11 posts
Yesterday I was at 2-Screen 2011 organised by Mint Digital.
One of the key things that stood out for me was what Russell Davies said about big screens being for sharing and small screens being personal.
Dextr, one of RIG’s ‘second screen’ projects, for example, is meant to be big; it could be a great accompaniment to what you’re watching on the telly even. It’s quite pointless if you try using it on your phone, though (I’ve tried).
There's a lot being written about Klout at the moment, people for it and against it. Most of the discourse seems to be about how the score is generated and what 'influence' in this context means.
Klout scores are generated from levels of social networking activity, and Klout says this equals social influence - which in a very blunt way it does. It's true that your score is a measure of engagement but it's a very crude metric that needs careful qualification.
The problem is that people don't read it like this, because Klout feeds a very human tendency we all share by fueling our instinctive self-regard, insecurities and narcissism.
Image by Flickr user laihiu courtesy a CC license
Here is a list of stuff that I thought was interesting that I sent round the office today. Perhaps some of you will find them useful too:
Will Amazon's Silk browser really prove a threat to Apple? The company also says privacy isn't a concern with Silk's new split architecture.
In December 2009 I wrote this thing about TV Apps and how great it would be to have an app ecosystem for Connected TVs. Now there are habsolutely loads of them - Samsung, Boxee, the ill-fated GoogleTV (RIP), the embryonic YouView and even Apple (somewhat vicariously through iOS) are all trying to pull off the App Store model. Unfortunately, it's all a bit shit at the moment.
Unfortunately, right now we're still not seeing a single platform successful enough to make this really exciting for designers and developers. In advance of such a happening, I'd like to provoke some debate about things that might be important when designing apps for the TV.
I'd love to know your thoughts on these and welcome any additions.
In March, Isaac brought Tilly to the office for the first time. (Obviously, she has her own Twitter account: @strategydog)
She's a Weimaraner. That's a big hunting dog bred originally by aristos for hunting. Very beautiful, quite unhinged.
Wikipedia notes that:
Weimaraners are high-strung and often wear out their owners, requiring appropriate training to learn how to calm them and to help them learn to control their behavior. Owners need patience and consistent, firm yet kind training, as this breed is particularly rambunctious during the first year and a half of its life. This breed is known for having a penchant for stealing food from table and counter tops whenever given the chance.
That's certainly my experience. Yesterday, she urinated on me from the mezzanine floor.
And yet, despite all this we all love her, and it has been a genuinely brilliant experience to share the office here in London with this dog.
Wow, I've never experienced this feeling before.
Facebook have done something cool. The new Timeline profile page is phenomenally well designed - almost magical compared to what was there before.
As some of you know, we’ve been working with Skype on Skype in the classroom, a community for teachers and educators, for a few months now. In the time since it was launched formally in April, it has grown by leaps and bounds: we now have more than 16,500 teachers who are collaborating on more than 900 projects across the globe.
Yesterday, we released the most recent set of new features to the service, which we are very excited about.
Well, we're about half-way and we've got over 30 projects - with more coming forward every day, and now starting to launch 'live', public sites.
Please have a look through the SlideShare deck below. Check out the projects from individuals and companies all over the world. We still need 17 projects (and we're obviously not going to suddenly stop at 50). The hard work of raising a million quid starts in just over two weeks...
A while ago, Nicki was preparing a presentation for SheSays and she asked me for my take on where good ideas come from.
Working with potential users introduces an element of chaos into the creative process. By bringing in this foreign element you set the scene for serendipitous discovery.
A wonderful debate is raging. Can agencies make stuff? Stuff like products and services, that is, instead of ads. Or put another way, as London-based freelance mobile UX designer Murat put it:
“Do clients and agencies want to keep creating branded fluff or do they want to build temples?
