December 2005 Archives
The best links of the last 12 months. Yummy yummy.
I know I've been fairly MIA for the last few weeks, but I've been on vacation and haven't had much internet access. I hope you have not all deserted me for greener pastures. (If you have, then I guess I'm talking to myself at this point.) Anyway . . . as a way to make it up for you I've got my first year-in-review post and this one is plump with my favorite links of the year (a la Kottke's Best Links). So here goes nothing . . .
Links 'O the Year
In no specific order (except possibly chronological).
- The Big Fish: It's the incredibly long and fascinating story of Suck.com, one of the first great websites. A great look at the web in its infancy and at some interesting people trying to do something with a medium that may never be repeated. (Related NoahBrier.com post: Hyperlinkology)
- Balls Out: In 1970 pitcher Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates . . . on acid.
- I Caught Sight of: Matt Webb argues that the web is modeled after San Francisco circa 2001, making a lot of good points along the way.
- How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat': This is the article Bob Woodward's been waiting to write, and Nixon fanatics' waiting to read, for the last 30 years.
- The Choirboy: If this story were about anyone it would be incredible. The fact it's about Lawrence Lessig's abuse at the hands of a choir school director seems to take it a step further and make it that much more disturbing.
- Apocolypse Soon: When Robert McNamara tells you the world is in danger, it's probably worth listening.
- What Goes Up . . .: The music industry moves at dizzying speeds today. In this article, the Guardian discusses the trend and ends with a faux-timeline depicting the "firework" career of a fictional band.
- . . . But Seriously: Another Guardian article about music. This one discusses people's musical skeletons in the closet.
- Covering Teen Wolf: One Coach's Guide: I've mentioned this over and over, but it's seriously the funniest thing I've read in ages. An excerpt: "As coach, you need to recognize that your job isn't to do the impossible; you're not going to stop Teen Wolf entirely, but you can try to contain him by making him play your team's style of basketball. Discipline and defensive fundamentals help: nose on the ball, feet moving, channeling him into trapsâ€â€careful with those, though. Soon as Teen Wolf gets two guys on him, he tends to find the open man. He's a heads-up ballplayer with great court sense, so if you're going to bring a trapping zone against Teen Wolf, make sure you have solid weak-side rotation and your defenders are communicating."
- Change or Die: Fast Company on just why it's so damn hard for people to change and some suggestions on how we might go about changing that.
- Open Letter to Kansas School Board: I don't think there's anyone that hasn't read it yet, but this is the letter that started the whole Flying Spaghetti Monster/Pastafarianism craze.
- Users Don't Care If You Are the Best: This one has a lot of personal importance because it's impacted a lot of my work this year. Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users writes about how companies should stop talking about how great they are and start talking about how great they make their customers.
- Forget-Me-Not Panties: The grand prize winner of the Contagious Media Showdown provides the world with a way to keep track of your girlfriend at all times. To quote the site: "Unlike the cumbersome and uncomfortable chastity belts of the past, these panties are 100% cotton, and use cutting-edge technology to help you protect what matters most."
- The Remarkable Opportunities of Unbundled Media: I read this article and something clicked in my head. New technology is forcing things to become unbundled: Gone are the 30 minutes shows with 5 commercial breaks and the album with 13 tracks, replaced with Tivo and iTunes. (Related: NoahBrier.com entries on Unbundling)
Well, that's it for now. Hope you enjoy all the reading. I've still got some other year-end wrap-ups coming, so be prepared. Also, thanks for sticking around for another year, it's been a great one.
Happy New Years to everyone and if we haven't ever actually talked (via mouth, email or comments), then how about you get in touch with me and tell me who you are? Consider it a New Year's resolution.
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Real innovation may just be on the other side of that "idea block" you're suffering.
For anyone who has ever been involved in a brainstorm, or just been trying to figure out a problem, you know about how there's always that low point. It's normally the time when everyone has come up with a bunch of good ideas and it doesn't seem like there are many other interesting places to go. Often brainstorms even end at this point. However, as I learned while having a drink with a friend of mine currently getting his MBA, if you push through that valley of ideas you will see another, even more fruitful peak. That's when the really great ideas come out. The innovative ideas.
Let me illustrate for you:
Essentially what you get in that first curve is some good ideas. Sometimes they can even be great. But if you push through the low point, you have a chance to come up with even more innovative approaches to solving the problem at hand.
As someone who is quite fond of brainstorming, I'm always looking for new tips and techniques to help make ideation more fruitful. The "m curve" seems like something you can take far beyond a brainstorm, however. There's a larger lesson here about the benefits of sticking with something. Funny enough, just today I was reading an article about the importance of grit in someone's success. The article points to a recent University of Pennsylvania study, which found "that the gritty are more likely to achieve success in school, work and other pursuits -- perhaps because their passion and commitment help them endure the inevitable setbacks that occur in any long-term undertaking."
In an effort not to sound like some kind of self-help preacher, I'm going to cut myself off here. You always hear that innovative ideas come at the most unexpected times, but maybe if we just fought a little harder through our "idea block" we'd find innovation more easily.
Just as a last note, I found very little (other than this blog entry) on the "m curve" in a very limited Google search. If anyone finds any more information on it, I'd be greatly appreciative.
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My thoughts on why blog design tends to be so bad and some questions to ask yourself that might improve things.
Blog design generally sucks. It seems to be a fact of life. People have accepted that blogs look like blogs and refuse to try and think past that. On multiple occasions I have gotten into arguments about what a blog "should" look like. My argument is always that a blog is just a website and that whatever design best presents the information should determine its look. Unfortunately there are many that don't agree and think every blog needs to have two columns and every entry on the homepage.
I've been thinking a lot about information architecture lately and I thought that maybe I could share some of those thoughts as they relate to blog design. Information architecture essentially determines how information is to be arranged, that can mean anything from a site map that determines what pages link together to a wireframe that determines the hierarchy of information on a page. (If you want to read more check out What is information architecture?)
So much blog design doesn't give the slightest thought to whether the information is organized in a clear and concise manner, instead going with the status quo. Does it really make sense to have 30 entries on your homepage? Is a two-column layout the best choice based on your content? Do you need to list the last 4 songs you listened to on your homepage or is there some other place to put it?
I'm not sure I can answer those questions. They require taking a good, long look at your audience and deciding what is best for them. It's important to understand who is coming to your site and how they're getting there. Are the people that visit your homepage the same as the people who comment? (Often they are not on this site because many commenters are subscribed to the RSS feed, for example.)
My big point is that it's important to challenge conventions in this stuff. For those of you who have been following this site for a while you've seen a number of different designs. I'm happy to report that I'm almost completely happy with the current design and I could explain the thinking behind every piece. I have also gotten far more comments on the current design than any of the previous, leading me to believe I must have something right.
Anyway, I decided it might be helpful to make a list of the questions I think people should ask themselves. So . . .
Questions to ask yourself when designing a blog.
- Is your search box accessible? (Because most blogs have horrendous archive pages, search becomes a very important way for visitors to find old entries.)
- Are you organizing your information by more than just date? (Functioning Form has some good tips for better-architected blog archives.)
- Are you displaying too much information on your homepage? (Adaptive Path wrote a very good article about corporate homepages suffering from the disease of trying to be too much to too many.)
- Do you know what the most important thing on the page is at all times? (Most often it will be the content. And in that case . . . )
- If your content is the most important feature of the site does the design reflect and communicate that?
- Is your navigation easy to locate? (That was a problem of this site for a long time and I'm not convinced navigation is as important in blogs as it is in other places.)
- Is it easy to get from an individual entry to the archive? (Especially for those coming from search engines, it should be easy to find more related content.)
- Have you prepared for what happens when bad things happen? (A customized comment error message and a good 404 message are recommended).
- Is it easy to find your contact information? (Blogs are very personal and it's often nice to reach out to the authors. Make yourself easy to find.)
- Do you really need all those links at the bottom of an entry? (This is really a pet-peeve of mine. Do you really need a link to permalink, comments and trackbacks? They all go to the same page!)
- Is your RSS feed embedded into all your pages?
- Have you explained whether your comments allow html? (I fail at this one.)
- Have you designed a comment preview page? (There's nothing that kills a nicely designed blog like a comment preview page that hasn't been touched.)
I think that's it for now. Give them some thought and if you've got any to add, please do. I'll be returning with more thoughts specifically on the awfulness of blog archives (including this one).
Update (12/20/05): Nathan Smith reminds me of a good Jakob Nielsen article about the top 10 blog mistakes. Also, added question 12 & 13.
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Despite what it may seem, this is not turning into a linkblog. I swear.
Del.icio.us goes down and nobody knows what to do with themselves anymore. I'm stuck here with about 15 open windows just waiting to be bookmarked. So, as 90% Crud put it, I'm just going to have to go with the old-fashioned way: link-blogging.
Design
Just noticed del.icio.us is back up, yet I will go on anyway.
Marketing
The Rest
- Mike Wallace on the question he'd ask George W.: "What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"
- Mona Lisa is officially smiling, according to some crazy software.
That ends today's links. Come back tomorrow for your regularly scheduled blogging. I hopefully have an entry on tap this week about the sorry state of blog information architecture as well as my top 50 albums of 2005. Wooohooo.
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It's Saturday, football is on and links are in your heart.
It's about that time for another edition of my links roundup. (Just as a friendly reminder, it's easy to subscribe to my links with the Sidenotes RSS feed.) Anyway, it was another busy week, hence the serious slowdown in posts. I've been averaging just about three a week, which isn't terrible, but I think I can do better. Anyway, that's enough blabbering, here's what you've all been waiting for:
Typography
Entrepreneurship
Four More
- Airbag Industries makes some big time 2006 predictions. ("Having written an app for everything already, Google will unveil an API to their cafeteria allowing bloggers to choose what employees will eat at lunchtime  Lutefisk will go ranked number 1 for 47 weeks straight.")
- New York Times Consumed columnist Rob Walker discusses CafePress and the idea of "Mass-Produced Individuality".
- Stylus Magazine's lists their top 50 singles and it includes my guilty pleasure Robyn - Be mine.
- In geek related news, Microsoft announced it will use Firefox's little orange RSS symbol in it's own products.
That's it for today. GO BEARS! Have a great weekend.
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A couple quick thoughts from my lunch with other New York City bloggers.
Today I got taken to lunch by some people at Ipswitch (makes of WS FTP). It was kind of an very laid back focus group. They had something like seven New York based bloggers and we all sat around tables eating lunch and discussing trends in blogging/podcasting. Bring a bunch of passionate people together and it's easy to fill a few hours with conversation.
While I was sitting there, though, I realized that I have some different opinions on blogging than other people. I wouldn't call them more negative, but rather framed a bit differently. In an effort to further expand on my thoughts, here are some of them in writing:
- Blogs are not really going to revolutionize the world. It's people that will revolutionize it. Blogs are just really good content management systems, the big idea here is that people now have a voice. There's nothing stopping them from publishing their thoughts, ideas or just what they ate that morning. It's a medium vs. message issue. We need to stop getting caught up on the word 'blog' and start looking at the larger impacts they're having on culture.
- It's not a fight between us and them. It's not big media vs. blogs. There are much larger trends going on in the media landscape for blogs to be a big enough blip on their radar that it's worth targeting. Blogs are indicative of a larger movement towards unbundling. Once the internet came around it was clear that no one news source is going to provide the entire spectrum of information necessary to make an informed decision.
- People should start thinking about blog design because it generally sucks. It's not well architected. It's time to step back and stop thinking about blogs as blogs, but rather think about blogs as websites. Would you ever put an archive of everything ever written on a website on one page? I hope not.
- I've mentioned this before, but in the near future people won't know what's a blog and what's not. Increasing large sites are running on software like Movable Type because it's a cheap content management system. So, as sites increasingly choose blogging platforms to manage their content, how will the world differentiate what's a blog and what's not?
- And, more importantly, does it matter if we differentiate what's a blog and what's not?
Anyway, just a couple quick ones. Thanks to Ipswitch for the lunch. I think it's a pretty brilliant idea, I might add. You get a couple of bloggers together in some random city, you buy them lunch (who doesn't like free food?), they tell you what they think will be the next big thing, you listen. At the end you pay the $100 or $200 for lunch and you've saved a bundle on a focus group while at the same time doing a bit of brand marketing for yourself. I mean, there's no question I'll think of the company in a whole new (positive) light. (Though I must admit that I've always been a huge WS FTP fan anyway . . . although I didn't realize that was their product until I got there.)
That's it.
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With the commoditization of content, relationships are all that media companies really have left.
[Editor's Note: This is kind of part three in a series on unbundled media (see part one and part two). Here I take a step back and try to explain the unbundling process on a media-wide level.]
"Revenue isn't the problem; audience is the problem." At least according to Terry Heatona it is. He of unbundled media fame claims that it's the number one thing he tells his clients. It's not that surprising to read Jeff Jarvis echoing the same sentiments in his amazing epitaph for the newspaper industry. In the piece, Jarvis quotes Herbert Burda, a German media mogul a bit more in touch with digital technology than your average publisher. "Printing will not go away, but I do not plan to open a single new printing plant," Burda said. "We now concentrate on using social software to build closer relations with the communities of readers around our magazines."
To which Jarvis replied, "I’ll say it again: Distribution is not king. Content is not king. Conversation is the kingdom. It’s about relationships." His emphatic reply not only summarizes the state of the newspaper industry, but also offers a glimpse to the state of big media in general. The game is changing. Newspapers ruled the roost because they were an incredibly efficient way to distribute a great deal of news daily. Just think about how cheap the paper is: the ink rubs off onto your fingers for goodness sake! Television and radio came along, but neither were direct competitors as it's generally easier to deeply comprehend something when we read it. But then the internet came along, and all of a sudden the newspaper industry's monopoly over the quickly delivered written word came to a screeching halt.
Instead of accepting their shortcomings, however, newspapers have tried to keep stuffing the same product down customers' throats: in the process missing larger trends that were happening. Yeah, people were reading fewer newspapers, but at the same time they were reading more news. They happened to be doing it on via screen rather than an unwieldy gray thing, but they were reading it nonetheless. Those that have embraced the net have seen it help shape their fortunes. The Washington Post, for example, has embraced the web, a factor Jay Rosen cited when he explained, "The New York Times is not any longer--in my mind--the greatest newspaper in the land. Nor is it the base line for the public narrative that it once was. Some time in the last year or so I moved the Washington Post into that position..." In our digital world, where competition is feverish, relationships are all the more important. By avoiding things like TimesSelect, the Washington Post is building relationships that could last a lifetime. The same lifetime, I might add, that could very well see the end of the broadsheet daily and the prestige that comes along with it. At that point, what will The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal be left with?
If I'm a newspaper publisher at this point I'm asking, "what should I do about it?" Well, start by reading Jarvis' article and following his advice, he ends it with thoughts on how to save the newspaper industry piece by piece. Beyond that, though, it's important to think about how you can add value to the consumer. With the net at their fingertips, they're in the driver's seat, not you. Burda explains further, "News has now become a commodity, thanks to the Internet, so we must differentiate ourselves in other ways," Burda said. "Content alone can no longer win. You must build and interact with audiences." That message goes to the media industry in general and brings us back around to Terry Heaton's quote which opened this article, "Revenue isn't the problem; audience is the problem." In a Field of Dreams sort of way, if you build the audience, the revenue will come. So figure it out.
Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson suggests following this four-step process:
1 - Microchunk it - Reduce the content to its simplest form.
2 - Free it - Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it.
3 - Syndicate it - Let anyone take it and run with it.
4 - Monetize it - Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk.
I mentioned it last time, but it seems even more appropriate now to talk about the Washington Post Remix blog, which features other people's mash ups using Post content. In the introduction to the blog, they write: "Why are we doing this? Because we want to foster innovation, and because we want to see your ideas about new ways of displaying news and information on the Web."
You're not going to beat the technology, so you might as well embrace it and start developing some real relationships with your customers. Because otherwise, they're just going to find the next guy who will.
Questions to answer in the next installment: Where are the marketing opportunities in all this? Do they lay more on the media or advertiser side? Where does TV and the thirty-second spot fall in? What about online advertising? And I'm sure there are more . . .
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Links: The easiest thing since sliced bread.
I'm in the process of finishing up some year end stuff both at work and at home, which accounts for this serious slowdown in entries lately. For those that haven't already, I suggest subscribing to the Sidenotes which have been updated fairly often. Anyway, as usual when I don't have anything substantial to say, here's an entry full of links to other people's content. Cause that's easy.
Best of 2005
It's that time of year again, I'm working on my top 50 albums of 2005 (here's my top 50 of 2004) and so is everyone else . . .
Business
Fun
That's all for today. It's holiday party season.
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Lots of people in santa costumes walking from bar to bar. Who wouldn't enjoy that?
[Editor's Note: This is an email I got from a friend of mine yesterday. It cracked me up and I asked him if he'd mind me posting it. He didn't. I'll be joining him for SANTACON, let me know if you're interested in attending.]
I was standing in central park a few weeks before xmas my sophmore year with my parents who had come out to see nyc all decked out for the holidays. We were minding our own business when over the hill came dozens then hundreds of santas. Tall santas short santas good santas, bad santas, elves biker santas, hannakah harrys, s&m santas the one thing they had in common (besides a vague approximation of the same outfit) was that they were all drunk. Needless to saw my parents and I were dumbfounded. Even more shocking was that 5 hours and 80 blocks later the same parade of now even drunker santas walked by my dorm south of chinatown.
It wasnt until a year later that I learned the cause of this yuletide miracle. SANTACON. www.santacon.com
I have wanted to be a part of this for the last several years but I was either out of town or unable to convince anyone to join me in the best way to celebrate the season that doesnt involve watching the "He-Man and She-Ra Christmas special". But we all have another chance at redclad daytime drinking this Saturday when Santacon 2005 occurs. I know this is only a few days away and I know most of you people suck but go to the website, look at pictures from Santacons past and start throwing together a halfassed Santa outfit cause this is worth doing.
Let me know if you want to go and if you dont I hope a drunken Santa pisses in your stocking this Christmas.
- Reverend Dave Kienzler, U.L.C.
Reverend Dave is a member of the Universal Life Church and also a writer at Da' Bears Blog.
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Get football scores, phone numbers and word definitions via text.
If you're like me you often find yourself walking around and need some random bit of information. Maybe it's the number for a restaurant to make a reservation or the score of the Monday Night Football game. Well, wonder no longer, there's a better way than calling that friend of yours who's always around a computer and asking them. There are two text message services that will answer your questions for you. The best part is, they'll do it for free (assuming you've got free text messages or some large number of prepaid).
I've been meaning to write about this for a while since it's one of those things where everyone around ooohs and aaaahs whenever I do it. Now, my faithful reader, it's time for me to impart my wisdom onto you, so you may impress your friends with your mobile savvy. So here's the deal:
4INFO
Also known as 44636, 4INFO is the best way to get your sports fix while you're on the go. Just text a team, say "Chicago Bears" to 4INFO (44636) and they'll get right back to you with the score of the game (or the time if it hasn't been played yet). Want to know all the scores? That's easy too, just text "NFL" (obviously you don't need the quotes). Other good ones are "NCAAF" (NCAA football), "NCAAB" (NCAA basketball), plus the obvious ones like "NBA" and "MLB." Plus, and I didn't know this until I visited their site, you can get fantasy football stats this way too? Want to know how many yards Kyle Orton threw for in this afternoon's game against the Packers? (Not many.) Just text "Kyle Orton" to 4INFO and they'll return text you with the answer. There are lots of other uses for 4INFO, you can get a list on their FAQ or just text "help" to 44636 and they'll return text you with the lowdown. (Another one I just noticed is "pu" for "pickup line.") Anyway, poke around, I'm sure you'll find lots of other cool uses. Or, you could try . . .
GOOGL
Also known as 46645, this is Google's SMS search. I use it primarily to find phone numbers and addresses for things around New York City (which 4INFO can do as well). Want to make a reservation at Balthazar but don't have the phone number? Just text "Balthazar New York City" to GOOGL and they'll get back to you with the address and phone number. On top of the basic local lookup, GOOGL has weather (text "weather" and your zip code), movies (text "movies" and your zip code) as well as other goodies. My personal favorite feature, however, is the basic questions. Having an argument at a bar about how old Shaun Alexander of the Seatlle Seahawks is? (This question may come from personal experience.) All you have to do is text "how old is shaun alexander?" to GOOGL and they'll get back to you with his age (he was born in 1977). Similarly, GOOGL also has a defintion feature. Just text "define" and your word to 46645 and Google will tell you the definition. Great for those impromptu street Scrabble battles . . . I guess.
Well, that concludes today's lesson. I hope you will find these text message services as useful as I have. And, as always, if you've got any suggestions or know of any other cool related stuff, drop a comment.
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Eight design blogs that I'm quite fond of.
Advertising/Design Goodness: Dubbed as "the best and sometimes the worst around the globe," this is the site of design/art director Frederik Samuel. There's lots of inspiring advertising here (that kind of feels like a strange thing to say).
Designers who Blog: Can you guess what this blog is all about? I especially enjoy visiting designers' blogs to look at the design. I think so much of blog design is stale and it's nice to see some designers taking different approaches to a medium that is caught in a design rut.
Design Observer: A fantastic group blog. Some very insightful writing. I don't really have anything else to say about it, it's just good. Did I say insightful? Good? Yeah. Uh huh. Okay, I'm stopping now. Really.
Reluct: Design and architecture news. Lots of pictures (which I like). It's mostly links around the net, not a lot of commentary. But there's nothing wrong with links. I like them.
Signal vs. Noise: I think this is a design blog. It's the blog of software company 37signals, makers of Basecamp. They write lots about design and business and other random stuff. According to them it's about "design, customer experience, entertainment, politics, Basecamp, Backpack, products we like, small business, ourselves, and more," so I guess that works.
Speak Up: This is my favorite design commentary blog. It has a good amount of posts a day, not too many, not too few. Some of the writing is quite insightful (there's that word again!), while other entries are just light and fun. I pretty much read every entry posted 'cause it's good like 'dat.
swissmiss: Tina Roth is a "Swiss designer gone NYC." She finds more amazing nick-nacks (is that how you spell it??) and links than you can shake a stick at. I don't know exactly where she finds the time to post the 10-15 entries a day, but I'm certainly glad she does. This is definitely my favorite non-commentary design blog on the market.
Veer: The Skinny: Veer sells "visual elements for creatives." Their blog, not surprisingly, features visual elements by creatives. Great links to videos, portfolios and the like. This was a recent discovery and I'm glad I ran across it.
And that concludes this installment of design blogs, if you know of some design blogs that I missed, please let me know. Word.
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Hi, I'm 