Over the weekend I began reading Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney which has given me an insight into the control-freak that is Steve Jobs. Take the design of the mouse for the first Mac computer:

“Jobs paid close attention to every detail. Even the mouse was designed to reflect the shape of the computer: it has the same dimensions, and its single square button corresponds to the shape and placement of the screen.”

Fast forward 24 years and when I go to use the Mighty Mouse connected to my fiance’s 24″ iMac I find the scrollball unwilling to scroll down. The gray nipple-like scroll mechanism might have been good on paper but after just a year of normal, everyday use the thing becomes flaky and useless. About every other week I need to flip the mouse upside down and rub the scroll ball vigorously along the length of my finger to restore functionality (video demonstration). In extreme cases when that doesn’t work I apply a dab of rubbing alcohol on the ball and gently turn the ball around in all possible directions to scrub the runners clean. Some people have even taken the Mighty Mouse apart in order to clean it. Since Apple’s products have won numerous industrial design awards, it escapes me how the mouse has been so neglected considering it is one of the most frequently used input devices on a computer.

The Mighty Mouse wasn’t the first unsuccessful mouse released by the Cupertino company. In 1998 to coincide the release of the first iMac, Apple created the USB Mouse which became known as the “hockey puck”. While considered stylish with it’s translucent colors and circular design the USB mouse was actually very uncomfortable to use. Third parties released USB to ADB converters so people could use the older, more comfortable Apple mouses with their new iMac computers. There was even an adaptive shell called the iCatch which elongated the circular mouse making it more comfortable to hold and similar looking to the old Desktop Mouse II.

So while Apple dared to be different by making computers that were easy to use while being gorgeous to look at, their mice could never compare. But on the other hand the trackpads on Apple’s new MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops are marvelously responsive and a joy to use. Apple is at the top of it’s game when it comes to user inputs on non-desktop products. Perhaps Steve Jobs should ditch the whole mouse concept and bundle his desktops with a USB powered trackpad. That would certainly be better than licensing the trademark of a popular cartoon series to tack on to a crappy product.

P.S. I had to “clean” the trackball 3 times while writing this blog post.

When I heard that Flickr is nearly ready to add video capabilities, I felt a bit queasy. Flickr is the leader in the photo sharing arena by a large margin. The main reason it reached critical mass was because of the community it built around the photos uploaded by users. It is also one of the harder sites to monetize since display advertising clashes with photo viewing and there isn’t enough text content for contextual advertising to work. The $24.95 Pro memberships (which can be given as gifts *wink wink*) keep Flickr from being a total money-sink.

Photos require a large chunk of bandwidth to serve up to the millions of Flickr users, but that is nothing compared to the overhead of video. This is probably a moot point considering the company is running off the pipes of it’s owner, web pioneer Yahoo.

While there are good and bad reasons for Flickr to add video, I don’t think they can compete in such a crowded video-sharing marketplace. Did Vimeo, Viddler, Revver, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Veoh, and the all mighty YouTube leave anything for Flickr to improve upon? It looks like Flickr will have a long, uphill battle to even catch up to the middle of the pack.

Flickr has a huge community around photos and what they need to do is offer more photo related services. Many artists on Flickr have an account at 3rd party sites for selling prints of their work. Flickr could offer fine-art prints from members that opt-in to sell their photos with the service. This way Flickr would tie the browsing and buying experience together and could make a small profit off of each transaction. An example of another art site doing something similar is DeviantART.com (see my prints.).

DeviantART lets users upload as many photos as they want with no file size limitations, just like Flickr. Every member is eligible to opt-in to the standard print account which allows them to sell their art work and receive a cut of the profits. A Premium print account is available for $24.95 a year and offers more print customizations and a higher share of the profits from a sale. These are not run-of-the-mill snapshot prints like at Walmart or Costco. DeviantART does high quality work. The beauty of this is DeviantART can set a base price which includes a tiny profit with every transaction as well as helping out it’s communities. When community members profit, the company profits as well.

Flickr needs something like this! How could such a megasite sit back and watch it’s users point potential customers off to make a purchase? This is money that they are letting go by under their noses. And what do they plan to do with video anyways? Nobody has figured out a successful way to monetize video.

Flickr already has an intuitive interface for uploading, tagging, and browsing photos, why can’t they add selling photos to that list? I feel offering a way for the community to profit off their work while helping Flickr earn it’s keep makes everyone happy. This is way better than adding the latest me-too feature that is already pervasive throughout the web.

Josh Bernoff wrote about how social applications will thrive during a recession. He noted advertising facts and figures from the 2001 recession to backup his claims, which all seem perfectly valid. But poor Josh seems to be missing the most important reason for social apps to keep on chugging. When massive layoffs hit companies needing to cut the fat for survival, ex-employees will be left with an abundance of time. And what can they fill that time with? Poking their friends virtually or starting a massive vampire/zombie war.

Now I don’t want to say social networks are a complete waste of time. They are kind of like a mullet: business in the front and party in the back. People will flock to social networks looking for job openings, utilizing connections, and otherwise use it for strictly business. But once the practicality runs dry they will turn to socializing and in turn pointless applications. This overload of free time is what will get social networks through the economic slump. As logical as it sounds for advertisers to keep pumping money into online advertising because it is more targeted providing a greater return on investment, social advertising is still an unproven experiment.

Targeting ads based on what people are searching for is safe. Sneaking a recommendation into a users news feed hoping they will share it with their friends, not so much.

Kevin Rose’s Internet video startup, Revision3.com, unveiled its new look today. The homepage has been simplified providing an immediate focus with a large feature box that rotates through different site promotions. Each show now has it’s own section which is easily accessible from the “Shows” drop down menu along the top of every page. Streaming video flash players on each episode page have been bumped up to 555×337 which really draws viewers in. Each show has a plethora of different subscription formats which are only a tab away from the recent episode list. The overall restructuring is a welcome improvement, but unfortunately it came at the expense of visual design.

The new color scheme is drab and bland with a “corporate” feeling that first comes to mind. I suppose this is to appeal to advertisers that Revision3 is trying to attract to buy ad inventory but it feels like something from early 2000. The old design (pictured below) felt slick and cutting edge just like the network itself. But the worst offender of this new look is the typography. For one, it is a light gray (hex code #666666) and could stand to be darker (like #333333) for increased contrast and thus increased readability. The line-height is also not set leaving lines scrunched together making it harder to read. In short, the new design is missing the final polish which used to set it apart from other media websites on the net.

Daniel Burka has been the lead designer on most of Kevin Rose’s web projects but it looks like he didn’t have a hand in the new Revision3.com. He must be too busy working on Digg and Pownce, two sites I really admire from a design perspective. Luckily I have no reason to visit the Revision3 site on a regular basis except to subscribe to new shows. I hope they take a second look at things and update the style to match the new functionality.

If you want to raise a kid that can’t become a functioning member of society then follow these simple steps:

1. Wait on them all the time
2. Never say no to them
3. Keep a Christmas tree up year ’round because you need to give them gifts every day
4. Do their homework and shelter them from any kind of work

Now those points might sound absolutely ridiculous to normal people like you and me, but these two parents in the clip below actual follow these guidelines.

I’m speechless.

(via Huffington Post)

As the days inch towards Christmas people around the nation will be frantically finishing up their shopping and wrapping gifts. I’m not a big fan of wrapping gifts. For one, it is an extra step before hoisting the gift off to it’s recipient. All the work and energy, physical as well as creative, that goes into the presentation is quickly shredded to a pulp as it is ripped off and tossed aside for the main attraction below the surface. That precious wrapping paper, tape, and pretty bow will make their way to the trash where they will rot away in a landfill.

But my biggest gripe is the price for all of that frilly paper, which only provides only a moment of glee. And while I would like to see the 2007 Christmas season be the one that ditches the idea of wrapping up gifts (after all, being green is in vogue) there is a snowflake’s chance in hell that is going to happen. Companies that make wrapping paper and related products must be raking it in as the busiest shopping season heads into full insane-o-mode. I couldn’t find any statistics about wrapping paper revenue, but I am sure that it is such a large chunk of company profits that the last thing they would want to do is stop the frivolous holiday tradition.

How could I get out of wrapping gifts without disappointing my family and friends while not spending a dime? Why not turn to the one thing that has helped give consumers the things they want without charging them a thing, advertising-supported goods! I would gladly accept gift-wrapping materials that have been plastered in logos if it were free and saved me time. It seems to make sense in helping companies spread brand awareness as the giftee would be exposed with a happy and joyous moment of opening a gift which creates a positive psychological effect and brand association. Companies could ship it to people for free or give it out at stores with every purchase. Boxes already pre-wrapped and decorated using a Christmas variation of the corporate colors and branded tissue paper inside would be the perfect ad vehicle to their next potential customer. And with the cost of buying everything in bulk, the company wouldn’t be spending more than the usual barrage of printed material such as full-page magazine ads, billboards, or direct mailing fliers. Wrapping paper would be unusual in the fact that it is actually useful! That’s a valuable exchange in my book.

I’m surprised I haven’t seen this idea more widespread. Lots of stores offer gift wrapping though it is usually offered as an extra service for a price. Why not offset that cost with advertising? Everything else seems to work that way. And it’s not like Christmas isn’t already over-marketed, over-hyped, and over-crowded with the consumerism mentality of BUY, BUY, BUY! Why not just a little bit more with free wrapping paper?

Washington DC had it’s first Startup Weekend event two weeks ago drawing a crowd of about 70 techies. The idea behind startup weekend is for a group of people to get together, conceive, build, and launch an Internet business in under 72 hours. The only thing more stressful than executing a new idea in such a short period of time is managing such a large group of random people. I didn’t have the pleasure of attending but I did follow along via the official blog and twitter posts from friends that attended.

The group settled on an idea about a social network for communities, later dubbed HolaNeighbor.com. The site is meant to help people plan events, share important information, meet the neighbors, and generally be a better member of the local community. It has been more than a week since the site launched and it is still far from even a proof of concept.

So far Helo Neighbor is a Google Maps mashup. You can search for communities by zip code which displays the location on a Google map with an exclamation point as a marker. Clicking on the marker lets you check out the community which only includes a list of members and three crude options: name of founder, public or private, and invite or open. There is also the capability to upload photos though there is nothing taking advantage of this feature yet.

The idea is half baked at best. I imagine there must have been way more ideas during the pitch of this business proposition to keep the team excited about this. I don’t see any advantage of launching HelloNeighbor as a standalone site. In hindsight it would have made much more sense to build on top of an existing social network like Facebook. By making this product a Facebook app the team could spend more time working on the features instead of building up the basic infrastructure like the sign up process and user management. As the site stands now, users are better off creating a group on Facebook to keep in touch with local events.

I hope the gang had fun, because the end result certainly falls flat.

A recent story appearing on CNN examines Britney’s spending habits revealed by court documents released November 1st. According to the papers Ms. Spears brings in $737,000 a month. Spears’ monthly expenses include $49,267 in mortgage for two houses, $16,000 for clothes and $102,000 on entertainment, gifts and vacation, according to her financial declaration.

Meanwhile, she spends zero on education, savings and investments and gives $500 a month in charitable contributions. With such an enormous income, if she saved just 1% a month she would have $88,440 at the end of a full year. This would be more than enough to ensure her children get through college. For the rest of her life she could take that $7,370 monthly contribution and dump it in an investment vehicle that returned 5% annually for a cool $8,387,324.38 by the time she turns 60. Of course what fun would that be? I guess we’ll keep seeing Britney albums and related schwag until she finally gets a clue or drives herself crazy into the ground. Hey, nobody said saving for retirement was glamorous.

Srown.com is the home of the stylish Srown Design Group. If you are a design group you most certainly have to look good and the team has pulled it off with this slick black and pink website. I like how the background draws the attention to the middle of the page where all of the content is as well as use of the upper corners for the most important navigation: Home and Contact. Srown has even used a bit of pizazz by fading up new content after you click a link.

Looks aside though, and this site has two big problems. For one, the site doesn’t use separate web pages for each section, instead everything is loaded up front and using JavaScript, Srown replaces the middle container with the content. This is bad design as it prevents linking to specific content. There are ways to incorporate a bookmarkable history of pages using JavaScript like the jQuery history plugin. Also, users with scripting disabled will be limited to the first screen of content since the navigation relies entirely on JavaScript.

Ultimately Srown used the wrong technology for the job. Instead, the team should have used Flash which would be more flexible in developing visual effects. There is also a higher chance of a user having Flash installed compared to having JavaScript enabled since the Adobe plugin is installed in 99% of computers worldwide. Instead, Srown settled for the middle of usability (and the middle is the worst) without taking advantage of the extra benefits Flash had to offer.

As you can see a site can be visually stellar but utter crap in usability. Before ever starting a project it is important to sit down and think things through from a technical stand point to see what different technologies have to offer. So while Srown looks awesome it suffers in usability which brings up the important point that substance beats style out any day.

My roommates bought Chinese the other night and I like to just eat the fortune cookies. Ironically this was my fortune…

What can I say? I eat Chinese food and buy lots of products made in China. Fortune cookies are so mystical and all-knowing.