Tag - mistakes

High-tech astroturf from Exxon

August 23, 2006

Astroturf is fake grass. Astroturfing is fake grass-roots advocacy.

As Brains on Fire reports, the Wall Street Journal has uncovered what looks like an incredibly inept piece of astroturfing by the DCI Group, possibly on behalf of client Exxon.

It’s one thing to create a video for a corporation or interest group and be aboveboard about it … disclosing any interests or loyalties. It’s another to try to pass off propaganda as citizen-generated media. Especially when the result is so incredibly inane.

The video is incredibly clumsy – attempting to portray Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth as incredibly boring without even attempting to refute its thesis.

Whoa. To my mind, that’s an endorsement of the documentary’s message … and another reason to see it.

Just think of the mindset that goes into a production like this: what a incredibly insultingly low view of people the creator of this piece must have. In essence, what this video is saying is that climate change might be happening, but it’s boring. Go on, stupid citizens, amuse yourself to death.

Whoever did this is evil. Whoever did this is arrogant.

Ultimately, whoever did this is more foolish than he or she thought people are.

[tags] video, youtube, astroturf, astroturfing, propaganda, PR, Exxon, oil, al gore, global warming, climate, inconvenient truth, john koetsier [/tags]

Beyond stock options: troublesome signs at Apple

August 21, 2006

I’ve been reading Applepeels lately, and it’s not pleasant. Not, at least, if you care about Apple and its success.

Applepeels is David Sobotta’s recollections of a 20-year career with Apple Computer culminating in Director of Federal Sales. He paints a portrait of an organization that is seriously flawed, at times unethical, and unbalanced – at least, the sales arm of Apple. He doesn’t sensationalize, however; he seems to be simply telling it like it is.

Apple, of course, is currently embroiled in stock options irregularities. The good news is the company reported the problems itself. The bad news is that the rot seems to go deeper than just a few bad decisions.

While I wouldn’t be surprised if the options mess blows over with not-too-severe results, the fact that it’s delaying Apple’s Nasdaq filing is certainly not a good sign.

The real problem, though, might be Apple’s corporate culture:

Anyone who has worked at Apple, if they are honest and can detach themselves from the situation knows that Apple has accorded their vice presidents a special status to do pretty much what they please as long as they tell Steve what he wants to hear and the numbers don’t look especially bleak.

That’s obviously a very dangerous tradition.

[tags] apple, stock, options, steve jobs, nasdaq, john koetsier [/tags]

Gmail user interface problems

August 21, 2006

Question: do you design an application for power users or novices?

Ideally, your design is so mindblowingly uber-good that it works perfectly for both. In the real world, however, you make compromises.

Take Gmail, for instance.

I have a Gmail account – mostly so I can publish an email address baldly on this blog and not worry too much about spam. First of all, Gmail’s spam protection is very, very good. And secondly, it’s not my primary account, so I don’t really care too much.

So I’m a Gmail novice … I go there about once a week. (Mail sent to my Gmail account is forwarded to one I check daily.) When there, mostly I just look at what comes in … any email I write, I send from my primary, sparkplug9.com account.

But occasionally I want to send an email from Gmail. And it never fails: I always have to hunt, sometimes for 20 seconds, for the Send Mail button. Of course, there isn’t one:

It’s called “Compose Mail.” And it’s hidden, almost – certainly way less prominent than the Archive, Delete, or Report Spam buttons. (To say nothing of the Search button.)

Is this good design?

There’s no question Gmail is great technology. But I doubt anyone would call it great design … even if it may work for power users.

. . .
. . .

Other thoughts on Gmail’s design
Joel on Software forum, Paul Kedrosky (a great speaker, btw, heard him once at VEF), Walt Mossberg, Richard MacManus, Dan Brown (very comprehensive piece!), Topix blog.

[tags] UI, user interface, GUI, gmail, google, email, design, john koetsier [/tags]

Dilbert on low quality spam

August 20, 2006

Why, we ask ourselves, does spam work? Scott Adams has the answer:

All [ Barney ] knows is that he’s poor, bald, and hung like a frozen caterpillar. For the low price of $29.95 he can fix all of that without leaving home. He figures it might be a scam, but can he really take the chance that it’s not? So Barney places his order for the miracle pill and wonders why the Nigerian vendor needs his social security number.

The interesting part of this post – well, the other interesting part of this post – is that Scott is trying to understand the “low quality” of the spam he’s getting … mispelled words, sentences that make no grammatical sense, and so on.

The reality is that spammers are being forced into awkward grammatical constructions and amateurish spelling errors as tactics in their ongoing arms race with spam-detection software. Which begs the question: if 100% of your spam makes it through to the inbox, but it’s also so mind-bogglingly stupid that no-one actually opens it, did you win?

I think not.

[tags] dilbert, scott adams, spam, spam filter, email, john koetsier [/tags]

Media, PR, News, and Apple

August 18, 2006

It’s always interesting to see how the media react to news. Case in point: Apple’s recent China labor issues.

If you didn’t hear, a report titled iPod City was released in early June, alleging that there were significant violations of acceptable labor conditions in the Chinese plant that produces iPods. Apple promised to investigate, and yesterday released a report on the findings.

What I find fascinating is the reporting spin that news organizations put on this story. Here, from Macsurfer, are a selection of the relevant headlines. Suffice it to say that people will have significantly different opinions of what’s going on depending on where they read about it.

News around the web

Apple Finds No Forced Labor at iPod Factory in South China
New York Times
Apple admits excessive iPod hours
BBC
Apple Says Probe Finds No Serious Labor Violations at iPod Factory in China
Associated Press
Apple audit finds factory violations in China: Firm vows to fix problems at iPod suppliers
San Jose Mercury News
Apple releases iPod factory audit results
Ars Technica
Apple to partner with Foxconn on labor conditions
DigiTimes
Apple Finds Few Violations at Chinese iPod Factory
IDG News Service
Apple shows transparency in China iPod factory audit
E-consultancy
Apple releases results of iPod factory probe
AppleInsider
Apple: Foxconn Violated Overtime Rules
The Mac Observer
Apple work code broken at supplier’s China plant
Reuters

You’d almost think they’re talking about a different story. Or at least, that the facts are different. I guess it depends what you want to focus on: mostly good, or the few violations that they did find.

Of course, “mostly good” in a Chinese factory is probably enough to make most of us soft, coddled North Americans and Europeans running screaming home to mommy.

. . .
. . .

One critical difference
The Ars Technical and AppleInsider stories link right to Apple’s report. Not so at the NY Times, the AP, the Beeb, or Reuters. You get news from us, they seem to be saying. I wonder if they do a good soup Nazi?

That’s one key reason I get my news from the blogosphere.

[tags] apple, china, sweatshop, ipod, news, PR, public relations, coverage, bias, headlines, john koetsier [/tags]

A-lister conspiracy theories and dreams of easy success

August 16, 2006

There’s an interesting conversation happening right now about the equity or insularity of the blogosphere.

(Nick Carr, Kent Newsome, Labnotes, and Chip’s Quips are covering it as well. And now, Shel Israel.)

Partly, it’s the perrennial A-lister bitch-session: why am I not in the Technorati Top 100? Partly, it’s the angst of someone who started blogging with great expectations only to find he’s talking to himself in an empty room.

In other words: why aren’t “they” listening to me? Most especially, why aren’t “they” linking to me? (“They” being the top bloggers out “there.”)

Bloggers start blogging full of piss and vinegar, ready to take on the world and win, zoom up the Technorati rankings, get links from everyone, earn $100/day from AdSense, get the (supposedly) cushy panel speaker invitations and keynotes at hotter-than-flame conferences with weird names, receive free stuff from funky companies with missing letters, eventually write the book, make a million (or ten, a million isn’t what it used to be), and ride off into the sunset. Easy, isn’t it?

Hello!?!

This is real life
This isn’t the movies. And this isn’t the crazy-stupid-brilliant flash-in-the-pan that you hear about from time to time, and wonder why you didn’t think of.

Anything worth doing is hard. Doing anything well is hard. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes talent. It takes skill.

But sorry, that’s not enough.

The L factor
Here’s the hardest part for any of us to accept: It takes luck.

We’d have it a lot easier if there was a clear-cut algorithm for success. Do X amount of work for Y number of days with Z degree of skill, and you’ll be successful.

Sorry. I wish it was true. But it’s not.

Some weird magic happens in the world.

Some wacked-out left-field idea like Snakes on a Plane just comes out of nowhere and hits a home run.
Some odd idea like getting people to write secrets on postcards and send them to you so you can post them on a website results in a top ten blog and a successful book.
Some 18-year-old kid creates a piece of software that others start contributing to that turns out to be really good and amazingly popular.
Some slightly-shady entrepreneurs take an old idea and a lousy site and sell it for over half a billion.
Some crazy geniuses create the best hardware/software combination the market has ever seen and spend decades struggling to get to 5% market share.
Some other crazy geniuses with duct-taped glasses buy a piece of junk software, land a distribution deal with a clueless giant, and become the most profitable company in the world.

The point
It doesn’t always make sense. In fact, it usually doesn’t. Success or failure in any venture, blogging, business, or personal, is a combination of so many factors that predicting it is virtually impossible. Ask stockbrokers.

This doesn’t mean you can’t stack the deck. It doesn’t mean hard work doesn’t pay off. It doesn’t mean that skill and intelligence and tenacity don’t make you more likely to succeed.

It just means that shit happens.

Ecclesiastes says it best:

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.

A-lister conspiracy theories
It’s hard, sometimes. I know. You don’t get the link you think you should – the one you think you deserve. I’ve had it myself.

The reality is, the blogosphere is a big place. Lots happens. Conversations abound. Blogs proliferate. Attention is limited. Blogs shoot up, blogs tumble down. Enough churn occurs to make me believe that success is still possible.

But you are already more successful than you know. Think about it: there are now 52 million blogs. 52 million!

Let’s say your blog is ranked 39,756 (coincidentally, just like the one you’re reading right now.) How lucky are you?

Let’s break it down:

If you’re in the top 5 million, you’re 1 out of 10
If in the top 500,000, you’re 1 out of 100
In the top 50,000, you’re 1 out of 1000
just for fun, let’s continue …
Top 5000? 1 out of 10,000
Top 500? 1 out of 100,000
And top 50? 1 out of 1,000,000

See the point? Even being in the top 100,000 is an accomplishment! (Of course, for all of us who are serious about this blogging journey, it may not be enough. It may not satisfy.)

We have to have a sense of realism. If everyone was a star, there’d be no fans. Not all of us, as Russell Crow said in Master and Commander, become the man (blogger, woman, person) we once hoped we’d be.

Maturity is the ability to see that fact without becoming bitter.

Genius is the ability to see that fact without becoming bitter – and to continue to hope, and continue to fight against the odds – and perhaps, eventually, through blood and sweat and tears, succeed.

It’s magic. Just don’t quit the day job.

Pure grass-roots genius: Ronald McHummer campaign

August 16, 2006

If you haven’t seen the Ronald McHummer site yet, you’re missing an absolute gem of grassroots citizen media … and a public relations nightmare for a huge multinational corporation.

What’s the site about? Free Hummer toys with Happy Meals:

I am appalled that McDonald’s, which influences the eating and buying habits of millions of kids, is using Happy Meals to promote Hummers.

These supersized SUVs spew smog-forming chemicals that send asthmatic children to the hospital and greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Our kids should be learning about cleaner, healthier cars and what they can do to protect the environment, not gas-guzzlers that keep us dependent on foreign oil.

The genius and the beauty is the ability to create your own McDonald’s sign in response to this promotion. Here’s mine:

Enjoy! (Unless you’re a McDonald’s shareholder!)

[tags] citizen, media, grassroots, environment, mcdonalds, ronald mchummer, john koetsier [/tags]

Digg: please split World and Business

August 14, 2006

I’ve been perplexed ever since Digg expanded beyond technology: why on earth are World and Business together?

Perhaps it’s very important world news that Pepsi has named a new chief exec. (Why the Digg community cares, I don’t understand.) But what does that have to do with the North Korean missile crisis?

While most people who drive care about oil prices, how, precisely, does that relate to the IRS and and “market leading EDA vendor Cadence Design Systems Inc?”

And while I’m happy to hear that the racist, genocidal leader of Iran has a blog, it seems a little odd next to a story on flight attire. (Or maybe not!)

Enough examples. They abound. The point is: would it have killed you, Kevin, to have had just one more category, and separate Business and World? I don’t think so.

Perhaps you were just worried about categories looking sparse and orphaned. Well, that obviously hasn’t happened.

Please split World and Business!

[tags] digg, kevin rose, world, business, news, social media, john koetsier [/tags]

Men & women, usability & blame

August 12, 2006

A recent MySpace sign-up problem reminded me: men and women react differently to software and usability problems.

I first learned this when doing a usability study with theUEgroup in San Jose. Tony Fernandes, the principal and founder, told me that when men encounter problems, they tend to think it’s the fault of the site or software that they are using. On the other hand, women tend to think the the fault lies with them.

We saw this over and over again in our two days of testing. It was a site that was intended for women, and it had been designed by me – male – and built by a few developers who, yes, were also male. We brought in women to test the site, and sitting in a nearby room looking at the video monitors, saw the same thing again and again and again:

“I think I’m doing something wrong.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not very good with computers.”
“Did I do something that I wasn’t supposed to?”

The site was in a fairly early state of production, and it had gaping holes in it that these women were finding – and then blaming themselves for. “I’m sorry” was a fairly constant refrain.

In fact, as I recall, we eventually made over 40 significant changes to the site based on the findings of the usabilty study. They weren’t all technical and programming: some of them were simple wording or order switches. But all were significant. Somehow, though, the women were blaming themselves for our problems.

Lucky us, in a sense. But if the people using our site could not create the products that we wanted them to create and then purchase them, were were sunk. Unlucky us.

Situational versus dispositional
This reminds me of university psychology: situational versus dispositional attribution.

Situational attribution assigns blame or praise based on the environment. Example: she succeeded because she was with a great company. He failed because the economy was really tough.

Dispositional attribution, on the other hand, assigns blame or praise based on personal characteristics. Example: He succeeded because he’s smart. She failed because she made too many mistakes.

Men are more likely, on average, to make dispositional attributions. Women are more likely, on average, to make situational attributions. This is a big generalization, and I don’t fit the mold myself, every time. But I think on balance, it holds true.

Which has interesting consequences for the software and sites we build, and the people we build them for.

[tags] usability, theUEgroup, tony fernandes, women, men, situational, dispositional, websites, software, design, psychology, john koetsier [/tags]

This is broken

August 9, 2006

Seth Godin on user experience at GEL 2006 … very, very good:

[tags] seth godin, usability, user experience, john koetsier [/tags]

We break (a lot of) stuff

August 7, 2006

OK, I know that’s the site name, but did they really mean their own stuff? I had this odd idea that it was only clients’ stuff.

WeBreakStuff has been, umm, broken, for quite some time now.

Surely, however, knowing the company behind the site and the (very good) stuff they do, they will soon rename themselves WeFixStuff and reappear, bigger and better than ever, with new stuff, better stuff, and (dare I say it) unbroken stuff.

[tags] webreakstuff, broken, site, blog, internal server error, 500, john koetsier [/tags]

GottaLoveMySpaceErrorMessages

July 28, 2006

[ updated below; MySpace is having issues ] [ updated again August 6th; MySpace has finally fixed them – see comment at end ] [ updated yet again December 1, 2006; still buggy, but there’s a solution. See Laura’s comment way down at the bottom of the page ]

Apparently I am too stupid to join MySpace.

Huh. This is an odd one. I have my own blog on my own server with a WordPress install that I’ve installed and a theme that I’ve customized. I’ve built two (very small) content management systems in PHP, including one that was essentially a blog in 1996 or so.

But I can’t join MySpace

I was about to throw in the towel, hold my nose, and do a quick land-grab … ensuring I had a digital toe-hold in the busiest and hottest social networking site around. But I’ve been saved from my own rashness by a broken login system.

I’m sure it usually works. In fact, I know it does because a few months ago, I created a profile on MySpace for a brand that I’m working on. (It’s still dark because we’re not quite ready to release it.) So it worked for me once – just not today.

Gotta love that error message in the patented MySpace StickAllTheWordsTogetherAndItWillBeCool style: LoginErrorMessage30.

Arrghhh ….

[ update July 29 ]

While trying to figure this out on a different machine, I logged into MySpace with another account (not a personal one) that I had created months ago. While doing so, I saw this page:

Either MySpace is having major issues, or the page is coded for a specific browser that is supposed to interpret something in the place of those strings. (“String” is programming language for a word or a phrase).

I use Flock mainly, a Firefox variant, but the same thing shows up in Safari and Firefox. If the same error shows up in all of those three browsers, it’s got to be a programming error. Which means that MySpace is doing something incredibly stupid … and not me.

Whew.

[tags] myspace, bugs, login, stupid, john koetsier [/tags]

Why do people leave their jobs?

July 26, 2006

This is a little off-topic for bizhack, but I thought it was insightful and important enough to post:

After reviewing extensive research from the Saratoga Institute, Leigh Branham determined that people leave their employers because the employer is not meeting one or more basic human needs. In his book The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, Branham identifies these four needs: the need for trust, the need to have hope, the need to feel a sense of worth, and the need to feel competent.

When employees don’t have the information and resources to do the job right, their sense of competence is compromised, they become discouraged, and ultimately they’re more likely to leave. Having the right tools—that is, the information and resources to do the job right, is fundamental to a sense of competence, which is, in turn, fundamental to retention and productivity.

Check out more of the same on Pig Wisdom … and the book that the blog is promoting, The Wisdom of the Flying Pig.

(What a great book title, by the way!)

Let your clients speak for you

July 24, 2006

Sometimes people who buy from you can communicate what you do far better than you can yourself.

Case in point:

Notice how it’s fairly hard, if not impossible, to understand what the company does if you just read the letters in black? And how easy it is when you just read the letters in white?

(And that’s probably a fake customer quote – so even starting to think like a client will help you communicate better.)

Somehow, we just get too close to the companies we work for, the products we build. And then when we try to talk about them, we say too much. We talk down. We use too many adjectives. Our verbs are hifalutin, like integrate and facilitate. And our in our fear to leave anything out, we make it way too complicated.

Let your clients speak for you!

(This post inspired by Kathy Sierra.)

[tags] voice of the customer, verbosity, PR, advertising, kathy sierra, john koetsier [/tags]

Why big companies miss important changes

July 23, 2006

Robert Scoble does a better job than most explaining why big companies miss the cluetrain:

Which would you rather have? $100,000 today or a penny doubled every day for a month? Well, the penny doubled will be a lot more money. But, if your cash runs out before the 20th of the month you would have been better off taking the $100,000. Markets build by doubling. That’s why big companies miss important things when they are small (they only see things after the metaphorical 20th day when the numbers start to get really interesting). But keeping your company going until that metaphorical 20th day is a terrifying game of chicken between your cash going down and waiting for that doubling effect to really kick in (and that’s assuming you have a product or service that’ll keep doubling — like blogging turned out to be).

They take the $100,000 and run.

[tags] scoble, innovator’s dilemma, scobleizer, john koetsier [/tags]

New Spa Per: let’s start a meme

July 23, 2006

Yes. Yes. Yes!

Are you tired of pros, like the New York Times, writing “Web log” when the correct word is weblog or blog?

Both are in common usage, they’re even in the OED, so why does the Times persist in knowing better?

How would they feel if we wrote about their product as a New Spa Per? Nahhh, that would be immature.

Maybe they could accept blogging for what it is, and stop messing with the name.

That’s from Dave Winer’s Scripting News, and it is bang on.

(Being in the education industry, I read eSchool News, and it always makes me kind of pause – interrupt myself – when I come across “Website” (spelled like that, with a capital W) in their print edition. Their online edition seems smarter …)

But I wonder. Could we start a New Spa Per meme?

Could we all write blog posts about it, and tag them New Spa Per and NYtimes, and see what happens? Maybe, just maybe, the NY Times would wake up, and change. Could it happen?

Let’s give it a shot!

[tags] New Spa Per, NYtimes, dave winer, scripting news, john koetsier [/tags]

Alexa is clueless, apparently

July 20, 2006

Why is Alexa so freakishly clueless about sites that link into Sparkplug 9?

I’ve never really cared about Alexa, but it seems all the rage lately among people comparing the reach of various sites, so I thought I’d check my main domain. And it tells me that precisely one site links into Sparkplug 9.

Ummm … nonsense.

According to Google, the actual number of links into Sparkplug 9 sites is “about 15,300.” Hmm … about 15,300 is not 1. Not even close to 1. Never mind not being in the same ballpark, it’s almost not on the same continent!

I repeat: how could Alexa be so clueless?

[tags] alexa, web search, google, pagerank, inbound links, clueless, john koetsier [/tags]

Monster phishing scam

July 20, 2006

I’ve had a resume up on Monster.com for years. Haven’t done much to it for most of them.

So I was surprised to get an email today purportedly from Monster telling me that I need to download some file to ensure “security.”

Naturally, the link does NOT go to monster.com, but instead to some executable file on this blog. The actual link is http://www.krazynonsense.com/blog/MProtectOne.exe. Whether the owner of that blog is an identity thief or just got his/her blog owned I don’t know. Viewing the raw source of the email, you can tell that it actually came from u15165024.onlinehome-server.com – IP address 217.160.240.148.

But wow.

I mean, how do unsophisticated web users survive? The email looks real. Has a Monster logo. Appears to come from Monster. The message is written in a credible manner (if you don’t know anything about browser security). The program name, Monster ProtectOne, sounds like something an MBA-wielding marketer would come up with.

I’m glad I have familiarity with internet scams, but my dad would click on this in a heartbeat.

I’ve gotta get him a Mac.

[ update ]

I haven’t found anything on Google about this scam yet, so I’ve let Monster know about it via the live chat feature they have on their site – very cool.

Transcript:

Received:Hello John.
Received:Thank you for contacting Monster Customer Central. My name is Sebin. How may I assist you today?
Sent:Hello, I just got emailed a phishing scam email that purports to be from Monster.com
Sent:I’ve posted the details here: (link to this post)
Sent:Please inform someone in your technical/security team
Sent:(sorry for contacting you, but this was the only way I found on your site to actually let someone know about this problem)
Received:Sure I will do that..
Received:Thank you for bringing this to our notice.
Sent:if they want to get a copy of the actual email from me, my email address is john@sparkplug9.com
Sent:you’re welcome
Received:I will get back to you with the details..
Sent:have a great day.
Received:Is there anything else I can help you with?
Received:You too..
Received:Thank you for using Monster..
Sent:ummm … no, I don’t think so
Received:Bye.

[tags] phishing, monster.com, virus, identity theft, john koetsier [/tags]

Tags are not categories

July 20, 2006

Tag clouds are great. Tag clouds are useful. Tag clouds are even web 2.0 sexy.

Why? They let you put a lot of information in a small space, while making it fairly obvious even to a newbie what’s going on, what’s important, and how to use it.

But they have a place and a time … and a size.

I skipped over to Business Blog Consulting this morning, as I digging deeper into the use of blogs in corporations right now. And their tag cloud occupies portions of 3 screens.

That’s their tag cloud, shrunk down to about 30%, to the right.

You can’t view that gargantuan tag cloud on just one page. Which absolutely murders the primary advantage of tag clouds right off the bat: instantaneous understanding of What Something is About™.

If you have to scroll, it’s already broken.

Secondly, using tags as your major navigation method on a blog is dangerous. Why? Because tags are not categories.

Let me repeat: tags are not categories.

Categories don’t change. Well, they do, but slowly, like glaciers moving. (OK, glaciers moving before global warming kicked in.)

Tags, on the other hand, are new every day. New with every new thought. New with every new idea you read on XYZ blog (someone should own that, by the way). New with every funky new web 2.0 company name that you want to link to, talk about, and diss.

So if you use them for site navigation as if they were categories, this is what you get (straight from Business Blog Consulting’s blog):

rss
rss+buttons
RSS+Industry+Roundtable
RSS+Investment
rss+marketing
RSS advertising
rss aggregators
RSS feeds
rss marketing
rss readers
rss research
rss spending
rss sucks
RSS
Survey
rss to email
rss usage

Ummm … yeah.

Not cool, not scalable, and not easy on the eyes. Since most of those tags have been applied to only 2-3 posts, they’re tiny and unreadable. Wouldn’t a simple “RSS” have sufficed for almost all of those tags?

(I won’t get into that they betray the whole concept of tags, which is that you don’t use two words for tags unless you totally, totally have to. You use the two words when you’re searching, and the searching will get you wanted. But that’s an aside.)

So: tags are not categories. Don’t use them like categories.

(Use them like tags.)

[tags] rss, tags, categories, information, architecture, blogs, business blog consulting, john koetsier [/tags]

.Net Passport is .Annoying

July 6, 2006

I wanted to comment on a MSN Spaces blog posting today. Unfortunately, it requires a .Net Passport.

Like many other Mac and Linux types, I’ve always resisted getting one … Microsoft and security and all that. But the thought struck me: I have an account at just about every other web service on the planet. Get over your prejudices and go get that Passport account.

Well. Somebody pinch me and wake me up. Identity management shouldn’t be this hard. .Net Passport is a Microsoft trademarked name that bears significant resemblance to Plug & Play: both are oxymorons.

The first stage (and yes, there are many) starts with way too much information (I don’t want to give Microsoft my email address, or create one with Microsoft) and ends with way too little: the now-ubiquitous prove-you’re-human guess what the squiggly lines mean step:

This is my second chance; I failed the first one. Wonder if I’d pass the Turing test.

That’s minor, though, compared to the next step. It’s titled personal information, and contrary to the name of this whole identity management service, it means what it says. Emphasis on the personal.

Birth date. Gender (they mean sex; there are 3 genders and 2 sexes … well, mostly). OK, I can kind of swallow those.

But occupation? Industry? Job title? Marital status? Children in home?

It seems to me that these questions have a lot more to do with Microsoft’s (or someone’s) ability to classify me as a consumer – a particular level of consumer – and market specifically to me. Sorry, not interested.

I had to cancel – and all I wanted was to post a single comment on an MSN Spaces blog.

I think this is what happens when you have MBAs designing web services. Please, please take a lesson from 37 Signals: only ask for the information you need, when you need it. You can always get more later: if it makes sense. If it’s tied to something your client wants to do.

But if you ask too much, you may not get anything at all.

[tags] microsoft, .Net, Passport, identity, Sxip, MSN, Spaces, john koetsier [/tags]

Rocketboom: maybe the blogosphere IS high school, after all

July 6, 2006

As I was shaking up my blog look and construction about half a year ago, I remember reading Jakob Nielsen’s alertbox on blog usability.

One of the things that stuck with me is Jakob’s insistence that the internet is not high school:

A related mistake in this category is to use insider shorthand, such as using first names when you reference other writers or weblogs. Unless you’re writing only for your friends, don’t alienate new visitors by appearing to be part of a closed clique. The Web is not high school.

Hrm. The whole RocketBoom breakup episode has me thinking. What if the blogosphere really is high school after all?

Think about it:

The top of the heap
You’ve got high status bloggers – A-list, B-list, whatever-list: they exist. They are the jocks or preppies or whatever the jargon-du-jour is.

Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon are among those elite. So are others who are blogging about the high-profile spat: Michael Arrington and Dave Winer.

First names, please
Dave apparently didn’t get Jakob’s memo; he’s still on a first-name-only basis:

What we know and don’t know about Amanda, Andrew and Rocketboom:

Nowhere in Amanda’s video does she say she was fired.

High profile break-up, lots of rumors
Isn’t it so high school … the cheerleader prom queen and the football quarterback break up and everybody starts talking about it.

I mean everybody. No, e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e.

Sheesh. There’s even lousy pictures drawn on bathroom walls about it.

And, of course, the other really cool guy on campus has just muscled in and started sweet-talking the now-lonely and bereft cheerleader.

Staying at mom and dad’s
And naturally, since this is high school, everyone is still living at home – even though they wish they were moving to L.A. and making it big in movies. Sure sucks to be at home:

I’m presently living with my parents in Connecticut until I can get back on my feet.

World-famous in Poughkeepsie
The world may be an oyster, or an oyster the world. In high school, it’s high school. Apparently in the blogosphere it is no different.

Earth to blogosphere: no one else knows. No one else cares.

It will end, won’t it?
Ahhh … enough of the dirty laundry.

The best thing about high school is that like all school, indeed all things, it ends.

And so, hopefully, will this far-too-public childish spat.

Please!

[tags] rocketboom, amanda congdon, andrew baron, unboomed, techcrunch, scripting news, high school, blogosphere, john koetsier [/tags]

AdWords newbie

July 1, 2006

My wife and I are thinking of redoing our roof, so I naturally turned to the web as my first place to research the project.

But why did on earth did an Australian home improvement site come up in the adwords section? I happen to live near Vancouver, Canada.

Someone is an AdWords newbie. Someone needs to learn about restricting your ads by country and region. Someone just wasted 50 cents or a buck.

[tags] adwords, geotargeting, google, marketing, john koetsier [/tags]

New Netscape: Doomed

June 30, 2006

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the New Netscape is doomed.

It won’t be successful, people won’t do what Netscape wants them to do, and Netscape will revert back to something more like what it used to be within 6 months.

Netscape is not a Digg-ish site: people can “vote” for their favorite stories. OK, that’s not a horrible idea, even if they are copying Digg and others, and trying to cash in on the whole social web meme.

But any site that starts its first page like this is doomed (see below). Instructions on how to use a web site? What were they thinking!

That in itself is the kiss of death: if it’s so non-obvious they have to put step 1, step 2, all the way to step 5 on the page, they’re toast.

Richard McManus has covered this on Read/Write Web.

[tags] netscape, digg, social media, doomed, john koetsier [/tags]

Passion in work and life

June 20, 2006

I had lunch with a colleague today. He’s young, smart, and creative … and in a job where he cannot possibly exercise all his talents.

(Kind of the way I like to think of myself!)

But he has a good-paying job. And a mortgage. And 3 kids. And a wife.

So it’s hard. Hard to take the plunge. Hard to take the risk. Hard to not settle. After all, if he has a hard landing, it’s not just him at risk.

And yet, a good-paying job doing often-interesting work is not enough. It’s not enough for him, and it’s not enough for me. There are some people who won’t settle – can’t settle.

Settling means dying, even if just a little. To settle, you have to kill your dreams, or at least shut them off, wall them up.

The colleague I had lunch with is not willing to do that. I’m not willing to do that. Someone, I think Eleanor Roosevelt, said that the biggest risk is not taking any risks at all.

The challenge is risk management.

In other words, if you’re going to take a risk outside the cozy corporate womb, have your ducks in a row. Plan it for some time in advance. Have a fairly large sum of money (12 months worth of living expenses, I think) in reserve. Then go for it.

Why?

You might as well ask why we live. Life is risk. Doing the same thing over and over, always staying within the lines, always doing the safe thing, is not life.

Life is experimentation. Life is change – without change there is no life. Literally, when you stop changing, you’ll be dead.

I want to live.

[ update ]

I just saw this article on risk-taking. It gives the following three reasons why people take risks:

the drive to transform the tension of unresolved emotional conflicts from childhood into individual expression, vindication and mastery,
the drive of a “lonely crusader” determined to challenge the group’s or the organization’s need to preserve the status quo, and
the drive of profound self-awareness and alienation: “the person (must) construct a framework of meaning that is personal rather than imposed externally.”

You know you’re in beta when …

May 29, 2006

… you’ve left the boilerplate text in your website after launching.

[tags] fortuitous, beta, launch, web 2.0, funny, john koetsier [/tags]

Premature optimization: the root of all evil

May 25, 2006

I have to post this – I ran across it again today.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

– Donald Knuth

The whole quote is actually “Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming,” but it’s much more impressive in the short form, don’t you think?

I think it’s true in a lot of settings, business processes included. Why? Optimization, by definition, makes a particular engine/application/process better at doing a particular set of things.

The problem is that when you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other end too. When you optimize for X, most often you are de-optimizing for Y, and probably Z as well.

When you do that too early … you don’t really know enough about the problems you’re facing and the problems you’re going to face to know what to optimize. You’re actually better off having a un-optimized process, running through some iterative cycles, and then optimize it once you know more.

Note:

There are cases where you do not want to optimize at all. Example: the internet. Since it is so radically un-optimized for any particular thing, it has provided an incredibly huge field of opportunity for an enormous number of applications, protocols, and uses. That’s why, for example, France’s Minitel never became anything even close to the web.

. . .
. . .

Knuth is an author and computer scientist.

[tags] donald knuth, optimization, systems, minitel, improvement, john koetsier [/tags]

ZDnet blogs: asking for your life history on the first date

May 24, 2006

I occasionally run across an interesting post on ZDNet blogs, and today I wanted to post a comment to one … until I saw the registration form.

Most blogs want just 3 pieces of information from you in order to post:

your name
your email address
your website address, if you have one

That’s it. Finished. Now you can post your comment.

That’s fairly simple, and adds very little friction to contributing to a conversation on someone else’s blog.

However, on ZDNet blogs, there are 22 separate fields or pieces of information they ask you to fill out! Unsurprisingly, most of their blogs generate only a few comments.

I understand ZDNet wants to enhance their relationship with readers (and possibly generate more revenue per visitor) but this is insane. In case anyone’s listening at ZDNet, here’s a good way to enhance my relationship with you:

Make it easy for me to begin a relationship.

Here’s ZDNet’s sign-up form:

[tags] ZDNet, blogs, comments, conversations, signups, friction [/tags]

Flickr kinda flickring in and out

May 12, 2006

I recently purchased a pro account on Flickr, and I love it. Except …

Except when I can’t upload.

For some reason, some photos just won’t upload. They’re taken with the same camera, and they’re in the same photo management software (iPhoto) as dozens of others that worked, but these won’t upload.

You can try the iPhoto uploader or you can upload via Flickr’s web uploader: no dice. You can re-save them with Photoshop as fullsize JPEGs or re-save them as smaller images: no dice.

The worst part is the complete and utter lack of feedback: the upload just sits and sits and sits, spinning, switching. Red blue. Blue red. Red blue. Blue red …

Please, please, please at least time it out and tell me what’s wrong with the image – or Flickr.

[ update ]

I used the Flickr Uploadr and finally managed to get my Photoshop-saved JPEGs to upload. Whew!

[tags] flickr, problem, uploading, photos [/tags]

Andy Grove on feeling out of control

May 11, 2006

You know the bit about the airplane being off-course 90% of the time … but it still gets where it’s going?

That’s true for business too. And projects. And, maybe, even careers. That’s what makes it kind of comforting to read this quote from Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel:

“I think it is very important for you to do two things: act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly …. And try not to get too depressed in the part of the journey, because there’s a professional responsibility. If you are depressed, you can’t motivate your staff to extraordinary measures. So you have to keep your own spirits up even though you well understand that you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Bob Sutton, author of the recently released Hard Facts, mentioned it during an interview on Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

I feel like I’ve just been to a support group or received a group hug. I mean, Andy Grove is a legend. He’s an incredibly-respected business leader and technologist. If he felt the way I sometimes feel, maybe it’s just OK. Maybe it’s not just me … and that the frustrations and uncertainties I feel while I’m screwing around vigorously.

Listening, learning, leading: onward!

Blackboard wants to Borg us

May 10, 2006

I’m currently doing some research in SIS (student information systems) and LMS (learning management systems) software in K-12 schools and colleges/universities. So naturally I’m checking out Blackboard.

I was amused to see that Blackboard’s vision includes the following:

“To enable educational innovations everywhere by connecting people and technology.”

Surely they mean connecting people via technology?

One can only hope.

. . .
. . .

[tags] blackboard, webct, SIS, LMS, student information system, learning management system, funny [/tags]