Adam Kazwell is...somewhat concerned

links for 2005-04-30

• The Sony Librie - so close yet so far for eBooks (ie: terrible DRM)
  the text on the "screen" is insanely crisp and clear . It was book-text quality...it looked like a decal until you pushed the next button and the whole screen changed.  It was *really* mind-boggling and you could instantly see how most books are going to
  (tags: ebooks kottke gadgets)
• With two simple questions Bill Gates provides us more insight into globalization than half-a-dozen books.
  Twenty years ago would you rather have been a B-student in Poughkeepsie or a genius in Shanghai?  And today?
  (tags: marginalrevolution business outsourcing)
• Stop looking for the next big thing. Think of ways to solve problems. That's the way to make money in tech.
  (tags: quotes business gapingvoid)
• How to make a Life Poster
  just made one for the recent trip...can't wait to see how it turns out
  (tags: design photography apple)
• yahoo! vs. google visual link comparison
  (tags: web tech search tools)
• Gallery of large images taken from the Hubble
  warning...the site does some weird browser size readjustment thing
  (tags: science space photography)

links for 2005-04-29

• Why tablets will someday replace laptops
  check out the screens in this photo...give me a tall screen vs. a wide one anyday
  (tags: tech gadgets)
• Feet Me - An extensive collection of photos of musicians feet while performing
  More interesting than it sounds.
  (tags: photography music)
• Bill Simmons makes a compelling case on why Reggie Miller should not be considered a superstar
  1. Couldn't create his own shot 2. Couldn't play defense. 3. Low averages in both assists, rebounds. 4. Etc...
  (tags: espn sportsguy sports basketball)

links for 2005-04-28

• "Did you hear that ABC, Fox, and NBC? I wanted to watch more TV" and you wouldn't let me
  No, Network Media did not hear you blogosphere...and as long as you bitch to yourself they'll continue to ignore you
  (tags: media business)
• Cool Hunting: Dephect Clothing
  sweet 'scratch' tshirt
  (tags: tshirts design rubin)
• Traveler, there is no path. Paths are made by walking. - poet Antonio Machado
  (tags: inspiration quotes)
• Airport Security - What has Federalization bought us?  Despite spending billions of dollars security at airports has not improved since 9/11 and waste appears rampant.
  Government is not absent in these airports but, as with private prisons, it remains content with defining acceptable levels of ouput and creating procedures to measure and test the performance of the private companies.
  (tags: marginalrevolution politics culture)
• Bud vase features - It invites you to play...and people accept that invitation. Most importantly, it makes the owner feel happier
  A "bud vase feature" is functionality outside the core purpose of a product that evokes emotion about the product, and allows the user to express their personality or character in their use of the product.
  (tags: 37signals business design UX)

links for 2005-04-27

• A (Near)-Complete List of Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
  best list I've seen yet
  (tags: apple osx howto)
• One idea is better than three
  Consulting is about guiding not offering. Show them your process. Show them how you arrived at your idea. Show them some of your other ideas and brainstorming that helped your idea evolve.
  (tags: business consulting design UX)
• I don't want cellphone use on planes
  Can I claim that cell phone calls are a socially wasteful means of signaling to your spouse that you care?  Can I claim that commercial airplanes are modern (short-term) monasteries, and that markets undersupply such temples of silence?
  (tags: quotes marginalrevolution productivity business)
• The Onion | Report: U.S. Foreign Policy Hurting American Students' Chances Of Getting Laid Abroad
  (tags: funny onion)

links for 2005-04-26

• Readability Test: Gunning Fog, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid are reading level algorithms that can be helpful in determining how readable your content is.
  well, Readers Digest audience should have no problem with ak.typepad.com
  (tags: blogs media)
• Ten Laws Of The Modern World
  1. The best business models waste the era's cheapest resources to conserve the era's most expensive resources. 2. You will achieve the greatest results in business if you focus on "contribution" instead of "achievement"
  (tags: business innovation)
• A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way - Mark Twain
  (tags: quotes)
• The Hipster Ipod
  buy good taste in music...for only $899
  (tags: music business iPod)

links for 2005-04-24

• Steven Berlin Johnson blogs about Everything Bad Is Good For You
  Imagine a world identical to ours save one change: videogames were invented and popularized before books...The reading craze cruelly taunts the 10 mill Americans who suffer from dyslexia- which didn't exist as a condition until printed text came along
  (tags: culture writing)
• How To Solve China's Piracy Problem - A dozen ideas. Maybe one will work. By Henry Blodget
  Now that we've stolen IP, polluted the environment, and exploited workers to move up the value chain, we want to ban the practices in other countries.
  (tags: slate blodget china business piracy)

A media experiment

Yesterday I wrote about the difficulties of finding a digital equivalent of a Chuck Klosterman article and how it'd be beneficial for big media to create an iTMS-like store for their content  (increase circulation, add a new revenue stream, and build online presence, etc). 

However, before any serious capital would be invested into building such a product - someone would first have to prove that there is sufficient demand. So, here's my test...

The full article in the May 2005 Esquire: The_(other)_Paradox_of_Choice._By_Chuck_Klosterman.

Testing demand with only one article wouldn't tell us much, so I'd like to open this space up to any other full length articles that you might have that currently can't be found online (not that I'm really expecting anyone to waste their time typing up an article...that'd be silly).

Related articles/links:

• An article on the paradox of choice by Barry Schwartz
• Subscribe to Esquire

update: here's another klosterman article online from an April '04 version of Esquire: the Importance of Being Hated: In this golden age of enmity, friends are for suckers. What you need are a pair of well-chosen foes. 

links for 2005-04-22

• User Experience is a Quality, Not A Discipline
  But "information architecture," "interaction design," "user needs," etc. don't comprise the user experience. A quality user experience is comprised of things like desirability, usability, enjoyability, utility, delight, satisfaction, etc.
  (tags: UX IA design web)

Who's the Steve Jobs of Big Media?

Cause I have a request for him/her...Could you please build an iTMS-equivalent for big media publications? I don't think it'd be too hard to do, but alas, the entry barrier is kinda steep.

I came up with this idea while looking for a recent Chuck Klosterman article in the latest Esquire. It's a great 2-3 page article (about Johnny Carson, shared experiences, and the paradox of choice among other things) and I'd love to link to it...but we all know about Big Media's issues with subscriptions, registration, permalinks, etc...

To read this article - without having to go to the local newstand, here are your choices:

$8 for a yearly subscription    -or-
$3 for one, 1239 word, article.

(note - the $8 subscription also allows access to archived articles with Esquire Premium...but that's not the point.)

The point is that there's no reasonable option for an ala-carte serving of big media. And if Big Media wants to avoid extinction and make some extra dough (which is debatable) an on-line store would be a great vehicle to do so.

With all this Long-Tail talk, can you imagine how much money each media property would stand to make if they made it easy and affordable to buy a single, archived, article on the interweb? (not to mention how it might help increase their severly limited on-line presence) And what happens when that improves?

Big media (and they're not alone) needs to work on evolving their 'user experience'. Consumers won't tolerate the pseudo-scarcity that has plagued their desired content in the past. When a customer wants your content, let them have it in (almost) any way they want it...or you won't have to worry about them as customers for long.

Automated posts

After a little struggle yesterday I got the automated posting from Del.icio.us to work. If you have Typepad and want to set up a daily blog posting of your links (like this), here's the info you'll need:

First, go to: http://del.icio.us/settings/***your_user_name***/daily  then fill out the following information:

job_name: Pick a title (doesn't show up in post)
out_name: your Typepad login
out_pass: your Typepad pass
out_url: http://www.typepad.com/t/api
out_time: a number between 0-24
out_blog_id: when editting a post in typepad, look at its URL and at the end you'll see "post?blog_id=xxxxxx". The "xxxxxx" is what needs to be entered here.
out_cat_id: not required

For more help with posting Del.icio.us links to a blog,
look here and here.

links for 2005-04-21

• New York Times Link Generator
  gives you a weblog safe version of the link (ie - doesn't expire in a few days, and users don't have to subsribe to read the article)
  (tags: news media blogs)
• A VC's thoughts on del.icio.us
  showing that once again it's unnecessary to have a business model before you get money
  (tags: business VC blogs)
• Bill Simmons = Jimmy Fallon
  hilarious write-up of Fever Pitch
  (tags: movies popculture funny sports sportsguy baseball)
• great advice for building a web app with a small team
  (tags: smallbusiness webapps)
• KP's latest - introducing Zazzle (terrible name) a marketplace for buying and selling custom goods on the Internet.
  The long tail at it's worst.
  (tags: business longtail)
• Will Wright Presents Spore... and a New Way to Think About Games
  instead of hiring tons of content developers, let the players develop their own content
  (tags: videogames future design)
• Great new school business cards
  garrett's site is awesome (great design/usability) now he just needs some more content
  (tags: design web business usability)
• Sequel to Hoop Dreams in the making?
  the original movie comes out on DVD soon
  (tags: basketball sports documentary movies)
• Meet the Engineers Behind Tiger
  look at all that diversity (all white guys of about the same age)
  (tags: apple osx)

The revolution will not be televised

But there's a good chance someone will capture it on a cameraphone.

Yesterday night's leading Sportscenter feature was about a little scuffle between Gary Sheffield and a Boston Red Sox fan (the MLB's version of the Artest brawl). While nothing major happened, ESPN got some good footage of Sheff shoving the fan in the middle of a play. What ESPN didn't get was how the play looked from the fans' perspective.

Everything you like, I liked 5 years ago

First off, here's the t-shirt that I stole the title of this post from.

Secondly, while I may have been following Ricky, at least I'm ahead of these guys. Here's hoping that everyone does something interesting (like sell t-shirts for $29 frickin' dollars!)

The Breaks are broken

And to fix it, we've got "Bumps". Apparently they've been showing up all over Adult Swim...my bad for not catching the trend sooner.

So, what is a bump? Based on what I've seen so far, it's a mix of audio samples -like this cut from Tito Puente(!) - and some crazy video, with a heavy dose of Japanese flavor.

Here's a fine example of the finished product.

Basically, all this stuff is blowing my mind...but I'm having a hard time defining why. I think it's got something to do with a quote from DJ Dangermouse (of Grey Album fame) on the future of music:

Artists are responsible, because for some reason we think we should be millionaires for making people smile. But I don't worry too much, because it will be over soon. There won't be a market for making people smile because kids will just do it for free.

Yeah, that's it - that's why I think this "Bump" meme is so special.

Check out the list below for related Bumptunes sites:

• Bumpworthy.com: links to both audio, visual bumptunes.
• The Adult Swim site: audio downloads, AS backgrounds.
• List of artists/song titles: No downloads, but plenty of info
• The post that got it all started: Tons of links and info on the artists behind various bumptunes.

Got any others?

To bloggers concerned about readership.

Don't be (at least, not that much).

It's safe to say that many blogs are written for personal reasons (mine included), yet there's always a touch of disappointment when your content doesn't find its intended audience. Do people think you're dumb, do your friends not care, does your writing not matter? Simply put, No.

Less simply, the size and reactions of your audience depend on some factors that you can't control (and more than a few that you can, but other people, more experienced than I, can better explain them). also see my thoughts on 'matching' content in the extended section of this post.

Assuming you've done your best at creating quality content, what should you think when a post falls on deaf ears? The answer - not much. I don't want to sound too passive, but most of the time when a post or link goes unread or uncommented, it's not because people dislike what's recommended, but instead:

"they just are too busy or too distracted to care as much as you do about the stuff you care about."

Due to the increasing access and ease of use of many online tools; blogs, podcasts, emails, etc...are growing at an exponential rate and it's becoming more and more difficult to stay on top of all this non-critical content. Rather than judging ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions know that most people don't mean to not give a shit.