“The problem of losing your own “long tail” of media files really interests me. It seems to me to be connected to the greater culture of social media / viral marketing / user ratings, where things “float to the top” based on popularity. “Floating” promotes quick discovery and direct access. 

“[…] what happens to the 80% or 90% or even 99% of products/files that don’t appear in the Most Popular lists? Do they get discovered? Even within your own little digital galaxy of computer, iPod, cell phone, etc., you can create your own Most Popular lists (“Recently Viewed”, “Most Frequently Listened To”, “Recent Calls”) that both speed your access to favorite data and impair your reach to the other stuff. Your favorite old songs, books, or art may slide down through the ranking system over time, effectively erasing the value of ownership.”

Yesterday, I came across a related idea in Nudge (a book I highly recommend):

“Consider some evidence involving music downloads. Matthew Salganik and his coauthors (2006) created an artificial music market, with 14,341 participants who were visitors to a Web site popular with young people. The participants were given a list of previously unknown songs from unknown bands. They were asked to listen to a brief selection of any songs that interested them, to decide which songs (if any) to download, and to assign a rating to the songs they chose. About half of the participants were asked to make their decisions independently, based on the names of the bands and the songs and their own judgment about the quality of the music. The other half could see how many times each song had been downloaded by other participants. […]

“Were people nudged by what other people did? There is not the slightest doubt. […] individuals were far more likely to download songs that had been previously downloaded in significant numbers, and far less likely to download songs that had not been as popular. Most strikingly, the success of songs was quite unpredictable, and the songs that did well or poorly in the control group, where people did not see other people’s judgments, could perform very differently in the “social influence worlds.” In those worlds, most songs could become popular or unpopular, with much depending on the choices of the first downloaders. The identical song could be a hit or a failure simply because other people, at the start, were seen to choose to have downloaded it or not.”

This has to make you wonder if the music business is changing even more drastically than we’d assumed. Everyone knows that music is sold online now. There are fewer CDs and more Music Store downloads; fewer full albums, and more singles. Let’s not even touch the issue of music piracy.

But is there a skew in the number of singles being sold? In other words, are more copies of fewer songs making it big? This would seem to be the logical result of buying music online, in the context of “social influence worlds” of iTunes & Co. What’s startling is that this result implies a far more drastic curve than the oft-predicted Long Tail. The Long Tail assumes that there is a statistically meaningful market “under the tail”, and that the internet makes it both possible and economically practical to find and distribute accordingly.

If, however, the internet’s effect on media (of any type) is to drive the peak higher and flatten the Long Tail yet further, will there be adequate incentive to populate that Tail with marketable media — with niche books, niche music, niche applications? What will this mean for those who create content; recording artists, writers, programmers? Will it become just too hard to be discovered?

@Power2B i would b surprised if coverflow is used when people have tons of music; it is nice eye candy but not strong that area of usefulnes

@Power2B:

The real use (for me) of “live” page visualizations is for small icons (eg. OS X dock/stack cons) that provide pattern cues to content. #UX

@Stuporman:

@Power2B Can you please explain in more detail? This sounds like a cool technique.

@Power2B [tweets combined for your reading comfort]:

@Stuporman Not a technique, just a great, usable design. OS X dock icons are an excellent way of quickly navigating apps/docs: the icons show the content (eg, an open mail window minimized to dock actually shows its content miniaturized).

Stacks in Leopard adds another dimension (up in vertical) to the dock, extending the capabilities. Here, icon-as-content browsing is great, b/c it helps compensate for small viewing area, and reduces clicks (vs opening Finder window).If there were a command line (a la DOS or internet address), that would be even faster. Closest equivalent is keyboard shortcut (command-tab) to switch apps; that is even better than dock for app switching. Perhaps gestures will be even better?

But for cover art and for web site browsing, I don’t buy into the visual-icon-browsing model. Too slow. As @theproductguysaid, it’s eye candy. The pity is, if you direct command line/gesture to a file, you don’t browse, and you tend to forget about the 80% of media you access less often, and thus lose use of it completely. Whereas browsing reminds you of things you may have not considered.

The problem of losing your own “long tail” of media files really interests me. It seems to me to be connected to the greater culture of social media / viral marketing / user ratings, where things “float to the top” based on popularity. “Floating” promotes quick discovery and direct access. Popularity, though, depends strongly on a lot more than the quality of the product; it relies heavily on getting a couple of votes early on which trigger more interest and more votes to build momentum (this is why advertising is so important).There are many pros and cons to this system, but the item under consideration now is: what happens to the 80% or 90% or even 99% of products/files that don’t appear in the Most Popular lists? Do they get discovered? Even within your own little digital galaxy of computer, iPod, cell phone, etc., you can create your own Most Popular lists (”Recently Viewed”, “Most Frequently Listened To”, “Recent Calls”) that both speed your access to favorite data and impair your reach to the other stuff. Your favorite old songs, books, or art may slide down through the ranking system over time, effectively erasing the value of ownership. (Is this why we’re seeing the shift to online movie rentals over purchases?)Contrast that to the experience of books on a shelf (the metaphor that Cover Flow seeks to emulate):  You have a spatial reference that leads you to where the book is that you want — at least, if your books are reasonably well-organized — but you never see just one book at a time. This leads to fortuitous discoveries, reacquaintance with old friends and stories. It adds value to the history, the collection-as-a-whole.Cover Flow seeks to recreate that experience. However, while you appear to have the added advantage of serendipitous discovery based upon spatial proximity, in fact, there is no spatial point of reference. The item you’re looking at is always at the center. Data organization is still at its essence a list: alphabetical by author, by album, by recent use.Consider the response of a friend via Facebook to my original question:

On my ipod classic, yes, sometimes.

Me:

Wow. May I ask about how many songs / media files you have on your iPod? (10? 100? 1000?) Also, any thoughts you might have on when/why you choose to use Cover Flow to navigate vs. the linear list of songs/artists/albums/genres would be really illuminating. Thanks!

Friend:

I have 2392 songs and 3 video files. I usually use cover flow when I’ve forgotten what I have on my ipod. Ie, after loading a bunch of stuff on or when I’m too out of it to remember what I have and/or what I want to listen to. Don’t know if it makes a difference to you but the most irritating thing with cover flow is its poor treatment of various artists. If you have a couple of compilations with ~20 artists each, your cover flow becomes rapidly inundated with the same album cover. Grouping them all under “Various Artists” would be much more reasonable.

I welcome your input and feedback.

It’s worth watching this 1984 presentation by Steve Jobs. Aside from the enjoyment of seeing anyone that deeply proud of his work and excited to watch the audience’s reaction to it, there is the real drama there.

Everything that makes Steve’s keynotes so incredibly good today was already in place 25 years ago: the stunning moves into far-advanced technological territory; the purity and simplicity of the product design; the passion for powerful application controls, direct object manipulation and delightful user experience… even today, this video is exciting and awe-inspiring. Not to mention historic.

Steve Jobs Demos Apple Macintosh, 1984

[Thanks to @CharlieKalech for the tip.]

Mishpacha’s Family First has made their article about me available, with free registration. Enjoy!

Wow, I saw this used in a highly-charged letter — it would have to be a pretty sensitive subject to trigger use of such a word, I guess.

Did the author already know the word tergiversation prior to writing this letter, or did it show up in a thesaurus? If he knew it, why? And did he get all worked up just to create the context in which he could use the word (smarty pants)? Enquiring minds want to know.

I’m not going to share my personal interpretations, or my reactions to the most recent inaugural address. But I confess to being fascinated by the ideas it triggered, and these clouds add another thoughtful aspect to that contemplation.

[from A Marketing Blog and other stuff]

The sign reads: “You’ll Never Get To Work On Time HaHa!!”

In 2004, the British Council asked this question to approximately 40,000 non-native English speakers in 46 different countries. According to the survey results, the top ten most beautiful English words from a non-native speaker’s perspective are:

mother
passion
smile
love
eternity
fantastic
destiny
freedom
liberty
tranquility

In a different kind of assessment, a distinguished lexicographer and the originator of the Reader’s Digest Column “It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power”, Wilfred Funk, compiled the following list of the most beautiful words of the English language:

asphodel
fawn
dawn
chalice
anemone
tranquil
hush
golden
halcyon
camellia
bobolink
thrush
chimes
murmuring
lullaby
luminous
damask
cerulean
melody
marigold
jonquil
oriole
tendril
myrrh
mignonette
gossamer
alysseum
mist
oleander

amaryllis

rosemary

Do you notice a difference between the lists? Unscientifically, it seems to me that the first list of Most Beautiful Words (the list chosen by non-native English speakers) is weighted more towards the meaning of the words, plus their overall strength or punch. The second list (from a professional word lover) is weighted more towards the “mouth feel” of the words (with an apparent bias for the “s” sound!), plus their romantic or nostalgic memories (although I can’t fathom the inclusion of “bobolink”…).

I find that difference really, really interesting. It kind of points to the meaning and nostalgia with which words become impregnated over time. The layers of implication that we build up over years of use, misuse, abuse of words. Fascinating.

Having lanes that suddenly swoosh off in unexpected directions (while your direction becomes a “public transport only” lane) turns the whole thing into a kind of living labyrinth. The internal control tower dialogue goes something like this:

“So, if I want to get to Keren HaYesod, I can start out of Geula, cut through Davidka Square and swoosh around Agrippas. Just remember not to come out down Hillel, or there’s no right turn onto Keren HaYesod and I’ll have to go clear down to the Old City before I can start to come around again; I’ve got to sneak behind the Great Synagogue first. That’ll be fine. As long as I’m going to the bank on the right side of the street, not the dentist on the far side. For that, I’d need to begin my approach by coming through Rehavia.”

If you drive a taxi, of course, just go down Jaffa Road and turn right on King George V, which turns into Keren HaYesod. That would be too easy for the taxi drivers, though, so the municipality has thoughtfully dug up most of Jaffa Road for the past two years, just to even the score.

[picture from the Elms in the Yard blog]

The other day, I posted this tweet to Twitter:

“Harry Potter’s magic wand: the ultimate converged mobile device.”

Within five minutes, I was being followed by “Ron Weasley”. Somehow, I think he’s going to be disappointed…

[You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/power2b]

Elchanan sent me the following story:

LONDON (AFP) — Officials in Wales mistakenly erected a road sign that read “I am not in the office at the moment” in Welsh after a translation mix-up.

The sign originally said in English, “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only,” but when Swansea Council officials sent it to be translated, they received an automated e-mail written in Welsh that read: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”

Unaware of the actual meaning of the e-mail, officials had the sign printed and put up near a supermarket, only realising their mistake when Welsh speakers pointed it out.

All road signs in Wales are required to be written in English and Welsh.

“Our attention was drawn to the mistranslation of a sign at the junction of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road,” a Swansea Council spokesman said.

“We took it down as soon as we were made aware of it and a correct sign will be installed as soon as possible.”

I think part of what makes silly or erroneous signs so funny is their official-ness: a printed sign has an authority and seriousness that we learn to obey from a very young age. An error on an official sign is like a policeman with a button open — a humanity and vulnerability is revealed unexpectedly and inappropriately.

Reminds one of the well-publicized story of a Chinese restaurant’s English sign, posted specially for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing:

[Images via Neonascent]

Mishpacha is the leading weekly magazine for the global haredi (or chareidi, for Chareidio junkies) Orthodox/Yeshiva Jewish community. I’m honored and humbled to be featured… and anxiously dread the feedback.

The best part was being introduced to the writer, Bassi Gruen. I sense a friendship in the making.

It has given me a good opportunity to think about applications, functionality, and priority: Which applications do I use/need every hour? Which every week? Which every month? Which less often?

The Big Four

The every-hour ones come to mind quickly: Email (Mail), Contacts (Address Book), Web browser (Firefox), and Calendar (iCal). Rarely does a quarter of an hour go by without my using all of those applications. My “Big Four”.

Every day? PDF viewer (Preview), iTunes, To-Do list tracker (Things), Basic word processor (TextEdit), iSync. Most of these I use several times a day, but they’re not in constant use in the way that the Big Four are.

Every week? Page layout (Pages), PDF distiller/editor (Acrobat), Photo managment (iPhoto), Presentation application (Keynote), Photo manipulation (Photoshop), RSS reader (NetNewsWire), OmniOutliner (simpler for tracking many data sets than Numbers or Excel), MicroSoft Office suite: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, for reading files created by other people.

Monthly or less: iMovie and iDVD, QuarkXPress (down in the ranking since its heyday as my every-minute-core-of-the-workday application), Illustrator, Numbers / Excel, Skype.

There are “luxury” applications, of course, that I use frequently, but can get along without, like Twitterific and Calculator.

But with my computer having difficulty coping with the activities of daily life (and thus qualifying to collect on its Long Term Care Insurance), I’m reminded that the most critical functions aren’t even used hourly: they’re used every minute, or even every second.

Functions like the keyboard (working, and working as expected), mouse, real-time operating functions that let applications use resources in the most efficient priority order, display activity (including the ability to show presentations on a second screen), on/off, power management (and battery charge), trackpad and trackpad button reliability (the latter not an issue for new MacBook users — whether you like it or not), internal clock accuracy, a functioning internet connection (OK, that’s not necessarily part of the computer).

If any of these aren’t working, go see how impossible it is to manage for an hour, let alone a week.

But this isn’t a gripe post. I want to dig a little deeper; I want to look and see why the above is actually a product trend driver.

Several years ago, a team at Nokia started studying “mobility” in general, and “what people take with them when they leave the house” in particular. What they found? Three things that people don’t leave the house without: keys, money, cell phone. There’s a lot to learn from this about human needs, but for now, I’d just note that there’s been some nice progress in incorporating the money (and less so, the keys) right into the mobile phone. That’s a nice trend, but at it’s core “unnecessary”, because people will carry those three items even if they represent three discrete packing hassles.

It gets more interesting when you start looking at “luxury” mobile technologies. If you manufacture a mobile product (eg., camera), you’d darn well better make it integrate-able with a cell phone, or it will be(come) a niche product.

If You’re In, You’re In. If You’re Out, You’re Out.

You have only to look at the camera industry to prove the point: from film to digital to camera phone, just think of how our expectations about picture taking have changed in the last decade: we accept lower quality photos in exchange for the potential to snap a memory at any moment. “The best camera is the one you have with you” — that means the camera in your cell phone. The same goes for video recorders; the same goes for watches; the same goes for GPS devices, PDAs, handheld gaming computers, portable DVD players, even iPods sorry, personal music players.

Today, the Blackberry isn’t just the hallmark of high-flying businessmen (well, in countries like Israel, where BB is still only available under corporate contract). Blackberry Pearl, Palm Centro, Apple iPhone, Nokia E62, T-Mobile Sidekick… these have brought smartphones to the masses, and the masses want them badly.

Why? Look back at my Big Four applications: Email, Web browsing, Contacts, Calendars… those are served adequately by a good smartphone, such as Nokia E71, Blackberry series, Palm or iPhone, although each of these has strengths and weaknesses in these applications. Voila! I don’t need to carry a laptop if I leave the office for a couple of hours.

The smartphone represents the integration of the Big Four application needs right into your mobile phone, alongside your camera, your wallet, and your watch. You’re going to take that phone along with you in any case, right? Getting those applications integrated into the mobile phone makes them necessities — everything else is just a niche product.

Which brings us to…

* * *

The Birth-Pangs of the Netbook Computer

What about the applications that I can’t get through the day without? PDF reader, iTunes, To-Do list tracker, word processor, iSync. PDF reader? Lousy for mobile. iTunes? Good if you’ve got an iPhone; not worth mentioning otherwise. To-Do lists? Depends on the phone you have, and the tracking software you choose. Word processor? Nada nada nada. iSync, OK.

Which means that if I go out for the day, I do need to take my computer, otherwise I’ll need to defer a lot of activity until I get back (blog posting, reading attachments, significant letter writing, major document creation, etc). Laptop computers are mobile. They’re also heavy. Either I’m shlepping a heavy laptop (after an hour’s hike through Frankfurt airport, or six hours walking a convention floor, you’ll see what I mean), or accumulating a backlog of tasks. Ouch.

Ouch!

This “Ouch” is what drives the growth of the new UMPC (ultra-mobile personal computer, or “netbook”) computer market. It’s a market category that seems obvious: make a laptop that’s light enough to really carry around, and that can get you through all your normal daily application needs, and most of your weekly application requirements. It meets a true need, so long as the real fundamentals (reliability, trackpad, etc.) are well-met.

Why did the netbook market take so long to gain traction, and why is it finally moving now?

Netbooks aren’t in the top-three items people won’t leave their homes without. So while they do meet a need, they don’t meet a Need, if you catch my drift.

For a netbook computer to make sense to me as a consumer, it needs to fulfill more needs than my smartphone, and offer some kind of major advantage over a laptop. Why? Because I’ve already got a phone of some sort (and won’t give that up), and I’ve already got a computer of some sort (which may as well be a laptop).

The netbook can’t replace my cell phone in any case; the best it can hope to do is replace my laptop (unlikely, unless I prefer a desktop computer as my main computer) in situations where I simply cannot manage on a smartphone alone. In other words, a netbook is a luxury.

So, what has changed, then? Why has this market now gained traction? How has the netbook moved itself from luxury to necessity?

Their Heads in the Clouds

Essentially, it boils down to the critical “back-office” functions: hardware, software, OS, broadband mobile data connections, and cloud-computing competence (to keep the applications and data available, usable, secure and in sync). Of those functions, the latter two are not under the control of the computer manufacturers, who have had to wait for them to catch up.

That “wait for them to catch up” vulnerability has, to some extent, been responsible for the move of mobile phone manufacturers into the internet content space (Nokia with Ovi, Apple with MobileMe, RIM with Blackberry Internet Service for individuals). You can focus on their sales of content, but that represents the raindrops — the real focus should be on their ownership of the Cloud. When you own the Cloud, you don’t have to wait for someone else to build it in order to provide the service.

The mobile phone manufacturers “got it” — the computer manufacturers didn’t (well, with the exception of Apple, which is probably why they became mobile phone manufacturers in addition to creating a cloud). So the netbook manufacturers sat and languished for years, trying (mostly futilely) to bundle cellular broadband cards into their machines, which just didn’t go far enough.

Today, though, the Cloud has grown. It has developed so drastically as to be competent to take over synchronization of personal computing functions that represent daily, weekly and monthly needs (email, documents, calendars, photos on Picassa and Flickr, etc.). While it’s still true that “cloud computing” exacts a toll in lag time while data is accessed, that inconvenience is bearable for applications that aren’t accessed on a constant basis. Google in particular is building the back-end infrastructure that allows the netbooks to succeed on a functional level.

With the support of the Cloud, a netbook can handle almost every personal computing need — at half the price of a laptop computer. It is the that Cloud takes the computing and storage burden off the mobile devices, allowing them to provide the necessary applications without actually providing them.

The ultimate set-up, of course, is a transparent set of perfectly synced devices: phone, ultra-mobile, and desktop sizes, from which any documents and data sets can be retrieved. Whether those devices are actually one core device with a number of corporeal states (a la Modu), or cloud-computing-served units (iMac + MacBook Air + iPhone) is a question of technology and security.

(Technology = Can the synchronization be maintained for discrete devices? vs. Can the cloud have little enough downtime and great enough bandwidth to be able to serve up the data on demand? Security = Distribution of multiple hardware units containing sensitive data? — think of UK government security issues, with computers and data files left on public transport — vs. Can the cloud be secure enough to entrust with all sensitive data?).

We anxiously await mobile utopia.

Shmula has posted a marvelous piece, attributed to General Douglas MacArthur:

Build me a son who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is a afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spew of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.

Of course, we don’t wish for our children to suffer. But shouldn’t we wish for our children to achieve personal greatness? Shouldn’t we wish for ourselves to achieve personal greatness?

Perhaps reading General MacArthur’s prayer serves as a sort of litmus test: how deeply do we feel the words; how truly do we yearn to make our lives worth living?

Perhaps reading General MacArthur’s prayer puts us into a frame of mind where we feel less sorry for ourselves, less angry at the world, and more determined than ever to be Big.

*  *  *

Here’s another version, via the American Information Web:

A Father Prayer by General Douglas MacArthur (May 1952)

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishbone will not be where his backbone should be; a son who will know Thee — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

Then, I, his father, will dare to whisper, have not lived in vain.

Shouldn’t your first reaction to any change of corporate policy be to redesign the logo?

Enjoy the full set of 15 here.

[Via Business Pundit. Thanks to Ken for the tip.]

© Tevfik Ozakat | Dreamstime.com

You know those awkward moments where you don’t know whether it’s better to say something or just to keep your mouth shut? Like when someone is walking around in their best suit, dragging a bit of tissue on the sole of their shoe. Or giving a presentation with a button open.

On the one hand, if you inform your hapless acquaintance, you will spare him a lot of future embarrassment — but at the cost of being the agent of humiliation. On the other hand, if you say nothing, you can pretend you haven’t noticed anything, but eventually the guy will realize what has happened, along with everyone else he has met that day since talking to you.

What do you do?

I received an email today from a business contact with whom I am barely acquainted. His automatic email signature misspelled his first, last, and company names. His first name is now that of a wild animal; his last name sounds like the evil scientist in a kids’ sci-fi flick; and his company has just changed cultural allegiances.

These are worse than ordinary typos, of course: they are embedded in the footer that goes to every email correspondent. Sigh.

Should I say anything?