I know what I ain't good at: creating Photoshop brushes. That don't mean I don't love'em though. Brusheezy is a repository of free brushes that real artists contribute to (mostly).
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 25, 2007, 02:27PMEveryone's favorite tool for mass voyeurism - YouTube - is starting to get sucked into the Google vortex. Google Video search results will now include Youtube videos as well.
This was bound to happen, but what I think is interesting here is the following from today's announcement:
Over time, Google Video will become even more comprehensive as it evolves into a service where you can search for the world's online video content, irrespective of where it may be hosted. (emphasis added)
Google's mama didn't raise no dummy. They know that while the destination is fun and all, it's all about the billboards on the way. Google relies on the search highway as your preferred path to these destinations.
But videos are an odd destination. We don't really wake up with a hankering to view a ridiculous local TV ad or some obscure Finnish dance video. Instead, we find out about them from others whether through emails or chats that fly around or through social sites like Digg. In other words, viral videos have us skipping the search highway altogether and going straight to the content.
On top of that, sites like Digg and blogs everywhere just display the videos themselves. It's partly why Youtube took off like it did: the videos are portable. So how does Google monetize all those videos out there? It may display ads for a few seconds before the actual video. It may pass along ads around the video player skin.
As the web breaks out of the browser and ends up in the form of many smaller pieces in the form of gadgets and widgets, web video is clearly the ultimate widget. Videos don't require any sort of installation (thanks to Flash), a link is usually enough, and they can be dropped virtually anywhere. We're already starting to see videos end up on phones and portable devices. Ultimately, for search engines like Google and Yahoo it's going to be about somehow blending that ad model with more modular, discrete experiences.
It really is becoming a bite-size web.
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 23, 2007, 10:08AMSoftware is frighteningly powerful today. With all that power comes the ability to really hand over all sorts of knobs and switches to users. Hey we built it, we may as well give the end users all that power right?
Wrong.
I use 37 Signals' great little Backpack tool for to-do list reminders that I get via SMS and email. It's a great tool and actually not overly complicated. Yet still, end users are still required to do some work to make it useful for themselves. In fact, the final step is a tricky one: formulating a useful usage pattern for yourself as a user. Remember, most end-users aren't tech savvy or even care to be creative with how to "hack" software tool for their own purposes. People want a problem-solver out of the box.
Imagine, takemymedicine.com, built atop the Backpack engine that serves a single, very narrow, but very common purpose: it lets you know when it's time to take your medicine. You can achieve this capability on Backpack with almost zero additional effort. In fact, to achieve this goal, some functionality gets shut off (e.g. the need to specify an exact date for a reminder). This is a good thing.
By framing the software to fit a real problem, you lift the burden of completing the puzzle for users. By applying constraints to what the software can do and by clearly conveying why the software exists in the first place, the purpose and goal become clearer. A less cluttered experience and a clearer purpose lead to a broader audience. My 50 year old aunt wouldn't know what to do with Backpack. She may know what to do with takemymedicine.com. Less is more.
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 22, 2007, 02:46PMI may be late to the party on this one, but iConcertCal is damn sweet. It probes your iTunes library, pulls out the artists and sends them off to Pollstar to see who's on tour. Then it plots them on a calendar. You heard me right.
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 20, 2007, 04:40PMFellow Arc90'er Tim Meaney shares his thoughts on usage metadata and why it's just the greatest. The Google Reader team recently put out some neat little charts that nicely illustrate your usage habits on Google Reader. Tim predicts that this trend will continue with more applications paying better attention to your habits, patterns and what you pay the most attention to.
Building on Tim's thoughts, I think its worth making a distinction between local attention data - in applications like iTunes - is a bit more digestible to me than Google watching every move I make. While the resulting data is neat, I wish there were a "Stop Paying Attention" switch somewhere that I could flip. Every so often, I just want to close the blinds. Privacy is mostly about control. So long as I can easily "mute the microphone" I'm ok with things.
Tim will be continuing his series on usage metadata in the near future over at the Arc90 Blog.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
- Winston Churchill
Ever work out at the gym and do something a bit different than you're accustomed to? Let's say you usually run the treadmill but decide to go ahead and do something completely different. The workout goes fine but then the next day you wake up and you are in serious pain (despite how good a shape you're in).
Since picking up the Macbook Pro, I'm feeling that same kind of pain. As I "override" my Windows habits and usage patterns I've gathered over the years, I'm really feeling that pain. Key combinations. Standard window icons and their representations. Certain applications that have evolved from useful to absolutely necessary. All taken away from me with this switch. And yet, with this newfound "trainee" status comes an opportunity to get better.
Putting aside whether the Mac world is better or worse than Windows, one thing is definite: they're different. Macs and OSX are not what I'm accustomed to. And I have to say, while the pain is rough these days (I'm still badly crossing up in a few places and I still cringe because I just can't find a C: drive) I can really tell that all this change is...healthy. Challenging the patterns we become experts in is a great means of building new strengths - and dimensions to our thinking - that we all can use every so often.
When we get good at something, we love doing it over and over. There's an innate satisfaction with doing things well. The actions take on the characteristics of feeling intuitive and second nature. So when we're challenged with something foreign; something we're not experts in, we'll often recoil and avoid it. That's a bad move.
While it's great to build those mental muscles to prime form, there are many others that are being neglected. There are few things that are presented to us in our everyday experiences that require us to really consciously think. Everything around us is streamlined. We don't remember phone numbers any more because our mobile phones do that for us. We don't bother counting change because charge cards and credit cards do all the math. It takes three clicks to buy something on Amazon - without a single keystroke. We all fall into these routines that make us feel accomplished and comfortable.
Changing computer operating systems is by no means a valiant endeavor. It's just a computer. But I happen to spend hours a day making a living on it. So to replace the primary tool in my workday with something markedly different - the experience is undoubtedly new and a bit jarring to me. It doesn't feel good to be a novice, but the payoff in the long term is worthwhile. One thing I'm realizing is that I'm not replacing my Windows knowledge. I'm just adding to it.
So at the next chance you get to change something you're comfortable with: do it. It's a bit scary at first, and you won't feel good about yourself at first, but over time your entire brain will be better toned...and not just one portion of it.
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 15, 2007, 10:08AMGroovy/cool illustration art from Baz Pringle (an equally groovy/cool name!).
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 13, 2007, 02:40PMNo, I'm not plugging Design-feed.net because basement.org is one of the contributing sites. I'm plugging it because it's a nice collection of design sites all rolled into one. I swear.
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 9, 2007, 11:32AMThe Apple fanboys will be frothing at the mouth today. As I type this, Mr. Jobs is picking up his legendary dry cleaning as he gets ready for the big show today. What could it be? More new iPods? More new iPod colors? Macbook Pro "Ultra" (or something)? Apple knows how to generate buzz. And the sound of Apple-related blog chatter is absolutely deafening.
But if you're looking for the big announcement today, it's not happening at Macworld Expo. It's happening right here.
I bought a Macbook Pro.
Yes, the man who doesn't hate Macs, but just hates Mac users, bought a Mac. It took quite a bit of energy to conjur up enough self-loathing to purchase one, but I finally did.
So have at it people. The target doesn't get much bigger than this. I finally gave in to all smoothly transitioning shininess; all those drop shadows and rounded corners; all that...brushed metal!
I'll blog again some time soon to explain why I finally caved in. For now, all I ask is that I not be likened to that smarmy pseudo-hipster from the Mac ads. That's not me. Really. I swear.
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 8, 2007, 05:48PMPutting aside an oddly confusing name, Yahoo!'s new mobile service nicely unifies your typical mobile web services into a nice streamlined interface. Looks neat if your phone supports it (my Treo 650 doesn't).
Posted by Richard Ziade on January 4, 2007, 11:22AM
Chris, one of the wily lead designers here at Arc90, just couldn't stand to live without the NY Times news river that was put to rest a few weeks ago (I recently blogged about it). He's gone ahead and tweaked Arc90's very own river reader to handle a whole bunch of articles from the NY Times. Chris has all the details over at the Arc90 blog.
If you're a Treo, Blackberry or any rich mobilemoib device user, the river style is great, and Arc90's RSS-to-river maker does a great job of readying your favorite news sources for mobile browsing.