jeffwongdesign: October 2009

11 buzZZZzzzZZzzzzz words.

Here are a couple words that have lost alot of meaning to me in the last few months. Try writing a sentence without punishing any of the following 11 words:

11. Audience
10. Social Graph
9. Free
8. Solutions
7. Word of Mouth
6. Follow
5. Viral
4. Reach
3. Conversation
2. Engage
1. Brand

Anyone else want to share or add to this list?

**Some responses from some friends and coworkers...**

Matthew:
the conversation you've just started with your audience clearly takes advantage of your social graph; its viral, word of mouth spread will increase your reach, engaging newcomers with your personal brand and encouraging them to follow you in the future in the hope of free solutions to complex problems.
did i get them all?

Scalability (Ross)
Synergy (Phil)
Leverage (Jim... I know... how did I miss this one??)
Switching Cost (Jim)
Communication (Jim)
Social Media Expert (Phil)
Critical Mass (I can't believe I forgot this one too lol)

Jim:
We can definitely spend more time talking about the specific problems users have, the specific needs they'd like met, and specific solutions to both. Then we can leverage that synergy, scale it to critical mass and send switching cost through the roof! I feel like we're communicating better as social media experts already. I'm just going to sit over here and wrap the Semantic Web around me like a warm blanket, fresh out of the dryer.

Fruity Kleenex Tissues.

Okay, you're probably thinking, these tissues have a fruity aroma... but they don't. They just look stunning. I'd get them just to add a little color to my place. Totally fun!

I mean, isn't that packaging absolutely tasty?? Too bad they're not doing this type of packaging for fruit drinks. Fantastic!

Here's the original link.

Animal Costumes

Okay, these actually really impressed me. Check out the original link here.

Teamwork . Robocop + Unicorn + Bern + Earnie.

Yes folks, this is my first contribution to the Robocop and Unicorn movement. I can't take credit for the entire image... it was a thread we started at work randomly (contributors: Cyrus, Clay, Ben and William).

Some people take coffee breaks... some people step outside for a breather... and some people take a creative break.

When's the last time you took a creative break?

Apple Magic Mouse... Meh.

I had to chance to play with the new Apple Magic Mouse this evening with some coworkers (Jim and Justin). I was really excited about it—mostly because it takes advantage of a touch surface, like a track pad. I was really hoping for some cool gestural interactions... but I was really let down.

Let me first mention that my background is in industrial design, and I've designed products like this before. Something like this is really beautiful and sexy, but I must say it wasn't comfortable. I think I'd have to spend alot of time to get use to it. The ergonomics weren't all there.

Honestly, if they just made a giant touch pad (a larger version of their laptop touchpad) as a bluetooth "mouse", I would have been more impressed.

I was really bothered by how low the profile was—I have normal sized hands, and it wasn't easy to hold. It requires you to pinch the sides of the mouse, and float your index and middle finder above the touch surface. If I'm infront of a computer for 8 hours a day, I'm not sure this is going to be comfortable.

Secondly, the only thing that indicates its orientation is the logo. So, you really don't know which way is top or bottom... both my coworkers held the mouse upside-down. Come on Jonathan Ivy, how did this get your signature?

Remember the old hockey puck design? This feels a little bit like it. I mean seriously, do you want all your users to develop carpel tunnel syndrome?

Yes, this mouse should go in MoMa. It's that beautiful. But beauty isn't everything. I mean, for $70 you've got to give us a better design.

The most frustrating part about the mouse is that you can't program advanced gestures. I use spaces... wouldn't it be nice to really take advantage of that touch surface? I'd love to swipe my mouse and move around from space to space. Give me something to work with...

I'm now compelled to design my own version of a new apple mouse...
Stay tuned...

imo.im ZzzzzzZZZzzzz

Jim sent me this recently... looks like a new messenger client that aggregates all our accounts.

Except this new messenger client isn't really that new. Infact... I'd say everything is pretty boring. Well, ok there is something that's cool—you can pull your facebook contacts into your chat. That's actually really cool.

But wait, do I really want another tab open with my chats? You're telling me I have to have this thing open all the time if I'm a mac user? I already have a chat application open—Adium. That seems to work better.

So what can we learn from this basic desktop chat client? Well, Facebook chat would be a really-really nice feature if I could access it anywhere.

Really.

We all can benefit if we could use suck in our Facebook contacts into our chat applications.

So what does that mean for the middle men like meebo, imo.im, and so on? Well, their days may be over, unless they think beyond "chatting"... and look at other interactive ways for people to communicate with each other and the web.

So what is imo.im to me? It's a nice mention on tech crunch... It, however, isn't solving a problem for me. I like the facebook integration in the product, but that's about it. It's not sticky enough for me to keep. And the desktop interface is pretty oldschool—I really don't need another window, inside a window, inside another window... just to chat. If you really want to do that, you could try building a toolbar add-on for firefox. I might use something like that. I haven't found an add-on that does that well.

You listening Facebook? I want the ability to communicate with my friends anywhere. Empower us, the users, to make more connections... and in return, I will use your product even more. In fact, I probably will NEED you to be my true identity manager at that point.

Here's the techcrunch mention. Here's imo.im... try it yourself.

"What would Google do?" by Jeff Jarvis.

This is an interesting book for designers... It really sparked some ideas... will share soon.

Drop Dead Trompe-l'œil.

AddThis for Firefox is a top 5 Add-on on Mozilla.com. WOOT.

Wow, this made my day (above)! Our little Add-on for Firefox is the #5 shared add-on on Mozilla.com. The best part is that we have over 150 services integrated in the Add-on... many of which are my favorites.

This is what my AddThis Firefox menu looks like (above). The ones I use the most are Gmail, Facebook, and Tumblr. I really like Amazon, but it's not really social. I wish there was a service out there that makes shopping with friends online easier. It'd be cool to have a service that's called "buy later" (just creates a social wishlist of things you want). I've tried ThisNext, but none of my other friends are using it. *sigh*.

Try AddThis for Firefox

172 services integrated with AddThis... and counting.

We just integrated some new sharing and bookmark services into AddThis. And now, here's what the entire list looks like. The interesting thing is that we're moving into a bigger space. In some ways, AddThis is no longer just "sharing" and "bookmarking" pages. We now have services that enable users to translate a page, create image galleries, create videos channels, saving notes to google reader, and much more. Hooman's vision (our CEO) is to be the "switchboard of the web"... and the image featured above, shows just that.

Since our service directory has grown, we've seen alot of new movers and shakers. Here's what it looks like (above). These are the fastest growing in the last 30 days. I'm personally excited to see Tumblr in the this list... You guys should check out my porn links in my sidebar (they're all tumblr pages).

You'll notice Menéame, a spanish bookmarking site. It's nice to see international sites getting more site traffic with our product. We're noticing some huge growth with our international services.

As we grow, we want to be more transparent about our data. We want to share what we know with everyone. Our hope is that AddThis can help show different trends in social media and the world of sharing. Here's a list of the top 20 services being used with AddThis globally (above).

What's really interesting is seeing new services like Y!Mail, Gmail, and Viadeo (Similar to Linked-In... their HQ is in France) in our top 20—these are services that were added in the last month.

I would have thought Gmail would be higher than Y! Mail. Astonishing. The data doesn't lie.

To help grow the AddThis Service Directory, we've added a simple way to suggest your favorite service if it's not in our menu (above). Just do a search in our expanded menu. We've already received a ton of new submissions since this past tuesday.

If you'd like to see more AddThis data and social media trends, check out the AddThis Service Directory.

Interview with Hooman Radfar

Adam: What business model does Clearspring follow?

Hooman: Our primary model is targeted, performance-based advertising. We leverage our platform, data and relationships with publishers to deliver efficient distribution of content (widgets, apps, or video) to brand advertisers.

From our fearless leader. Interview with Hooman Radfar

Gestalt Pacman Shirt

Who want's turkey? LOL.

LOL.

Hat tip: Ian and Philip

My Halloween Costume Concept (Humping USB Dog)

This year I've got a really nerdy concept for a halloween costume. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI-pct3zy18

LOL

Here are a couple images that made me lol. Enjoy!

Kern this motherf*cker.

made me laugh. i need this as a tshirt.

iPhone Interface Trends

Here are some images of some nice iPhone apps. Lovely interfaces—looks like a joy to design. You can check out more interface porn on my tumblr page. Hat Tip: Jim