bentsoapbox

"I mean, it’s not like I write just to hear myself talk. (Well, okay, I do write just to hear..."

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:41:40 -0600

“I mean, it’s not like I write just to hear myself talk. (Well, okay, I do write just to hear myself talk. But after I’ve heard myself say something once, I’m bored with me. Short attention span. I don’t need to hear me say it again.)”

- The Online Photographer: Blog Notes: Hyperlinks Are Our Friends!

Just a hunch

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:29:52 -0600

From my Twitter account. (Remember, bottom is first).

My Backup Strategy

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:04:00 -0600

My laptop has two internal hard disks. A 320GB traditional hard disk drive, and a 60GB solid state disk drive.The OS and applications exist on the latter, my home folder on the former.

Local Backup — Both drives backup nightly using SuperDuper to a local hard disk connected via USB. This clip from Dan Benjamin and John Siracusa’s new podcast Hypercritical captures why I trust SuperDuper! more than any other piece of software I own.
Essential Files and Pictures — Essential files are all of my documents and JPEGs of all of my pictures. These are all stored in a paid Dropbox account, which gives me online backup, versioning, and access from any computer anywhere (referral link). (In addition these files are backed up locally as seen in number one).
RAW Photos — I shoot in RAW, which takes up considerable space. Once RAWs are processed and exported as JPEGs to my Dropbox, I move the originals to an external drive that is backed up immediately to an identical drive. These files are not currently stored in an additional offsite location, and is the biggest current hole in my backup strategy. That said, at worst I have JPEGs stored on my main computer, main local backup, and on Dropbox.
Music — My MP3 collection is stored on my computer, which means it is backed up locally. The full collection also exists on my old iBook, which is connected to the TV and has its own local backup. Finally, the vast majority of my MP3s are backed up on Amazon’s S3 service. That said, I am too lax in keeping this updated.

Here is a visual representation:

This may sound and or look complicated, but in reality its quite easy to keep updated. The first key is Dropbox: it backs up everything I do instantly. It’s awesome. The main effort on my part is plugging in an external drive each night before I go to sleep. SuperDuper takes care of the rest. In return for this small amount of effort, I get the following benefits:

1) Local, bootable backups of every file on my computer. In the event of a hard drive failure, I can be back up and running in less than two minutes (Mac OS X can boot off of external drives, but it would be trivial to install my backup drive into my MacBook Pro).

2) Cloud-based, up-to-the-second backup of every file that matters to me, with versioning. It is difficult to overstate how wonderful Dropbox is. The practical effect is that I can be up-and-running on any computer in the world in less than 15 minutes.

3) Local and cloud-based backup of my media, and local backup of my original RAW files.

So why go to the effort? Those who have lost data know why. In March 2005 I tipped over in my chair and my then-brand new iBook hit the floor, destroying the hard drive. I lost all of the data I had accumulated in the three months since I had bought it. From that day on I swore never again.

Data loss is not a matter of maybe, it is a matter of when. Backing up should not be optional; the massive convenience that comes from having all of my files available everywhere is simply a happy side effect.

On Apple

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 02:25:37 -0500

For those that haven’t heard, I will be interning at Apple this summer, and thus, this will be the last Apple-related tweet or blog post for at least the next 12 weeks. This is most unfortunate, as I can scarcely remember a year in technology as momentous as this one has already proven to have been, and it will shock you to know I usually have strong opinions about such things. Therefore, I wanted to use this last Apple-related post to comment on three of the biggest Apple-related news stories and highlight why I’m so excited to be working in Cupertino.

3. iPad (the Products)

This, of course, is an obvious one, and the reason why most people like Apple – they make amazing stuff. But the funny thing is, when you ask someone why they like their Mac, or their iPod, or their iPhone, many have a hard time articulating just what it is that makes it irreplaceable. There’s no better example of this than the iPad, a device that seems superfluous at best, pointless at worst. What can you do that can’t be done on a regular computer, or even an iPhone? And, if you only consider functionality, the answer is not much. But when you consider use cases, the iPad becomes obvious - more and more people use their computers for entertainment (1), and the iPad is the first computer designed explicitly for entertainment (2). Of course it is superior for that increasingly common use case. Just like the iPad is superior for listening to music on the go, and the iPhone is superior for truly mobile computing. Each of Apple’s products is carefully attuned to and designed for user needs, not feature lists, and that’s what produces such strong brand loyalty. This sort of design-thinking is a philosophy I hold dear, and I am extremely excited to see it in action.

2. Flash (Think Different)

Considering its reputation for breathtaking advancement, the technology industry can remain stuck in the past for an amazingly long period of time. Heck, there are computers sold today that still have parallel ports! In so many cases it has been Apple that has been willing to break with convention, shipping the first computer that required a mouse for interaction, the first without a disk drive, and now the first without Flash (not to mention a phone without buttons!). From a business perspective, Apple has consistently differentiated itself in ways different than price, and targeted a certain segment that appreciates a quality user experience and that values their time, again, at odds with most of the industry. So many tech companies get their inspiration from other tech companies - Apple gets it from users’ actual needs.

In this, the idea of thinking different really gets back to the same philosophy that informs their products - human-centered design. Apple ignores the tech pundits, the commenters, and the fanboys, and makes what normal people, who have better things to do then post on Techcrunch, actually want. Consider something like copy-and-paste. Sure, it was late to the iPhone (oh, the angst!), but what wasn’t late was a fantastic user experience (iPhone 1 was arguably the greatest version 1 product in history). And, when copy-and-paste was added, it augmented that user experience, making it even better. Contrast that with certain competitors who simply add features that are half-baked at best, actively detrimental to the user experience at worse.

3. iPhone v. Android (Change the World)

There is so much that goes into the current battle between Google and Apple, currents that run far deeper and go back far longer than Google – or even Apple, for that matter – has existed. It’s why talk of being “open” or “closed” is far more complicated than it seems, and why who is right depends on your point-of-view.

Thus it is true, that from a developer or an expert user perspective, Android is more “open.” There are more choices in languages, platforms, and installation sources. But this “openness” comes at a cost: poorer performance, especially in critical functions like battery life, a greater chance of malware, and too many choices in both handsets and OS versions. These are not small things, especially from the perspective of a normal user who is not a developer or advanced user, and has no desire to become one. This user already hates their PC, and the last thing they want is another computer to manage and worry about. Instead, they want to write, or create music, or photograph, or do any number of things that capitalizes on their unique talents. They need a tool to help them do whatever it is they want to do, and if you look at the platforms that way, I would argue it is the iOS platform that is far more open. It enables you to take advantage of what is most definitely a computer without any of the headaches that have prevented the vast majority of people from using their computers to their full capabilities (3), headaches that are the flip-side of the very sort of features that, if added, would make iOS more “open.”

To look at the issue in such a way, from the perspective of normal people and with an appreciation of their unique talents waiting to be unleashed (as well as their unique pain points) requires a mindset that that must reside deep within a company’s culture. And so, while there are many fantastic clips of Steve Jobs speaking (4), my absolute favorite clip is from right after he returned to Apple, when the company was at its nadir:

The (slightly-edited) transcript:

For me, marketing is about values. This is a very noisy world and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us. Our customers want to know who is Apple and what is it that we stand for. What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well. Apple is about something more than that. Apple’s core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe.

Changing the world does not happen because one person, or one company, decides to do so. It happens when millions of people pursue their passions with tools that magnify their unique talents, and the iOS platform with its explicit removal of what to geeks is “openness” but to most is “annoyance” comes the closest to being that sort of tool of any technological platform in history. Apple, today more than ever, is enabling people to change the world.

There’s still a big part of me that has a teacher mentality (5). I’m a natural maven, all too eager to share my knowledge, and I love being in the classroom. But what is most rewarding, and any teacher will tell you the same, is hearing about what your students have accomplished, and envisioning what they and their classmates will become. By having touched their lives I have by extension touched the lives of everyone they affect, and thus by proxy have had an indelible effect on the world.

That, above all, is why I identify with and admire Apple. Wish me luck.

1 Anything that is not work or school-related

2 In fact, I would argue that the reason the iWork apps were available at launch and featured so prominently in the iPad keynote was to offer justification for those feeling a bit guilty about buying a computer purely for entertainment. “See, I’ll do work!”

3 I think this is what Steve Jobs meant in his “freedom from porn” email. What are most users afraid of when it comes to regular PCs? Viruses, crashes, and being safe online. iOS explicitly address and alleviates all three. In fact, one could argue news about app rejections is actually a positive thing for Apple in the eyes of non-technical users.

4 If you haven’t seen Jobs’ famous Stanford commencement speech (3), it is an absolute must-watch

5 I was a teacher for several years prior to attending Kellogg

Apple > Android

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:21:09 -0500

After Google’s announcement of the newest version of Android, I tweeted the following:

I remain completely unimpressed by Froyo. The more Google talks about new features, the more I’m sure they won’t catch the iPhone.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneBenjamin Thompson
monkbent

And, as far as the focus on user-experience is concerned, Monday’s WWDC keynote didn’t disappoint:

The biggest iPhone improvements were to the parts that most directly affect the UX. The contrast with Froyo and its featuritis is striking.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneBenjamin Thompson
monkbent

Those improvements include what is by all accounts an unbelievable screen, amazing battery life (the iPhone 4 plays video for longer than the Evo 4G, the latest and greatest Android phone, stays on period!), and video chat that is actually usable (don’t even get started Nokia fans - I used Nokia smartphones for years, and didn’t touch the front-camera once). Each of these has a direct impact on the user experience of the phone, and for those for whom user experience is paramount, Monday’s keynote was awesome.

iOS

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:23:53 -0500

The part I always remember from Steve Jobs’ most famous keynote, when he introduced the iPhone, is the very end, when he announced Apple Computer Inc. would henceforth be known as Apple Inc. I found this quite shocking at the time, and looking back, it truly did speak volumes: Apple was moving away from computers as they were traditionally known, and to a new world where the Macintosh was but one part of the overall puzzle.

In that light, to me the most significant part of today’s keynote was another change of name, this time, of iPhone OS to just iOS. On one level, it makes sense (just like the Apple name change did given at the iPod’s success and the impending iPhone). iPhone OS is on the iPhone, but also on the iPod Touch and now the iPad. But to me, the long-term significance is greater still, again, just as it was with the Apple name-change. In this case, it is an explicit announcement of an i-platform, built around touch, mobility, and apps. Given this, the rumor about an iOS-based AppleTV makes perfect sense (and it’s interesting that if true it will be Apple that first truly realizes Microsoft’s “Three screens and the cloud” strategy. The difference? Apple’s won’t include a traditional PC, whereas that is all Microsoft knows). Apple is not only defining but making explicit moves to own an entirely new paradigm of not just computing, but entertainment.

Small wonder it’s the most valuable technology company in the world.

"Sometimes I think, based on the negative columns written by tech experts, that the tech experts are..."

Mon, 31 May 2010 02:55:00 -0500

“

Sometimes I think, based on the negative columns written by tech experts, that the tech experts are the ones who don’t get it, that they can’t see the forest for the trees.

Most people drive a car to get places, and they rate the car by how little it interferes with their drive. A minority drive to places to be in a car, and those folk, while entitled to their opinion, miss the point of a car completely.

That’s what’s so great about Apple products. They make the product itself disappear. I’ve had too many fights with other computing platforms to ever switch back. I don’t fight with Apple products, I just go ahead and do what it is I sat down to do.

”

- A comment on A VC: I’ve Changed My Mind About The iPad

Computer or Phone?

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:13:42 -0500

It’s clichéd, but a nerd is defined by his computer, and you need to understand why.

First, a majority of the folks on the planet either have no idea how a computer works or they look at it and think “it’s magic”. Nerds know how a computer works. They intimately know how a computer works. When you ask a nerd, “When I click this, it takes awhile for the thing to show up. Do you know what’s wrong?” they know what’s wrong. A nerd has a mental model of the hardware and the software in his head. While the rest of the world sees magic, your nerd knows how the magic works, he knows the magic is a long series of ones and zeros moving across your screen with impressive speed, and he knows how to make those bits move faster.

The nerd has based his career, maybe his life, on the computer, and as we’ll see, this intimate relationship has altered his view of the world. He sees the world as a system which, given enough time and effort, is completely knowable. This is a fragile illusion that your nerd has adopted, but it’s a pleasant one that gets your nerd through the day.

– Rands in Repose: The Nerd Handbook

One of the most striking things about the controversy surrounding Apple having amended Section 3.3.1 of the iPhone developer agreement is that the developer reaction is entirely irrational, at least from a purely business sense. In fact, if you’re an iPhone or web developer, it’s a positive development! From the Gruber piece referred to by Steve Jobs:

WEB DEVELOPERS: No change. The iPhone remains completely open to web apps. The difference between the web, as a competitor to native iPhone apps, from something like Flash is that the web is not controlled by anyone. There is no platform vendor for the web — and Apple has complete control over WebKit, its implementation for the web.

IPHONE DEVELOPERS: No change. If you’re a developer and you’ve been following Apple’s advice, you will never even notice this rule. You’re already using Xcode, Objective-C, and WebKit. If you’re an iPhone developer and you are not following Apple’s advice, you’re going to get screwed eventually. If you are constitutionally opposed to developing for a platform where you’re expected to follow the advice of the platform vendor, the iPhone OS is not the platform for you. It never was. It never will be. (And, in one sense, this is good news for existing iPhone developers: their skill set is now in even greater demand.)

Moreover, the iPhone retains it’s best-in-class SDK and UI toolkit, and the App Store itself with it’s predisposed-to-buy user base is simply unmatched. The approval process remains problematic from a developer perspective, but if anything, that situation has improved, and Thursday’s iPhone 4.0 announcement contained thousands of new API’s. On any sort of objective metric iPhone developers are better off than they were a week ago.

But oh!, the angst. To choose but one relatively rational and widely-linked post at 37signals:

Lots of developers, me included, have had such a gut-turning reaction to Apple’s new policy that we have a hard time thinking and speaking rationally. The emotions take over and we start screaming “fascists!”

(A Twitter search for Apple Fascist should do the trick).

Wait, 37signals? The company that makes some of the most kick-ass web applications anywhere? You know, ones that don’t need app store approval and work flawlessly on the iPhone in a way they never worked on mobile phones before? That 37signals?

What’s their problem? What is everyone’s problem? (Other than Adobe, who brought this on themselves).

Why are non-Flash developers going to the mat for a technology that they themselves hate? It just doesn’t make sense.

And that’s where the Nerd Handbook comes in. I prefer the term “geek” to “nerd” myself, but there’s a lot I can identify with in that post, especially the bit about being defined by my computer. I’m not a developer, but I know more about tech than most of my peers, and I know how a computer works. More importantly, I know enough to know that the iPhone really is a computer. I know that it runs the same operating system as my MacBook Pro (note the fact I made sure to include Pro), and I know that the development environment is little different than the the development environment for any other platform.

And so, when Apple dictates what tools can be used and what apps are permitted, I can empathize with this geek angst.

They are restricting what I can do with my computer. They are limiting my freedom. They are telling me what I can and cannot do.

Suddenly, the quick resort to cries of “Fascism!” is at least somewhat related to reality. For most geeks, including those who are completely unaffected by 3.3.1, like 37signals, the fact Apple is restricting what they can do on a computer is fundamentally wrong.

There’s just one problem: the iPhone isn’t a computer. It’s a phone.

At least, that’s the way that 98% of the population thinks of it. It’s a marvelous phone to be sure, one that may very well have changed the way they live, but it’s still a phone.

And the apps? They’re awesome! Who woulda’ thunk you could put apps on your phone? You certainly couldn’t three years ago! And the App Store is so easy! Why on earth would you want to go on the scary Internet and get a virus when you’re looking for an app? It’s awesome!

This is the way that normal people think of the iPhone, and it is completely orthogonal to what developers think - and more importantly, downright upsetting to their notions that the iPhone is a computer. But the fact of the matter is that while these normals are underrepresented on the blogs and forums frequented by geeks, they are the vast majority of the 85 million that that has bought iPhone OS devices, and it is their preferences that is driving Apple’s policies - and make no mistake, there are significant upsides to the end user and to developers.* The iPhone simply doesn’t crash, the battery is sufficient, and applications are generally consistent and usable. All of these are derived in part from policies that upset developers.

In some sense, this entire brouhaha makes me think of the eternal divide between engineering, who makes a product, and marketing, who knows the user. It’s a conflict that plays out in every tech company every day, and while in some cases the engineers win, at Apple they don’t.**

* The move is also an obvious one from a strategic sense. For more on that, I highly suggest this comprehensive overview by Jason Snell at Macworld. Also make sure you check out the pieces by John Gruber and Louis Gerbarg linked to in this post.

** I would argue Apple is actually a third kind of company, one driven by design, but what that means in the “engineering-driven/marketing-driven” paradigm is another post (or something more substantial?) for another day.

Features Are Easy

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:41:51 -0500

For all the hoopla about the iPad, today’s event about iPhone OS 4.0 was a stark reminder about where Apple truly differentiates itself. And that differentiation was made most clear with the announcement of a feature that Android has had for over a year - multitasking.

I’ve had lots of conversations about multitasking, generally taking the view that the downsides outweigh the upsides. It’s both amusing and horrifying that Advanced Task Killer is one of the most downloaded Android apps - the fact that most people don’t even know what a task killer is is a damning indictment of the user-unfriendliness engendered by background processes run amok, to say nothing of the toll on battery life. In short, it is a bad experience, even if it’s a nice feature - and Android has lots of features.

Apple has taken the opposite approach to iPhone development: 1.0 didn’t run any 3rd-party apps; copy-and-paste wasn’t added until 3.0, and now “multi-tasking” will arrive this summer. But what Apple has spent time on is the user experience. There simply is no question – and every Android user I know admits this – that the iPhone experience is nearly flawless in a way you don’t appreciate until you try something else. That takes hours, expertise, and taste, and it’s not something that lends itself to a checklist. More importantly, it’s something that is either built in to the OS and the SDK, or it’s not, and if it’s not, it’s almost impossible to add later.

What is possible to add is features. And that’s why today’s announcement was both fantastic and completely expected. Apple got the hard stuff right in the beginning; now it’s simply adding the missing pieces and destroying any remaining points of differentiation. And, in the case of multitasking, doing it in a way that makes Android’s implementation look like a crude hack.

Stepping back to those conversations about multitasking, or the lack thereof, every single person I’ve talked to has cited Pandora. The music service is perfectly suited to multitasking, or so we all assumed. But actually, we don’t want the app to multitask, we just want to listen to music.

That’s what makes Apple’s “multitasking” solution such an innovative design. Instead of allowing apps to run in the background willy-nilly, it has seven services, including audio, that apps can provide in the background. In the case of Pandora, the vast majority of the application can be flushed from memory; all that matters is the thread processing the music stream. Other services allow for VOIP, Location, and other common background tasks, while all apps gain the built-in ability to save state.

But here’s the thing: of those 85 million iPhone OS buyers, 84.5 million don’t care about the technical details. All they know is that they can listen to Pandora in the background without needing an “Advanced Task Killer,” whatever the hell that means. More importantly, it’s a feature that is a perfect match for the design ethos of every aspect of the phone, an ethos that is missing from Android, and one that can’t be added four years down the road.

I haven’t even touched on iAd, which looks amazing, or the social gaming network. I don’t think the iPhone is even close to plateauing.

UPDATE: According to Android developer Robert Love, the Android handles multitasking in a similar way to the iPhone. This puzzled me all evening - why does Android need a task killer then, and will the iPhone? Jobs certainly doesn’t think so:

If you see a stylus, they blew it. Similarly, in multitasking, if you see a task manager, they blew it.

The answer may lie in Love’s follow-up after the iPhone 4.0 announcement:

One difference between Android and iPad & iPhone is that Android does not kill applications on task switch. The iPad & iPhone will continue to do so. Thus, in some sense, Android has a third solution to application multitasking: We allow apps to actually multitask until the system experiences memory pressure, at which point our OOM killer is able to kill applications in least-recently-used order. Then, our serialization solution kicks in, making their reload transparent to the user.

I think this explains it. The problem from the user standpoint is that memory pressure may have very well resulted in a song skip or game slowdown before the OOM killer relieves it, something Apple won’t tolerate. In that sense, it’s kind of a metaphor for my contention: Apple puts the user experience first, features second.

On the iPad

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:30:08 -0500

Here’s an email reply I just sent to a good friend concerning the iPad. I haven’t bought one yet - I plan on getting the 3G version, but given the argument below, I think my personal experience (or lack thereof) is irrelevant.

Did you get an ipad or go to the store to play with one yet? I went yesterday and was underwhelmed. It’s a beautiful device, but it’s a little heavy. The typing is much better than the iphone, but still not as good as a traditional keyboard.

I did go in and play with one. I think it’s a bit heavy too, but it’s faster than I expected, so for me personally it’s a wash - I definitely still plan on getting one and think I will use it heavily.

However, I have seen nothing to dissuade me that this is a very big deal - in fact, the vast majority of reviews have only further convinced me this was the case.

The iPad is an amazing thing for me, and you guys, to use. We appreciate the technical triumph that it is, even as we lament its shortcomings. Each of us will decide whether or not it fits in our workflow, and proceed from there (and while I agree those who spent money are motivated to like it, those who were critical of it previously are also motivated to dislike it).

But what I think I’ve consistently argued is that what is truly amazing about the iPad, and the other touch tablets that will follow, is that it means for people who are not technically inclined. One of the best reviews I’ve seen so far said this:

Simply put, there is a certain magic to using the iPad that’s nearly impossible to convey in words - you have to touch it to believe it. And that’s key to why the iPad will be the future of computing, though even those words don’t do justice to what I’m going to describe, now that “computing” is as much about games and socializing and hobbies as it is about using spreadsheets and databases and word processors…

So what’s the difference between a Mac and an iPad? It’s that blank slate thing. No matter what you do on a Mac, the keyboard and mouse and window-based operating system make it impossible to ignore the fact that you’re using a Mac, and it’s often equally impossible to ignore the fact that you’re using a particular program.

In contrast, the iPad becomes the app you’re using. That’s part of the magic. The hardware is so understated - it’s just a screen, really - and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you’re using an iPad falls away. You’re using the app, whatever it may be, and while you’re doing so, the iPad is that app. Switch to another app and the iPad becomes that app. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

For example, when you’re using James Thomson’s PCalc, the iPad becomes a super calculator. When you’re using we-Envision’s Art Authority, the iPad becomes a virtual art browser. When you’re using theNetflix app, the iPad becomes a TV showing every movie and TV show Netflix can stream (at least when it works; one of three shows we tried failed for unexplained reasons). When you’re using OmniGraffle, the iPad becomes a dedicated diagramming tool. Heck, Twitterrific on the iPad is more the embodiment of Twitter than Twitter’s own Web site, and, amusingly, when you use Amazon’s Kindle app, the iPad becomes a Kindle, or, to put it another way, a fancy piece of paper.”

That sounds really cool to me, but in more of a nifty sort of way. But for people who see the computer as an obstacle, it’s truly revolutionary. The computer has gone away, leaving simply the functionality they want, with an interface that requires no learning curve.

I think it’s really relevant that we started this conversation with the video of the 2.5 year old. It’s so easy being the kinds of people we are, know the people we know, doing the kind of work we do, to lose sight of how very different we are than most people, especially when it comes to understanding and dealing with computers. The iPad levels the playing field, and I remain convinced that’s a really big deal.

And, of course, it’s only v1.0.

Google and sins of omission

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:01:31 -0600

Google finally apologized for the Buzz launch today. As reported on GigaOm:

Within hours of the Buzz launch, users were complaining about a number of features (or flaws) in the service, including the fact that their Gmail and GTalk contacts were publicly revealed for everyone to see, and that the setting for making that public or private was enabled by default and/or difficult to find. Users also said blocking followers wasn’t as easy as it should have been, that they couldn’t unfollow someone if they didn’t have a Google profile, and that it wasn’t clear who would be shown in their list of followers.

In other words, Buzz was pushed out early with lots of features and poor usability. Not that this is a surprise. Google prides itself on its engineering culture - they don’t even hire product managers who aren’t former engineers. And that’s fine when you’re rolling out obscure products that will only be adopted initially by the technically proficient and can be improved over time.

But email is different.

Email is the one application used by everyone, which, by definition, means it’s mostly used by “normals,” not geeks. Any significant change to such a service must be well-vetted and tuned to consumer needs and habits, and must certainly be tested. And that’s where this story moves from tragedy to farce:

Many of Google’s new products and services first undergo testing with what the company calls its Trusted Testers program, in which a small group of users — primarily friends and family members of Google employees — get early access to the service and provide feedback before it’s rolled out in open beta. This was not the case with Google Buzz, the company told the BBC, although it had been used for some time internally by Google employees themselves. “Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn’t quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild,” Jackson said.

Guess who is inside Google, and thus the only testers? Engineers. Of course they won’t realize that “settings are hard to find,” that “blocking followers wasn’t as easy as it should have been,” that things “weren’t clear.” They’re geeks, and to expect them to properly test a product that will be rolled out to millions of “normals” is ridiculous. Google needed marketers.

Marketing matters, and I don’t mean the fluffy stuff. Understanding who your customers are, what their needs are, and how you meet those needs are fundamental questions for any business, and absolutely critical for one that has more information on its users than any other. The cavalier attitude Google took towards Buzz makes clear they don’t understand this (and confirms all that I’ve heard about their culture).

Google employees go on and on about “Don’t be evil.” They really believe that, and I don’t think anyone intended Buzz to be such a privacy disaster. But that doesn’t leave out sins of ommision, and in this case, Google’s disdain for marketing is ultimately to blame for what was in reality an evil outcome.

The dusk of the computer age

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:21:11 -0600

Some have argued the iPad is the dawn of a new era. Oh wait, that was me, three days ago. But in another respect, it is the dusk of another, representing a return to the past when people did what they wished without worrying about their computer.

From O’Reilly:

The automobile went through a similar evolution. From eminently hackable to hood essentially sealed shut. When the automobile was new, you HAD to be a mechanic to own one. Later, being a mechanic gave you the option of tinkering and adapting it to your specific interests. In fact, that’s how most people up until about 1985 learned to be mechanics. The big changes came with the catalytic converter and electronic ignition (and warranty language to match). Now the automobile has reached the point in its development where you don’t even have to know whether it has a motor or an engine to use it, but to tinker at all requires highly specialized skills.

Is this really so bad?

Here’s the point: there is a lot of hand-wringing about the iPad being a closed platform, even as people acknowledge the advantages of that (everything just works, no viruses, etc.) What is clear though, is that it is geeks doing the handwringing. Which makes sense in a way. It really is the end of their era. But for everyone else, those people for whom a computer is a necessary accessory, but not their life, what the iPad portends is a future where the computer fades away, leaving only the art.

Consider photographers. Today’s photographers are among the most computer-savvy people in the world, but by necessity, not by choice. Computers are simply an essential component of modern photography, and if that means understanding things like RAM, cache, and the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit computing, then so be it. But the second revolutionary aspect of the iPad is the way it transforms a computer into an appliance, where what happens under the hood is indeed magical. No, iPad 1.0 will not be a photographer’s computer, but iPad 4.0 just might. All that matters is that it edit photos, or display pictures, or capture text, NOT that it be “open” with all the good and bad that implies.

A photographer wants to photograph.

A writer wants to write.

A grandmother wants to see pictures.

A teenager wants to chat.

Only a geek wants to hack.*

The iPad is the first of a new paradigm that will free people to do what they want, what they were meant to do, with a tool meant to aid, not frustrate.

I think that’s pretty awesome.

*I self-identify as a geek, but diverge on this point: I am interested in technology to the extent it can solve normal people’s problems, and much less interested in technology for technology’s sake. It’s a slight but crucially different point-of-view.

Frasier Speirs, who I linked in the article, really said it much better:

The tech industry will be in paroxysms of future shock for some time to come. Many will cling to their January-26th notions of what it takes to get “real work” done; cling to the idea that the computer-based part of it is the “real work”.

It’s not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.

The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house and organising the party.

As you can see, I couldn’t have said it better myself…

The iPad: it's for everyone else

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:49:47 -0600

For what it’s worth, we’ve been here before. Apple product is rumored, hype builds up, it’s revealed, and people are disappointed. In this case, “It’s just a big iPod Touch” is the new “No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.”

And, once again, it’s because the hype aimed too low. The iPad isn’t Apple’s attempt to make a tablet or netbook; it’s the first of what Apple believes is the future of computers. And, taken in that light, everything makes so much more sense.

I think a lot of the confusion stems from this slide in Steve Jobs’ presentation:

There’s the iPad, in the middle. And that, many argue, isn’t a particularly compelling place to be.

They’re right, and wrong. The middle isn’t a great place to be, but the iPad isn’t in-between an iPhone and Macbook. For a significant segment of the population, it is meant to be their Macbook. And, for those who need a Macbook, the iPad isn’t for them. But it will be.

Let me explain, with a new take on Jobs’ slide:

Remember the beginning of the Keynote: Jobs said that Apple is now a mobile devices company. What the iPad does is give Apple a product that offers a superior experience in every dimension of the mobile experience, namely, content creation, content consumption and mobility.

The reason this matters is that the vast majority of users are primarily content consumers. These are the people buying netbooks as their primary computers, or simply avoiding computers as much as possible. They simply want to go on Facebook, check their email, watch YouTube, and at most, upload pictures. Apple’s value proposition to these customers is:

The iPad is a superior content consumption experience with sufficient creation capabilities to meet your needs.

That is why iWork figured so prominently into the Keynote - it was reassurance that the iPad can pass as your only computer (more on iWork in just a moment).

Of course the vast majority of geeks and business school students (the two crowds I’m most familiar with) completely missed the point. They’re power users, and the iPad isn’t directed at them. In fact, Apple has a perfectly good solution for their needs: the status quo:

But here’s the deal. Most people aren’t power users. And now, there’s a solution for them as well:

I think that’s a pretty good market to be in.

And now for the caveat:

This is a 1.0 product. Just like iPhone 1.0, there are missing features both in hardware and software, and the Apple fanatics will be the de facto beta testers. So in that regard, the picture I just laid out is more applicable to the medium term.

BUT

It’s the long-term picture that is particularly fascinating, and gets back to my contention at the beginning of this post. For while the laptop has all but reached it’s potential - the consumption experience will never improve beyond what it is now - the creation experience on the iPad will only get better with time. In fact, I believe the iPad will be looked back upon as the pioneer of what will become the default way of interacting with computers just like the Macintosh.*

Go back and watch the Keynote, especially the iWork demonstration that begins 57 minutes in. The iPad doesn’t just let you create documents. It lets you create documents in a way that is simply impossible on a normal computer. It is so much more natural, so much more intuitive, that users accustomed to a keyboard-and-mouse will adapt quickly, and more importantly, users accustomed to multitouch will never understand the attachment to a mouse. I truly believe my two year-old daughter, who has already taught herself to use my iPhone, will never seriously use a mouse. To flip John Gruber’s famous headline on its head, the mouse will be the new command line, beloved by geeks and graybeards, and puzzled at by everyone else.

*Ironically, in this case it could be Microsoft who claims they were first.

The Google China Cynics

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:02:03 -0600

Despite the fact Google’s decision to stop censoring www.google.cn in response to Chinese cyber attacks is right in my wheelhouse (<— this is where I link to my archive full of articles on China, which haven’t made the trip over to Tumblr yet), I’m not going to bite. Rather, just a quick note on the cynics, of which there are two types:

Google won’t follow through (1) because the China market is too big to ignore.
Google is using this as an excuse to get out because they’re getting their rear end kicked by Baidu.

My response to the first is that Google would be risking a huge amount of credibility by not following through, especially after the public relations beating they took in 2006 when they launched Google China. Moreover, publicly calling out the Chinese government is a recipe for disaster if you actually want to continue to do business there. As for the second, 35.6% share in 4Q 2009 (an increase from 31.3% 3Q 2009) is extremely respectable, and, I’m sure, profitable. Why leave now?

More broadly, though, these two criticisms are fundamentally at odds. If the first is true (Google wants to make money, and they’re performing decently, so they won’t leave), then the second is false (the proper response would be to redouble efforts, not abandon the investment). Similarly, if the second is true (Google can’t cut it in China), then the first must be false (the China market isn’t worth fighting for).

Or, it may just simply be the case that Google actually meant what they say, and that the whole “Don’t Be Evil” motto actually means something (2).

1) From what I can see, results are still censored. Here’s the link to a search on Google’s China site for “What Happened on June 6, 1989?” (天安门广场89年6月4日发生什么事).

2) It sounds corny, but Google employees totally buy in to that motto. It’s definitely not just cute lip service.

Stuck in the past

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:03:25 -0600

My earlier observation that technology companies too often don’t appreciate the needs of normals is hardly groundbreaking. What is less intuitive is how often geeks are the ones stuck in the past.

During a recent discussion about the future of the PC, a friend posited that the PC as we know it wasn’t going anywhere soon - after all, netbooks and upcoming Internet-only devices don’t play games, for example.

So let’s consider games. Here are the top 10 PC games of all-time (via Wikipedia):

The Sims (16 million)
The Sims 2 (13 million)
StarCraft (11 million)
Half-Life (9.3 million)
Half-Life 2 (6.5 million)
Myst (6 million)
The Sims 3 (5.9 million)
SimCity 3000 (5 million)
Doom (5 million)
Riven (4.5 million)

Right off the bat, you can see that casual games - aka games played by normals - have a significant presence on the list. But that’s not even my point - the reality is that these numbers are tiny, at least in comparison to a game like Farmville.

The number of players? 22 million.

A day.

It may be controversial, even radical, to say that the PC as we know it is dead, especially to a geek. He can list off any number of things he can only do on his computer. Edit photos, use a fully-featured spreadsheet application, and even little things like a real email client. Those aren’t random examples - they’re applications I use every day. But that doesn’t mean my wife does. Or my mom. Or the 22 million farmers on Facebook. It’s to the geek’s peril that their affinity for and ability to use fully-featured desktop applications obscure the fact that the normals have moved on.

UPDATE: A fantastic article about Normals and iPhone apps:

The people who are consuming software now are a vast superset of the people who used to do so. At one time, especially on the Mac, we’d see people chose software based upon how well it suited their requirements to get a job done. This new generation of software consumers isn’t like that – they’re less likely to shop around for something rather they shop around for anything. These are people who want to be entertained as much as they want to have their requirements met. They’ve not bought into a tool they’ve bought, either financially or emotionally, into The Future. The Future is never about the most practical and useful outcome, it’s about flying cars and cute robots who shit talk but will still mix you up a killer G’n’T when you need it. The Future isn’t a service that’ll send you a text message when you’ve been out too late on a work night, The Future will get you laid on a Tuesday and make excuses to the boss the next morning.

How did applications that make farting noises or make you sound like T-Pain do so well on the App Store? The answer is simple – they made people laugh.

That should have been the first sign that the software market was changing. It’s obvious in retrospect; people were buying software that would make them laugh. This runs counter to the common understanding of an Application. An Application represents the developer’s best effort at creating software that applies the capabilities of the device to solving a specific problem. Making people laugh is not a problem an Application can solve; it’s not about the device it’s about the person using it.

It’s worth noting a lot of geeks hate the app store, not just because of Apple’s policies, but because of the kind of apps that proliferate. The article actually addresses that too, quite elegantly. Go read it.

Christmas Letter 2009

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:25:16 -0600

Here I am with our annual Christmas letter. Sure, it’s a bit late, and not nearly as pretty as past efforts, but such is the life of a father/graduate student. I wrote last year about the big changes that were in store; this year has been all about the realization of those changes. After deciding to attend the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, we spent most of the late spring and summer preparing to move, well, back from Taiwan, from my prospective, and abroad, from Jasmine and Aliana’s. That move has been a good one, for which Jasmine and Aliana surely deserve the credit.

I am keeping extremely busy; I took five classes last quarter, and will take another four starting in January. Meanwhile, recruiting is starting to heat up; earlier this month I, along with several of my classmates, traveled to Silicon Valley to visit several prospective companies with an eye towards a summer internship with a technology company. Jasmine has been staying home with Aliana, a welcome change of pace for her. She is a tremendous cook and is adapting pretty well: we were both shocked when, after a trip to the store in -8°C (18°F) weather, she remarked, “It’s not too bad out!” Aliana is amazing. She loves to sing, dance, and draw, and already knows her ABC’s. Like all children, she is clearly above average. No matter how busy I may get, knowing she and Jasmine are waiting for me makes it an imperative to get home as soon as possible. Every day she learns something new, and if there is anything I myself have learned, it’s too not miss a single bit of that.

The coming year looks to be more of the same. In addition to classes, this spring I will (hopefully) finalize a summer internship; ideally, I will have the opportunity and desire to continue with that company in a full time capacity when I graduate in 2011. Regardless, there is a decent chance I will know where this part of the journey will end by the time I write you next year.

In that respect, this Christmas is a time for rest and reflection, both to recover from a momentous 2009, prepare for a defining 2010, and enjoy time spent with my extended family for the first time since 2002. Once again, here’s to you, our friends. May your year be similarly filled with appreciation for the past, anticipation for the future, and the joy that each individual day brings.

Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year!

Ben, Jasmine & Aliana

Dropbox and the Entrepreneur's Blindspot

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:12:33 -0600

I love Dropbox. Seriously, it may be my most essential app/service. When I save a document, it’s backed up instantly. No matter what happens, I will always have access to that file from any computer. I can even sync it to a second computer if I happen to have another. Of course most people don’t have two computers, but everyone is interested in protecting their files.

So why is Dropbox so focused on sync?

Dropbox’s homepage consists of little more than a video. The opening analogy, of a magic bag, is fine, but the kicker is 20 seconds in.

“The same thing is true for computers. If you have more than one…”

BAM! Dropbox just lost 90% of potential users. In fact, It’s not until the 1:36 mark that the video reveals Dropbox’s most marketable feature:

“He can still get to his files on the website, where they’re always backed up.”

Just about everyone who has worked with computers for any length of time has lost files. It sucks, and Dropbox fixes it. It even fixes corrupt files, or unintentional changes, as you always have access to previous versions (1). But instead the video, website, everything prattle on and on about sync (2).

Why?

I needed [Dropbox] badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop, and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup.

That is Dropbox founder Jon Ying, explaining what was his inspiration for Dropbox. And here’s the thing - he has achieved his goal. Dropbox is an amazingly elegant solution for sync (and, to be clear, the company is doing very well for itself). But I don’t think Dropbox is doing as well as it could, because, as currently presented, it is not perceived as meeting the needs of the “normals.” And that’s where the money is.

Ultimately, this isn’t a post about Dropbox. I’m certainly not bagging on the company - I love the product (3), and by all accounts, the crew that works there is equally awesome. Rather, it’s about an all-to-common flaw that strikes even the most brilliant entrepreneurs: once you’ve developed a product that meets your needs - and many products start out this way - how do you market it to a population that is not like you at all? Dropbox has a product that is extremely appealing to the “normals,” but the current Dropbox message is tailor-made for the geeks.

And so it goes for all too many tech companies. Amazing technology is followed by lots of funding and backslapping in Silicon Valley, and far too few “normals” from the rest of world.

More later on what it takes to fill that gap, and why most traditional marketing types don’t cut it.

1 The number of old versions of a file is limited in the free service, but still useful

2 Make no mistake - sync is hard, and Dropbox does it better than anyone. At my last employer I built an entire update system across six locations and 30 classrooms using Dropbox, but I know I’m definitely in the minority.

3 I pay for the Pro 50 plan

That Internet Revolution? It's Not Here...Yet

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:37:24 -0600

The Internet will change everything. Not did, will. That’s what is going to make the next few years so interesting, and so pivotal.

Mentioned this to a friend today who gets it. And, well, he got it.

“You can see that with the iPhone maps application. 10 years ago, before I went somewhere, I looked at a map. Five years ago, I went to Mapquest or Google Maps. Now I just walk out the door, because I have the best map I’ve ever had in my pocket.”

Exactly. He lives his life differently because of the Internet (what makes the iPhone and other similar smartphones special is the ease with which they connect). Instead of planning, he just goes, and that’s a big difference.

That’s why, despite widespread assumptions to the contrary, the war to capitalize on the Internet revolution is only getting started. And as this post on the VentureBeat blog suggests, Microsoft is still very much in the game:

Many new Bing improvements, such as maps with interactive driving directions, are mere catch-up to what Google has done for years. But others, driven by heavy market research aimed at finding ways Google is missing the mark, show how very much the kind of people who use the Internet has changed since a few years ago.

In short, the people who use search engines today are nothing like the people who build them. Online, the normals have finally displaced the geeks.

Microsoft lost a lot of ground among the geeks over the last ten years, but not nearly so much among the normals. And that’s where the true prize lies (which is why Apple so assiduously ignore the geeks - XMac anyone? - while focusing like a laser on normals). Bing is more than just another search engine - it, and more importantly, it’s development process, is a harbinger of where the true action will be over the next ten years.

I think the blog post got one point not so much wrong but not quite right: the normals may have overtaken the geeks in terms of number of users on the Internet, but for them, the Internet is just a welcome addition to their lives. For geeks like my friend and I, the Internet is an essential component of our lives. The revolution will be the movement from addition to to essential component among the population as a whole.

Rupert Murdoch = Misguided Gas Station Owner

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:57:00 -0600

I’m not sure what would be more amusing: if a gas station owner thought that he was responsible for the superhighway outside his door, or if he thought drivers on that highway would care if he closed his driveway.

Winter Awaits

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:53:45 -0600