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Airtime office looks amazing

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:45:00 +0200

Airtime office looks amazing

Facebook's Director of Engineering unwittingly reveals their Achilles' heel

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:17:00 +0200

Andrew Bozworth, Facebook’s Director of Engineering had this to say about an answer I posted on Quora:

“I’m surprised by this answer from you. I think what disappoints me most is that you see consuming the information shared by friends and family as a mundane waste of time. That there is so much more we could do is beyond question — we’re the first to admit it — but it takes a special kind of arrogance to declare that such a large portion of humanity could somehow be tricked into accepting such an insult. Your thoughts are usually so much more productive.”

Let me explain, if I wasn’t clear:

“consuming the information” — With three words — a verb, an article and a noun — you have perfectly demonstrated the critical bug in the system. It seems appropriate to our discussion that a Facebook engineer — Director of Engineering, no less — could so confidently cipher the intimacy of friendship into something as procedural as you have. I think it’s clear that my problem is not with my friends or family. In fact, I maintain very healthy relationships with them without Facebook. Perhaps, given your previous experience with my thoughts, you would understand that it’s Facebook as an experience and not the habits of my friends or family that I am critiquing.

Additionally, it seems odd that anyone would ever wish to ‘consume’, rather than appropriately experience their friends’ lives. I believe we all live vicariously through the people we love and admire, we bask in their stories and their grace. To somehow conclude that it’s beneficial for us to ‘consume the information shared’ by those we love via the heavily branded and advertising-conscious proxy that is Facebook is, in fact, an insult. It’s a third–rate experience.

“it takes a special kind of arrogance to declare that such a large portion of humanity could somehow be tricked into accepting such an insult.”

Let me pick just one example. 1.2 billion people smoke tobacco worldwide and it’s categorically bad for us, so I wouldn’t — ‘so arrogantly’, as you’ve put it — doubt the possibility of hypnotizing humanity. It’s possible that I’m onto something Andrew; but of course, I don’t expect you to openly agree with such a damning review of your livelihood.

And by the way, aren’t we all supposed to use our real names on Facebook?

Comment on HackerNews

Scoble being a general badass. Totally agree with him. For added emphasis, listen to this...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:10:57 +0200

Scoble being a general badass. Totally agree with him.

For added emphasis, listen to this simultaneously.

I used to draw a lot. I remember drawing this when I was about...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:41:29 +0200

I used to draw a lot. I remember drawing this when I was about 18. I enjoyed doing it so much, I should start again.

Apple! Please don't get dizzy at the top

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:04:00 +0200

Of late, Apple doesn’t feel the same, and I’m not talking about their product direction or strategy, as I’m sure they will fall into a carefully orchestrated vision for the future. I’m alluding to the subtleties of their visual output. Apple have always maintained a scrupulous design process, and rarely has something fallen through the net. For years I’ve enjoyed their meticulous attention to detail, the kind that sets them apart from any and all competition. However recently I’ve found myself noticing all the wrong details; it feels like Apple haven’t been doing what Apple does, despite what the numbers might say.

There is no denying Apple products are strangely amazing; strange in the real sense of the word, a quality so uncommon it’s unusual. Apple understands human emotions more than any technology company in the valley. They recognize users are varied and sensitive to every fine detail, but when the details begin to slack so will a users impression of your value.

Let me begin by looking at their most recent announcement, Mountain Lion. The product page is typically Apple looking, but as you scroll, it feels less and less like an Apple production.

Beginning with a single line that describes the primary product for the current page, the ‘Product Title’. When I saw the treatment of the type, I felt a difference in the production quality. Despite being styled with Apples signature gradient and shine, something was off. The lighter shade nearer the cap height of each letter is too light. I clicked around the site to see if this treatment was congruent with others, but no. It was entirely unique, as were all the other product titles. This is not the Apple I know and love.

I watched the Mountain Lion video, which was pleasant, yet the controls overlap the feature icons.

I scrolled down to the first item, iCloud. Below the first paragraph of text is an image, next to that is a small block of text, somewhere there is a grey line connecting the two. It’s invisible. I want to say they should have just changed the line to black, but no; they should have just not used linen.

That leads me to my next point. I don’t really want to talk about skeomorphisim, it’s a played out topic. We all have different opinions. Overly representative interfaces can appear tacky, ill-conceived and sometimes limited. Yet, we must remember everything we see on our screens is an abstraction of an idea, thought or concept. This sentence, the one you’re reading right now, is a representation of a real world idea. It is the ultimate skeuomorph. Naturally, the sweet spot exists somewhere between both; we must balance expectation with intuition. Apple seems to have lost some of that balance since the release of Lion; linen and stitched leather being the biggest culprits. Whether or not you like the skeuomorphic approach, you will still have an opinion on the quality of production. Again, for the most part Apple does this well, yet increasingly there are subtle nuances that irritate me, and they feel careless.

Apple dwells on the detail, they have always emphasized it’s importance, they are masters of it and it has made them the company they are today. They have made a business out of being detail orientated. If they loose any grip on this, they will be vulnerable.

Apple, please, please don’t get dizzy at the top.

This is what happens when you get hit by HackerNews.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:20:10 +0200

This is what happens when you get hit by HackerNews.

Yes, this happened.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:25:02 +0200

Yes, this happened.

Yo Zuck! What's that?

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:48:00 +0200

Zuck posted this photo last night on his Facebook Page, the text of the poster presumably implying it’s business as usual despite the S-1 filing. However, I noticed something was quite different with his Facebook. I downloaded the slightly higher resolution version and zoomed in; it seems they might be testing a new kind of Top Blue Bar. These kind of internal tests are common-place I imagine; but if this is on Zuck’s Facebook, it’s probably a strong contender.

Okay, hold up, let’s vector in and enhance the reflection on his screen..

What I gather from this is that it looks like a larger search box. Quite possibly, and logically, Facebook are pushing to make search a much bigger part of the experience. Search is something that’s totally under-realized on the Facebook platform. There is no way to search and filter content. This could bring signal to the noise. Additionally, this could be Facebook’s answer to ‘Google+ Search Plus Your World’.

Here’s a mock-up of what it could look like.

Click to enlarge

This is just speculation but I’ve got a strong feeling I’m right.

Letting my ideas mature.

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:14:04 +0200

Letting my ideas mature.

Sunset on Mars. Simply incredible.

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:33:56 +0200

Sunset on Mars.

Simply incredible.

Facebook uses another one of my ideas

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:38:00 +0200

I also had this idea back on Apr 26th, 2011

Today, January 21st, 2012, almost nine months later I find this

Am I the only one that find it’s a little bit sneaky when...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:28:06 +0200

Am I the only one that find it’s a little bit sneaky when there’s a thumbnail in your news feed that looks like a video, but when you click it, it opens a new tab to the guardian app or something. Great user experience right there.

I wish I could rename attachments from within @Gmail

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:27:43 +0200

I wish I could rename attachments from within @Gmail

Fell heavy last night

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:42:55 +0200

Fell heavy last night

Just launched Yo Dick! Implement this

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:43:00 +0200

Just launched Yo Dick! Implement this

Back in 2009, when I was a student living in The Netherlands, I...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:29:29 +0200

Back in 2009, when I was a student living in The Netherlands, I was taking a train from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. I started working on my website but I was so tired that I kept falling in and out of sleep; at one point my finger pushed down on the z key as I nodded off.

Just one of those awesome cosmic accidents.

This is an amazing documentary. It’s about the American...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:33:00 +0200

This is an amazing documentary. It’s about the American open road and the wanderlust of it’s travelers. It reminds me a lot of when a couple of friends and I went traveling across the united states; and at 1h 30mins, its slow pace allows you to appreciate the American expanse. A must watch!

Twitter Classic™ Beautiful, wasn’t it?

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:19:33 +0200

Twitter Classic™

Beautiful, wasn’t it?

Sandroid.

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:27:44 +0200

Sandroid.

I resent the Facebook 'Like' paradigm

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:27:00 +0200

Back in April 2010, following the spawn of the Embeddable Like button Zuckerberg announced they expected 1 billion likes across the web in any given 24 hour period. At the time, Facebook had just 400 million users.

Today Facebook enjoys 800 Million users; I’d guess, very conservatively, that Facebook processes about 2 billion likes a day now.

This is where it gets depressing..

Let’s say it takes just 1 second to click a like button.

2 billion likes per day * 1 second = 2 billion seconds per day.

2 billion seconds equates to… wait for it… 63 years.

24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for 63 years. 1 Like, 2 Likes, 3 Likes, 4… and so on for 63 years.

In most cases it takes much longer than a second; never mind the notifications you’ll continue to receive if there is the slightest degree of activity on the liked content.

Yet here we are celebrating it’s creation.

What were we thinking?