The danger for content providers is a surfeit of good enough
From a Dec. 24 New York Times story on the continued attempts of publishers to extract more value from libraries when it comes to e-books (or just sit out the e-book library lending game all together):
While many major publishers have effectively gone on strike, more than 1,000 smaller publishers, who don’t have best-seller sales that need protection, happily sell e-books to libraries. That means the public library has plenty of e-books available for the asking — no waiting.
This is an aside to the main thrust of the article, but it’s the most important bit. Because here’s the thing: as long as library collections (or Netflix streaming or Hulu or ebooks that cost $7.99 or less) have enough works that are good enough, consumers are going to go the cheap and easy route. Yes, there are still premium titles that some consumers will pay old-content company prices for. But more and more, it’s clear that there is a surfeit of good enough.
To speak more directly to the library vs. publisher tug-of-war detailed in the article: my library system has gone on an ebook buying spree this past year. I have the Overdrive app on my iPhone. Yes, there are a select few books that I will buy or that I will check out from the library in hard copy, but I also find myself reading books that may not be the number one choice on my list of to-reads because they are available as an ebook from my library. It’s just so easy to check it out and read it on my iPhone.
My wife and I also decided to drop our DVD plan with Netflix and just pay for streaming. Yes, there are things that may not be available. But between Netflix streaming and Hulu (the free, non-plus version), we have more than enough shows to watch. We have a surfeit of good enough. And that’s a problem for publishers and studios stuck on the old ways of generating revenue.
Design felicities: new Twitter
I have yet to decide how much I like the new Twitter. Or rather I’d say that, as of now, I like the new Twitter iOS app very much, the new Chrome Tweetdeck rather much, and the new Twitter on the web somewhat much. But one thing that stood out right away that I like is the design felicity present in some of the new icons. In particular, I like the progression from opening the app, to opening a dialog box for posting, to how you actually make the post. The progression looks like this:
I like that we go from the bird to the quill (which is a change from the previous icon, and, which, of course, more strongly carries through the bird theme) to the simple word “Tweet”, which is the sound the bird makes (and it’s even better in the iOS app because the it carries through the blue theme instead of switching to gray). The metaphor carries through visually, but it also goes in a metonymic progression. It may seem like a small thing, but I experienced that progression, when going through it the first time, as something felicitous because it both looks good and makes sense. In particular, I like the change from the pen to the quill. Very minor to be sure — yet, that small change ties the entire UX together. It’s a metaphor, and thus branding, that works.
Yes, I do want a MacBook Air
A couple of months ago I went to the Apple Store at the Mall of America with one purpose in mind: to spend some significant time with the iPad to see if it would be a useful writing device. I typed on it for at least five minutes. I held it in a couple of positions. I typed some more. The verdict: no, it’s not really good for serious, in-the-zone, crank-it-out writing. And no, even with a keyboard, it’s too awkward to use for serious writing sessions.
So I wandered around the store and eventually found myself fondling the MacBook Air on display and hefting it and clacking away on its keyboard and the thought came: this would be the perfect device for writers if it was smaller and cheaper. So what does Apple do today? They come out with a cheaper, lighter MacBook Air.
Of course, I’m not going to actually buy one. But only because I’m a cheap son of a gun. And a lazy writer (outside of work — at work I do just fine with my MacBook Pro). And a short-form writer. And ambivalent about being tied in to Apple’s ecosystem. But if I were serious about cranking out a novel or a screenplay and could come up with the cash? Totally.
Now here’s the thing: I know all about the Apple premium and the underpowered specs and the lack of this and that and the other thing. I get that. I’m rocking Linux on my home box and do my own hardware and software upgrades on it. I run OSX with Parallels and Windows 7 at work on an older MacBook Pro that still has better specs than the new Air models. But if we’re talking about just a machine for writing, for being productive at getting the butt in the chair and the words on the page, all you really need is a document editor, a music player (I’m one of those writers who sometimes likes listening to music while working), and an internet browser (with maybe some light photo editing tossed in and the ability to video chat).
What’s more, what writers really need in a computer is:
- A really good keyboard — I know there are chiclet haters out there, but I test keyboards on laptops whenever I’m in Costco or Best Buy, and the ones on the Apple laptops have good feel and spacing, in my opinion.
- For it to be truly portable — the lighter the better, especially when you are travelling or commuting by public transportation or home early from work or at a coffee shop, etc. Being able to have something there that gets you in to writing mode right away but isn’t a pain to lug around is really helpful. Lately, I’ve been tucking a mini legal pad or two in my messenger bag with an outline pasted to the front page, and it is helping me write more fiction, but the problem there is that I don’t have every project and every draft at hand. There has to be no hesitation about, well, I might have some free time at some point during the day to write, but I don’t really want to drag my laptop around. That’s the case with those that are in the 5-6 pound range. In fact, I have small hands and slim fingers — I’d prefer an even lighter, more compact 10-inch version.
- For it to be durable and solid and aesthetically pleasing — I don’t know about other writers, but with me, an aesthetically pleasing, solid-feeling tool for writing with helps; it’s why good paper and a good pen are a must when writing by longhand.
- For it to have excellent battery life — the Air doesn’t have quite the lengthy between charge times as some netbooks, but 5 hours is enough for most situations.
- For it to come instantly on and do fast, automatic saving and backups — anything that reduces the amount of time between when things start to coalesce and flow in your head and when you are actually typing words on the page is good. In addition, depending on how Lion works, if you could have a writing app that is right there where you last were as soon as you open up the laptop and that autosaves both to local storage and the cloud (maybe via Dropbox), that’d be awesome.
All those attributes fit the MacBook Air. They are why it’s not stupid for some consumers to want one. It’s why it may be worth paying the Apple premium. And it’s why I wish the netbook manufacturers hadn’t gone away from the original SSD devices running Linux. I probably will end up buying a cheap netbook at some point. But I would love for Lenovo and HP to come out with their own netbook/laptop/notebook that is lower-powered, but comes with fast boot times and a slim OS, an SSD, more than 4 hours of battery life, a great keyboard, and a solid but lightweight body. Especially if they can bring it in at $500-600. Heck, drop the SSD to 32 GB if that brings the price way down. All I need to store on it is text/document files and music.
So yes, I do want a MacBook Air. Or something very similar. Because I’m a writer.
Metadata Blues
Why can’t I associate a caption with a .jpg or .png file and have it recognized (and, if appropriate, displayed) no matter what file browser, photo manager, photo editor, layout program or web publishing platform I use and no matter which operating system I use?
How come we still don’t have a standard for e-books and web pages that represents a page-like unit of text so that it’s easier to reference where one is in an electronic text no matter the font size?
Why doesn’t WordPress auto-de-dupe the tags that are only off by a misspelling, shortening of a word, or the use of hyphens?
Why doesn’t every e-mail program (web or client-based) have an option where you can add tags to and file to a folder to an e-mail you are sending right before you hit the send button?
Why are tables of contents in e-books so lame?
Why do content management systems still spit out incomprehensible URLs?
How come stories on newspaper websites don’t thread over time? (or at least: why are the “suggest” or “related” features on newspaper websites so often incomplete or irrelevant?)
How come you don’t get both a “last saved” and a “last edited” timestamp that’s easy to view on all OSes with files of any type that displays in the same way across operating systems?
Why don’t people add metadata to PDF files, like ever? (even people who should know better)
I don’t know for sure. Perhaps it’s that technology, especially search, makes allowances for us. Perhaps it’s that there are no consequences to the lack of speed and piling up of un-indexed or un-easily-searched image files and documents and e-mails. Perhaps metadata doesn’t have the right branding*. Perhaps we simply don’t expect the same sense and consistency across products that we do from, say, prescriptions or ingredients labels. We just don’t have the same expectations for electronic files that we have for physical objects.
Of course, when augmented reality — when the internet of things — really takes off, well, we’re going to be singing the blues with much more feeling if everyday users (and the companies that sell to them) don’t embrace the smart use of metadata.
*Maybe we need a metadata button (like an rss button or the x that means “close this window”) that displays metadata when clicked
How immersive digital experiences should deal with calls to action
So Steve Jobs has it all figured out how we’re going to consume ads in an immersive experience like an iPad app. The solution seems to be to make another app that has content so great that you’ll want to experience it. That may make sense for highly creative products like films or books or high ticket items like cars or high-end electronics, but that doesn’t really help consumer product and food companies, small businesses, etc. Not only would creating such experiences be costly and time intensive, but making commercials that require even more time to consume is likely to get old with consumers.
The other options are to do what we essentially have now — video ads in anything streaming (game, Hulu app, whatever) and basically print ads in anything to be read (like a magazine app). The problem there is that all you can capture is mindshare, which is no improvement over what print and television already offered — but with, usually, a much smaller audience.
It seems to me that the most nonobtrusive but still effective way to go about this is to provide a discrete button during a video ad or on a static ad that consumers can click that triggers an action that doesn’t jerk them out of their experience. How could this be done?
One thing Hulu does is pop up a fairly non-intrusive dialog during its commercials that asks “Is this ad relevant to you?” and provides a “yes” and “no” button. It’s non-intrusive because it shows up in the frame rather across the “screen” itself. I suggest a modification of this that provides a simple “more” text button or perhaps an icon (that hopefully gains traction and becomes universal) that is displayed discreetly in the frame around the video or static/Flash animation ad. When clicked (or more likely touched since this is really intended to work with tablet apps), an action is triggered that takes place in the background. This could be everything from send you a link in an e-mail or text message to bookmark the site to Delicious to add an item to Google reader. Ideally, the platform for this call to action would be able to thread itself through most of the apps and would customizable by the user. The user him or herself could choose what the action is, thus setting the zone where he or she is willing to receive more information or coupons or a request to sign up for a mailing list of like a page on a social media site.
I also suggest that the follow up to the call of action, the thing that is triggered by touching the “more” button be heavy on the informational side of things. Advertisers can deliver the emotion in the ad. If consumers are interested, then the next step is to provide them with something that allows them to indicate that interest without jerking them out of the immersive experience, the app that they are currently in. Add in (depending on the app and advertiser) location awareness and a build up of consumer preference information, and I think you have an effective advertising platform that consumers will be more willing to engage with.
Persistent conversation among people I trust
I recently went in and cleaned up the more than 900 items I had starred in Google Reader going back to 2006. At least half of them were on recurring topics — personal finance, literary criticism, social media tracking, economics, food, etc. — that I like to follow closely (thus why they had been starred). But I had no trouble letting most of them go because, well, the conversation has moved on and things change and, to be honest, part of me was saying “hey, they’re only blog posts.” Don’t get me wrong — I love form and have been reading blogs since Instapundit just started out and have regularly blogged since 2004. But although blogs are a good way to generate current conversation, they suck when it comes to persistent conversation across time. Digging into archives can be very hit or miss (and tags and categories only take you so far, especially with a blog that has been around awhile). And even if comments aren’t closed on an older post, chances are the conversation is not going to be re-ignited. Also because of the semi-casual nature of blogs, both posts and comments don’t focus on real tight writing on thought.
On the other hand, Wikipedia is excellent for persistent content over time. Entries get updated, refined and fleshed out. Changes to the page are tracked and made available to the casual reader. But the problem with Wikipedia is that it’s only an encyclopedia. It’s tone and scope is focused on factual, relevant content.
And finally, scholarship, as it is made available in academic journals, and public intellectualism, as it is made available in magazines and newspapers, can often be great and producing polished work and work that is in conversation with others in the field. But you often have to slog through a lot in order to get to what you find interesting and conversations get off track and some of it is just too specialized.
So here’s what I want: a way to read a persistent, focused conversation on specialized topics I’m interested in undertaken by people I trust, admire, tolerate, hate or whatever but at least am willing to listen to that is set up in such a way to occur over days, months, years. I’m still mulling over what form this might take. More later when things have fully coalesced.
What I, as a writer/editor, want from a tablet computer
I like the idea of tablet computing because as a writer, editor and reader, anything that’s conceptually akin to a book or a (paper) notebook has an inherent appeal. However, I’m unlikely to commit to a device unless I am convinced that it will work well for me as a writer and editor and work in a wide variety of situations and for all stages of writing and editing a work. As I think about what that means in relation to a tablet, I run in to several barriers — not all of which can be overcome by interface (even a multi-touch one) alone.
Now, this may simply may be my own idiosyncratic needs. And certainly they are informed by the fact of my daily bus commute and the fact that I live in an apartment with a wife and daughter (and so have no “room of my own” so-to-speak). But here are the two things that I would require of a serious writing device:
A. Easy, quick data input for when ideas are flowing (brainstorming) and/or I’m in the zone (writing) that can happen in a variety of environments and even without the need for a flat surface.
B. Easy mark up of drafts, including the ability to quickly move chunks of text around.
Now I know the whole point of the iPad is supposed to be that one only needs a finger and the device (with the addition of a bluetooth or docked keyboard when needed), but I think some extra hardware accessories would be very useful when paired with a tablet computer.
Here’s what they are:
- A thumb keyboard: yes, I know this sounds dumb and retrograde, but the problem with a blue tooth keyboard is that you need a flat space to put it down on. I don’t have that on the bus. A thumb keyboard, say similar to a Blackberry keyboard, but I’d be open to other configurations, connected via bluetooth to a tablet means that you could have the tablet nearby, but not need it be all the way out and still go to town with the writing. Heck, I’d be willing to give up QWERTY in a second and learn a new alphabet input system for the right device. For those late night flashes of inspiration. For when you want to stand and pace. For, as I mention, the bus or the plane, this would be a great, easy way to download what’s going on in your mind. One key wakes up the tablet and opens up a blank document. The rest is just sheer input.
- A pen/pencil stylus for editing. Yes, one could theoretically use a finger. But the ergonomics of that suck, imo. Plus you can’t get quite as fine tuned as you need. A stylus that felt in the hand like a good pen or pencil coupled with software that recognizes editor’s marks and has provisions for adding annotations/comments and selecting and moving around chunks of text would be awesome. Think about how much more efficient and clear you’d be as an editor if you could interact with drafts in this way instead of either using Word’s or Adobe Acrobat’s horrible mark up systems or (as many editors still do) printing the document out and going over it on paper (thus requiring duplicate data entry).
- A dictation device. Possibly a microphone you hold in your hand or even one of those silly bluetooth ear devices. I write well when I walk. If I could walk with while carrying something that’s easy to hold and that I could speak in to as thoughts came to me and that could record a half hour or more worth of data and then connect wirelessly to a tablet and transcribe and transcribe well, I’d be in heaven, especially if I can then use the pencil stylus to edit the results.
I’m open to other solutions. But really, although multi-touch on a tablet solves many UI issues (I’ve never been fond of using a computer mouse), I still don’t see a vast improvement for those of us who focus on writing and editing. Give me the above, however, and a tablet is all I would need.
Tablets could be awesome for language learning
What I really want when it comes to new tech is a cheap, ultraportable, lean text writing and editing device. Which means a keyboard, probably. So I haven’t been all that interested in the rush of tablets. But last night I was thinking about how I struggle to keep fresh the foreign languages I know, and it occurred to me that one of the killer uses for a tablet would be language learning and maintanence.
Language learning takes place best in an immersive environment that can be entered consistently and provides a variety of ways to gain spoken, written and reading comprehension competencies. A tablet would be a great way to present video, audio, photos, words, quizzes, etc. Yes, that’s all content that is currently available through websties and software on desktops and laptops and smartphones. But I do think that a tablet form, that allows one to interact in a comfortable, casual setting and requires touch feedback (rather than the mouse or track pad) and has a bright, well-designed screen and an app-driven interface presents enough improvements and enticements and sensory experiences to really make language learning much better.
Wm’s Twitter stream- morriswm: RT @fakebaldur: This: http://t.co/NTaIPRJx “Khan Academy: It’s Different This Time” February 5, 2012
- morriswm: RT @Nobilis: I figured out why I don't like Tumblr: There's no room for conversation. It's a place to put up billboards. February 2, 2012
- morriswm: @ImaginaryZina @mel_leilani Yep. That's what I do. But I only do it on 1 out of the 4 times that I would normally click. So. Lost pageviews. February 2, 2012
- morriswm: @HeidiTighe 3/4 of the time I will just forget it. The other 1/4 I'll just Google the headline. February 2, 2012
- morriswm: RT @stacylwhitman: @morriswm The thing that drives me most nuts about it is that it *appears* to be a link to the newspaper itself. February 2, 2012
- morriswm: @stacylwhitman Exactly. February 2, 2012
