Hello and wave.

Microsoft got the double rainbow guy to do an ad for them…how the hell did Skittles let that...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:33:13 -0400

Microsoft got the double rainbow guy to do an ad for them…how the hell did Skittles let that one slip by?

Apple's Letdown

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:21:00 -0400

Apple has again made a push for total media domination of your life with their new Apple TV and the introduction of iTunes Ping. Unfortunately, they have fallen short once again where they could’ve blown us away with true multimedia convergence. Instead, they have made strides in several different directions that don’t change the current status quo.

(The hockey puck for your TV)

Apple TV
I have owned an Apple TV for nearly 2 years now. It isn’t a device for everyone, but it definitely has merits that most people would find useful. It’s perfect for streaming music and movies from my iMac and it is great for the occasional movie rental. What it doesn’t do is change the way I consume television. Apple has admittedly qualified the Apple TV as a hobby and not a device that they see being ubiquitous anytime soon. This is thanks to the institution of media box rentals that has been put in place by cable and satellite companies for the past 20+ years. Tivo and Apple TV have proven that it is nearly impossible to compete with what Americans are used to. Nokia has seen the same problem with mobile handsets in America (this is a wholly different debate). While I agree that the current offerings from companies like Apple, Tivo, and Roku leave little to rattle the machine that runs the cable and satellite industry, they do have an unprecedented opportunity to change the game.

The latest update to Apple TV’s OS includes the concept of low-cost TV and movie rentals. My problem with this is that media ownership is not the issue users had with the previous Apple TV platform. The value play that services such as Netflix or even a DVR offer is that they take into consideration households with more than one TV viewing schedule. I watch several shows with my girlfriend that we never get to watch together. I may watch the show on the day of broadcast and she may get to it the following weekend. In this rental world our household will be punished for not being able to be together to watch shows within the rental time period. A subscription based model would alleviate this issue. I can imagine tiered rates for TV shows and even movies. Imagine having the following options for TV:

- $8.99/month - access to 3-4 shows of your choice
- $9.99/month - access to 6-8 shows of your choice
- $13.99/month - unlimited access

This would drive me to pay for services from iTunes while still paying for Netflix. The premium price for the content would be justified in immediacy of the shows availability.

The update to Apple TV also doesn’t even attempt to take out any of cable’s stake in live and recently released content. The rumored iOS/app centric approach to the Apple TV would have started to tackle this issue by allowing content providers such as CNN, ABC, Hulu, etc, their own means of distribution and monetization. Oh well, maybe next time?

(They’ve gone gaga over sharing)

iTunes Ping™
Apple is finally trying to get social and iTunes Ping is their solution. They have started to incorporate features from Lala.com which they acquired last year, but Apple hasn’t been able to change their approach to purchasing music and the problem of universal access of owned songs/albums. That said, I do believe that iTunes is socially on the right track. Recommendations from friends and following artists will be huge. Personally, I will be using the social aspects of Ping and then going to Rdio to add the music to my collection their (more on that here).

Recap

- Low cost rentals still a high cost at the end of the month

- No solution for live/recently released content

- Great social functionality for discovering music

- Stale approach to owning music

I had my hopes for this event as I do every time Stevie J takes the stage. I’m not 100% disappointed with the announcements today but I do see great room for improvement on their core offerings. All that said, I’m going to go pray to my Jobs crucifix. All hail Jobs.

Listening to Music with Your Head in the Cloud

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:13:00 -0400

This is part 1 of a multi-part series about successfully integrating cloud-based services into your daily life and what it will take to advance these platforms beyond their current offerings. Round one deals with the entry of Rdio (www.rdio.com) into subscription based music services.

Full disclosure: I don’t work for these guys; I just think what they are doing is awesome.

We are starting to see major shifts in how we consume music since the proliferation of the MP3. The idea of media ownership is now shifting from owning individual files to leasing media on a when-I-need-it basis. Several services have been experimenting with this subscription based media leasing model and the all-stars at Rdio are proving that there is merit to rethinking how we enjoy our music.

Game Changer
Rdio has completely changed the way I consume music. Take a second and think about how you listen to your music now. Do you use Pandora? How about iTunes and iTunes sharing? You could be transfering your audio library from home to work via an iPod, iPhone or mobile hard drive everyday. I was mixing up all three of these methods before I discovered Rdio. This made for such a less than ideal music listening experience. Now, imagine having access to your entire (or almost entire) music library accessible from any computer, iPod Touch or iPhone in any location. Sounds pretty great, right?

Rdio is a social and cloud-based music service that gives you access to over 7 million songs for $9.99 a month. Built into Rdio are social toolsets that allow you to discover, share and enjoy new music from any computer or certain mobile devices. The method for discovery of new music alone drew me to Rdio but the seamless ability to match your current iTunes library collection and wireless mobile syncing sealed the deal for me.

How They’re Doing Mobile

“With Rdio’s mobile apps, music on your computer and mobile phone is finally connected without needing a cable. Collections and playlists are instantly updated and you can sync music and listen, even when you’re offline.” - Rdio.com

The first time you hit the “Sync to Mobile” button on Rdio you will be sold. If you have an Amazon Kindle then you are used to this type of interaction with books. Once the button is pressed, viola, the audio files are transferred directly to your mobile device. This gives you access to the music even when you don’t have an internet or mobile connection (perfect for the subway or in cities where 3G is spotty). All of this is done without the user purchasing the tracks or albums.

(A quick example of syncing an album to your iPhone)

Social’s So in Right Now
Easy-to-use sharing and recommendations are at the heart of Rdio. Previously, I had toyed with Lala.com (Rest in Peace and please do something great with this service Apple) and their sharing functionality left a lot to be desired. Rdio has streamlined the sharing process to effortlessly get users to share the tunes they love.

I can share music directly on friends’ Facebook walls, send them tunes via an Rdio message or tweet out my love for an artist, track or playlist. Playlists also have a collaborative mode that allows multiple users to create, edit and maintain playlists.

What’s Missing?
Rdio has leapfrogged over other subscription based music services in terms of having an intuitive interface, sharing functionality and seamless mobile syncing. That said, there are several areas of improvement and most fall under feature requests or small user experience suggestions.

Removing Artists from my Collection
I have way too many embarrassing artists that made their way into my Rdio collection when I matched my iTunes library. I need a one click solution for removing artists from the collection’s interface.

Randomly Playing Music from My Collection
The beauty of amassing a 10,000+ track library of music (puny compared to many) is being able to shuffle and bounce around through my eclectic collection. Currently, I can only randomize albums, artists or artist radio stations. I’d like the ability to randomize songs from all of the artists and albums in my collection so I can discover and re-discover music I have been collecting for years. This functionality should be both mobile and desktop.

Expand Upon the Desktop Application
The disconnect between only using the desktop app as an audio controller(Previous/Next/Play/Pause) and the web app as a queue management tool is a bit frustrating. A unified experience would ease my life considerably (I know, first world problems here).

We Need More Artists
Rdio is constantly adding new artists every single day, but to fully recognize the power of this platform Rdio’s library will have to include more minor and ‘underground’ artists. A tool for artists without representation to upload their music could solve this issue. Rdio could institute a profit sharing program for these artists that would incentivize them to share their music on the service.

Round-up

$9.99/month unlimited access to over 7 million songs ($4.99/month if you don’t want mobile sync)

Wireless sync to mobile devices (BlackBerry, iPhone/iPod touch, Android)

Powerful social sharing tools

Relevant recommendation engine

Slick user interface

Amazing customer support (via @rdio on Twitter)

The Smiths

Owning music files is going the way of the CD. The cost and convenience of cloud-based services like this present a model that is much more compelling than the stagnate system of pay-per-track and pay-per-album. The future is looking bright for cloud-based media delivery platforms thanks to what the smart people at Rdio are doing today. Head over to http://rdio.com and give their free 3-day trial a run. You won’t be disappointed.

sampurtill: haukurhomm: akkeri (via icanread) THE TRUTH

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:18:29 -0400

sampurtill:

haukurhomm:

akkeri

(via icanread)

THE TRUTH

Shakiest montage ever. This is the 3-minute recap of St. Lucia...

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:41:42 -0400

Shakiest montage ever. This is the 3-minute recap of St. Lucia and each second of it makes me want to be back there.

Visualizing where I have been for the past year (via Foursquare)

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:40:36 -0400

Visualizing where I have been for the past year (via Foursquare)

Lake 23rd Street

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:32:00 -0400

Lake 23rd Street

This is Red Oval Classic Lager. It’s from Trade...

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:30:00 -0400

This is Red Oval Classic Lager. It’s from Trade Joe’s and legitimately only costs $3.99 for a 6-pack. Now, the snobs over at Beer Advocate only gave this delicious nectar of love a C-. I’m not sure they are taking into consideration two important things this beer brings to the table:

The unbelievably attainable cost.
The fact that this is totally the beer that they used to stock the fridge of the Roseanne Show set. Can’t you imagine Dan Conner coming home from a tough day of whatever it was he did, and crack this delicious can open just as he cracked a joke about how he was going to get freaky with Rosanne in bed tonight?

I bought this beer solely based on point #2. And dammit, I am proud of that.

….remember how goth DJ became near the end of the series…? I gotta stop drinking this stuff.

How I got the Girl

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:03:00 -0400

Most of you may know that Julie and I recently took a vacation to St. Lucia. Along with amazing food, weather and water sports, we decided to get engaged. Well, I decided to propose is more like it. For those of you that are interested, here is a quick run-through of how it all went down.

We started off the morning by waking up and hitting the beach to float around and catch some morning sun. With Julie being one of the most energetic people I have ever met, I knew my relaxation would soon come to an end. We decided to pop out on the Caribbean ocean in a couple of ocean kayaks. The water was perfectly calm and blue which added to the backdrop of what I still think looked like the approach scene to Jurrasic Park.

Kayaking lead us to Pigeon Island. A twin-peaked beast of land shooting out of the ocean about half a mile from our beach. This was going to be the location of the proposal, but not yet. There was no way I would trust myself with Julie’s Mother’s ring in a kayak in the middle of the ocean…give me some credit. I digress. On the top of Pigeon Island is a 17th century English fort named Fort Rodney. You can check it out in the background of this photo:

We rested a little bit on the shore of the island before heading back to the resort for some lunch and more activities.

Lunch was a quick sandwich then off to more activities. Julie’s activity: heading back to the beach to sign us up for some jet-skiing action later that afternoon. My activity: a nap. I was trying to stay calm knowing that soon I would be dropping down to one knee and the siesta definitely helped. Julie came and got me when it was time to hit the ocean again, this time with a motor instead of an oars. I knew time was edging in on me if I wanted to get Julie over to the island before it closed, but how can you pass up a jet-ski in the Caribbean? Suffice it to say, we finished up and I persisted that I head back to take a shower. I wanted to be presentable for hiking (and proposing).

After getting cleaned up we headed to the resorts dingy dock (that sounds awesome) to catch a ride over to Pigeon Island. When we got there we began the hike and made it to the fort in great time. Unfortunately, when we got to the top there was a huge tour group taking photos and running around in the fort. I was disenchanted for a moment until I saw a girl wearing an Ohio State t-shirt. I instinctively called out “O-H” to which she proudly and without a second’s hesitation responded “I-O!”. It’s always great to run into Ohioans around the corners of the world. Anyways, shortly after our Ohio moment the tour group left. This left Julie and me on top of the fort all by ourselves. While she was distracted with a posted plaque telling the history of Fort Rodney, I placed her mom’s ring on one of the old cannons that remained on top of the fort:

I grabbed Julie from where she was reading and told her I would explain how they used to make these old cannons work. She wasn’t all that excited but she entertained my enthusiasm and energetically hopped over to the cannon. The sparkle from the diamond caught her eye and for one brief moment in her life, she was still and quiet. She looked at me and asked, “what’s that doing here…?”

I replied by taking the ring and getting down on one knee. Julie kept saying how the ring would never fit, it was too small, what’s going on? My only response was, “Will you marry me?”

I slipped the (re-sized ring [ask me if you want that story]) onto her finger and she was quiet again. My nerves were going everywhere. I wasn’t used to her being quiet, and now was especially a time when I wanted to hear her excited little voice. It seemed like a fort night but was only a second until she said yes. We stood up there, on top of Fort Rodeny, and let it all sink in. She finally returned to her giddy-self and hopped around for a while. I did my best to get her to calm down so I could snap a photo of her in her excitement.

Just in time and serendipitously an Englishman and his young son climbed up the ladder to the perch of Fort Rodney. He graciously snapped a photo of the two of us standing on what we’ll (ok maybe just me) as the most awesome cannon ever.

I can’t say I have been more excited or sure of something in my life. I don’t get cheesy on these intertubes all that often, but now will be an exception. I still think back to my very first day at Ohio University when I entered Morton Hall, Room 201, for Psychology 101. In a room of 300 fresh, young students I saw this amazing girl. I could have never known she would give me the time of day, let alone a chance at spending the rest of my life pestering and loving her. I also want to say thanks to all of you, the ones that made it this far in the cheese-ball story of how I got the girl. Without the support and friendship each and everyone of you brought us, we’d never be here. This is going to be great.

Now, let’s party.

52 Weeks of UX: Reward the Passionates

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:34:26 -0400

52 Weeks of UX: Reward the Passionates:

What’s the best way to bring in new customers? That question is posed by almost everyone at one point or another, no matter what product or service they’re offering. The common way to attack this problem is to go out and advertise…to redirect attention to your offering and convince people…

We made it.

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:28:23 -0400

We made it.

"The first obvious difference is that agencies have a harder time getting proximity to ‘real’..."

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:20:21 -0400

“The first obvious difference is that agencies have a harder time getting proximity to ‘real’ customers, because like it or not, their immediate customer is the client. And say what you will about doing loads of user research, segmentation, employing user-centred design blah, blah, blah, the built-in financial relationship means that many agencies focus on keeping their clients happy, not necessarily delighting real customers.”

- Justin McMurray

The old view of online as a separate space, cyberspace, apart from the real world, was an accident...

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:53:17 -0400

The old view of online as a separate space, cyberspace, apart from the real world, was an accident of history. Back when the online population was tiny, most of the people you knew in your daily life weren’t part of that population. Now that computers and increasingly computerlike phones have been broadly adopted, the whole notion of cyberspace is fading. Our social media tools aren’t an alternative to real life, they are part of it. In particular, they are increasingly the coordinating tools for events in the physical world, as in Cheonggycheon Park.

Clay Shirky, “Cognitive Surplus”

Papaya Dog, Chelsea, New York. Making healthy life choices.

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 15:47:46 -0400

Papaya Dog, Chelsea, New York.

Making healthy life choices.

Manhattan. 27th floor.

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:00:10 -0400

Manhattan. 27th floor.

Chocolate Icebox Cake. Billy’s Bakery, Chelsea, NYC.

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:00:52 -0400

Chocolate Icebox Cake. Billy’s Bakery, Chelsea, NYC.

Lobster Place’s lobster roll. Not as good as Luke’s...

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:52:05 -0400

Lobster Place’s lobster roll. Not as good as Luke’s but still a good choice.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Bowls (via imremembering)

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:23:38 -0400

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Bowls

(via imremembering)

Hiding from the 100 degree weather by blocking it all out.

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:13:25 -0400

Hiding from the 100 degree weather by blocking it all out.

Gotta love the Veloce.

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:39:06 -0400

Gotta love the Veloce.