09-18-2009
Jason Fried over at 37 Signals is not to thrilled bout Intuit’s acquisition of Mint
Mint was a key leader of the next generation of game changers. And now it’s property of Intuit — the poster-child for the last generation. What a loss. Is that the best the next generation can do? Become part of the old generation? How about kicking the shit out of the old guys? What ever happened to that?
Its difficult for innovation to come from within a company that is set in its ways, so I can see this as positive move for Intuit. But from Mint’s perspective I do question the move as it feels that they are at risk of losing what made them special in the first place.
The full rant – The next generation bends over – 37signals.
09-17-2009
Robert Fabricant has taken a business approach in an attempt to find out if the Kindle has any chance of success.This is not a ‘Is this device cool’ type of article, but looks at different strategies and applies them to the Kindle.
- The TiVo Strategy
- The iTunes Strategy
- The Wii Strategy
- The App Store Strategy
- The MySpace Strategy
Full Article Is the Kindle Destined for SkyMall? | Blog | design mind.
Jive Software has integrated Radian 6′s social listening services into their community software and wrapping it up in a neat package called the Jive Market Engagement Solution.
Relevant tweets, blog posts, comments in a traditional news website, or trend reports can be pulled directly into a team community with designated places for specific topics and focus areas from the brand monitoring tool (such as competitors, industries, or product lines).
The team community is now the central place where virtual, topic-specific “war rooms” engage the broader team and facilitate collaborative decision-making.
Sounds like a pretty cool tool, love to see it in action sometime.
Version 1.6 of Android has finally launched, and with it are a bunch of new features that developers will be excited for. And in grand Google tradition they have put out a fun little video demoing the new features.
Check it out in full
09-16-2009
Today I saw a link for a site claiming to have the Top 100 Sneakers of 2000, and I was excited but in the end I was treated to the worst user experience I have had in a while..
Each shoe was presented on its own page, with no way of navigating to the other 99 aside from an arrow forward or back. What?!1
No thumbnail previews of the next one.
No listing of shoes by name.
No visual way to browse.
No nothing. Just blind clicking on the arrows, or randomly clicking on numbers.
If this was a top 10 list I might let it slide, but for 100 pages? No thank you. I made it through 3 pages before getting frustrating and leaving.. and I really like nice kicks.
Lesson for today, make your links meaningful and thinking about your users.
Offending site, right here
08-27-2009
A tweet earlier today sparked an interesting dialogue today about technology and behaviors around them. When I initially got involved in the conversation it had already moved a bit away from the original statement, but i wanted to take a moment and add my two pennies around the tweet that kicked things off.
Original tweet from @mikegermano
If you don’t understand the technology you realistically can’t see the future of social media. I am just saying. [link]
Parts of this comment feel right, but parts also feel wrong. Understanding the elements in play are always key to being able to do things in that space, or to plan a next step. But when it comes to ’seeing the future’ of something you need to be able to step away from it, at which point i think the technology plays a much smaller role. Guy Kawasaki tells a wonderful story about the ice industry that well illustrate that point, retype with no ones permissions. ( email me if its a problem 
)
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in life is to accept
the known and resist the unknown. You should, in fact, do exactly the
opposite: challenge the known and embrace the unknown.
Let me tell you a short story about ice. In the late 1800s
there was a thriving ice industry in the Northeast. Companies would cut
blocks of ice from frozen lakes and ponds and sell them around the world.
The largest single shipment was 200 tons that was shipped to India. 100
tons got there unmelted, but this was enough to make a profit.
These ice harvesters, however, were put out of business by
companies that invented mechanical ice makers. It was no longer
necessary to cut and ship ice because companies could make it in any
city during any season.
These ice makers, however, were put out of business by
refrigerator companies. If it was convenient to make ice at a
manufacturing plant, imagine how much better it was to make ice and
create cold storage in everyone’s home.
You would think that the ice harvesters would see the
advantages of ice making and adopt this technology. However, all they
could think about was the known: better saws, better storage, better
transportation.
Then you would think that the ice makers would see the
advantages of refrigerators and adopt this technology. The truth is
that the ice harvesters couldn’t embrace the unknown and jump their curve
to the next curve.
Challenge the known and embrace the unknown, or you’ll be
like the ice harvester and ice makers.
My conclusion? Very difficult to use the technology of today.. and the current ‘way of doing things’ in social media to dictate what the future is going to look like if we are talking more then a couple months out.
04-14-2009
Have you recently purchased a laptop or home appliance?
Did the internet play a role prior to your purchase?
If you did I would love to talk to you and ask you a couple of questions regarding that experience.
The entire interview should only take about 40 minutes. I will be making a video recording of the interview, but this video is not something that is going to ever be public, so you don’t have to worry about it appearing on youtube.
If you are interested, please email me.
In your email make sure to include what it was that you purchased as well as your phone number so I can give you a call.
Interview location is Downtown SW Portland.
Compensation for your time is $50.
Date of interviews – April 15th
Thanks.
04-02-2009
Just released with select TOPPS 2009 baseball cards — augmented reality trading cards that literally bring players to life right on top of the card.
The last time I cared about Baseball cards I was a pre-teen, but that has just changed as these new augmented reality cards are pretty amazing. Hold one of them these seemingly normal cards up in front of your webcam and the character comes to life. Place the card on your desk and you can play a game with him.
The technology driving this is developed by Total Immersion and has already been put to use in some commercial applications, but this is the first time I have seen it integrated at the consumer level. Very exciting.
What I want to see next is some interaction between two or more ‘players’ on the screen at the same time.
See the new Baseball cards in action
Update I was going to save this for a later post, but due to some conversations with @aDogNamedPants here is a future AR game, which is awesome.
03-31-2009
“You know what? I think we are in a viral! “
You that something has really run its course, and possibly matured a bit, when it can make fun of itself.
This video is the first ‘viral’ that I have seen to both poke fun at itself for trying to be ‘viral’ as well as exhibiting a touch of self-awareness.
See it for yourself : Overlay.TV – Mini – Everything is Fake.
03-30-2009
BumpTop is a fresh and engaging new way to interact with your computer desktop. You can pile and toss documents like on a real desk. Break free from the rigid and mechanical style of standard point-and-click desktops.
The ability to throw my documents around, and stack them up is pretty cool, in concept. Do I want this as my main interface with my computer? No thank you.
Worth looking at? You bet. Check out the video of it in action.
See for yourself : BumpTop.