60 seconds of beauty submitted by users to the first round of The Beauty Of A Second short film contest.
Marko Garafulic
January 14, 2012
January 14, 2012
Beautiful short film based on an archival sound recording taken from the 1945 Linguaphone series ‘English Pronunciation - A practical handbook for the foreign learner.’
November 2, 2011
Are we in control of our decisions?
June 30, 2011
Selling Specs vs. Selling Experience
I recently watched a Verizon TV ad for an Android tablet and couldn’t believe two of the pitches in the ad were:
Your wife will love the dual core Tegra chipset.
It’s 4G LTE upgradeable.
Someone at Verizon must think listing technical specs and stating how much one’s spouse will appreciate them is a good pitch.
The ad reminded me of an ad for the BlackBerry Playbook in which RIM’s pitch is that supporting Adobe Flash is a good enough reason to buy a Playbook over an iPad. I doubt most people care about Flash or even know what it is used for. I feel the same way about another key pitch for the Playbook: “true” multi-tasking. I bet most people have no clue what “fake” multi-tasking is or why they should care.
Processor speeds, RAM, external storage, HDMI outputs, megapixels, etc. matter to some people. They matter a lot to some people but I just don’t think that touting specs is a good mass marketing strategy. I think most people care much more about (a) whether or not a device can do what the few things they want to do (b) if the device makes it easy and enjoyable to do these things.
The success and absolute dominance of the iPad is due to a combination of many strengths: industrial design, ease of use, outstanding battery life, the large number and high quality of apps, etc. I think all these strengths add up to achieve one goal: to make the iPad the most beautiful and enjoyable tablet available today.
I’ve heard people wonder out loud how someone could possibly pick an iPad over a ___________, when ___________ has a ___________ screen, more ___________ and faster ___________. I think the answer is that none of these things matter nearly as much as how it feels to use an iPad.
Apple knows this and emphasizes it in ads like “If you asked” and “We believe.” In the latter, the voice over says:
This is what we believe. Technology alone is not enough. Faster, thinner, lighter—those are all good things, but when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful, even magical.
Calling a tablet computer “magical” is a stretch, but it appears to be working.
March 5, 2011
Android Shootout
I recently purchased multiple Android phones for work and took the opportunity to compare them to each other. I reviewed a Motorola Droid X, HTC EVO Shift, HTC Nexus One and a Samsung Galaxy S.
These are my impressions after three days. I’ll update this post after I spend more time with them.
February 4, 2011
Is Good UX Worth the Price?
Phil Libin—the CEO of Evernote—recently wrote a guest post for TechCrunch where he discussed why Evernote spends time and money developing native apps for multiple platforms.
It’s very hard for something developed in a cross-platform, lowest-common-denominator technology to provide as nice an experience as a similar native app.
As the CEO of a software company, I wish this weren’t true. I’d love to build one version of our App that could work everywhere. Instead, we develop separate native versions for Windows, Mac, Desktop Web, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, HP WebOS and (coming soon) Windows Phone 7. We do it because the results are better and, frankly, that’s all-important. We could probably save 70% of our development budget by switching to a single, cross-platform client, but we would probably lose 80% of our users. And we’d be shut out of most app stores and go back to worrying about distribution.
His perspective struck a chord with me because I often work with clients who struggle with this very question: spend more on native apps that deliver great UX or spend less on a multi-platform product that has greater reach but compromises UX.
October 5, 2010
Though many question the accuracy of the story and its take on social media, the audience’s reaction to Aaron Sorkin’s movie about Facebook may be the most interesting part. This NY Times article discusses the wide range of reactions across age groups::
When you talk to people afterward, it was as if they were seeing two different films,” said Scott Rudin, one of the producers. “The older audiences see Zuckerberg as a tragic figure who comes out of the film with less of himself than when he went in, while young people see him as completely enhanced, a rock star, who did what he needed to do to protect the thing that he had created.
This Silicon Alley Insider article from February 2010 has more juicy details about the back story.
August 20, 2010
What if The Empire Strikes Back had been a silent film? It would still be great.
August 5, 2010
Tips for creative success from Pixar
Randy Nelson is Dean of Pixar University and gives a really nice 9-min talk with important content for all professionals and students. The talk is called Learning and Working…
July 31, 2010
Market Share vs. Profit Share
For many companies, earning market share is a higher priority than increasing their profit margin. Gaining market share makes headlines and plays well with shareholders and potential investors. It’s an excuse to issue a press release and brag.
I don’t discount the importance of market share—especially in certain industries—but I think its value is often overrated. Apple’s performance in the mobile phone and PC industries is an interesting case study.
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