aiaio - alexander interactive

Picture perfect

2008-08-07T11:24:00.004-04:00

This morning we gave a first-round design presentation to a client. In order to accommodate all participants and scenarios, we used three computers, four screens, one projector, and a GoToMeeting remote setup, all to show a series of visuals.

Unsurprisingly, every screen looked different. The projector washed out lighter colors and gradients; the widescreen LCD's robust color was dwarfed by the projected image; the folks watching via remote had a smaller screen area with a too-high "fold."

All of which serves as a reminder that visual web design remains an incredibly difficult medium. Colors wash, screens change length, text rendering shifts, scripts and cookies disable: any number of challenges stand between a designer and the effective presentation of designs.

Ai's developers pride themselves on pixel-perfect page outputs that stay true to our visual comps. But even perfect execution does not eliminate the vagaries of millions of users' screen resolutions, color depths, and personal settings. The level of user control that we celebrate online also creates an incredible set of scenarios that, despite 15 years of advancement, still requires clever compromise and broad acceptance.

The nascent mobile revolution will only add to the complications surrounding online presentation. It's a tough job, but fortunately a fascinating one.

UX Critic: tin

2008-07-31T13:54:00.003-04:00

Coca-Cola is test marketing new aluminum bottles. I was handed one on Fifth Avenue today by a promo squad.

To Coke, this must be genius: better branding of their iconic bottle, with lower shipping and breakage costs versus glass, and a handsome visual appeal. The majority of the market is already drinking its soda from aluminum cans, anyway.

But to me, it's the inverse of the ideal: I'm drinking soda with the usual tin-can aftertaste, in a lesser form factor. The aluminum bottle has neither the lightweight flexibility of plastic nor the squat sturdiness of a can.

Curious: am I in the minority on this? Certainly Coke could have a big success on its hands, since people are used to aluminum and the design is a novelty. But I don't see the long-term advantage.

Scrabble, Scrabulous and Passion

2008-07-29T14:07:00.005-04:00

OK, so I fully understand the copyright implications behind the bald-faced ripoff that is Scrabulous, and owner Hasbro's insistence that its violators cease and desist, which led to the Scrabulous Facebook app going offline. What I don't understand is the way Hasbro is going about its business.

Why, if Scrabulous is so popular, has it been unable to forge an agreement with its creators that leverages the traffic?

Why did a lawsuit get Facebook to shut down the app, while the standalone Scrabulous site continues to chug along unabated?

Why, after many months of legal wrangling, did Hasbro choose yesterday to get tough with Facebook directly?

Why wouldn't Hasbro get its own Facebook Scrabble app out of beta, and check its scalability, before the Scrabulous C&D overwhelmed the Scrabble beta, knocking half a million Scrabble players offline?

In other words, why is Hasbro alienating its users?

Scrabble has a fanatically devoted consumer base. People play competitively, casually, asynchronously--however they can play, they will. Alex used to play via text renderer before the graphic apps launched; I play EA's stupid Scrabble iPhone app that doesn't have a good competitive setting, even though I lose by 150 points every game. A friend of mine taps (tapped) into Scrabulous continually throughout the work day.

Point being, people love their Scrabble. They played Scrabulous simply because it was the best option on the market. With their platform knocked offline without a viable alternative, 500,000 devoted Scrabble fans are flat-out livid, and their devotion is being tested. The same people that love their game have pushed the official Facebook app to a 1.3/5 rating, and the discussion board is full of anger.

Hasbro could have been a hero: test its app's scalability, make streamlined play, and invite Scrabble fans to play on the authentic platform when it was ready for broad release. Only then should they have shut down Scrabulous, forcing people to make a comfortable transition. Instead, their users have lost faith. It will be interesting to see how long their disillusionment lasts.

Update: Apparently the official Scrabble app was hacked yesterday. Which is appropriate. Also in this article: "Analysts say the blow-back from Scrabulous fans, although painful now, will probably be temporary." Which is probably true, and somehow disappointing.

Ai on email best practices

2008-07-24T12:50:00.003-04:00

I wrote an article for iMedia Connection that was published today.

5 ways to avoid common email blunders is--well, the title sums it up nicely (thanks guys!). It's a bit of practical advice for the many companies who may be running mailing lists without considering the big impact of little details.

I hope to publish regularly in iMedia Connection and elsewhere and will be sure to cross-link any posts from this blog.

Update, July 28: my article was picked up by shop.org the day it was published, and appeared this morning in their top-5 "most clicked" list. I'm pleased to see such widespread interest. Look for essays on similar topics on the Ai blog as well as elsewhere.

Knowing better

2008-07-17T11:41:00.004-04:00

I keep staring and staring at the quote below, which is deep inside an article on New York City's new calorie law. Chain restaurants now have to post caloric information on their menus, giving consumers new--and abrupt--information on what they're eating.

A Starbucks barista revealed his customers' habits thusly:

Some people actually tell us we should take off the labels, because it discourages them from ordering what they want. But I think honesty is the best policy.

Can I say that again? Some people actually tell us we should take off the labels, because it discourages them from ordering what they want.

Think of the logic that goes into such a request. People are more comfortable ordering unhealthy foods when they can deceive themselves into forgetting the drawbacks. I really want that piece of pie. I know it's probably not good for me, but heck, I deserve it, so--d'oh!--what do they mean it's got 900 calories? I can't order it now! If only I didn't know how bad it was for me, I'd have been fine!...

Does the average consumer think that pie is healthier when he doesn't know the calorie count? Probably not. But at least he can pretend that it's something less than it is. Posting calories not only bares the ugly truth, it removes the sheen from the guilty pleasure, turning it into pure guilt.

One more time: Some people actually tell us we should take off the labels, because it discourages them from ordering what they want.

One could argue that New York City has overstepped its bounds in forcing these posts, much as it insisted on banning trans fats in city kitchens last year. Yet this is a terrific example of the benefits of representative government: sometimes, what the typical person says is desired is not necessarily the right answer.

This theory holds true in many areas. Seat belts, for example. Raising taxes to pay for schools. Homeless shelters. The electoral college (not that it saved us the last few times around, but I digress). It especially holds true here: the city has found a way to subtly improve public awareness and, over the longer term, general health. And it has done so with a law that runs against personal preference.

This philosophy applies to user experience design as well. Here, too, the effect can be subtle. But consider the difference between giving the user what he wants and giving the experience that best suits his needs. The effect can be extraordinary.

Heroes and Influences

2008-07-16T10:26:00.004-04:00

Last post.

I am going to be moving on, leaving Ai in the capable hands of the excellent people who work here, and this blog in the hands of David and whoever else he can pull into it. Instead of blathering on about tech, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk for a minute about my heroes and influences.

There are a few pivotal figures that taught me a number of critical lessons. These people influenced me and have shaped my thinking about life, career, people and the universe in general. They are a disparate group, and at times seem to have little in common, but each one has brought a unique perspective and insight into their particular slice of life.

Lets start with the parents, of course. My Mom taught me about compassion for other humans, and taught me at an early age that "I can do anything I want in life" - proving that it's possible to teach freedom.

My Dad taught me about ethics and principles, and how to work with groups of people. He also bought home a dumb terminal with a scroll of paper attached to it, with which he proceeded to call up the DEC-10 at his work, to let me play the dungeon game that ran on it there. I was immediately eaten by a Grue, and my life changed forever.

Claudio Adolpho Iedwab, South American martial arts champion, and the creator of the Gorindo School, taught me about true excellence and how its possible to push one's self to new heights. He also taught how its possible to be scary good at something, and yet humble and friendly.

John Harris, band manager, concert promoter, deal maker, and founder of the Harris Institute, was the first person to teach me about business, leadership, and negotiation. Introducing himself as "someone who has never held a job", Harris has built an enduring legacy around him, touching the lives of scores of professionals in the Canadian music industry.

James David Smith, hardware guy, self taught, self made, my former employer and later business partner. Runs a business that makes remote controlled lighting equipment used on Broadway. Also, ever see the scrolling signs on the Toys 'R Us store in Times Square? Him. Ever see the scene in Phantom of the Opera where the stage seems to be on fire? Him. He is the kind of person that will casually teach himself trigonometry as he needs it. Jim taught me about entrepreneurship, and the incredible power of following through on a great idea, and making it happen.

And finally,

Alex Schmelkin and Josh Levine - founders of Alexander Interactive. From them I've learned about consultative sales, about maintaining a culture that is both fun and excellent, but most importantly about having the courage to recognize when it's time to change the way they're doing things, and then swiftly moving on implementing that change. This commitment to continuous improvement, (instead of clutching ideas the way so many people do), is one of the things that distinguishes them in their industry, and in the world of business in general.

I thank them for the opportunity to work with them, and with all of the other great people at Ai. I'll miss you guys.

UX Critic: the iPhone 3G Purchase Experience and Firstness

2008-07-14T13:20:00.006-04:00

My wife bought an iPhone 3G on Friday morning. To do so, she had to have a friend sweet-talk her way into cutting a long line at our local AT&T store. My wife then took home a partially activated phone and, like everyone else, waited hours to get it to work.

Much has been written about the botched iPhone activation process surrounding the 3G/2.0 launch this weekend. But the entire experience of buying an iPhone is bordering on broken.

Apple generates extreme amounts of hype for its products, and the gotta-have-it nature of its launches creates untenable demand curves. This leads to a scarcity effect that, for Apple, has been hugely beneficial in its promotional efforts, and in its bottom line.

How should the user experience of first-day demand be viewed?

To hard-core fans, buying an iPhone is a singular thrill, complete with risk/reward and time/money trade-offs. Scoring an iPhone on Day One gives a person bragging rights, an invaluable perk atop the value of the phone itself.

The millions of iPhone buyers that don't want this experience are stuck waiting until the hype dies down. But despite their disinterest in the crowds and lines, they probably don't want to wait.

The iPhone appeals to Americans' overwhelming desire to be first to experience something. Movies generate nearly half their box-office sales the first weekend; albums' biggest sales come the week of their debuts. (Internet geeks know this feeling all too well.) This now applies to, of all things, a cellular phone, as I myself experienced last summer. (Full disclosure: despite my continued criticism of iPhone trends, I remain a satisfied iPhone owner who bought his phone on Day Two last summer.)

But scarcity and "firstness" can combine in ugly ways. To wit, my wife's friend cutting a long line to get a coveted phone within hours of its release, a scenario which no doubt occurred elsewhere. This leads to even greater frustration for those waiting on line, and whose firstness is being usurped.

Layer onto this the technical problems Apple experienced. How does it feel to purchase a brand new, unusable phone? To be forced to open a sleek device and remove its SIM card just to make phone calls on an old phone? For some the first-day difficulty dissolves into the background as the satisfation of the iPhone UX takes hold, but for others the memory, and dissatisfaction, remains.

And don't forget the basics. AT&T has not worked out a system for transferring SIM card data into an iPhone, so lengthy address books are obliterated, requiring immediate data entry. And the iTunes paradigm creates multiple payment paths: to AT&T for phone services and to Apple for everything else. Perhaps it has to be this way, but it's an ungainly system for users who want to analyze their usage patterns and costs.

This is not to say that the iPhone isn't a masterful device (it is) or that Apple could have done much differently (besides staggering the 2.0 software rollout, not really). It's simply an observation of the sociological effects of consumer demand, and the potential drawbacks of immersing oneself in said demand.

Remember, when all is said and done, it's just a phone.

Biker gang

2008-07-08T10:31:00.001-04:00

One of the fun things about being a small company with a hang-loose mindset is basic office flexibility. Among other things, this has led to a good amount of commuting by bicycle.

In a city where millions are encouraged to ride bicycles, then aren't given anywhere to put them, Ai welcomes cyclists right into the office, where the concrete floors and century-old radiators make for ideal short-term bike storage.

We have one hard-core daily biker and several other occasional riders, including this author. On any given morning, people seated near the service elevator open the door several times for a cyclist and his gear.

Bicycling to work is good for everyone: it's healthy, non-polluting, and takes bodies out of the transit system. It also fosters a little community of riders in the office, some of whom meet and ride in together every now and again.

Life at Ai: healthy and fun! Like the office foosball table....

Imagine This

2008-07-06T09:46:00.011-04:00

Imagination is a scary word in business. It raises images of finger painting and story time. It threatens business people with the onus of being creative - a place that may be out of their comfort zone. There is a constant search for repeatable formulas that can be brought to bear on business decisions; formulas that relieve business from the necessity of periodically re-examining the fundamental assumptions the form the foundation of their day-to-day activities.

Imagination, however, is the critical ingredient in business success. Imagination:

Allows one to see past the existing context, the ideas and assumptions, that form the foundation of the many day-to-day activities of business. This is creative destruction.
Allows for perception of the larger environment - the big picture. This shows the fundamental market and societal forces bearing down on the business.
Allows for a synthesis of a new context, one that is more in alignment with the larger environment than the old context.

Let's look at each of these phases. For each phase, we'll see the both advantages of success and the risks of failure at that phase:

Destruction of Context

In the destruction phase, imagination means the act of questioning "Does this make sense?". It is a periodic re-examination of the fundamental ideas and assumptions, the context, that provides a foundation for the every day activities that occur within the business. It can be difficult to not get so mired down in the details of the day-to-day that this questioning process never occurs. Furthermore, it requires great courage to admit that the existing context no longer works. This phase can be unnerving, because at its beginning there is a working context, and at the end there is not.

When destruction of context is achieved, there is a realization that the current context requires re-thinking; that it is not really a fit for the larger environment any more, and that sooner or later, clinging to the existing context will bring serious negative consequences. Destroying the old context clears it out of the way, allowing for a space in which new ideas can take hold.

If the necessary destruction of context is not achieved, whether through lack of perception or courage, then the organization risks being stuck in its ways while the world passes it by.

Seeing the Big Picture

Once one starts to question one's existing assumptions, it is time to look at the world and to try to determine what is going on. Again, this is a fundamental quality of imagination. Seeing the big picture can be accomplished by looking at a number of events over time and recognizing the underlying pattern, or it can be done through examining other industries and drawing parallels. In any case, a recognition of the larger environment means that an understanding of the fundamental forces bearing down on the business can be achieved.

When one is unable to see the big picture, then one doesn't understand the reasons for the long term success or failure of their business. This lack of knowledge can lead one to believe that the status quo will last forever, or that the environment is completely random - neither of which are true.

Synthesis of a New Context

Finally, in light of the perception of the greater environment, the final phase of imagination is to create a new context - one that is more in alignment with the prevailing winds of the world. A working context is essential in order to be able to get anything done - we need assumptions in order to operate.

Frequently this synthesis requires a cognitive leap - a new way of seeing things, to take the place of the destroyed old context. This is imagination at its purest.

Even if one can achieve the first two phases of the cycle, if one can't synthesize a new context, then there can be no plan to deal with the world. Ideas and assumptions form the foundation on which plans, goals and tasks are built.

Imagination is the bridge which takes people from one context to the next, so that they are able to deal with the fluid and changing world around them. Leadership draws from imagination: it is the act of bringing other people across that bridge with you. Together they form the long-term mechanism of survival in business.

Update: new iPhone pricing plans

2008-07-02T11:13:00.006-04:00

AT&T has officially detailed its 3G iPhone pricing, and it's actually a bit worse than I noted last month.

The cost of data has gone up $10/month, as previously discussed. What I forgot to include was the loss of free text messaging--current owners get 200 SMS messages included in their $20 data plan. Now those 200 texts cost an extra five bucks.

Redoing the comparison, what I had outlined as

Old: 399 + (24 x 20) = $879
versus
New: 199 + (24 x 30) = $919

is, for users interested in the same level of access, actually

New: 199 + (24 x (30 + 5)) = $1039

Sure, the price increase includes the upgrade to 3G service, which can rightly be considered a premium. But the pricing strategy feels almost bait-and-switch-esque in its execution. They're trumpeting a $200 savings in the price of the phone, yet users are paying $160 more for usage.

Ironically, what is classified as a win for the mobile phone industry--Apple's moving to a subsidy model to make its prices more attractive--ultimately leaves AT&T with a horrible jack-up-the-prices publicity nightmare on its hands.

See you when the third-gen comes out in '09.

Update: AT&T is not raising data rates on original iPhones with new activations, suggesting that the 3G network is the justification of the price bump. Well, that and the fact that they already made their money on the profit split of the initial iPhone sale.

Switcher Angst

2008-06-24T14:30:00.007-04:00

Apparently switching operating systems isn't easy. Besides the issues that people talk about (Can I run my apps? Is it faster? Is it better?) there are all sorts of personal identity issues tied up in the operating system one chooses.

(Pausing a moment for full disclosure: my personal operating system history, in reverse order, is Mac OS X, SuSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, Windows 9x/NT, Mac 6/7/8/9, TRS-DOS, PET, and whatever happened to be running on the DEC-10 with the dumb terminal and the roll of paper. Also there have been a few side-dalliances with FreeBSD and Win 2k.)

Initially I didn't think of an OS as a separate entity from a computer. It was just part of the computer, what showed up when I turned on the old TRS-80. We can thank Microsoft for making us think of the operating system as a thing in itself, other than an inherent attribute of a computer.

At the beginning of the 90's I started to work on Macs because that's what was going on in the music world, where I was operating. This was about when Windows 95 came out, and in retrospect it was a pretty dark time for Mac. People were crowing about how Windows 95 eliminated any need to get a Mac. They really took it personally.

(A couple of years later, I abandoned the Mac because I was getting into Java programming, and the Java runtime sucked on the Mac. Macintosh Runtime for Java. MRJ. I remember it well. Bleh.)

Working on the Internet led me to discovering UNIX. I wanted it. I suddenly came to the realization that the Internet was really a UNIX-centric place. UNIX and the Internet just seemed to go nicely together, in a way that Windows simply did not. I downloaded the super-cool, incredibly indie Red Hat distribution (wow, times have sure changed) and pretty soon was installing it everywhere, including on my IBM laptop.

Fast forward to more recently - when Mac OS X came out, and I realized I could have UNIX on my laptop, and all of the shiny Mac stuff (including commercial audio production software) all on one OS.

Now I've never used XP much, and don't have an opinion about Vista. Apparently some otherwise happy Windows users don't like Vista. The complaints I'm hearing are along the lines of "too slow, fancy UI chrome doesn't actually enhance usability, security features drive me insane" and so on.

One of the biggest sins seems to be that after 5 years of nothing from Microsoft (and during the course of many, many OS X upgrades), Vista simply wasn't as jaw-droppingly amazing as it should have been.

Well for whatever reason, a number of people I know, who were previously staunch Windows users, are bailing. But they're bailing under protest. They hate the idea of being part of the herd, and joining those dirty hippies in the cult of Mac.

The idea that one's consumer habits are part of their identity isn't terribly new, but it is kind of fascinating for me to watch people struggle with reconciling the apparent conflict between the technical and user experience benefits associated with switching to Mac, with the danger that they'll become yet another latte-swilling zombie, wandering aimlessly under the influence of the mighty Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field tm.

To which I say: folks, its all temporary anyway. Apple makes the best stack right now, but someday they'll get knocked off by something easier, faster, more powerful and yes, sexier. And then you'll find me switching. And I won't be losing sleep over it.

UX Critic: photo stamps

2008-06-20T16:10:00.007-04:00

Editor's note: today marks the first of our UX Critic features, where we'll be giving rapid-fire critiques of multiple players in a single industry vertical. Today we start with online photo-stamp creation, for soon-to-be obvious reasons....

One of the subtly fun developments of the online era is the introduction of photo stamps, where individual consumers can custom-create official US postage. Having started and stopped a few years ago, the segment has commoditized nicely, with even the US Post Office offering its own online and offline stamp-creation tools.

This writer, having recently had a baby, and having been sent by the new mother to buy stamps at the post office and found a fairly abysmal selection of 42-cent stamps, decided to make his own. (The original image can be viewed here; the stamp snapshots are included below.)

First stop: Zazzle, the popular custom printer. Zazzle's online tools are easy to use and extremely fast. I was able to upload multiple images, move and size them with ease, and compare multiple images atop each other. Their discount pricing model kept costs reasonable ($12.95 a sheet for 10 sheets of 20 stamps). I liked the 24-hour turnaround time. But the large ZAZZLE.COM imprint on the stamp turned me off, so I kept looking.

I next went to photo.stamps.com, the official outlet of the US Post Office. But their stamp layout, a large square, didn't serve my image well. (It should be noted that zazzle.com seemed locked into a horizontal layout--not useful for vertical images.) The site required registration for anything beyond basic image positioning, so I was unable to compare pricing without going into the FAQ--they turn out to be $14.95 for my quantity. They also don't ship for 3-5 days.

Last stop: yourstamps.com. Their site identified my image as horizontal and created a layout that matched--nice! They had custom borders and designs--nice! But they don't have discount pricing, making my order nearly twice as expensive ($18.95/sheet) as stamps.com and Zazzle. Worse, the site logo switched twice midstream, from Fujifilm to Cooper Imaging and then to Epixel, making me nervous about placing an order there. Finally, the site needs 7-10 days to process orders, even for local pickup. Too many negatives despite the visual appeal.

In the end, despite that ZAZZLE.COM imprint, their site had the most compelling offer. They gave the best price, layout, and turnaround time, and their tool was a cinch to use. Even a few of these would be good differentiators; having them all on one site is a real victory for the Zazzle team.

Fire From the Gods

2008-06-19T09:46:00.009-04:00

Can lightning strike the same place twice? Can we get some more angels to dance on this pin? How about re-creating the PC demand explosion on another hardware platform, hopefully resulting in the same wealth creation that coincided with the PC revolution?

Hm. I think I'll take the angels. Looks easier.

The 90's was filled with venture capital firms looking for someone to be the next Microsoft. The effect of that particular tornado was so wide and so long lived that most people lost sight of what an anomaly it was. People kept making business plays based on creating an equivalent to the PC explosion, while glossing over the fact that the odds of doing so were quite a bit worse than winning a lottery. In a lottery, at least someone is guaranteed to be the winner. It could be a long time before something like a new hardware platform explosion occurs again.

Let's look at the forces that combined to create the original Intel-based IBM PC Clone + MS Windows market explosion:

Rapid standardization of business on an open platform (which was open by accident: it was based on the PC reference specification put out by Intel)
A proprietary product (MS Windows) was attached to the explosion, but only because it was a significantly undervalued part of the supply chain. No one had thought seriously about an operating system for a computer as the high ground in technology before then.
A radically open platform for application development. For a retail-level offering, there was a remarkable lack of centralized control over what you could run on top of it. You didn't need Microsoft's, IBM's, or anyone's permission to write an app.

Alone these factors would have been significant, but together they created a firestorm that is extremely rare. In fact, a firestorm that is practically impossible to re-create. What everyone now knows is that IBM screwed up. To let these factors coincide is against the basic instinct of business, and it wouldn't have occurred in this case if IBM had understood properly what was happening, and had executed properly.

So in an environment where key players in an industry are not massively screwing up, the conditions to create the firestorm just don't happen. Fire does not get stolen from the gods.

In the business world, people keep wanting to use the razor blade model. They catch the customer and then extract recurring fees. This is the way that game consoles, cell phones, cable tv and so many other things work. This can be a great way for a business to make money, but it essentially guarantees that the firestorm and the associated wealth explosion will not occur.

I started thinking about this topic when I was speaking with a co-worker here about his Zune. (Yes he has a Zune. He's the only person I've ever met in person with a Zune. Actually he owns two of them, a black one and a coveted brown Zune.)

Initially Microsoft's response to the iPod was to initiate Plays For Sure - an attempt to re-create the firestorm. The idea was Plays For Sure was a program in which Microsoft supplied the software and independent manufacturers supplied the hardware. The plan was that they would displace the iPod just as they had the original Macintosh.

But relying on re-creating the firestorm is a weak bet. Not surprisingly, it didn't pan out, and Microsoft abandoned the strategy (screwing their Plays For Sure partners in the process) and released the Zune instead. An integrated, closed, offering instead. The Gods continued to keep fire to themselves.

The consumer cost of the iPhone

2008-06-10T14:34:00.006-04:00

Everyone is all abuzz, as they always are, about Apple's latest product news, in this case the $199 3G iPhone. As expected, the focus is on the price: $199 for an iPhone! What a deal!

Yet it's not that great a deal. The entry price has been lowered but not the true cost. Of course, Apple and AT&T know this; it's the foundation of the cellular industry, and AT&T Wireless is happy to exploit it here.

Full disclosure: I am a wildly satisfied iPhone owner. I'm not buying the new one, though, in part due to the economics. Here's why.

The current (now previous) iPhone cost $399 for the device and $20 per month for a required AT&T Wireless data plan. Over the life of a two-year (24-month) contract, the total cost of ownership amounts to

399 + (24 x 20) = $879

This number excludes taxes, regulatory fees and marginal inflationary adjustments, but it's an accurate gauge of what Apple and AT&T get from the consumer across two years.

For the new phone, the price drops to $199, but the monthly data fee has risen to $30. Sounds small, but over the course of two years, guess what?

199 + (24 x 30) = $919

By the end of two years, total cost of ownership for the new phone is actually higher for the half-price iPhone. Apple managed to get monstrous press coverage of its $199 price point with little mention of the data charge, which substantially affects the equation.

Now, I'm obviously simplifying a conversation with many other variables. (For example, over two years, "real cost" including inflation and float may benefit the monthly plan; people who renew contracts in less than two years have altered ownership costs; etc.) But my point is simply put: list price and true cost are not the same, and the 3G iPhone is no cheaper than its predecessor.

Putting Your Web Site in the Cloud

2008-06-06T17:14:00.008-04:00

How many CPUs do you have?

One of the most interesting changes to the web in the last couple of years is that computing hardware is moving beyond mere commodotization and into the realm of the metered service. Companies that formerly would have had to heavily invest in hardware (and the associated system administration costs) in order to deploy web sites are beginning to have a viable alternative: cloud computing, available in various flavors such as Amazon's EC2, Slicehost's virtual machine based hosting, or quick set-up hosts like WebFaction.

Instead of buying hardware to host your website, it is now possible to rent computer time at any capacity level. This allows businesses to essentially pay for only the computer power they need.

This is great, but implicit in this is that we need to change the way we build web applications. What is rapidly becoming the predominant hardware paradigm (via cloud computing) for web applications is in a direct disconnect with the technologies that we're using to build them.

It has to do with how many CPUs (processors) the technology can handle.
The approach-du-jour in web apps is rapid development through frameworks that take advantage of powerful, dynamically typed languages like Ruby and Python. These frameworks allow people to build web applications very, very fast.

However, these languages are executed in runtimes that are not SMP (symmetrical multi-processing) enabled. In other words, the runtimes can only handle one processor at a time. There are numerous hacks in the web development world to get around this, mostly involving running multiple instances of the runtimes. However problems creep up - the well known scalability problems that Twitter has encountered have their roots in these issues.

So up on the bleeding, ragged edge of web development, we're starting to look at alternatives from other industries. In the telephony world they've had to deal with these kind of scalability and reliability issues long before we were around, and they have some pretty impressive solutions.

Erlang, developed by Ericsson, is a language and runtime created from the ground up to live in an SMP world (originally its "cloud" was telephony equipment). There is a famous Erlang app which claims nine nines of reliability. That's 99.9999999% uptime, or a few seconds every 30 years. Way more than any website needs.

Unfortunately, Erlang is, well, kind of weird. People coming from said Python or Ruby background will have to re-learn some very fundamental approaches to problems, and that's not going to be easy. In fact it might not even be possible. Fortunately, Erlang compiles to bytecode (similar to the way Java and Python work) meaning that its possible to write a different compiler and perhaps uses a different language on the Erlang runtime (called BEAM).

So just today I noticed, (in what is clearly a really, really early incarnation) - a little project called Reia. Its pretty raw now, but it purports to be a Python/Ruby-like high level language that compiles to Erlang BEAM format, giving it all the SMP-loving, fault-tolerant and distributed goodness that comes with Erlang. I don't know if Reia is the winner, but I feel pretty confident that creating a friendler programmer interface to the Erlang runtime is a winning proposition.

SaaS and Appliances

2008-05-30T14:26:00.008-04:00

Want to be able to use Google to search your corporate intranet? You can sign up with it as a service, letting its spiders crawl over your side. Or you can buy their hardware. So the product range takes an interesting leap from a remote hosted service, to a piece of rack hardware.

Noticeably missing is the middle-ground of shrink-wrap software to be installed on your own hardware. This is a significant departure from the way software used to be sold.

This is the end-game of hardware commoditization at work. Against the price of developing and marketing software, the cost of hosting the app in some off-the-shelf hardware is pretty minor.

Compare the cost of hardware against that of installation support. Imagine if there was an installable "Google Intranet Search" product, designed to go onto a server run by the IT department. Well, first off, there would have to be a version for Windows, because some companies are Microsoft-only shops. That means at least two platforms to support. And then, now matter how fast and easy installation was, there would be a deluge of installation support calls coming in, because someone has the wrong version of the operating system, weird hardware or a conflicting application. This can get expensive.

The alternative is simply to bundle a computer with the software. This guarantees that the software is always installed on an appropriate operating system, with the appropriate hardware. It also dances around IT Department requirements for tech stacks, such as "we only support Microsoft". Generally with appliances the operating system is hidden away from view (it's usually Linux, but it doesn't matter). The IT Department is simply told - "there is no operating system for you to support - just turn on the box and run the setup wizard".

Put this together with software as a service (SaaS) and you have a pretty good offering. You can offer your app in basic, pro and enterprise flavors, or you send them a box. The software vendor doesn't waste nearly as much time with installation support and the customer doesn't have to maintain the software.

The Web Cycle

2008-05-27T13:05:00.002-04:00

Whats hotnewwebsite.com?
Are you on/do you use hotnewwebsite.com?
We're building the hotnewwebsite.com for our obscure niche.
Whats hotnewwebsite.com?

(Apologies to the "hollywood cycle" of which this is an obvious rip-off.)

UX in the world of food

2008-05-23T12:33:00.002-04:00

Some user experience examples I've seen lately, all while eating and drinking:

Good: JambaJuice's queueing system. Unlike Starbucks, where one has to remember what the heck one ordered, then scan the baristas as they call out your drink (me: "tall caramel frappuccino light no whip"), if Jamba Juice has a wait, the cashier asks the buyer for a name. That name gets put into the order system, so the Jamba Juice drink preparers look at the screen, and say, "David?" Only after they've identified me do they check that they've made the right drink.

Bad: These pizza boxes with ads on them. Good for the advertiser, and fairly innocuous on the consumer end, but a terrible thing for the pizza parlor.

I got lunch from a place that handed me one of these boxes today. I then brought it to a conference call, where my coworker so loved the look and smell of my lunch that she got a slice for herself. But did she go to my pizza joint? No, because when closed, my pizza was from Blockbuster By Mail Get Discounts On In-Store DVD Rentals. A good marketing opportunity wasted.

Good: The widespread adoption of CRM systems at local restaurants. Thanks, no doubt, to the success of sites like OpenTable and SeamlessWeb, the majority of restaurants in Manhattan keep computer systems that maintain lists of phone numbers with addresses attached to them. Now, when I order a meal from a usual spot, I don't have to reiterate cross streets or apartment numbers; my phone number is all they need to identify me.

Bad: Styrofoam plates and cups are still routine with many of my deliveries. We need more green delivery.

Good: The just-right chewiness of Ricola Breath Mints.

Bad: Those breath mints' side effects.

F3 so far

2008-05-23T11:21:00.002-04:00

Some time ago at Ai we started running an experiment that eventually became called "Fuss-Free Fridays", or F3. The core of the idea was that we wouldn't allow meetings to be scheduled on Fridays (barring emergencies), thus ensuring that people would have time in which they could be assured they could get work done. We gave people the "right of refusal" for Friday meetings.

Here's what we've learned so far:

Creating "protected" time zones is great - during the course of the week it's possible to segment my tasks in a way that I can direct them towards the part of the week that is the most appropriate for them. If I find something that requires a long uninterrupted period of time then I tend to shoot it towards Fridays.
For me there's an additional reduction of stress involved in knowing I'm not going to be interrupted. Some things require deep concentration, and when I get pulled out of that it drives me crazy. F3 protects this.
One unintended consequence is that its made the other four days of the work week very meeting-heavy. I guess that's because we're compressing 5 days of meetings into 4 days. That makes some days (like yesterday) back to back meetings.

Some people complain that "F3" is dead whenever a meeting gets scheduled on a Friday. But that's not the point: Fridays are now meeting light, providing a protected zone of high-productivity time during the week. And besides, there's bagels when I come in in the morning.

UPDATE: Another side effect of F3 is that Wertheimer and I keep posting on the same day.

More on recruiters (say it fast)

2008-05-16T12:13:00.008-04:00

Ai is currently hiring a user experience lead to add to its UXD resources. (We're hiring a freelance IA, too... email me if you know anyone for either position. But I digress.)

I have gotten an unsettling amount of recruiter contacts in the days since we posted the job ad. Most of them are polite enough, and I turn them down, politely. This is nothing new; Loren and I have a long history of frustration with muscle-in tactics.

But I occasionally get inquiries that just blow my mind. Consider this, which came to me via LinkedIn, which is usually a good place for targeted communication:

While Linked In is a great resource, it cannot give you access to the most elite talent in the Internet arena. We can. Our difference is that we aggressively call directly into your top competitors and leading firms in your field to source candidates who are among the top 10% in your industry.

Holy smokes! Here I am, trying to wisely use networking to extend the reach of my job ad. And I get a networking reply that suggests I use them to cold-call the competition until they unearth some good candidates.

Underneath the letter was some marketing copy, equally flabbergasting:

* Aggressive cold call recruiting.
Our recruiters make 150 or more calls per day. We directly call into your competitors to recruit the top 10% in North America.

The company promises quantity and quality! I was still working on the math behind that one as I read the last bullet:

* We work exclusively for you.
The candidates we recruit are exclusively yours, and we will never send someone we recruit on your behalf to any other company.

Somehow it's hard to believe that a recruiter with hard-nose tactics like these won't be sharing what little bits of successful entry it finds with every client it recruits.

I suppose there are employers out there who employ, and enjoy, these tactics. But I'm not on that list. (I wonder if I'm on the call list, though....)

Starbucks: Opportunity Cost

2008-05-09T09:34:00.002-04:00

With the return of the prodigal Schultz, Starbucks seems to have made the choice that it's about good coffee, and not necessarily fast coffee. To that end, they dump their coffee (which was in a thermal carafe to start with) every 30 minutes, whether its been consumed or not.

As a consequence it seems like they're always out of coffee now. Every time I get up to the front its, "sorry, we're brewing a new pot, it will take a few minutes". What? This is New York City! Not some laid back fish market in Seattle! I need my caffeine fix NOW.

But they've made their choice. They will not be slinging coffee as fast as possible, in order to assure quality.

(No if they would just purchase more coffee brewer machines and stagger the brewing frequency they could have it both ways, but never mind...)

Opportunity Cost

2008-05-08T12:03:00.006-04:00

You have to focus. Doing one thing really, really well is infinitely better than doing many things merely adequately. That means selectively choosing which activities to engage in. This is true whether it's a business or a private individual doing the choosing.

In business, doing everything ensures mediocrity. This rule seems to hold true regardless of the size of the business. As companies like Yahoo and Microsoft have found out, as they try to find new horizons to conquer it becomes difficult for them to maintain the compelling nature of their original offerings. Additionally, people have a hard time accepting the company as a business that exists outside of their original space. For example, most people view Microsoft as an operating system and office suite company, or at least a maker of desktop and server applications. Far fewer think of them for their online offerings, such as Office Live or MSN.

I hear a lot of ideas for Internet start-ups, and I see a lot of people making the mistake of trying to do everything. It's gotten to the point that when I hear a pitch for a business that contains a bundle of the currently hip buzzwords ("social networking" is the term du jour), I instinctively start to wonder if there's a real idea in there. It's just too easy to start building an Internet business without establishing the business part.

Sometimes this comes from start-ups comparing themselves to established businesses. They assume that they have to launch with all of Amazon's e-commerce features, all of Google's search capabilities and all of Facebook's social networking features. Not only is this a way to wrack up an enormous development bill, but it won't particularly serve the start-up in the marketplace. The Internet rewards great new ideas, or at least ideas done in a great new way.

So the secret is to not do everything. Strategically choose features not to implement, business areas in which not to engage. If your core idea is good then you'll have a foundation on which to build, and if it's not then all those additional features won't save you anyway.

Tracking Distributed Art

2008-05-07T17:01:00.001-04:00

A while back I had mentioned I was making a recording, collaborating over the Internet, with my old band. I've started a blog on Tumblr where I'll be tracking that project, in case you want to follow it. The blog is called "The Sound of One Amp Exploding", and can be found here: http://oneamp.tumblr.com/.

Sports Museum of America

2008-05-07T09:54:00.002-04:00

The long-awaited Sports Museum of America opens to the public today.

It is an experiential place, full of tangible exhibits and games. One can hold Alex Rodriguez's baseball bat, compare the weight of an Olympic javelin and shotput, and do skill tests in cycling, skiing, rowing and--most interesting--Nascar pit crew.

SmA is an Ai client, and a few of us had the pleasure of attending their opening night gala last night. (I posted a few photos after the event.) Having toured the museum firsthand, I can confirm that it's great fun for any sports fan. We expected to just poke around during cocktails but wound up spending more than an hour reading, watching and playing.

Congratulations and best of luck to the Sports Museum of America and its founding team.

The auto opt-in

2008-05-06T09:31:00.003-04:00

I have been surprised in recent months by the number of ecommerce sites that have defaulted to opt-in upon completion of a purchase.

Opt-in is, of course, supposed to be a voluntary and user-defined action. But it hasn't been that way for me as much as it used to.

As consumer spending slows, retailers, anxious to retain traffic and minimize customer acquisition costs, are taking steps to reach out to shoppers that fit their profiles. And what better way to do that than by hitting up previously converted users?

Interestingly, the sites that have opted me in recently are not uninformed small businesses; they're major corporations with major legal departments, all of whom should presumably know better. Among the offenders:

Barnes & Noble, where I haven't shopped since 2007
Citi, for a credit card that gets less than $1000/year in charges
Home Decorators Collection, after a recent purchase (a Home Depot subsidiary)

Have you been spammed--I mean, opted in--recently? By whom?