Phase 2" of BlogRush (and viewed the
new VIDEO inside) make sure to login
to your account to check it out:
http://www.blogrush.com

*********************************************
TrafficJam.com Is Coming [Dun dun dun...]

*********************************************

TrafficJam (which will be located at
TrafficJam.com) will take the hottest posts from
across the BlogRush network and rank them by
category based on our “BUZZ” meter technology.
This site will be another way for our users to
drive more free traffic to their blogs.
We expect many Internet users will start using
TrafficJam to keep up with the latest news about
the niche they are interested in, as well as a
great resource for bloggers to find important
blog posts from other bloggers so they can then
write about them (and link to them!) on their own
blogs.

*********************************************

42% Increase In Free Traffic

*********************************************
42% Increase In Free Traffic Sent To BlogRush
Members In Last 48 Hours

Since releasing Phase 2 we’ve seen a 42% increase
in click-rates (i.e. the free traffic members
receive) across the entire network. This is
mostly due to the release of the thin widget
option.

Many of our users had blogs that could
not accommodate the standard widget size and
were forced to place the widget at the very bottom
of their pages — this was contributing to lower
click-rates across the network.

And we’re about to make additional changes to
dramatically improve the click-through rates
which is what will send every member even more
traffic…

*********************************************
Widget Performance Monitoring

*********************************************

The #1 reason BlogRush isn’t sending the maximum
free traffic to all of its members is simple…
many users are placing the widget very low on
their blogs where most people won’t even see it.

Did you know that over 1,500 BlogRush users
(across nearly all network categories) are
receiving average daily click-through rates
between 1% and 2% on the BlogRush widget on their
blog? [OMG, Really?]

And it should also be no surprise that these
users are getting a higher rate of referral
activity than everyone else — more bloggers click
their “Add Your Blog Posts” widget link and sign
up for BlogRush. (Because more people SEE their
widget.)

ALL of those users have ONE THING in common…
they have the BlogRush widget positioned high up on
their blog where a lot of people will see it! [Wow, insightful]

So right now you could be receiving 10 TIMES (or
more) traffic from BlogRush, but the reason why
you don’t is because so many of our users are
placing the widget very low on their blogs where
it’s not being seen — and those poor performing
widgets are hurting the overall network
click-rates.

YOUR BLOG POSTS are only appearing inside those
1%-2% click-rate widgets on rare occasion (which
is what will send you the most traffic). The rest
of the time your posts are appearing inside
widgets that no one can even see! (Which is why
you aren’t getting more traffic.)

Here’s What We’re Doing About It

[Here’s where things start to get really scary...]
We’ll soon be adding “widget performance
monitoring” to our network. Any users that have
low-performing widgets will be automatically
notified that they need to improve the
positioning for the widget on their blogs.
Failure to improve their widget performance (which can be done by giving the widget higher placement) will remove that user from the network. THIS IS THE ONLY *FAIR* WAY TO DO IT.

“WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, I KNOW, I KNOW…”

Since we originally launched BlogRush about 6
weeks ago, we encountered some problems that we
had to deal with… we had to increase our security
measures to stop people from abusing the network,
which we did… then we had an issue with
low-quality blogs in the network… and we worked
very hard to manually review ALL blogs, we had to
make some tough decisions to remove over 10,000
from the network, and now we have a fantastic,
high-quality network of member blogs, BUT…

Before we fixed all of these problems, the
quality and performance of the network was poor
and it didn’t send as much traffic to our members
— which we were very unhappy about, and the sole
reason we’ve worked so hard to fix things. SOO…
it has been a “Catch-22″ for many of our
members…

“Why should I give the BlogRush widget higher
placement when I’m not getting much traffic from
it!”

And for those that have this reaction, it’s
PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE...

*I* would, personally, feel the exact same way.

But we now have the data that PROVES that
BlogRush, as a system for driving valuable,
targeted blog readers to other blogs, 100% WORKS.
It just requires that our members give the widget
high enough placement so visitors will see it and
can use it.

[SCARIER!!!!!]

So here’s what I’m asking all of our members that
currently don’t have the widget placed very high
up on their blogs… PLEASE immediately move the widget higher up on your blog. (Thank You.)

Just give it a chance as we encourage everyone to
give the widget higher placement and at least see
what happens. If you aren’t happy later, then by
all means, remove the widget from your blog. It’s
that easy.

BlogRush was created as a truly COOPERATIVE
system to drive tons of valuable targeted traffic
to blogs. It only works for those willing to be
fair to the other members.

BY THE WAY, if you’re one of our valued members
that DOES have the widget placed high on your
blog, “Thank You!” You’re doing your fair
contribution to the network and we sincerely
appreciate it. (And you’ll be rewarded for it.)

[EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!]

Do we require that the widget be placed at the
absolute very top of your blog? NO. But if you
place the widget so that it is immediately in
view when someone loads your blog, or at the very
least is seen shortly after someone starts to
scroll, you can pretty much guarantee that you
won’t be receiving a “widget performance WARNING”
from our system asking you to improve the
placement.

If you will be unable to give the widget good placement on your blog (similar to what is mentioned above) then please go ahead and remove the BlogRush widget from your blog, because I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet our new widget performance requirements. It’s just not fair for our other users to be giving YOUR BLOG POSTS great exposure on their blogs if you aren’t willing to do the same for theirs.

[Absolute terror.]

*********************************************
All Members Must Be Displaying The Widget

*********************************************

This is something that we’ve let slide a bit as
we’ve been fixing all the major issues we
encountered. We understand that many users took
the widget off their blog so they could take a
“wait and see” approach before putting it back.

But now the time has come to enforce a new rule
for the network… if you’re not displaying the
widget on your blog you cannot earn or use
syndication credits for your account. [No way?!] For any
time that the widget is not active on your
blog(s) that you have set up in your account,
none of your posts will be syndicated and your
account will not accumulate any additional
credits.

Your referral network and activity will remain
intact, as will any existing credit balance, but
you will not be earning any new credits (or using
any) during the time the widget is not being
actively displayed.

This is the only FAIR WAY for the network to
work. Many of our members that have been making a
solid effort to contribute to the network have
complained that they click on links inside their
widget only to find a blog that’s not showing the
widget.

So we’re putting an end to this as it just isn’t
fair.

And any members that have an inactive widget for
an extended period of time (30+ days) may be
terminated from the network and have their
accounts permanently closed.

Please know that we are working VERY HARD to help
drive tons of traffic to your blog. We’ve got
lots of new services and plans in the works! Our
success with BlogRush is based solely on YOUR
SUCCESS of getting lots of traffic from our
network. So please know that all of these “rules”
and moves that we are making are with that sole
focus in mind.

We are quickly heading towards our ONE BILLIONTH
blog headline served!

Maybe we’ll throw a little party when that
happens? :)

And a big “Thank You” to everyone for their
patience, understanding, and also valued
constructive criticism!

Best Regards,

John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

I mistakenly left this most important part out at first:

If you want to cancel your BlogRush account and no longer receive
emails from our system, please click here:xxxxxxxxx

This is just terrible. Horrible. Unimaginable. What kind of response is Reese expecting? Does he think that there will be cheers of “Oh yes, Johnny, we looooove BlogRush. We want to have a party with you, so we’ll put the ugly-looking no-good non-high-quality wannabe-traffic-bringing widget right next to our logo and hold hands with other scammy pathetic blogging losers and sing ‘Perfect Harmony’ all day long.” God.

Now, I’m sure John Reese knows something I don’t about sending ~~spam~~ marketing emails - after all, he made nearly a million on a domain name sale years ago - but if anyone ever sends me an email like this, you can rest assured that the absolute nicest thing I will do with it is swiftly move it to my spam folder.

A Blog About Nothing has some issues with BlogRush worth checking out, too. Gosh people...

“Do Not Track” Stupidity

2007-11-01T08:30:00.000-04:00

A do-not-track list has been proposed by some privacy and consumer advocacy groups, to allow web surfers to opt out of behavior-tracking online as it relates to advertising. This list, unsurprisingly, is modeled after the popular “Do-Not-Call” list that takes your number off telemarketing directories, but there are some important distinctions that make this a really stupid idea.

First, it’s important to clarify what happens in behavioral advertising and why privacy groups are concerned.

Watch this video:

Now, the video is made by Google, so it’s got some spin on it, but the basics are spot on. Behavioral advertising keeps track of your search queries and clicks to serve up more relevant ads. Using your IP address to get a rough idea of your location (only your Internet Service Provider knows precisely who you are), and any other information you explicitly choose to provide (like if you opt in to Google’s Personalized Search and tell them your address and browsing history, for example), the company serving ads is able to bring you more targeted and relevant ads. The benefits to this are obvious: if you search for the word “bass,” for example, keeping logs of previous queries you’ve made will help Google decide whether you’re looking for something related to fish or something related to music.

And so the privacy concerns come in mostly in regard to a company like Google being able to “remember you” as you surf the web and encounter AdSense ads on sites in its content network, but also (inexplicably) for individuals who explicitly agree to share their personal information.

I’ll be the first to say that I have always been confused by the focus on things like this for the simple fact that, unless you give Google explicit permission to know who you are, all it can possibly know (or assume, rather), is that you are the same person who initiated the browsing session and that you live somewhere in New York City. Also, I’m baffled by the concept of a machine being able to invade your privacy by feeding random bits of data through some algorithm and automatically returning some response. Last I checked, a machine is not a person and can’t know anything about me unless I give it information. This is a deep philosophical question that I don’t believe we’re fully ready to grasp at this point in time, but is important to keep in mind as artificial intelligence inches closer to becoming a reality.

Anyway, I digress. Skepticism about privacy concerns aside, what about the proposed Do-Not-Track list is idiotic?

Well, unlike the Do-Not-Call list, being on this new list doesn’t mean you’ll be able to avoid ads. Actually, a quite negative side-effect of being on such a list is that you’ll encounter far more completely irrelevant ads while you browse from site to site. You can’t avoid them altogether (unless you’re willing to pay cash to view websites, and unless you’re crazy you aren’t going to want to do that), so it strikes me as counterproductive to opt in to being more annoyed by ads than you are likely to be if they have something to do with what you’re looking for or interested in. Seems dumb.

Additionally, it’s hard not to appreciate this irony: in order to be on this list, you have to tell these companies who you are. You are basically consenting to be tracked to the end of not being tracked. Yes, there’s a difference, I guess. But it works exactly the same way. As a matter of fact, it seems like being on the list works more like signing up for Personalized Search than the default cookie-storing and session-based behavior of search engines and ad networks. Of course, the people overseeing the list would never ever use it for evil. Right? Right?

In the end, comparing the Do Not Track list to the Do Not Call list is unfair and misleading. Unlike the DNC list, you’re not getting rid of anything by signing up for this one. The only way you benefit is if you have an irrational fear of companies like Google and a lack of understanding about how they operate and what information they collect. You’ll feel some peace of mind, I guess, but little else will change.

As I’ve said before, if you’re truly concerned about privacy, you should be looking at your Internet Service Provider, who knows far more about you and your online history than companies like Google ever could. These companies have your real name, address, phone number, credit card information, browsing and search and email history, p2p and BitTorrent activity, often also all incoming and outgoing phone calls, and your television-watching habits. Unlike Google, this information is stored in a far less transparent way. Google at least lets you see precisely what information it has about you and tries its hardest to resist handing over this information to the courts. Comcast and Optimum and Verizon and these folks keep everything to themselves, except when they feel like selling it to marketers and freely sharing it with the government.

In any event, watch this space. The ~~FCC~~ FTC is having a town hall meeting today about these very issues. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of it.

Related Articles: