The Value of Share Buttons

The user doesn’t come out of nowhere. We don’t land on your page and then head happily to those social networks to promote you, just because you have a button on your site. We find content through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest etc., not the other way around.

– Oliver Reichenstein, Sweep the Sleaze

Oliver makes a lot of great points in his post.

I’ve often wondered whether the sharing buttons were worth having on my site. I keep reading about how effective they are on other sites, but I think Oliver is right when he says they are a desperate attempt at gaining traffic.

Heeding his words, I have removed the share buttons at the bottom of the post.

via Shawn Blanc

Ads on Facebook Phone

I don’t think a Facebook phone is any kind of answer. It will have to be super-cheap to compete. After all, why buy a cow (a Facebook phone) when you can get milk (a Facebook app) for free? A Facebook phone looks like an expensive distraction, a war of choice.

– Brent Simmons, Ads in Your Face | Inessential

The only reason why Facebook would launch their own phone is to collect a portion of advertising dollars or in-app purchases like Apple does.

Why would a consumer choose to purchase the phone? Right now, there is no reason to switch. I don’t think the Facebook phone can compete with the iPhone’s features, and it may be difficult to convince a Google-lover to migrate to a phone that may not have Google apps available.

Facebook is going to have to come up with a reason for consumers to switch that goes beyond design, the feature set, the apps.

I think one possibility is to make the phone ad-free.

People pay good money for those premium apps to avoid the ads on mobile devices, and I think we have come to the point where people would pay to have ads disappear as much as possible. Facebook could ensure that the ads aren’t displayed on your mobile account, or the web version.

Considering that there will be a billion Facebook within 3–5 years, if not sooner, if only 1% decided to switch immediately, that would be 10 million users. At a price of $200, they would generate 2 billion dollars right away. Another tactic would be to limit the number of phones available, increasing demand and allow them to charge whatever they want for the phone.

I think going ad-free is the only shot they have at putting a dent in the other manufacturer’s pockets.

More Thoughts on Online Reading

Trying to keep up is not only impossible, but a great waste of your life. You could be spending some of that time creating, pursuing a dream, exercising, learning a new skill, spending time with a loved one, or taking a nap. Any of those would be better than trying to keep up with everything, or worrying about it.

– Leo Babauta, Beating the Anxiety of Online Reading | zenhabits

A few days after I publish my thoughts on reading online, Leo does the same.

Some of his tips are things I am actively doing, and I will continue to tweak my reading-flow as time goes along.

Copyright Holders Punishing Themselves

Through this DMCA takedown Warner requested the removal of the IMDb listing for their own movie.

But it didn’t stop there. Warner also asked Google to delist the official trailer on Apple along with the ones on Hulu, The Guardian and FilmoFilia. In addition, the studio asked for an article on BBC America to be removed along with a listing on a site that helps people find theaters to watch the movie.

– TorrentFreank, Copyright Holders Punish Themselves with Crazy DMCA Takedowns

I am glad that Google is being transparent about the DMCA requests they receive so people like TorrentFreak can raise awareness to how stupid the movie studios’ actions are becoming.

Zombie Attack!

It was a scene as creepy as a Hannibal Lecter movie.

One man was shot to death by Miami police, and another man is fighting for his life after he was attacked, and his face allegedly half eaten, by a naked man on the MacArthur Causeway off ramp Saturday, police said.

– Naked Man Killed by Police near MacArthur Causeway Was ‘Eating’ Face Off Victim | Miami Herald

I am thinking this is going to be the craziest story to come out of 2012.

The timing is a bit appropriate with all the zombie walks getting underway in the coming weekends, but that must have been a scary scene to be a witness to. And it sounds like there is the chance of video surveillance tapes being available to capture the scene.

I think if I want zombies, I’ll stick to The Walking Dead, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Baby’s First Zombie Book

Of course, if a zombie attack does happen, we will be able to visit stores like Zombie Apocalypse Store to save us.

See also: How to Survive a Zombie Attack | Doghouse

via io9

Buffet’s Thoughts on Newspapers

We must rethink the industry’s initial response to the Internet. The original instinct of newspapers then was to offer free in digital form what they were charging for in print…
If a citizenry cares little about its community, it will eventually care little about its newspaper. In a very general way, strong interest in community affairs varies inversely with population size and directly with the number of years a community’s population has been in residence.

– Warren Buffet, Letter to Publishers and Editors

Something else that stood out for me while reading his letter is to discover he reads five daily papers every day. It’s one thing if they are dailies like my city’s papers which can be read in 10 minutes, but to get through the NY Times or the Washington Post alone would be an accomplishment.

Setting aside my jealousy over the time Buffet has to read newspapers, I agree with him that newspapers need to rethink their response to the Internet, but I also think they need to heed his words about community.

I have lived in several small cities now, and the quality of the local papers has been all over the map. It is true that more people in the smaller cities care more about what’s happening in the community than in larger cities. A part of this may because the smaller cities have shorter newspapers and need to be more aware of quality than quantity, which allows people to get more interested in the stories and community.

It may also be because there are fewer options to get news from. In Whitehorse, where I have lived for nearly 15 years, there is local radio, but no real local television apart from a 30 minute segment that covers the entireity of the North[^1}. Apart from the two local dailies[^2] and the radio stations, there are no other sources for news. The newspapers update their websites, but there is no alternative websites like there are most other areas. I have a feeling this is most likely true for other cities of comparable size, which is part of the reason Buffet is targeting them.

Buffet insists that the more the people care for its community, the more they will care for a newspaper. I believe you can change that equation around and it may be even more true.

The more a newspaper cares for its citizens, the more people will care for its community.

Like other media outlets (movies, music), people want easy access to the content, and they want quality content. When I go through the local paper here, Kelowna Capital News, I am faced with more advertisements than news. The website is only slightly more accessible. In contrast, the Yukon News is completely accessible for easy reading. By coming across a cleaner website, I am more likely to pick up the paper version for a read at the coffee shop, which will help me become more interested in the community.

As it is now, when people have the option to read a paper full of advertisements and low quality content, their eyes will quickly move onto other activities that may have the same low quality content but few/no ads.

I wonder if Buffet can help these newspapers develop their quality content while still remaining profitable.

Sunday Reading, May 27th: @fabiankruse, @io9, @chrisguillebeau and #eurovision

Detroit’s population is shrinking. The city boasts 60% fewer residents today than it did in 1950, and, as we’ve seen, many of its grand buildings have been left to rot. Now Detroit Mayor Dave Bing wants to concentrate the population in a smaller area by reducing the number of streetlights and leaving nearly half the city in the dark.

– Lauren Davis, Detroit Plans to Shrink by Leaving Half the City in the Dark | io9

After reading the short article, it’s worth reading through jbradhicks comment that further explains what is happening in the city, and Bing’s plan. It sounds like Bing is a really smart man, and this is a story that I’ll want to read into further this week.

At 7 a.m. – and no later than 8 a.m. so he’d be safely out of his field bed before anyone else arrived – he’d wake up, go down to the gym for a workout and a shower, and then go back upstairs and scarf a breakfast of cereal and water or Coke. Then he’d work all day, finally waiting until everyone else in the building had gone home before returning to one of his three favored couches.
“I got a really good work ethic,” he said, “and I got in shape, since I had to work out every morning.”

Meet the Tireless Entrepreneur Who Squatted at AOL | CNet

A lot of good stuff came from that entrepreneur squatting at AOL. Fascinating story, and as kottke put it, “It’s too bad Simons didn’t keep a Tumblr of his two months living at AOL, he’d have a book deal already.”

Speaking of entrepreneurs, Chris Guillebeau shares a story from his book, The $100 Startup:

To start a business, you just need a product or service, a group of people willing to buy it, and a way to get paid. That’s it! Focus on these three things exclusively.

– Chris Guillebeau, The Decision to Go

In the same vein, there is Fabian Kruse’s article on the Digital Bohème:

If you ask Holm Friebe and Sascha Lobo, the digital Boheme can be found sipping caramel macchiatos at your local Starbucks. Instead of cudgeling their brains about how to make a living with their art, these new Bohemians just log into Facebook or LinkedIn and get a temporary job or a client’s commission in order to earn some money. But once the rent is covered, they leave paid work behind, and engage in personal projects, embracing a new kind of liberty attained through digital technology and savvy self-marketing.

This is the image of the digital Boheme created by Friebe and Lobo in their 2006 book, Wir nennen es Arbeit.1 According to them, more and more people get bored by office politics and a hopelessly oversaturated labor market – and start working on their own.

The entire abstract is a very interesting read. People like Guillebeau are pushing people in new directions to discover not just new kinds of work, but how we do work to make a living. It’s fascinating to me how young people have so many new avenues of work to explore that are limitless, and yet most are grounded in somewhat humble lifestyles. It’s worth the read, and if interested, the full article is printed in New Escapologist | Bohemias issue

All the articles about entrepreneurship and the bohemiam spirit reminded me of a tweet I saw from my brother (who is living in London, UK) Saturday morning:

 

Afterwards, I came across Leigh Alexander’s write-up of the Eurovision 2012 contest at BoingBoing:

Let’s back up: in the Eurovision competition, each nation elects an act to represent it in a pan-European competition – a sort of musical Olympics. The prize isn’t just national honor, but the opportunity to host the competition the following year. Yes, hosting nations earn essentially a four-hour advertisement for the glories and victories of their turf, as Azerbaijan showcased this year (“Land of Tea!” it promised in an interstitial, much to the consternation of my British guests) – but it’s also quite expensive. Azerbaijan built an entire new stadium, complete with all the special effects and fireworks of the post-Idol era.

– Pop and Politics Collide at Europe’s Awesomely Trashy Song Contest

I found myself stuck watching/listening to a lot of the songs, thanks to the EuroVision YouTube Channel. It’s rather different than the “normal” shows in Canada/United States (American Idol, The Voice, etc). Of course, I can’t decide which is more cruel, letting people search for the video my brother is referencing, or actually share it here.

I think we can all agree on why it won in Russia:

Thoughts on The Talk Show

Last week, John announced matter-of-factly that The Talk Show would no longer air on the 5by5 network, and would be joining the lineup at the fledgling Mule Radio Syndicate. Dan does a great job at 5by5 of emphasizing that the star of each show is who makes the show what it is. Nonetheless, Dan’s personality is unavoidably material to the mood and progression of these shows, so it’s safe to say that The Talk Show’s departure from 5by5 marks the end of an era.

– Daniel Jalkut, The Talk Show with John Gruber

When I first mentioned Gruber leaving the 5by5 network in my Sunday Readings series, the Internet was abuzz with reaction and second-guessing the motivations behind him switching networks. Nearly a week later, we have been able to listen to two full episodes of the new show (Ep 1, Ep 2), and also have heard Dan Benjamin give his thoughts about the move in a 5by5 Special. People are starting to create some conclusions on what the new show is about, while the rest are still hating on Gruber for making the switch.

Daniel Jalkut is the developer behind MarsEdit and also sponsored the latest episode of the Talk Show. In contrast to what a lot of commenters are saying (on his post, Twitter, podcast reviews on iTunes), Jalkut seems to be in favour of the move because it gets the real content away from Benjamin who was blocking the progress of the shows.

I think this does a bit of a disservice to the role Benjamin plays on these shows (including Build and Analyze, Back to Work, Hypercritical, etc). In shows like Hypercritical, Dan plays the role of the comma while John Siracusa takes a pause to gather his breath before the next paragraph. In Build & Analyze, I think he helps Marco Arment delve a little deeper into the subject, or helps clarify things for the non-developer listeners. Dan is present, without making himself seem present.

I am waiting to pass judgment on the new Talk Show for now. It has only been two episodes, and they have been in contrasting styles, in my opinion. The first episode is a bit rambling and all over the place. The second is a bit more controlled, because the guest Adam Lisanger played the role of Dan Benjamin, probing Gruber for more, getting him back on track with his thoughts, and so forth. It’s also a bit disappointing for a show that was recorded on Wednesday to be released on Friday, and include a music interlude while Gruber watched a trailer.

I do hope the Talk Show improves its production value in the future. I also hope that it doesn’t necessarily re-capture the spirit of the old show, but it discovers an identity that is better than what has been on display the first two episodes.

Leap Motion

In my short post Touchscreens, I mentioned how excited I was about the future of touchscreen and voice-enabled devices.

I kind of want to scratch all that because of this:

I had never considered that the motion-controlled systems that we have with Wii, Kinnect, etc. would be brought over to mainstream computing so quickly. The potential here is endless, and I can’t wait to see what developers do with this.

One of the best parts about it, I think, is that developers can apply and get the system for free. That’s a quick way to jump-start development for a product, instead of giving out developer phones that aren’t completely functional yet (just saying, RIM).

Check out the site for more info, or pre-order your unit today for only $70.

Leap Motion

via MacSparky

It may remind you of this:

Touchscreens

What I find incredibly exciting about this is the interfaces people who grew up with touchscreen devices design could be very different than the ones we design. The user interfaces designed thus far for touch devices are still in large part based on concepts from the PC. That will not be true for the next generation.

– Kyle Baxter, the touchscreens are coming

I’ve been watching my two yearold daughter interact with my MacBook, my Android device, and my iPad[1] and have noticed how quickly she has mastered the iPad compared to my phone and computer. To me, using a mouse and keyboard is still feels right, while using my iPad sans keyboard feels strange to me. Having bought a keyboard for it, it makes it slightly more useful for me. My daughter seems to presume that everything is touch-based. She wants to touch the MacBook screen to maneuver objects, tries to swipe on a digital camera screen, and thinks every phone is controlled through touch.

As most parents do, I think about the future she’s going to be living. Most of my thoughts have been how different her social interactions are going to be (i.e. living in a world with unlimited text messaging through iPhones or Facebook Messenger, little to no email, fewer phonecalls), but I never thought much about how she would be interacting with technology.

After reading Chuck Skoda’s post that Kyle links to, I find myself wondering to what extent are touchscreens going to grow in this world. And as touch has become more entrenched in our society the past five years, will voice enabled devices (Siri, Google’s Project Glass) become as prevelant?

It’s going to be an exciting future.

  1. In between monitoring her grabbing at anything and everything  ↩

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