Applying Analytics to Print Magazines

Ratings

2 of 5 stars
What’s this?

It might seem like I’ve been bashing print publishers a lot in recent blog posts, but I don’t think they’re doing everything wrong. If nothing else, they’re learning smart lessons from their experiences in digital media, as demonstrated in this article that discusses publisher Hearst’s initiative to apply Web-like analytics to their print products:

“…Hearst held a competition to see who could build a better analytics model to predict newsstand sales for magazines. It’s a Netflix Prize-like approach to figuring out how well a magazine will sell at a given location, based off historical sales data. There were more than 700 participants in the competition, and last month Hearst and the Direct Marketing Association awarded a team US$25,000 for their formula, which generated magazine sales estimates that were nearest to actual newsstand figures. ”

Smart and savvy. Read more here.

Jump to this link

+

Listening to What Movie Lovers Have to Say

In my post from earlier this week about the drawbacks of Blu-Ray, one of the points I tried to make was that all of the extras that Blu-Ray discs provide really amount to very little of interest to me and, I would guess, to most consumers — especially if they cause the total user experience of Blu-Ray discs to be slow and problematic (they do). Contrary to what the entertainment industry believes, most of us can easily live without all the deleted scenes, interviews, outtakes, trailers, and commercials disguised as documentaries — to say nothing of the uniformly dismissable interactive features and supplemental content that Blu-Ray makes accessible over the Internet.

What matters is the movie itself, the core content. If you don’t believe me, you can believe Netflix. Through their success they’ve inadvertently proven that the concept of “DVD extras” is hardly a necessary component of providing good entertainment. Their discs-by-mail service treats a two-disc movie release (one for the movie itself, one for the extras) as two different rentals, and so it’s probably safe to say that very few people go to the trouble of renting that second disc. And of course, their streaming service offers up no extras at all and has proven to be a big hit nevertheless.

In an age where entertainment journalism is so popular and when everyone is interested in the backstory of practically every movie, regardless of how good the movie itself is, it’s interesting to me that extras can be regarded as so inessential. But they really are, and user experience designers across all media would do well to keep that in mind. Cherries don’t sell sundaes.

Continue Reading …

+

Verizon Monologue

Over the past dozen years or so, I’ve used mobile phones on the AT&T, Sprint and Verizon networks. Of them all, AT&T’s service has been the worst, but it’s much better now than when I first tried it in 1998. By no means am I completely satisfied with AT&T, but I spend little time lamenting its shortcomings.

On the other hand, my experience with Verizon’s customer support — in the years just before the iPhone debuted — was by far the worst of any of the three carriers. The worst. I found them unhelpful, often rude and sometimes even hostile. They also seemed to operate under a set of corporate rules that seemed decidedly unfriendly to customers. I disliked every minute of my time with Verizon, and I was glad to be rid of them.

So I just hope people who have been anxiously awaiting the now-real Verizon iPhone are greeted with a revamped customer service experience, that Verizon has turned a leaf and found a new focus on making life easier for their customers. In any event, I’m going to stay with AT&T.

Continue Reading …

+

iPad Magazines Go to ’11

It’s still too early for me to say “I told you so” about iPad magazines, but nevertheless I think it’s worth pointing out that the current evidence shows that this format is not doing well. The Audit Bureau of Circulations, which is sort of like the Nielsen of the print magazine industry, reported that sales of magazine apps across the board, from Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair and others, slumped precipitously towards the end of last year. More on the specifics in this article from paidContent. The bloom is off the rose, I think, and the reality that people just don’t like to consume magazine content in the monolithic, issue-centric form that these apps take has caught up with the irrational enthusiasm that we saw in 2010.

Continue Reading …

+

The Evolution of the Batmobile

Ratings

3 of 5 stars
What’s this?

A genuinely entertaining information graphic from, of all sources, CarInsurance.org: this exhaustive inventory of the many, many designs of the Batmobile over the years unearths a fun history most of us probably never suspected existed.

There are dozens of iterations here, and maybe what’s most interesting about the vast majority of them is not so much how each design reflects the ideas of its particular time (they do), but rather how little imagination is really at work throughout this long string of reinvention opportunities. The Batmobile is a blue-sky design brief if there ever was one, and yet time and again, these designs are little more than a mildly interesting variant on the notion of a hot rod or muscle car — basically the kind of ride a middle-aged guy buys when he gets divorced.

The exception, and the notable standout, is the “tumbler” design produced for Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.” This Batmobile is not only a novel departure from what came before, but it was actually inventive enough to inspire a real world tank design from a military contractor. Honest.

See the full, very, very tall graphic over at my friend David’s Mlkshk page.

Jump to this link

+

Blu-Ray Blues

It’s been about a decade now since DVDs first became the default delivery medium for movies and I’ve been trying to remember exactly how buggy or inconsistent the earliest DVD players were. I remember vaguely that some discs wouldn’t work with some players (especially DVD-ROM drives built into computers), but as best as I can recollect, I never had a problem playing a single disc. Or if I did, it was just one out of countless discs I’ve owned, rented or borrowed. For me, DVDs have always just worked.

Not so with Blu-Ray, the would-be successor to the DVD format. I was lucky enough to get a Blu-Ray player for Christmas a year ago and when it works, it works great. I can pop in a Blu-Ray disc and watch a movie in beautiful, luxurious high-definition, revealing all sorts of details in my favorite movies that I’d never been able to see before. But it has not been a painless experience. The player has been frustratingly, consistently buggy, making the act of watching a disc needlessly difficult.

Continue Reading …

+

Solid State Drive Upgrade for 2008/2009 MacBook Air

Ratings

2 of 5 stars
What’s this?

Owners like me of the previous generation MacBook Air know that while they’re great computers, they’re plagued by slowness (unless you were smart — and wealthy — enough to opt for an SSD at purchase time). Other World Computing is offering new SSDs that will substantially increase the performance of these machines, as evidenced in the shootout comparison video. I’m tempted to do this myself, as the prices are not too outrageous. Pricing for the highest end model, 480 GB, has yet to be released though the 240 GB already runs US$580, so you can imagine the larger version will cost you nearly as much as a new, current-generation MacBook Air.

Jump to this link

+

Local Tundra

Local Tundra

Old and polluted snow from Ft. Greene Park, Brooklyn.These different textures — all found within a few hundred feet of one another — looked to me like some kind of alien world. Taken with an iPhone 4 this morning.

+

Thoughts on Performance Reviews for Designers

As last year came to a close and I was taking stock of the many things for which I’m grateful, the fact that I did not have to write year-end performance reviews for staff members was near the top of the list. Managers know what I’m talking about: that annual (or even semi-annual) ritual of summing up months and months of of an employee’s performance nuances in a single document. In many organizations, they a standard part of the manager’s job, a tool intended to engender productive teams, keep people motivated, and check against lackluster performances. In theory.

When I was at The New York Times, writing reviews for my staff was among the most painful parts of my job and a nontrivial downside of the holiday season. As much as I enjoy all the excitement and cheer and vacation time of December, I always knew that reviews would be due in January. In order to get a jump on them I’d need to start them in earnest in the midst of all that holiday excitement.

For each review, I’d have to solicit feedback from at least a handful of the staff member’s peers. With that input, I’d then look back on a year’s worth of work deliverables and, if I had been particularly conscientious, any notes that I might have made about how that staffer had done during the course of the year. At The Times, there was also an understandable if burdensome emphasis on distilling all this feedback into eloquently worded narratives, not just simple lists of bullet points. It was all very time consuming and very, very, laborious.

Which isn’t to say that I saw no value in the process. On the contrary, the reviews I received from my own superiors were by and large thoughtful, constructive and (usually) timely. They offered me insight into my own performance that I don’t think I would have had otherwise, and they gave me an opportunity to course correct in areas where I’d been neglectful. I was very grateful for those reviews, for how respectful they were of my own efforts, and I did my best to pass on similarly constructive criticism to the people who worked under me. It was hard work, and I’m sure I didn’t always succeed, but I tried.

Continue Reading …

+

Sifteo Game Cubes

Ratings

3 of 5 stars
What’s this?

A novel idea in digital entertainment: Sifteo cubes are small, playful computers with full-color displays that wirelessly connect to your computer. The cubes are aware of one another’s presence and react differently based on proximity, arrangement and motion. They’re designed as a platform, so they can run a number of software games from Sifteo and presumably from third-party developers in the future. In a way they’re like consoles (albeit far less powerful than most) that have been freed from the console form factor.

It’s a great idea, especially for kids because they’re not just another screen. I haven’t gotten to play with the cubes yet myself, but in theory the fact that they’re highly touchable objects that are intended to be continually moved around gives them a physicality that’s entirely absent in the delicate nature of consoles, laptops, desktops and even tablets. That’s a small but important step forward in how we interact with digital media.

Unfortunately, Sifteo warns that the wireless dongle can pose a choking hazard for small kids and that “very rough handling may damage or destroy” the cubes themselves. The recommended minimum age for these toys is six years old, which makes my daughter, who is all of sixteen months, too young for them. It’s a shame because they really seem perfect for her; she responds viscerally to all manner of digital toys. Read more here.

Jump to this link

+