1. Boxing Arcade Machine 

This is obviously my number one choice. It accomplishes a number of things, the main one is it lets me hit something when I feel like it, which is a much too common occurrence. I know what you are thinking, “Why don’t you get a punching bag or something?” Does your punching bag tell you how hard you just hit it? I didn’t think so, actually if they made one that said “Ow” when I hit it, I’d be loading that on the back of my broken down Jeep.

Every office has a printer. You walk in see a printer/copier and think, “I’m in an extremely boring office.” Whereas if you walking and you see the PUCHINATOR 4000 (probably not the game’s real name), you think, “Holy hell! These guys not only conduct great business, but they might also take down some of my enemies in physical battle if it came to it.” This is the kind of assurance that every client needs. So, let’s make this a reality.

2. Rock Climbing Wall

Right now we have an unused loft space above our kitchen, but no way to get there. I’m all about pretending to care about physical fitness, so I’m going to kill two birds with one stone. Installation of a rock climbing would allow us to use the space above the kitchen as a new office, and provide a quality two minutes of physical fitness for our recreationally lazy staff.

Now if we really wanted to shake things up, we’d put the conference room up top, and make clients scale the wall to make it to the meeting. We will make a gentleman’s agreement, that if they can’t make it up, they have to pay us the remainder of our contract up front. Another win win for everyone!

3. Ted Nugent Pinball Machine

This one was suggested by our designer, Heather Lindsay. Apparently HL has a thing for the Nuge, and why wouldn’t she? He’s a rock god! Eliot, of course, has been in love with him since he realized that they share a lot of the same political ideals. If you are going to get a pinball machine, might as well get one of someone you idolize right? Unfortunately for me, they have yet to come out with a Cuba Gooding Jr. pinball machine. I’ll keep crossing my fingers until then.

The pinball machine is no boxing machine, and might have the propensity for causing more stress in the workplace. The number of curses that would fly through the air after playing the bad boy for thirty minutes would approach the high score of the machine itself. One could only hope that the sweet sounds of “Stranglehold” coming from the machine could calm those who insist that they hit the “f’n bumper”.

4. Private Chef

Mary Ann is obviously the smartest of all of us, as she understands what really keeps us going.  Her suggestion of hiring a private chef is the most expensive, but the most useful. For someone who consists mainly on a diet of the McDonalds next door, a chef would be brilliant. I’m not sure I’d eat any healthier, but I’d look classier doing it. It should be pointed out that a private chef doesn’t do yearly Monopoly contests, so I think we all know who the true winner is.

I’d like to think that a chef for bigwidesky would have a pretty simple go of it, but I think we’d end up questioning their every decision, because that is just the type of people we are. I don’t mean that we are annoying about it (which we may be), just that we would inundate this poor man or woman with requests on how to improve our meals. After saying all that, if you are a chef come work for us!

5. Fancy Espresso/Coffee Machine

If there is one thing that designers have done to the dev side of the industry in the past decade, it’s that they’ve slyly introduced their fancy drinks to the dev side of things. Years ago devs would would leave their work caves to get a simple coffee (or maybe a Bawls…), and most of them would enjoy it with little frills. Times have changed, and developers have realized they can not only get that jolt of caffeine to finish an all night coding  session, but they can enjoy it as well.

Chris, our lead developer at bigwidesky, personally consumes a gas tanker full of coffee a week. I might be slightly off about that amount, but it sure seems like he drinks that much. We have a simple coffee maker, that he loads up with whatever is around. Most of the time he hops over to Einsteins Bros. Bagels next door and picks up their delicious Vanilla Hazelnut blend, which is the equivalent of getting a girly drink in a bar, but as Chris is extremely busy, we try not to give him too much trouble.

What if he could make even more tasty concoctions, and we could take advantage of that as well? Then after we are all wired up, we can use the rock climbing wall to work off some of that excess energy.

There are many markets in the US that don’t understand why a ball player is so important to a city like St. Louis. Being a major hockey (and Blues) fan, the fervor which St. Louis residents talk about baseball can be annoying when they tend to largely ignore my favorite sport. However, as an American it is hard to not romanticize baseball to a degree. Baseball is as American as apple pies, and St. Louis is steeped in so much baseball history it almost manifests itself as a thing of pride within residents of St. Louis. This is a town that has had a world class baseball team for over 100 years, and lays claim to greats like Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, and until yesterday Albert Pujols.

Many here saw Albert as the new age incarnation of Stan the Man, a player pivotal to the game, who not only put up impressive numbers, but did it all while wearing one team name on his jersey. Albert himself assured fans he wanted to assume this role, and that there was more to the game than money. However, these notions came to a screeching halt yesterday as Albert left St. Louis for a bigger contract. There aren’t a lot of people who thought it would come to this. Despite having very high attendance, and one of the broader fan bases in baseball, St. Louis is still very much a smaller to mid market team, and isn’t able to put up the kind of cash teams on the highly populated coasts can. The Cardinal’s offer of $210 million+ (or rumored top offer of $220 million) was said to be an over-extension of the Cardinal’s finances.

We can say at the minimum Pujols will be collecting an extra $30 million over the next ten years. However, when you factor in cost of living and taxes in California vs. Missouri, the two numbers are much closer than anticipated. However, many people forget that Albert will most likely have many more endorsement opportunities in Los Angeles than he ever had in St. Louis. In the long run Albert might actually make much more money than people are anticipating. However, that doesn’t mean this move wasn’t without risk.

Potential failures of moving:

• Legacy – Had Albert stayed with the Cardinals and finished out his career in St. Louis he could’ve been mentioned alongside of greats like Cal Ripken Jr., George Brett, and Stan Musial. While there isn’t necessarily a monetary gain to a legacy like this, there is a unique marketing aspect to it. These players are regarded as loyal and trustworthy players who will be remembered for their love of the game, rather than a love for the money.
• High Expectations – Albert has always been expected to perform, and has pretty much always answered the call. Even last year when he had a slow start, he still finished with a respectable .299 batting average (the first time in his career he batted under .300).  As Albert grows older, and most likely continues to have elbow problems, his production will slip. $25 million a year seems great if he can reproduce what he has done over the past 10 years. However, entering the season at age 32 will probably see Albert continue to have more offensive struggles. Alex Rodriguez who is one of the few people paid higher than Albert within the league, can probably attest that with big money comes big pressure. Rodriguez has been a whipping boy for many years before the Yankees finally finished out 2009 with a World Series championship.
• Declining Public Image – For years many people have been espousing the greatness of Albert Pujols, and the charitable work he does. However, this article at CNN will not be the last article with less than nice things to say about Pujols. Many fans of not only the Cardinals, but all across baseball believe that Pujols has now outed himself as a liar. This article by Kevin Wheeler of KMOX highlights what many fans feel about Pujols. He may have won many a fan in LA just by signing, but he lost more by not being honest about his intentions.

It all started innocently enough with a self-post on the popular social aggregator Reddit. User Boomerjinks (which I’m going to go out on a limb and say isn’t his real name), accused TellTale games of breach of contract after using his semi-famous internet Jurassic Jeep.  You can read the full accusation here, along with update. It didn’t take long for the internet to get up in arms about a movie-themed Jeep with minor cosmetic damage. Users on Reddit quickly picked up their digital pitchforks and torches, and started what they thought was their white knight gallantry. Some merely emailed the company saying their purchase decision had been swayed by the negative impression the received by the post, while others took to harassing TellTale employees over phone, Facebook, and email.

It didn’t take long for TellTale CEO, Kevin Brunner, to respond to the accusation. Brunner explained that TellTale themselves did not do anything negligent, and because of that were trying to use the insurance they had purchased in case such a thing had happened.  Brunner also decided to close the matter completely by offering to pay for the issue out of pocket. Despite thinking the situation had been handled wrong, Bruner owned up to the situation and corrected it.

However, things weren’t completely closed. Reddit members found a TellTale employee, one who apparently signed for the damaged vehicle, and decided it would be a good idea to harass her.

What he [Boomerjinks] calls a ”joyride” was the thirty feet we had to take the car to be inspected and the gas removed.

I received 83 phone calls (according to Google voice), 41 Facebook messages, and 19 emails…Some of the calls were threatening- one caller even asked me if I wanted to know what it was like to be raped.

You can read the rest of the account here. Needless to say, it is all a bit unnecessary. Does it suck that someone didn’t follow through on a deal? Yes. Does it suck that someone had a cool piece of memorabilia take a bit of damage? Absolutely. Does that warrant attacking someone who has little to no control over the situation? Absolutely not! It doesn’t warrant attacking anyone involved. Smart consumers vote with their wallet, and emails telling the company that you are no longer purchasing their game is a good way to wake somebody up. However,  threatening people for something silly like this, makes you no better than the story you find appalling.

There are a number of takeaways we can learn from this experience.  First of all, a brand that has built a good reputation over a long period of time can have that reputation shattered in mere moments with social media.  The effect may not be permanent, but could stay that way due to response. Which brings us to the second takeaway, everything hinges on the response. Just last month we discussed Netflix’s lack of response that drew the ire of many a social commentator.  However, CEO Kevin Brunner, responded exactly as he should, with sharp and concise points that point at what they have done. Most importantly, he fixed the matter quickly once it was brought to light, thus allowing for any future commentary by the original user to be taken less seriously.

When a battle like this happens between users and brands, it’s very hard to tell which side is in the right. Both have agendas to play up, and both are not going to be forthcoming with evidence that they might have had a hand in.  It is likely that both sides may be telling a side of the truth, but with the amount of hyperbole within their stories, they tend to look further apart than they are.

Here are a few things to be done in a situation like this.

1. Respond Quickly – The longer you take to respond, the harder it is going to be to get through the mob mentality. Reply quickly, but don’t rush yourself to the point where you make a bigger problem. Be smart about the words you choose, and make sure to hit the subject head on.
2. Use Humility – Guilty or not, a little humility goes a long ways. Admit there were things you could have done better. Promise to work on better solutions in the future.
3. Do NOT Point Fingers – The worst thing you can do is place blame in a situation like this, especially if the blame lies on the accuser. This type of defensive act will push away those who might have endeared themselves to you before. If true blame must be place, make sure to have a sound logical argument, and facts that can be backed up.
4. Reconcile – If you can reconcile with the accuser, the people following him/her will go with them. Reconciliation can make your brand look stronger in the end. You’ve received free publicity, and have shown you are willing to take care of your customers.

Marketing Mishap #1: Splitting Plans and Raising Prices

I shall regard this as “First World Problems Day”. The amount of bitching and moaning that went on because of a price increase due to the splitting of the direct to mail DVD and streaming services, was amazing. We’ve seen a near collapse of our financial system here in the U.S., but I saw 100x the response when Netflix raised prices.  Kind of shows where our priorities are doesn’t it?

So, what was the problem? Well, Netflix announced they would be splitting the plans, and charging new amounts for both. Before, for $10 you could have 1 DVD out at a time, and unlimited streaming. For people used to $5 rentals from Blockbuster in the 90s, it was a great deal.  In July, Netflix told it’s customers it was time to cough up a bit more dough. The streaming plan starts at $8/month and 1 DVD out a month will cost you an additional $8/month. The 60% price raise caught many people by surprise, and created a lot of negative press for the company.

There were many people (myself included) who saw the price increases coming. For the past couple years Netflix has been making high dollar buys for its streaming services, and the prices have only been increasing. Studios saw the service as a threat to its revenue stream (despite billion dollar deals), and have started raising the prices of their content to protect their investments. Although, this isn’t the only conflict Netflix has had to their profit structure. ISPs have been looking for ways to up the prices on the service due to heavy demand from their video services.  At one point Netflix streaming was said to account for a staggering 20% of all internet traffic. Pretty serious right? The truth behind the story is that their hand was forced by external factors.

How could they have fixed the situation? 

Netflix exacerbated the situation by keeping silent on the matter. The company released the plan prices, and assumed that their customers would understand.  It would be hard for anyone within the marketing/PR department to not notice the backlash, but still the company was silent. Their silence only allowed for misinformation to fly freely, and for customers feeling left stranded by a company they were loyal to.

It would have been in Netflix best interest to comment on the situation, and give reasons for the price increase. It still wouldn’t have been a completely positive PR experience for the company, but it might have added a bit more pressure on the ISPs and studios who are forcing their hands. Netflix must remember that the power still lies with the consumer, and all sides should be taking the brunt of the backlash.

Marketing Mishap #2: Netflix Streaming and Qwikster

I wish I could have sat in the marketing meetings when they came up with this brilliant idea. “So, our customers are pretty angry with us right now right? How about we take our service which is easy to use, and split it into two separate services. They’ll be so confused that they can’t get mad at us!”

Let’s start by looking at their announcement of the message, in letter form from CEO, Reed Hastings.

Dear Netflix Customer,
I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

Yes…that’s it…apology….humility….yes…..

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Wait, what? No….no…..what the hell is he doing???

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

This is the point where I attempted to Force choke someone through the internet. I had no idea how anyone thought this was a good idea. Completely separate a business that has been combined for the past few years? You’ve already upset your customers, and now you think it is a great idea to make the user experience difficult? The best is the way they tried to wrap this turd up in a bow with fancy PR speak, about how they were doing this for you.

The response was immediate. If you thought the price change debacle caused a social media blitz, this made Netflix and it’s CEO Reed Hastings, the laughing stock of the industry. Much of this was shown through the steep decline of their stock (which had been falling since their price change in July). Although, you know it hit a cultural nerve when the cast members of SNL made fun of the situation in this skit.

How could they have fixed the situation? 

A little bit of market research goes a long way. Netflix was looking for a quick way to fix their PR situation, and didn’t think through the issue at hand.  The idea should’ve gone through a series of testing, to see what the common reaction would be. This was a big change, and it wasn’t one that should’ve been taken lightly.  Hindsight is 20/20, but when you are dealing with a multi-billion dollar company, you should have people on staff with a bit of foresight as well.

Marketing Mishap #3: Just Kidding, April Fools in October!!!

Someone on the Netflix marketing team finally wised up and listened to customer reactions. It was announced this morning that Netflix is abandoning their plans to divide their company into two entities. Or as their blog post says:

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

We’re constantly improving our streaming selection. We’ve recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we’ve added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.

We value our members, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get movies & TV shows.

Thank you.

-Reed

So, in other words, “We screwed up big time, and jumped the gun. Sorry!”

How could they have fixed the situation? 

Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of ways they can improve the situation. They are owning up to a mistake, and freely admitting that they were the cause of the mistake. If they want to pull their shares out of their plummet, they’ll need some positive PR and quick. I’d expect another big announcement from them in the next month or two, one that has been vetted a bit. Netflix may not be the powerhouse they were a year ago, but they still have enough subscribers to make things interesting.

Do you have a Netflix account? Do you plan on keeping it? What would you have done in their place? Let us know in the comments!

First off, I have to give credit where credit is due. The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone out there, but it certainly was the one that revolutionized it. Sure, touchscreen style smartphones had been gradually making their way onto the market, but Apple was the first one to have a dedicated push, and revolutionize it with solid apps. I’m sure many would be surprised just how primitive the first iPhone would look these days, but no one can deny that without it’s launch we wouldn’t be enjoying the plethora of phones at our grasp today.

That being said, this was probably the worst iPhone launch yet. Many expected a radical change in the iPhone, something that would continue to push the market. Instead, the phone seemed more of a response to competitors, rather than a one-up. So, what are the new features?

• Dual-core A5 processor – With the new upgrade in power Apple is put on an even playing field with many new smartphone devices that have come out this previous summer. The chipset is similar to the one in the larger iPad2. Apple claims that it is up to 7x faster than its current model, the 4G.
•  Siri – The voice activated personal assistant who will retrieve certain data. Apple claims that you can actually hold a conversation with your iPhone. So, if you are short on friends, just buy a 4GS!
• Updated Camera – New 8-megapixel camera that is faster, and has a larger aperture. Think how much better those pictures you take of yourself in the mirror will look!
• Faster Download Speeds – Still stuck on 3G, but faster than the previous iteration.
• New Apps – Cards the app I saw everyone going crazy over. It allows you to have cards printed of your iPhone photos. I’m really trying to understand why people are so excited about this, but maybe it is because I don’t ever give greeting cards to people? For a digital platform, it seems kind of backwards.
• Notifications – Remember the notifications Android has had for years now? You can finally have that on iPhone too! Yeah, I know, when I heard I went and high-fived everyone I saw, because of how excited I am.

Cue the latest splash Facebook is making in the world of social media, this time with their aptly named Facebook Timeline. The name explains itself pretty well, every embarrassing thing you’ve ever put on Facebook is now available in an easy to use timeline! So, now that awful racial joke you happened to post back in 2006 can be accessed by any future political opponent easily. In all seriousness, there is some great uses to it as well.  Let’s look a few of the changes:

• Timeline – This new function is probably the biggest change to social media. It creates a timeline of your life by using existing Facebook items (and items you can add later) and creates a timeline of the most important things going on in your life. It is something better viewed than explained.  My timeline will probably consist of my most important life events, like haircuts, not going to the prom, and watching re-runs of Buffy. (I lead an exciting life.)
• Reports – Just an expansion on your Timeline. The reports can be compiled for months or for years, meaning you can see the important events in a friends life in a certain month or a year. I have no witty comment for this, because frankly it scares me too much.
• Photo Headers – Not to confuse with your profile picture, which you still have, but a new photo that tops your profile. This photo can be anything, well anything you could post on Facebook (this isn’t 4chan folks).  Doesn’t have to be important, just whatever you feel in the mood for. Want to highlight a spot of photography you did last weekend? Want to show everyone how cute of a dog you have? Have a rash that you can’t identify? OK, so maybe that last one isn’t what should be used for, although I guess they can’t stop you.
• Social App Integration – Add app boxes onto your profile which keep your friends updated on every freakin’ move you’ve ever made. Want someone to know what you are cooking? (I’m not going to make the obvious Rock joke here, this isn’t 2001.) Want to show everyone your superior musical tastes? Want everybody to know that you are patient enough to watch a whole documentary? You can do this all through social app integration through Facebook partners like Netflix, Spotify, and more! (No, they aren’t collecting your data? Why would you ask such a silly thing? They’d never betray your trust like that!)
• Integration of Google + – Haha….just kidding. Those two will be fighting to the death. Which could make a semi-interesting reality TV special. Have each side choose their champion, and the winner takes all? Too primitive? You’re right, they need to do it on a cyber platform…..

Duggan, a 29-year-old father, in economically troubled London suburb Tottenham, was shot by a police officer last Thursday night. Duggan, who had reported links to London gangs, was a passenger in a minivan pulled over by Scotland Yard’s “Operation Trident”, a unit which specialized in “dealing with gun crime among black communities, in particular drug-related shootings.”  After a quick firefight, Duggan was left as another casualty in the effort to curb crime in North London.

On Saturday evening, a group of about 50 people protested the death of Duggan outside Tottenham’s police station. The event quickly turned sour as some started using the event as an excuse to riot. What at first started with shouting between members of the public disguised underneath hoodies, quickly turned riots. Before all was said and done, multiple businesses had been looted, two police cars were torched, and a few buildings were burned beyond repair.

Duggan’s death might have been the spark, but looters and many others fueled the flames of a riot that has now seen action over the past few days. Looters and rioters have banded together using encrypted messages from their Blackberries. Blackberry has a secure messaging system, one which helped it become one of the bestselling smartphone brands on the market. Blackberry is cooperating with police in Britain, but says that shutting down its messaging network would penalize too many people not involved in the riots.  (Read a more detailed article about Blackberry’s BBM service, and the London riots.)

One BBM broadcast sent Saturday was published by The Guardian reads:

“Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London (central) OXFORD CIRCUS!!, Bare SHOPS are gonna get smashed up so come get some (free stuff!!!) f**k the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! >: O”

Social Media has been playing a high profile role in the events as well, with rioters using Twitter and Facebook to incite more violence, and to coordinate areas of attack. The use of social media was one of many factors that caused the violence to spread to other communities outside of Tottenham such as; Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, and Birmingham. One Twitter message reads, “”Everyone up and roll to Tottenham f*** the 50. I hope 1 dead tonight”

Although, as much as technology has played into the negative of these riots, there has been plenty to praise in their use as well.  Graham Linehan, creator of the popular British sitcom “The IT Crowd”, tweeted:

Forget @DeanEsnard and do searches for anyone else boasting about involvement in riots. Take screengrabs. #riotprevention

Some have even taken to Facebook and Twitter to counteract the violence out on the street.  Hundreds of volunteers hit the streets of London with brooms in hand to help local shop owners to clean up the streets. Many were sent home by police forces, but nonetheless the gesture generated a surprising amount of goodwill throughout the community. Hashtags like #riotcleanup continue to trend on Twitter, showing a resistance growing through the community against the raiders.

Just a quick look at #londonriots on Twitter, and you can get a good summation of how people feel about the events. The majority of the comments are people who are still in disbelief over the situation; many offering words of support for those surrounded by the violence.

Some have used social media to take a more proactive approach. On this tumblr blog, people are posting photos of looters in hopes they can be identified after the rioting has died down. Others are using tumblr to share their experiences, and sometimes their warnings.

The spread of the London riots doesn’t stop at photos and text; people have already begun to upload videos of atrocities committed by the rioters. This video shows a young man being helped up after being beaten, only to be robbed by those around him.

It is hard to believe at times that only 20 years ago we were almost completely reliant on newspapers and nightly news for coverage of such events. Now we are bombarded from every angle with information about the travesties around us, but still are no closer to stopping things like this. On one end these new forms of media bring together the people who capitalize on instability by thieving, and on the other people are using them to band together and create communities to help others affected by the destruction.

All of this poses the question; is social media the good or the bad guy here? Or is it merely a tool that can be swayed to whatever purpose?

I leave you with an image of Twitter user who has saved her vowels in order to save up for the items she has thieved:

As many people may or may not remember, Google has already tried to carve out a chunk of the social media pie before. Unfortunately, their last attempt, Buzz, failed miserably due to a number of privacy issues that the company did not see as a problem. Add in the fact that the service had little to no innovation attached to it, and had nothing actually “buzz”-worthy about it to create any type of shift or impact in social media.

Google learned a hard lesson, merely having a high profile social media platform does not automatically mean you’ll have a successful social media platform. These days starting a social media platform that gains traction is as easy as catching lightning in a bottle.  You have to innovate and offer items not yet seen on other platforms to entice users away from the current “it” platform. What did Facebook offer over Myspace? Well, first off it offered a service that didn’t continually crash, and wasn’t filled with massive amounts of coding errors. MySpace’s customization options went a bit too far, and before long pages were filled with annoying self-loading songs, and glittery text. Facebook’s UI was the winning point with most people, the UI was simple and sophisticated, and in addition to that it was uniform. With the addition of a “news feed” of your friends, there was almost no reason to not make the switch.

So, what does Google offer that changes the game?

• Circles – Circles may seem like a silly idea to a lot of people, but it is actually a very sophisticated way to group people you know (or don’t know for that matter). When you really think about it, you probably rate people in sense of importance already. You have your family, your close friends, your “grab a drink” friends, and other various levels down to acquaintance. Why wouldn’t things be the same online? It isn’t like people can’t eventually be full-fledged friends, but until you’ve vetted your relationship with that person, this is a good way to sort it.
• Hangouts – The idea of video chat isn’t new, but doing it in a group through a social media app is pretty cool. Granted, I haven’t had a group chat with someone since the days of AIM, but for people with lots of out of town contacts it could be a useful too. Do people really care enough about video chatting though?
• Phone integration – First off is the “Huddle” feature, which is just a fancy way to IM between circles rather than using the text message allowance on your phone.  The second cool thing is for Android phones only though; Google + also has the ability to instantly upload your photos to your Google account, and sharing them from the folder it creates.

As an iPhone user and a Flash developer, nothing was more painful than knowing I wouldn’t be able to use flash-based tools to create my very own farting machine. So it was nice to hear that Apple has recently  loosened it’s application development restrictions, as stated on drawlogic’s website.

Sadly, the lightened restrictions only apply to application development. This means that iPhone users will  continue to surf the web without Flash. Developers will, however be able to develop applications for the iPhone using Flash. Is this a good thing?

Flash Developers  – definitely yes

iPhone  Users - more cool & dumb stuff to wast time and money on than ever before

The Guys who approve submissions to the Apple App Store – used to be a fun job, may get a bit annoying now

I believe it was Craig Venter whom first said that, “If the 20th century was the century of physics, 21st century will be the century of biology.” The direct read is clear enough; the discipline of biology is where the interesting stuff is happening. What I think may be even more interesting is the implication that perhaps the epistemic models that inform physics are giving way to epistemic models informed by biology.

Marshall McLuhan‘s renown aphorism that, “we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us,” would seem to have a related, but inverted principle. For our tools are shaped after us. How can they not be? The only models we have are ourselves and the biological systems that surround us. What is a wrench if not an abstract extention of the hand?

In this way, all design could be said to be necessarily user-centered. That said, the kind of models that inform the enlightenment paradigm, while powerful, are not the apotheosis of our ability to model the natural world. In other words, top-down hierarchies aren’t the most accurate recreations of the systems we encounter in the world. In other other words, machines don’t feel natural. I think it should be sacrosanct to the designer, that we should not be made to conform to our tools; our tools should be made to conform to us.

That’s why I love design like this packing tape thing. I think it’s maybe an important goal for designers to model organic systems. Their creations are the tools that thereafter shape us, and our models.