“The growth of [Facebook's] user base and its ever-expanding page views means an almost infinite inventory to sell. But the expanding supply, together with an equivocal demand, means ever-lowering costs. The math is sickeningly inevitable. Absent an earth-shaking idea, Facebook will look forward to slowing or declining growth in a tapped-out market, and ever-falling ad rates, both on the Web and (especially) in mobile. Facebook isn’t Google; it’s Yahoo or AOL.”

Wolff’s thesis makes sense to me. A platform may in fact get too big for it’s existing business model. If it doesn’t adapt, it will fall. Another related and interesting read about the long-term viability of Facebook comes from Doc Searls over on his fantastic Harvard Law blog.

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Creativity is a pillar of the mission here and since the re-lauch I’ve been thinking about ways to transcend digital devices with the creative work published here. I knew I wanted it to be tactile and I knew I wanted it to be artistic. It’s also important to me that the initiative not only help keep the lights for Static Made, but it must also fairly compensate the artists and designers who might be involved with the project.

Today I’m happy to announce the Static Made Artist Series. The first installment comes from Justin Visnesky, a Pittsburgh-based photographer and designer. Justin’s creation for the series is Give Me Liberty, a limited edition graphic t-shirt.

Justin has this to say about his edition:

“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death. Those words have stuck with me from the first time I heard them as a kid in school until now, as a 30 something husband and father. They’ve always been there, in the back of my mind, hanging out, telling me how to live. It isn’t so much the context that stuck with me, but rather the brashness of the statement. Those words embody the punk ethos and symbolize my ideal version of America. They stand for everything I love about this country, no matter how battered and bruised it gets.”

Give Me Liberty is now available. Printed on a unisex tri-blend American Apparel track shirt in “athletic grey,” the design is one color. The front displays Justin’s design while the back has a small Static Made logo between the shoulder blades.

Orders will be taken for two weeks and will close on Friday, June 8. At that time the design will be retired and no more shirts will be printed.

Human beings have become creatures of measurement. We track the reach of our social networks, the dollars in our bank accounts, our pace per mile, our sleep and weight, our professional efficiency and digital analytics. We strive for more followers, faster splits and smaller waistlines.

But these metrics, these units of measurement we monitor with obsessive detail, what exactly do they signify? Are they indicators of success? Do they prove anything?

If I lose weight by hardly eating anything for a week while drinking lots of caffeine, am I healthier? Certainly not. And if I gain ten Twitter followers today, does that make my message any more relevant than yesterday? Hell no. Sure I’d be skinnier and have a slightly higher number next to my avatar, but I’m of the opinion those are the wrong indicators.

We need to work toward the immeasurable. The things that matter in life don’t adhere to a performance scale. The stuff of meaning is intangible. Try putting a number on your level of health or spiritual well-being. What’s your contentment score?

To that end, can I measure the level to which I connect on a meaningful level with the readers of this site? I hope not. It’s definitely not the number of RSS subscribers or the number of visitors highlighted in my analytics back-end. I don’t want more readers, I want invested readers. I’d take ten readers I knew well enough to have over for dinner before a thousand strangers any day of the week. To my knowledge there’s no measure of investment.

Some say Klout and marketing ROI are indicators of success and effectivity, but I call bullshit. They’re measuring the wrong thing. Social influence and “dollars in over dollars out” might be right for someone else, but they’re wrong for me.

Moving forward, I will make a conscious effort to discard the idea of indicators and abandon conventions of measurement. I will write for the simple joy of writing, run for the sake of running, design to a point at which I’m proud, connect with friends in meaningful ways and live with the aspiration of good health. I want for nothing more.

If you’ve viewed StaticMade.com on your phone or tablet, you know it’s optimized for mobile viewing. Instead of serving the standard desktop design, the site detects the user’s browser and serves up a unique design if it’s being viewed on one of many supported mobile platforms. I was curious to see if I could infuse this mobile design with app action integration.

The Concept

My idea going into this little experiment was to throw some Twitter sharing links at the bottom of each post that, when clicked on an iOS device, would take a specific action on an installed Twitter client. This way users who view a post in mobile Safari or another 3rd party browser wouldn’t have to provide login credentials when clicking the standard “Share on Twitter” link that really just opens Twitter’s login page (because really, who stays logged into Twitter on the mobile web?).

If you’re viewing this post on a mobile device, scroll down to the bottom and check out the post footer. Furthermore, if you’re on iOS and use the official Twitter app or Tweetbot, go ahead and click either of those links. You’ll notice the appropriate app is activated and a new message is created that includes the post title, permalink and source. For users viewing this on a desktop or laptop, I’ve grabbed this screenshot.

I decided to limit the options to Twitter for iOS, Tweetbot and mobile web for the following reasons: Twitter for iOS is the most popular Twitter client and Tweetbot is the best (IMHO). You could certainly include more application options, but I didn’t want to clutter the site with sharing options.

The Code

First, a disclaimer: I don’t consider myself a web developer. I hack stuff together and try to make it look presentable. Static Made is built on WordPress, so the PHP I used to populate the Tweet content is specific to WP’s framework. This can be done on other platforms, but you should consult the appropriate documentation files. If you’d like to implement a similar sharing feature on your mobile site, I’ve published the code below. Simply place these links at your desired location in the loop that drives your individual posts, most likely Single.php or Single-Post.php.

Twitter for iOS

<a href="twitter://post?message=<?php the_title(); ?>%20-%20<?php the_permalink(); ?>%20via%20@StaticMade">Twitter (iOS)</a>

Tweetbot

<a href="tweetbot:///post?text=<?php the_title(); ?>%20-%20<?php the_permalink(); ?>%20via%20@StaticMade">Tweetbot</a>

Mobile Web

<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=<?php the_title(); ?>%20-%20<?php the_permalink(); ?>%20via%20@StaticMade">Mobile Web</a>

The Conclusion

These little snippets of code certainly aren’t revolutionary. I feel they’re unique, however, because in all my travels throughout the mobile web I’ve yet to come across iOS hooks in the wild. If you know of some existing and interesting uses, I’d love to know. Shoot me a note on Twitter. Happy iOS hooking!

“What are my ambi­tions worth against the sim­ple present. When I allow my senses to be com­pletely over­whelmed with all the data imme­di­ately available, I become embar­rassed. I write, some­times, as if my life depends on map­ping out this dig­i­tal world and on learning to use these new tech­nolo­gies. Some­times I’m fool­ish enough to write as if I’m some sort of rev­o­lu­tion­ary on the cusp of a grander movement.”

The full essay is beautifully written and deserves a full read.

I’ve found at the end of the day, nothing matters but the here & now and the people you love. The acknowledgement and embrace of this, along with a measured and healthy balance is key to living in harmony with the digital life.

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defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE

Here’s to never needing to open Microsoft Word ever again.

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Posting will be minimal through Sunday as I am in the midst of a 4-day “Broadtrip” with my son. Just dudes. Traveling. Eating lots of ice cream.

Just one quick note about advertising: I’ve been outspoken in the past about advertising, specifically poorly-done advertising. Advertising done well, however, has the potential to benefit all parties — readers, publishers and advertisers. I would not have entered into the agreement with Yoggrt if I didn’t think the readers of StaticMade.com could benefit from the messages. Ads running through Yoggrt are relevant to the subject matter published on the site and they are elegantly designed. Please let me know if you feel otherwise.

It’s my hope that these ads not only help me keep the lights on around here, but also provide you, the reader, with value as well.

From the artist’s website:

“The Immortal investigates human dependence on electronics, the desire to make machines replicate organisms and our perception of anatomy as reflected by biomedical engineering.”

What’s that they say about art imitating life? [ via ]

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“Suffice it to say, the American Dream is broken. It has been for decades. And attempting to go back to ‘the way things were’ will not fix it. ‘Fixing it’ would only perpetuate the inevitable, making it worse in the long-run. The longer we put off our troubles, the harder they are to deal with.”

Always late to the party, I only recently discovered The Minimalists, a site run by Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. Their essays are wonderful and this one is no different. I’ve long been a proponent of being stingy with the information I let into my life and Millburn’s take on pop culture here is right on the mark.

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