Apple, FriendFeed, and Borders

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ImageApple search Apple.com’s quick search pulldown is an innovative way to present online search results.FriendFeed Narendra Rochelle writes:I don’t know if it actually works or on what interval, but idea of sending email for notifications if “I haven’t logged in recently” is pretty clever.Borders Magic Shelf Christopher Jobson writes:Borders launched their first ecommerce site in 7 years and they feature a new heavily-visual search tool called “Magic Shelf”. Other than an unfortunate name, it’s a fun little tool, reminiscent of Apple’s methods for searching through albums in iTunes. Once you create an account you can change the parameters used to propogate potential items. Though not good as a primary search tool, [...]Go to site

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» The danger of laughing at your customers
The other day I went to sell some books at The Strand bookstore. They have a separate desk in the back for selling books. I brought in a bag and two clerks started sorting through them.Then another guy lined up behind me. One of the clerks said to him, “You here to sell books?” He said, “Yes.” The clerk responded, “Wait in the line outside.” The guy went outside.Thirty seconds later he was back. The clerk repeated, “Wait in the line outside.” The guy said meekly, “There is no line outside.”The clerk sighed, looked at the other clerk, and sarcastically said, “There is no line outside.” The other clerk said gruffly, “If you can’t figure out the line, then you can’t sell books here.” The potential seller walked back outside meekly.A minute later, a girl walked up with books. “Wait in the line outside,” said the clerk again. She walked outside. A few moments later, she was back. “What are you doing?” She said, “Selling books.” He said, “The line is outside.” She walked outside again. The clerks laughed. “Let’s see if the Mensa society out there can figure out how the line works!” And they laughed some more. As if both these customers were complete morons.Lucky for me, I had arrived moments before these other two. Because I sure had no idea there was a place outside to wait in line. Or that “there’s a line outside” actually means “form a line outside.”These clerks were clearly dicks, but I think a lot of people who work in customer service make a similar mistake in laughing at customers or making fun of them behind their backs (PEBKAC comes to mind).It can be a dangerous trap. Sure, any one customer might be stupid. But if multiple customers are repeatedly making the same mistake, maybe it’s not a mistake on their part. Maybe it’s a mistake on your part. If no one can figure out where to wait in line, maybe that’s a sign that you’re not doing a good enough job explaining it.
» Architects: 1998 called and it wants its web sites back
I’ve been poking around a lot of architects’ web sites lately and I’m thoroughly surprised at how bad they are. It seems almost without fail that they are either blowing my browser window up full size, asking me to read light grey 9px text, overflowing with obfuscatory flashterbation, teasing me with custom designed scrollbars that don’t behave as you’d expect, or asking me to evaluate their work based on postage stamp sized photographs. It really feels like 1998. I see I’m not alone in this observation.Architects have so much to gain from the web. Big huge photographs of their work, clear statements of who they are and what they believe in, easily linkable and sharable portfolio pages, daily links of interest.As it stands today, if you want to show someone an interesting piece of work you usually have to give them a step-by-step guide on how to get there: First go to the home page, wait for the countdown timer to expire, then hover over the logo, then grab a magnifying glass, then squint, then click the 4th tiny icon on the left (I can’t really tell what it is), then use that custom scrollbar that looks like an elevator, then take a screenshot, then pull that screenshot into Photoshop, then zoom in about 8 times so it’s all nice and big on your screen, then take about 10 steps back from your computer, then look.I’m only half kidding.Come on, architects, get with it! Anyone got any links to a great architect’s site that bucks this trend?
» Designing a better ballot
“How Design Can Save Democracy” is AIGA’s attempt to identify common design problems in election ballots and offer improvements.problemProblem (excerpt)solutionSolution (excerpt)More details.Is it an improvement? Sure.But the real crime here is how terrible the original one is. Looks like a bunch of lawyers trying to figure out Quark. It’s tough to have much faith in your government’s ability to solve truly complicated challenges when it seems so inept at dealing with relatively simple issues. Hasn’t this been a known problem for eight years now?!It’d also be interesting to see what ballots look like in other parts of the world.
» UI Sighting: Clear over clever on Mobile Me
I just noticed Apple changed the logout feature in the Mobile Me app UI. It used to be a power button icon. Now it just says “logout.” Another triumph of clarity over cleverness.
» Forbes misses the point of the 4-day work week
There’s a piece in Forbes called Why A Four-Day Work Week Doesn’t Work that suggests:But there are serious drawbacks. Packing 40 hours into four days isn’t necessarily an efficient way to work. Many people find that eight hours are tough enough; requiring them to stay for an extra two could cause morale and productivity to decrease. As for saving on the cost of commuting, it likely isn’t true.The article is right: More hours in fewer days is not an efficient way to work. That’s why this article misses the point.The point of the 4-day work week is about doing less work. It’s not about 4 10-hour days for the magical 40-hour work week. It’s about 4 normalish 8-hour days for the new and improved 32-hour work week. The numbers are just used to illustrate a point. Results, not hours, are what matter, but working longer hours doesn’t translate to better results. The law of diminishing returns kicks in quick when you’re overworked.Besides, very few people work even 8 hours a day. You’re lucky if you get a few good hours in between all the meetings, interruptions, web surfing, office politics, and personal business that permeates typical work day.Fewer official working hours help squeeze the fat out of the typical work week. Once everyone has less time to get their stuff done, they respect that time even more. People become stingy with their time and that’s a good thing. They don’t waste it on things that just don’t matter. When you have fewer hours you usually spend them more wisely.So don’t think 4 days means cramming the same amount of time a shorter week. Longer days isn’t the goal. Think 4 days means a shorter week with less time to get things done. And that’s actually what you want.
» Recent jobs posted to the Job Board: Obama for America, Apple, Best Buy, Zillow, Rockstar Games, etc.
Design JobsObama for America is looking for a Web Designer/Developer in Chicago, IL.Apple Inc. is looking for a UI Engineer in Cupertino, CA.Best Buy Co., Inc. is looking for a Front End Web Developer in Richfield, MN.Crain Communications is looking for an Interactive Designer in New York, NY.Zillow.com is looking for a UX Designer in Seattle, WA.TripAdvisor is looking for Web Developer in Boston, MA.Flirtomatic is looking for a Interaction designer/architect in Soho, London.HUGE is looking for a Art Director in Brooklyn, NY.Business.com is looking for an Web Designer in Santa Monica, CA.Check out all the Design Jobs currently available on the Job Board.Programming/Tech JobsBrandissimo is looking for a Senior Web Developer / Internet Jedi in Los Angeles.Teehan+Lax is looking for a Senior Front-End Developer in Toronto, Canada.Janus Health, Inc. is looking for a Web Developer Extraordinaire in San Diego, CA.Serious Business is looking for a Rails Engineer located in San Francisco, CA.OHSU is looking for a Web Applications Developer in Portland, Oregon.Leapfrog Online is looking for a Ruby/Rails Software Engineer in Evanston, IL.Rockstar Games is looking for a Web Developer in New York.Auditude is looking for a Front-end Web Engineer in Palo Alto, CA.Polar News Company is looking for a Front-end Developer in Soho, New York City.Check out all the Programming Jobs currently available on the Job Board.More jobs!The Job Board is flush with great programmer and designer jobs all over the country (and the world). The Gig Board is the place to find contract jobs.
» Compass Bank and Backpack
Compass Bank is currently running a special promotion that gives you 3 months free of Backpack Plus (normally $49/month) when you open a new Compass Business checking account.If you’re interested in offering Backpack (or Basecamp or Highrise) to your customers or members as a value-add, please email me direct at jason@37signals dot com.
» Domenico DeMarco and pizza as art
The pizza at Di Fara Pizza on Avenue J in Midwood, Brooklyn is amazing (among the best in NYC). Owner Domenico DeMarco has run the place for over 40 years and makes each pie by hand.The place is a restaurant consultant’s nightmare though: The wait for food is over an hour. Sometimes two. You can’t call up and order a pie either. You have to do it in person. Ask how long your order will take and you get a shrug. There’s a permanent line all the way out the door yet the only person allowed to touch the pizzas is DeMarco. He grows his own spices on the windowsill and cuts the basil right onto the pies with a pair of shears. Prices are double what other neighborhood pizzerias charge: A regular pie costs $20. A slice costs $5 (but you can only get one of those when DeMarco feels like it). Also, the place is a mess. No one wipes the tables after meals. Stacks of used bottles line the walls. Smoke from the ovens clogs the whole room.I’m sure if you asked restaurant business experts, they’d say he should take phone orders and reservations. He should expand to a bigger location and hire others to work with him in the kitchen. He should clean the place up and buy some nicer tables. But it’s pretty clear that DeMarco doesn’t give a shit.The freedom of small businesses DeMarco doesn’t care about experts, franchising, or expansion because he doesn’t have to. That’s what you can do when you run your own small business. You can stay small. You can create your own thing and keep it the way you want it. You can take pride in what you’re creating and oversee everything that comes out of your oven. If people don’t like the wait, they can go somewhere else. If they don’t want to pay extra for the ingredients you grow yourself or import from Italy, that’s fine. You can be a perfectionist and take as long as you want. And the customers that care about what you care about will flock to you.The reward: You get to satisfy customers and make money. But beyond that, you get to love what you do. Your work doesn’t feel like a job. It feels like art. You get to feel passion. Instead of counting the days to retirement, you keep working. Because you’re already doing what you love.“There’s no money in the world they could pay me for it” In “Charred Bubbles, and Other Secrets of the Slice,” DeMarco explains:Nobody taught me to make the pizza. You gotta pick it up for yourself. All of these 40 years, I keep experimenting. My pizza is good, because I use fresh tomatoes. They come from Italy, from Salerno. Then I started to get mozzarella from Italy, from my hometown in the province of Caserta. It’s $8 a pound, and this parmesan, it’s $12. It comes twice a week. This might have been made two days ago, or three days ago.I do this as an art. I don’t look to make big money. If somebody comes over here and offers me a price for the store, there’s no price. There’s no money in the world they could pay me for it. I’m very proud of what I do.zaHere DeMarco explains how he makes his pies and whether he counts hours:I come over here at 8 o’clock in the morning, sometimes 7, because I use fresh dough. I come from Italy, and I go back there every once in a while to see how they do it over there. They don’t throw it in the icebox. It’s not supposed to be cold dough. The fresh dough bubbles when you put it in the oven, and the bubbles get a little burnt. You see the pizza, and it’s got a lot of black spots, it’s Italian pizza. If you see pizza that’s straight brown, it’s not Italian pizza.We make the dough three or four times a day, because I believe in fresh dough. Besides, when you use fresh dough, the pizza comes out thin, not thick.We start to close at 10 o’clock, but I never count the hours, because I’m a farmer. We go into the farm early in the morning, and we go home when the moon arrives. No problem…I don’t intend to retire. But I want my kids to take over the place. They’ve got to follow me. They’ve got to follow my idea. Like I said, I don’t take the shortcuts.Pizza has become considered a fast food. This one is slow food. Anything you do, when you do it too fast, it’s no good. The way I make a pizza takes a lot of work. And I don’t mind work.Here’s a video someone shot of DeMarco at work. As a video, it’s a bit slow-moving. But I guess that’s the point.
» On the cover: Adrian Holovaty and Everyblock
Fellow Chicagoan, great programmer/journalist, creator of the Django framework, talented guitarist, and genuinely nice guy Adrian Holovaty and his Everyblock hyperlocal news and information site grace the cover of this Sunday’s Chicago Tribune Magazine. Adrian, his site, and his crew deserve all the ink they can get.
» Trust customers over VCs
Venture capitalists are glorified gamblers in the Ace-from-Casino sense of the word. They try their best to collect intel on the players, but ultimately still just places a bet. One that usually fails much harder than it succeeds. It’s the 1-in-10 blowout sale that makes sure the piano keeps playing for them while the tune goes mum for the rest of their bets.Those are potentially good-enough odds for a VC to make a decent return for their investors. Lots of VC’s can’t even pass that bar, though, and ends up net-negative for their backers. But let’s just take the guys who do make it. What’s their seal of approval worth?According to Adam from Heroku, it’s much more valuable to get the peg from these gamblers than actually having sales in the shop:When you’re doing your own thing, you have very little feedback on whether your path makes sense. You’ve got users/customers, sure. But for any random thing you might build, you’ll always be able to find some weirdos that want it, and maybe are even willing to pay for it. Whether those people represent the vanguard of a sustainable customer base, or whether they are a niche too tiny to build a real business on, is impossible to tell early on.But convincing investors of the viability of your idea – enough to place a monetary wager on it – provides early confirmation that you’re on a viable path. It may even provide some course-corrective feedback. This is why VC-backed companies tend to get more respect than non, all other things being equal. A firm whose sole purpose is predicting technology trends believes that there is a reasonable chance that this company’s product will be the next big thing.It’s funny, I have the exact opposite take from the same indicators.Blowing off real customers who use their own money to pay for your products seem like a much better, much more real confirmation that you’re doing something right than getting pegged by a VC using other people’s money to fish for 1-in-10 chances of a monster trout.To me, convincing a VC to give you money only confirms that they think your outfit is capable of having a long shot of making a big sale down the line. And that they can dilute you successfully enough that they’ll get the lion’s share of the spoils. As a confirmation of a real business? Meh.Separate users from customers to determine successI think the confusion comes from how callously users and customers are conflated. I absolutely agree that if you’re just giving away your shit for free, then interest is only an indirect indicator for possible success at best. Who knows if these freeloaders can actually be made to turn a profit? Better take the money upfront and run for the exit before you have to find out!But if you stop thinking so much about users (or eyeballs as it were in the 2000s) and start focusing on customers, the game opens up. Real customers not only confirm directly that you have a compelling product (rather than the by-proxy way of a VC), they also help fund your operation from the get-go.You don’t need outside bets to launch a web businessMost web startups don’t have high costs outside of labour that can’t be linked at least linearly (and preferably better than that!) to the growth in customers. If you need lots of servers, it’s presumably because lots of people like your product and if you’re treating your users as customers, that means you’ll be having plenty of dough to bake a profitable cake.All that being said, it’s certainly possible that being on the receiving end of a VC bet can lead you to the jackpot. The wheels in Vegas wouldn’t keep turning if some people, some time didn’t see a big bucks ringing of cha-ching. So if the idea of trusting VCs over customers appeal to you, just blow your dice and hope you don’t roll seven!
» Big companies are where startups go to die
Farhad Manjoo (who wrote a cover story on 37signals for Salon.com a few years back) is now writing for Slate. This time he wonders about the Google Black Hole.Farhad plays “Where Are They Now?” with some of Google’s recent higher-profile tech acquisitions. He focuses on mojo-having companies and products like Jaiku, Jotspot (Sites), Dodgeball, Measure Map, and Grand Central. Some of these died, some of these slowed down, some of them were still not open for new customers a year after the acquisition. Some people are wondering if Feedburner (Google), Upcoming (Yahoo), and Delicious (Yahoo) might belong on this list.The astute Dare Obasanjo wrote about this phenomenon in detail a few days ago. His Application Rewrites after Acquisitions: How Large Software Companies Destroy Startup Value article is well worth a read.Of course there have been success stories. Innovation at big companies often comes from the small companies and teams they swallow whole.But with the odds of a big-co buyout nearing lottery proportions, a good chance of neglect awaiting your product on the other side, and a “I can’t wait until my employment contract is up,” feeling lingering your every work day, I hope entrepreneurs think twice about building to flip.Related: David’s The secret to making money online talk at Y Combinator’s Startup School 2008.
» Gearheads don't get it
Years ago I read a book about guitar effects pedals. Something the author wrote in the intro stuck with me: “Tone is in your fingers.”He went on to explain: You can buy the same guitar, effects pedals, and amplifier that Eddie Van Halen uses. But when you play that rig, it’s still going to sound like you.Likewise, Eddie could plug into a crappy Strat/Pignose setup at a pawn shop and you’d still be able to recognize that it’s Eddie Van Halen playing.Sure, fancy gear can help. But the truth is that your tone comes from you.I often think of this story when people fixate on gear over content. You know the type: Wannabe designers who want an avalanche of fancy typefaces and Photoshop filters but don’t have anything to say. Amateur photographers who want to debate film vs. digital instead of what actually makes for a great photo. Startup folks that worry more about software and scaling issues then how to actually get customers and make money. They all miss the point.Aspiring podcasters consantly ask Gary V about the tools he uses. He responds:It’s not the camera that I use, it’s not the blogging software, it’s not the widgets, it’s not the SEO. It’s the two C’s: content and community…There are so many crap podcasts out there with billion dollar cameras and editing tools for days. It’s about giving from your heart with content you really understand and, more importantly, giving back to the community that supports your show. Figure out what you have to say that’s interesting and then unleash it. Use whatever tools you’ve got already or what you can afford cheaply. Then go.It’s not the gear that matters. It’s you and your ideas that matter. Tone is in your fingers.
» Olympic Inspiration
How’s this for tenacity? John Dane is 58 years old and has been trying out for the Olympic sailing team for 40 years. He finally made it this year with his son-in-law, Austin Sperry.Dane missed qualifying for the Olympics 4 separate times, each by a few minutes. He didn’t give up after each loss, he just improved his sailing skills. It would have been too easy to give up after losing one or two qualifying races. John Dane took the more difficult route and persevered.You can watch him sail with his son-in-law to hopeful victory August 15-20.(Here’s a fun video of their team practicing.)
» Root @ 37S license plate
root @ 37sMark’s new license plate! Who knew you could get an @ sign on a license plate?
» Sour Apple: How an Apple ad sets the wrong expectations
As much as I respect Apple, Unslow, one of their new iPhone 3G television ads, has me wondering how they kept a straight face when they put this on the air. Try to follow along with your own iPhone 3G:Web pages load immediately. GPS picks up instantly. Files download about 3x faster than I’ve ever seen a file download — even over wi-fi. I don’t think standing on top of a 3G tower antenna would even deliver such an experience.This ad borders on bait-and-switch and it’s disappointing to see Apple go there. If the ad wasn’t about speed it might be a different story. If they were just showing off as many features as they could in a 30 second spot it would be understandable. If they exercised poetic license and cut out a few frames to make a different point we’d understand.But Unslow is about selling speed. Speed that isn’t for sale at any price. It sets the wrong expectations. It leads to a disconnect between the iPhone in the guy’s hand on TV and the iPhone in your hand. When they don’t deliver what they demonstrate people end up disappointed.
» "No, but..." instead of "No"
We asked our new payroll service if they could mail paystubs to employees. The company rep’s response:No, but each stub is stuffed in an envelope and sealed. If you put a stamp on it, it could be mailed easily. That is what most of my clients do, when they payroll reports and envelopes arrive, they just stick a stamp on them and drop em in the mail, pretty easy.Great tone to that reply. Friendly and personal. And, best of all, it’s a “No, but…” When it comes to customer service, a “No, but you could…” is miles better than just a flat “No.”
» The need for speed: Making Basecamp faster
Some new features are sexy. They come with shiny new interfaces, extra buttons, more power. These are obvious and easy to spot. They are fun to develop and fun to release.However, there’s another side to improving a product that doesn’t get as much respect. It’s the optimization. Nothing new, but everything better. Small tweaks here, hardware upgrades there. Everything runs more smoothly but you don’t really notice it. You feel it, but there’s nothing pretty to point to as evidence of the hard work.The speed initiativeWe want to treat speed as a feature. It should be one of our best features. So, for the past few months Jeremy and Mark have been working hard on speeding up our apps through software optimizations, caching, and network and hardware improvements. They deserve a huge round of applause for the results. They’ve made a big difference.Let’s talk about BasecampWe’re rolling these optimizations out to different 37signals products at different times, but let’s start with Basecamp, our most popular product. Basecamp gets used a lot by a lot of people. It’s also the type of product that people are in and out of all day long so speed is a critical factor. We rolled out a series of optimizations this week.Some dataHere are some charts generated by New Relic that shine a light on the results of the hard work.These charts compare an hour of traffic this morning with the same hour last week. As you can see, the changes we’ve implemented have made a dramatic difference. Our overall response time was cut very nearly in half, meaning that pages are loading roughly twice as fast as they were for the same time period last week. At the same time, we’ve managed to cut CPU usage by about a third and database time by about half.How we did itThese gains were achieved using a variety of techniques including:Analysis: We relied heavily on New Relic’s outstanding RPM performance management suite to give us insight about the parts of Basecamp that were accessed the most as well as those that were most in need of improvement.Caching: We’ve begun using Memcached in a variety of spots. Caching can be tricky with dynamic apps like Basecamp since different people often see different things, but we’ve implemented it carefully where it could be used to it’s best advantage.MySQL optimizations: We’ve been working with a MySQL performance consultant to help us optimize our database calls and queries. We’re still early in the process but we’ve learned a lot so far.Hardware upgrades: We recently made some significant upgrades to our database servers. We went from servers with 2 x Dual Core 2GHz processors, 32GB of RAM, and 6×73GB 15,000 RPM SAS drives to servers with 2 x Quad Core 3GHz processors, 128GB of RAM, and 8×73GB 15,000 RPM SAS drives. We’ve also upgraded our load balancers and have new switches coming soon as well.Change you can feelWhile you may not immediately notice speed increases like you’d notice a big new feature, we think that over time you’ll see your productivity increase due to these speed increases. Less time for pages to load, less waiting for results. Everything’s just smoother. It’s change you can feel. The more you use Basecamp the more you’ll feel it.
» Enough with the USB-key swag already!
It seems that every conference I go to some company thinks it hip to use USB keys for swag. I’m sure it was hip. In 2001. Now it’s just such a waste.Especially because the keys usually aren’t even a remotely useful size. If you’re going to splurge the marketing budget on a swag key, then 256MB is just not going to cut it.I’d rather have a squeeze ball or a yoyo!
» 37signals Live debuting tomorrow (Tues) at 3pm CDT
Over the years we’ve received hundreds (thousands?) of emails asking us our opinion on this, how we’d do that, what we think of this idea or that idea. People ask about Getting Real, entrepreneurship, business models, hiring, collaboration, design decisions, tech-related stuff, questions about our products, etc.We also really enjoy the Q&A sessions at the end of our talks whenever we present at a conference or workshop. We always try to leave ample time to answer as many questions as we can. We’ve always believed live Q&A is the best part of any talk (and unfortunately there never seems to be enough time left over at the end to get to everyone’s questions).So we’ve been thinking: How can we make Q&A more a part of our business? We enjoy it, people seem to get a lot of value from it, so we should do it more often.We could certainly write more “Ask 37signals” blog entries, but it’s hard to find the time to write ‘em all up. We also seem to give better answers when we talk them through rather than when we write them down.So we’ve decided to take a page out of Gary Vaynerchuck’s book and do a 37signals Live Q&A session on the web. We don’t know how well it’s going to work, but we’re going to give it a shot.The first session will be tomorrow (August 5th) at 3pm CDT (what’s that in my time zone?). We’ll plan for an hour but we’ll see how it goes. We’ll have a live video feed and people can ask us questions via a live text chat that’ll run alongside the video.We’re excited to see what happens. If it works out we’d love to do them on a regular basis. If not, we’ll chalk it up to experience.So, ask us anything tomorrow at 3! We’ll see you there!
» 37signals Live debuting tomorrow at 3pm CDT
Over the years we’ve received hundreds (thousands?) of emails asking us our opinion on this, how we’d do that, what we think of this idea or that idea. People ask about Getting Real, entrepreneurship, business models, hiring, collaboration, design decisions, tech-related stuff, questions about our products, etc.We also really enjoy the Q&A sessions at the end of our talks whenever we present at a conference or workshop. We always try to leave ample time to answer as many questions as we can. We’ve always believed live Q&A is the best part of any talk (and unfortunately there never seems to be enough time left over at the end to get to everyone’s questions).So we’ve been thinking: How can we make Q&A more a part of our business? We enjoy it, people seem to get a lot of value from it, so we should do it more often.We could certainly write more “Ask 37signals” blog entries, but it’s hard to find the time to write ‘em all up. We also seem to give better answers when we talk them through rather than when we write them down.So we’ve decided to take a page out of Gary Vaynerchuck’s book and do a 37signals Live Q&A session on the web. We don’t know how well it’s going to work, but we’re going to give it a shot.The first session will be tomorrow August 5th at 3pm CDT (what’s that in my time zone?). We’ll plan for an hour but we’ll see how it goes. We’ll have a live video feed and people can ask us questions via a live text chat that’ll run alongside the video.We’re excited to see what happens. If it works out we’d love to do them on a regular basis. If not, we’ll chalk it up to experience.So, ask us anything tomorrow at 3! We’ll see you there!