I ran across this interesting article in the New York Times a bit ago on how product developers are adapting their products to build IPhone applications.
The bottom line being that the IPhone browsing experience may be good over and above the IPhone’s own qualities especially because app makers have been forced to simplify what they do to only the really important stuff (because that’s all that will fit).
This is my favorite quote:
“The small screen forces you to be even more ruthless and focus on usability almost like a haiku,” said Barney Pell, Powerset’s founder and chief executive. “That’s what happens with design for the small screen. You have to think about what the most important thing the user is doing is.”
I was talking to someone at work about this in a slightly different way though. I think the exercise of building the applications may sew the seeds to simplify web products more generally in some cases. If you go through the trouble of honing your product to display just the essential items that a user needs to complete a task — you may as well apply similar thinking to your base product, right?
At a minimum you’ll force yourself to ask: What’s really needed here? And what’s really, well, uh, not?
This second question is WAY harder to address, I think. But its where a lot of great simple products really get their simplicity from.
I haven’t posted to this blog in a long while. Little bit of business has been going on — job change, summer, the Giants are winning more games than expected, etc. etc.
That said, I will post something meaningful soon and get back into a more regular flow. For now, you’ll have to settle for this unmeaningful post to get the juices flowing.
If you’ve ever been part of a really synched up product development team, you’ve seen examples of high speed development responding to consumer demand, but it’s always fun to point out one when it flies by.
There’s obviously been a lot of attention on Friendfeed of late. Great service, simple to use and perhaps most importantly, gathering momentum by shipping things very fast. Here’s the timeline you can follow from Fred Wilson’s must read blog. (One of my favorites if you are interested in social media and where it’s all is headed.)
- Fred, as a user, lists 10 things he’d love Friendfeed to do.
- Bret Taylor replies to Fred’s post: Essentially: “Thanks, we’re on it.”
- Little additional back and forth in Fred’s comments.
- Friendfeed blog post on one feature being released (playing well with Twitter) that relates to Fred’s post. NOTE: This happens to be just 3 days after Fred’s original “feature request” via blog post.
- Fred writes a separate post called “I Just Fell In Love With FriendFeed.”
Definitely not the land of quarterly releases. Now granted, some of Fred’s stuff could have already been road-mapped and in the cue, but still. The whole thing creates a vibe of speed, responsiveness, momentum, plus the service just got better in a public way. It goes without saying that when you get someone blogging with a headline like “I love (web product x)” — you done good.
Also puts on full display how valuable just listening to a canned search mentioning your product can be over and above site data, direct customer feedback and other sources of ideas.
It’s been a while since I’ve actually taken in a local TV news program on TV, but everybody has their favorite goofy local news clip of general, mayhem, nonsense or worse. The field reporter chasing a heckler. The reporter almost coming to blows with a local politician. The weather guy or gal standing in the middle of a crazy storm for no real reason. And on and on.
This clip here from New York, though, may take the cake. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two local news guys pull this kind of madness off. I’ve watched it a few times and it just gets better and better each time.
“Back to you, Jim.”
(via TNR blog)
The headline on this post sounds a little obvious. I had the same reaction at first to a Dave Winer post about “hot products.” Here’s the money quote:
Imho, having started two companies — one that failed and one that succeeded, and watched dozens of others over 30 years, the difference is the ones that succeed have a hot product that lots of people want, and the ones that fail don’t.
Of course its better for a product to be great vs. not great — especially on the web where barriers are harder to construct and ideas can move so fast. Obvious right? But sometimes the obvious can be eluded, even when that’s not what you’re setting out to do.
Winer was posting in response to a round of discussion about what makes startups work or fail. Calcanis had his list of 17 things you can do in a startup to save money (one tip: 2 monitors for everyone!). There were critques. Arrington weighed in on the value in hiring the write people as a key element. There was a lot of blogosphere excitement about some rather non-controversial stuff. Hire good people. Don’t waste money. Ok.
How good product is cuts through all that. Not to say you don’t need to watch your spending, etc. but just that the product was the real differentiator between success and failure.
I’d add a important related point though. Its not only that a great product trumps all. Its also similarly obvious, but elusive how often the simplicity of a product is viewed as less of a priority. Simplicity drives usage. We’ve all seen the examples: Ipod. Google, Craigslist, Etc. On and on. I’ve personally seen it a Yahoo! a ton — especially here in my own experience.
Sticking to the stone cold fundamentals works. Over and above everything you can do to drive success, the product is the obvious key that is often missed. Then secondly within the product itself, drop dead simplicity shouldn’t be overlooked.
As I mentioned here, the TED Conference is a great source of really interesting video. Basically a bunch of really smart people take the stage at a conference and speak about what they do and care about — and the best of the bunch go direct to the web — for free. (sponsored by BMW, of course). Anyway, the 2008 version of the conference is convening now in Monterey, and Chris Fralic has a pretty nice looking list of top 10 videos from past conferences. Pretty good stuff, plus he has some nice stats on the video usage. Here are a few other good talks I’d recommend:
Plus make sure you check out what they post from 2008.
Not making a political statement one way or the other — everyone is entitled to dance after all. I was just entertained by this rough shot of President Bush dancing at some kind of reception for the new president of Liberia.
First off, he’s the President, but he’s really dancing — at least in the way a 60-plus year old would. Secondly, there is no way he imagines this is being captured on film (or maybe he does). It really has the look of the funny uncle that wanders out onto the dance floor at almost any wedding anyone has ever been to.
Anyway, fun stuff. I personally am looking forward to being a little older and wandering out onto wedding dance floors in similar fashion.
found at realclearpolitics
Quick review of a book I read a bit ago. When the Game Stands Tall is Neil Hayes’ look inside De La Salle High School’s football program while it was in the midst of a 151 game (that’s 12 years) winning streak. So a non-descript suburban high school (in Concord, CA) winning enough football games that national media takes notice. The subplot is of course, how do they do it?
If you are even a little bit of a football fan you’ve heard of this school and the streak and the book is filled with all sorts of insider football stuff a fan would enjoy. But the best parts of the book touch on the seemingly secret sauce. To be sure, the school has had some great players. But the book outlines some players who end up playing far above where their natural talents might ordinarily take them. So what’s the secret?
De La Salle’s coach is a quiet, seemingly mellow guy named Bob Ladouceur, someone who almost became a priest. He and his staff have managed to get a bunch of teenage boys to almost view football as secondary to much more foundational ideas like commitment, love, brotherhood, and the like. These teams seem to create these incredible bonds where coaches can more easily translate youthful energy into 100% focus and discipline. Again, that’s not to say there’s not great players, and excellent coaching, because clearly both are present– but the book captures pieces of what the kids are being taught that uniquely prepare them life let alone football. And its almost treated as a byproduct that the kids also happen to then pursue football excellence with some serious zeal.
In the end the book is actually less about football than about group dynamics and leadership. The culture these coaches have created is extremely cohesive — its obvious the kids care about each other in ways you don’t normally see high school kids caring. I give the book a thumbs up as an interesting read, doubly so if you’re either a parent of a young boy or just enjoy a little football.
