Doing Words

In defence of the iPad I don’t yet have

// May 23rd, 2010 // 0 Comments // Hardware

I’m still waiting for my iPad 3G and another iPad (just wifi) for Boy8 and MrsBigyahu. I’ve used several; I get it, they’re going to be huge. While I wait, I’m frustrated by friends complaining that they “don’t want a huge iPhone, without the phone” or “won’t be getting one because it doesn’t have a camera.” You’re not getting it.

See, what will make the iPad successful is not the list of technologies included in the specification list. When the iPhone was launched, sceptics pooh-poohed the lack of hardware (especially the low-res camera and lack of a front-facing camera). The iPhone went on to sell millions. It was because of how the included technology was implemented, not which technologies were included.

First, Apple provided a high-quality app development toolset that allowed third-party developers to write so many different apps, not just operating on the OS but addressing the hardware in the phone in a consistent and reliable manner. (See “The best camera to have is the one with apps on it” http://doingwords.com/?p=1995)

Next, Apple provided a great retail experience for consumers and developers in iTunes Store, leveraging the iPod’s vast community of music, TV and movie customers to rapidly create a new market for iPhone apps. There’s never been a simpler, more seamless click-to-buy experience than finding and buying a new app from your iPhone. Apple knows the best way to sell iPhones is to market apps not iPhones — when was the last time you saw an ad for the iPhone itself?

I’m predicting the iPad will be an even greater success as an entertainment device than the iPhone because it’s not a compromise between a phone and an entertainment device.

It has a brighter, clearer screen with a far wider viewing angle because it doesn’t need to fit in your pocket, so it allows two people to watch a show together, read a book together, compete or collaborate on a game together. It has a 10 hour battery life because it doesn’t need to keep a 3G radio powered up and connected to a tower.

Unlike a MacBook Air, the iPad has no ‘up’ orientation — we can pass it around a table without needing to re-orient the screen or input area, making collaboration faster and more natural.

Unlike a MacBook, it’s light enough to make no significant impact on your shoulder bag, it doesn’t need a power brick to get through the day, it’s awake instantly and it’s significantly faster at all compute-intensive operations than your iPhone.

Multi-tasking? Please, the only common purpose I can think of for multi-tasking on a portable device would be polling an imap mail server while you’re reading an ebook or surfing the web, and Apple provides for that with push and pull email services. If you get an email while you’re reading, the iPad (and iPhone) will pop up a badge. Click on the badge and the iPad (and iPhone) will hold your front app in its current state and open the email for you. Other apps (such as eBay or Facebook) can access the same push notification services to push you a badge notification that you’ve been outbid on an auction item or that you’ve been tagged in a Facebook photo.

You don’t need multi-tasking to do this and leaving it out makes the device simpler to manage and preserves battery life. Try explaining to Nanna why her battery’s only lasting three hours because she’s minimised instead of quit her mail app. No thanks.

The iPad converts your next Economy plane seat to a Premium Economy seat. It makes a bus or train journey a potentially collaborative, social experience. It makes a visit to Nanna’s a chance to go through the latest family photos without having to teach Nanna a single thing about using a computer. It allows a classroom to get straight into educational play without first installing patches, removing viruses and debugging the network and printer connection.

And that’s the single most important benefit of an iPad: it puts real-world use first. It hides computing from the user. You don’t need to learn how to use it.

If you’re a geek, be proud of being a geek

// May 12th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Branding, Communication, Fun, people, Social Media, Social Media, Video

Why add polish when in today’s society, being so geeky is so credible? I love this intro video for Diaspora. Now it needs to be mashed-up into a music video for some yet-to-break indie band. Call it “OK Go Make A Social Network”.

The thought for today: when branding, be true to who you are. Customers have a seventh sense for these things.

How much is the cloud costing you?

// May 11th, 2010 // 0 Comments // platform, software

In the bright new world of Software As A Service (SAAS) our software sits on a server somewhere and is made available to us in a web browser or a client app, connected over the internet. Nobody doubts that this is the future of software, least of all me, since I’m a habitual early adopter and I would rather keep all the disk space on my MacBook Pro available for music, photos and video

That said, this bright new world comes at a cost. I’m now paying $60 a month for 60GB of data on a DSL2 connection and about $40 a month in iPhone data charges, of which a significant chunk is accessing cloud resources. But that’s just the beginning — I’m now paying about $2,000 a year in SAAS software subscriptions!

Back in the bad old pre-SAAS days, I paid about $600 for a copy of Microsoft Office. Granted, it was buggy as hell, I couldn’t access my files from another machine, and it didn’t do any of the collaborative, CRM or media functions that some of my cloud apps will do. And I should also note that a big chunk of my business is made possible by Google Apps, which I get for free even though I am apparently the only person in the world who doesn’t click on sponsored listings in search results.

Still, thank goodness the cost of cloud storage and processing is coming down so fast, because the cost of subscribing to the software is more significant than I realised. I’m not complaining, mind, I’m just thinking twice about ordering that shiny new iPad+3G because I think I just spent the money on the cloud.

The best camera to have is the one with apps on it

// May 10th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Mobile, My life

They say the best camera to have is the one you have with you. Never more true than this evening when the universe hit me with a stunning sunset as I crossed the shared cycle path across the Warringah Freeway at Neutral Bay. I certainly wouldn’t have thought to take my DSLR out with me to pickup tomatoes from the shops.

Very little trickery used here, just the iPhone in my pocket with the apps Darkroom (for minimising blurring in low light) and Tiltshiftgen (for a touch of blur, saturation and brightness).

Check my Flickr feed and you’ll see a significant percentage of my photography in the past year has been low-resolution because I’ve been taking more shots on my iPhone than my DSLR.

It’s certainly not the quality of the lens or the performance of the shutter and sensor that make the iPhone my camera of choice; it’s the programmable power of the apps I’ve installed, the fact that I can post photos direct to Flickr, Facebook and Twitter. Most importantly it’s the way the iPhone is always in my pocket, on the arm of my chair, in the glovebox of my car, and since it became my alarm clock, on the side of my bed.

If I were a futurist I’d predict in the next five years, the photography industry will be dominated by devices that have lenses and sensors, but also have SIM cards, 3G and WIFI radios, address books, calendars and browsers. Quality of lens and sensor will still matter, but quality of OS and apps on your ‘camera’ will increasingly matter more than the lens and sensor.

It may be tough for a phone maker to make good cameras, but it’s well-nigh impossible for a camera maker to make good phones. Unless you’re a premium professional brand like Leica or Hasselblad, better merge or seek to be acquired by a Samsung or Nokia. Yes, Nikon and Canon, I’m looking at you.

The future of photography is not about what happens in the process of capturing the image, it’s about whether there was a camera present at all, and about what happens to the image after it’s been taken.

Tinypay.me – quick and easy ecommerce

// April 17th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Ecommerce

Tinypay.me is a very quick and simple way to sell stuff online, if (like me) you’d rather sell in your own online store than on eBay or online classifieds.

In one way or another I’ve been working on selling products online since ecommerce was born in the first internet boom of the last decade. At first it was incredibly hard, but one-by-one the barriers to entry have been crumbling and costs have been coming down.

In Australia, only two barriers remain: the relatively high cost of maintaining a merchant account with an Australian bank, and the relatively high cost of delivery, whether by Australia Post or courier, domestic or international.

Tinypay.me in action

Tinypay.me does an end-run around merchant account fees by processing your transactions through PayPal, which means you’re subject to PayPal fees per transaction, which are relatively high per-transaction (2.4% + $0.30 AUD per transaction on transactions up to $5,000) but at least you’re only paying when you sell something. A bank’s merchant account comes with monthly fees, transaction fees and a gateway or EFTPOS rental fee.

In addition to the PayPal fee, Tinypay.me charges 5% of the total sale price. That’s much higher than I’d like to see, but you’re paying for the convenience of having the world’s simplest ecommerce setup, making it no harder than publishing a photo to Facebook or publishing a blog post.

On Tinypay.me, someone as non-technical as your mum, armed with a few product images and a PayPal account, could have a product page up and ready to sell stuff in five minutes. It has easy sharing for social media and adding a product from your Tinypay.me to a web page or blog is as easy as copying and pasting a single line of HTML.

It even allows you to put a percentage of each sale towards a charity.

Only thing lacking I really care about is support for shipping tables (and I’d like to see the Tinypay.me fee more like 2-3%). Otherwise I think it rocks.

Now, please buy a Milkooler!

No less than five completely unhelpful options from iCal

// April 15th, 2010 // 0 Comments // software, User experience

Just a small post but here it is: 1,233,522 seconds? 1,233,522 seconds? WTF? Quick, in your head, how many hours is 1,233,522 seconds? Anybody? I didn’t think so.

I’ve seen iCal do some stupid things before but this about takes the cake. What’s worse is I don’t know what I did to deserve this or what I need to do to get my hourly reminders back. For Pete’s sake.

Hey, Apple? When you’ve finished buffing your floor-to-ceiling mirrors to a flawless shine so you can bathe in the glory of the iPad, do you think you could possibly spare a couple of developers to knock some of the rough edges off iCal’s unholy seething mass?

Social Media for Social Good: can social media really make a difference?

// March 31st, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, Social Media

I’m moderating a new Digital Citizens Event coming up on Tuesday April 13th, with the theme of “Social Media for Social Good.”

Secret: I’ve never moderated at an event before (I’m usually either speaking or heckling the speakers) so this might be a refreshing change, at least for the crowd and the speakers. Please come along and heckle me — I am a large and slow-moving target.

The one frustration is it’s a topic close to my heart. I’d love to wade in with my own opinions and evidence but I hate it when other moderators do that — it’s not me you’re paying to listen to. But I’ll happy debate it with you afterwards over drinks

The evening begins with an open discussion of “what’s hot on the social web” and then we’ll get into the main topic.

If what’s hot on the social web is you, sweetie, I’d appreciate it if you could be on time.

The four speakers I’ll be wrassling are Karalee Evans, Mark Chenery and Nic McKay. We’ll then take questions and open the debate.

Bring an opinion, bring an idea, bring a question or just bring a good heckle, but please bring yourself.

RSVP and learn more about the panel.

Waiting to go on as Easter Bunny at my son’s childcare centre. A 2m, 100kg man in a bunny suit? Deep emotional scars for everyone.

About the speakers

Working as a communications and public relations professional for nearly ten years, Karalee Evans has developed successful communications models for the corporate and government sectors and most recently a not-for-profit organisation. During three years working for social good at headspace, Karalee developed and delivered a successful social media and marketing campaign (recently awarded Silver and Bronze at the 32nd International Caples Awards) focussed on advocating youth mental health issues.

Mark Chenery is communications manager of anti-poverty agency ActionAid Australia and former digital marketing journalist at AdNews magazine. He’ll be speaking about Project TOTO, ActionAid Australia’s attempt to give poverty a voice through social media tools such as Twitter and blogs, giving Australians an insight into the realities of poverty and to give poor and marginalised people the opportunity to tell their stories on the world stage.

Nic Mackay is currently the Managing Director of The Human Race, a social entrepreneur and a thought leader regarding the future of “corporate social responsibility”. He co-founded The Oaktree Foundation, Australia’s largest and most successful youth-run aid and development organisation, founded an Australian/South African non-profit organisation called Key Change Music, which is creating positive social change through music. Nic recently received the Rotary Club of Melbourne and Sir Albert Coates 2010 Young Achiever Awards.

My hunch says: don’t block people who follow you on Twitter

// March 11th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Customer relationships, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media

If you use Twitter as part of your personal or company marketing, Frances over at Edublog asks interesting questions: when potential contacts are researching you on Twitter, will they judge you by the people who follow you? Should you therefore invest time in checking your follower lists and blocking the spammers, scammers and pornbots following you? Does it reflect poorly on you if they are there?

First, my usual word of warning: nobody really knows yet.

No matter how impressive the social media guru or digital strategy expert, this is still shortly-after-dawn in the Age of Social Media and nobody really knows anything for certain yet. Social Media was born as a means of subversive online communication — it only recently and reluctantly began to bend to the will of marketers. The industry is still developing the methodologies that will one day tell us for sure the answers to these big social media questions.

In the meantime (as Quasimodo said to the archdeacon) I have my hunches. Here they are.

Please don't judge him by his Twitter followers.

Relax, don’t do it

No, I don’t think a follower list full of spambots and pornbots reflects poorly on you. I don’t think you should prune your follower lists. I believe in most cases, people will not judge you by the calibre of people following you on Twitter.

If someone does judge you on the kinds of people who follow you on Twitter, it’ll vary greatly by age, industry and nationality. You won’t find the same standards applying in Paris as you do in Texas, or between tweens and seniors. Twitter is a very international community and there’s no easy way to track location or demographics of the people who view your Twitter profile unless they also choose to follow you.

So why worry about unmeasurable opinions of people you can’t identify?

There are more productive things you can be doing

For most of us, the investment required to curate our follower list will not equal whatever return we get from having a ‘clean’ follower list or the risk we take by not having a ‘clean’ follower list. (This may not be true for conservative politicians, church leaders and captains of industry.) I have 1,700 or so followers currently and I’m not even going to try to keep so many followers in line. The spambots and pornbots will eventually wither and die from neglect if Twitter’s own anti-abuse team don’t get to them first.

You won’t see me saying this often…

Let’s take a leaf from the pages of Old Media History. If you own a television set, TV networks can’t stop you watching their programming. There is no ‘block’ button on the control panel at your local TV station. Yet the demographic composition of a TV audience is essential to the success of a television when courting advertisers.

How do they change their audience composition? Through means much more subtle and yet even more effective than a ‘block follower’ button. They use programming changes to change the content being broadcast and when it is broadcast. And they use audience research to learn more about not just who their audience is, but what sort of content they need to offer in order to reach the audience they aspire to.

What is the Twitter equivalent of ‘programming changes’? Change what you say, change when you say it. Change what you reply to, and how rapidly you reply to it. Encourage interaction with the followers you aspire to have more of. Seek less interaction with pornbots. Respond less often to phishing scams. Please, for all our sakes!

‘Audience research’ on Twitter is not dissimilar to TV: time-consuming, inaccurate and prone to erroneous conclusions. But it’s still worth a try. Pick a follower who typifies your ideal audience. Take note of who they follow and what they reply to. Mimic. Repeat.

No undo

Remember, I’m making this up as I go along, based on what I observe every day and what I can find in my hunch bag, but here’s the big take-away: I am not a fan of the ‘block’ button. If you decide to block followers who your business contacts won’t approve of, what next?  because there’s no ‘undo’.

What if you’ve just blocked someone still finding their way around social media etiquette the hard way? What if that person might have become a valuable business contact or customer if you’d just given them another chance? Even if you keep following them after blocking them to see if they turn over a new leaf, you’ve sent them a message: you don’t want them following you. It’s a small thing to not follow someone, but a very large thing to not let them follow you. There’s no undo.

No wonder TV sets don’t have a ‘block viewer’ button.

Bandcamp Defender and brand personality

// February 25th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Branding, Music, Relationships

I may have passed Physics I and Mathematics I and gone on to complete a science degree if it weren’t for Donkey Kong, Asteroids and my favourite University coffee-shop distraction, Defender. Defender was insanely fast compared to other games of the time, and one slip of the greasy, warm joystick or buttons could send you flying into a lunar mountain, crashing into an alien spacecraft or wiping out whole crowds of innocent civilians (I wonder if it was the first example of a graphically violent video game?)

With clients I’m often talking about the importance of sprinkling a little personality into all things you offer customers. Many new brand owners are too worried about harming their brand equity and won’t add any personality. Please! Unless you really want to establish yours as a brand without any personality, best to get started experimenting early, when you have relatively few customers and less to risk.

Too much personality can be bad thing, but no personality at all is always worse.

Below is a beautiful example of a nugget of personality added to a brand experience without risking any damage to the brand. Online music publishing platform Bandcamp offers some great reports and charts that’ll show you how many people have viewed, listened to and purchased music from the artists you manage on Bandcamp. For a bit of personality in an otherwise dry series of reports and graphs, if you click the right link, you get to play Defender instead. Here’s a video I prepared earlier.

Bandcamp Defender from bigyahu on Vimeo.

You stay within the Bandcamp website while playing Defender, so there’s no risk of losing the user. And these days, there’s no longer any risk of upsetting people if you manage to slide your attacking spaceship into a crowd of tiny, 8bit outlines of people. To reward the early-adopter users who discover Defender for themselves, Bandcamp deliberately didn’t make a big deal of this in a blog post or a news release.

A little bit of personality goes a long way!

Am I crazy? I think the iPad is a ballsy, feature-packed game changer in a category of its own

// January 28th, 2010 // 0 Comments // platform, Products

I’ve been very busy this week with client work, the last week of the school holidays, and visiting my wife in hospital. Lousy timing, when all I really want to do is soak up all the reportage and commentary about Apple’s iPad. I just haven’t had time. I haven’t been able to swap observations with workmates and friends. I’m half out of the loop when I’m dying to be at the epicentre. Poor me.

Even so, I can tell that much of the reaction has been negative, with many writers and bloggers disappointed about a lack of innovative new technology, about lack of 3G at launch, about delays to international availability, even about the name.

Well hell, it all sounds very familiar to me: it sounds a lot like the pundit reaction to the launch of the first iPhone. Like the iPhone, the iPad is more a case of existing technologies re-imagined than bleeding-edge next-generation. Critics at the time lambasted the iPhone’s camera as too low-res, the storage as too small, the battery life as insufficient, and aside from the multi-touch interface, there was nothing cool and new for a hardware geek to fall for. (more…)