serious about camo

Publishing to YouTube from the iPhone 3GS = WIN.

I got my new iPhone on Friday. I have been smitten with my gen1 iPhone since forever, and I skipped the 3G upgrade because I was content ... adding 3G + GPS just wasn't enough to make me shift. But with the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade  & the full set of newness coming down with the 3GS, I knew it was time.

I'll save the commentary on the majority of the awesomeness at this time, but suffice it to say I am very impressed. One thing I would like to take time to note, however, is something I think is going to be transformative: the ability to create, edit and upload video directly to YouTube.

Shoot a video

From the camera, you now have the ability to swap between stills and video. Switch the toggle and you can get down to bidness.

Trim it to make it just right

Holding down on the filmstrip at the top of the playback screen allows you to zoom in on particular frames and crop the video down to what you'd actually like to deploy.

Send it

When you are looking at the video, you can share it just like you would a picture. It's a bit of an overused icon, but the thing that looks like the "Forward" is what you use to send it to YouTube.

Give it metadata & upload it

Add a title, description, tags, etc. That's it. Then with one more click your video gets compressed and pushed up to YouTube!

Wow

I have never seen video authoring as something likely to go totally mainstream. Even services like Seesmic and 12seconds, which make it bonehead-easy to author video content and spread it to people that care are too complicated, and the publishing mechanism is so often tethered to the computer. 

With this update, Apple's made it as easy as I've ever seen to create video and send it out to the universe. The video below is not particularly interesting; I saw the JD NASCAR sitting in the parking lot of a local store, and went over and grabbed a little video of what it looks like up close. Not being a big NASCAR fan, this is not my idea of pr0n. But the simple act of shooting, editing and publishing to YouTube in seconds blows my mind.  

Pimping out your Facebook Page

This is a really great video with Caitlin O'Farrell (Facebook's consumer marketing manager). There are some great tips here for brands to focus on. One of the tips in it directs you to Facebook for Influencers. This is the de facto "resource for how to build your presence on Facebook and engage your audience."

A superhot tip: 200px x 600px is the most optimized size for a brand's profile picture. It creates a vertical profile image that stretches down the left column.

On top of that, I highly recommend About Face: A free whitepaper on Facebook Pages by The Advance Guard. The Advance Guard does an excellent job of going section by section through the new Facebook Pages and giving you really clear actionable ways to get your Page on, with illustrative examples of best practices in the wild.

Scoble interviewing Fred Wilson, talking the 2010 web

This is a great informal chat between Fred Wilson and Robert Scoble.

It's an inspiring set of thoughts on where we are going.

Awesome App Store Hyperwall

I wish I'd been there, because this visualization of the App Store is pretty friggin' cool. What you see below is just a subset of the actual spectacle: twenty 30" cinema displays with a chromatic array of App Store icons. As apps are purchased on the App Store, the icon pulsates on these displays. It's a pretty fantastic effect, but it also is a fairly profound affect, as the number of purchases is at a pretty awesome tempo!

 

iPhone app Brushes used to create the New Yorker cover

Artist Jorgé Colombo used the iPhone app Brushes to create the June 1, 2009 cover of the New Yorker.

Per the New York Times:

Mr. Colombo bought his iPhone in February, and the $4.99 Brushes application soon after, and said the portability and accessibility of the medium appealed to him. He began the scene by beginning with the buildings’ structure, then layering on the taxis, neon lights, hot-dog stand and people. (A video of the process is available at newyorker.com beginning on Monday.)

 

Here's one of the incredible things: Steve Sprang, developer of the Brushes app, has built a companion app for the OSX desktop, Brushes Viewer. Brushes Viewer allows you to import images that you've created in Brushes on the iPhone and turn them into videos! 

It's pretty amazing to watch Jorgé as he paints.

Starbucks Window

Here are a couple of videos of drawings I made. They aren't particularly good drawings, but now that I've started using Brushes Viewer, I feel really inspired to get into working on them.

Fade

Skullage

Übergeekin with the Google Тетрис logo

Google commemorates the 25th birthday of Tetris with this awesome logo! 

From Wikipedia:

Tetris (Russian: Тетрис) is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov. It was created on June 6, 1984,^[1] while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow.^[2] He derived its name from the Greek numerical prefix "tetra-"—as all of the game's pieces (known as Tetrominoes) contain four segments—and tennis, Pajitnov's favorite sport.^[3][4]

Working on a project in WPF, started this little Stencil

Here's a little Omnigraffle stencil project I started. My idea is to build out a nice little library of common controls that won't require custom development when using any of the standard WPF control libraries.

Please post ideas & comments to the project page, here. If you want to check in project updates, please do!

Remarkd is defunct, but I still ♥ Remarkd.

There is a lot I could say about my experience with Remarkd, but I'm not going to go incredibly deep into it right now. As a tribute, I think it'd be fun to post some of the iterations the concept has gone through.

Tradr concept- July 2007

This was the initial idea I had for a Facebook app that would allow you to sell to your community. Notice at the bottom you could add a new item just by typing the description in a single field. Then you'd say what shape it was in, using a three star rating system, enter a price and click "Add". 

CloudFair concept: December 2007

At this point I was collaborating with Jason Wehmhoener, Nadine Schaeffer and Satya Palani on concepts.

Remarkd for Causes concept: May 2008

Andrew Brown and I partnered in December 2009 and created Remarkd. We went heads-down into business mode here, not a lot of pictures to show. Here's how I described Remarkd to our technology partners Nearsoft: 

Remarkd is building a online community marketplace, a "virtual garage" sale, and place for people to post items for sale and talk about their favorite Cause within their community.  Think of Craigslist (sort of), but with 3 fundamental differences: 

1. When people sell something, they will share a proportion of the proceeds with their chosen Causes.  
2. People will transact with people they know and trust - their friends, contacts or fellow cause supporters.  They will also be able to buy/sell with people in the global Remarkd community.
3. The experience we are building fully embraces Web 2.0, next generation internet practices (e.g. mobile, Facebook & OpenSocial application access, user generated wiki & blog).  Online community dialogue and messaging between members and Causes will create a reinforcing commitment to Cause goals (stickiness).

Remarkd's initial launch: September 2008

We launched in September with a whole host of non-profit "Causes" on board. Within a week of launch, we hit a catastrophic snag in our payment solution. Ultimately, we had to double back on the idea of helping Causes raise money. Long story short: the IRS doesn't like 3rd parties doing this.

Remarkd Stores concept: December 2009

Luckily, the fundamental technology we had developed was sound; in our updated business model, we would help community owners to monetize their network. Any OpenSocial-capable site could add the Remarkd Stores app and in a matter of minutes, members of the site's community would be transacting. 

Individuals could buy & sell things, and commercial sellers would have a well targeted niche of customers. Remarkd had a revenue sharing agreement with partner sites, so the owners could supplement their other means of supporting the site. Our initial foray into OpenSocial targeted Ning networks. 

Remarkd Stores: launched with DGRUS January 2009

Our initial launch partners were DGRUS, a super passionate collective of disc golfers.

Remarkd iPhone spec: January 2009

Jordan Alperin signed on to help us build the easiest way to sell things ever envisaged. I am not being hyperbolic: this app would have ROCKED. 

Remarkd Anywhere spec: May 2009

We found out some interesting things about Ning networks with our Remarkd Stores app, primarily that despite the 2M networks on Ning, there weren't an incredibly large number that were ideal for a Remarkd Store. 

We'd always had the notion of an install-anywhere app on our roadmap. We accelerated this and started building Remarkd Anywhere. A single line of JS and you'd have your Remarkd Store on any website.

And then we closed down

No one likes to close down the business they've toiled over night and day for close to two years. That said, I have learned so much over that stretch, I'm almost without words. 

Now I just need some time to marinate.

Fin.

Interaction Design prototyping tools

Need to build a prototype, but don't know what to use? There are many factors that will likely seem to influence that decision, but there is only ONE that matters:  What is the prototype going to be used for?

Some types of prototypes:

1. Prototype as documentation
2. Prototype as pitch
3. Usability prototype
4. Experimenting through prototyping

Each of these has its own set of high-level goals, and picking the right prototyping tool will help you achieve them. First, here's my cut of the top (and interesting new) prototyping tools. There are many more of course, some I ignored on purpose, some I totally overlooked. Fill me in, please.

The usual suspects

iRise
Very popular in large enterprises, often argued as a means for business analysts to concept solutions.
Allows you to have data driven prototypes which can be very high or very low fidelity.

$$$$$ ($6,995)

Axure
Similar in many respects to iRise, Axure seems to be more oriented for designers. Visio-like interface with common libraries.

$$$ ($589)

Balsamiq Studio
Very compelling interactive wireframing tool. Less specification-oriented, very much a graphical UI designer.

$ ($79)

Fireworks CS4
The old is new again. Back in 1999, I used Macromedia Fireworks all the team to comp out new designs and make them interactive. It's now built into CS4 and goes as far as letting you build AIR apps.

$$ ($299)

Expression Blend 2
Build interactive UI prototypes much like you would build a Flash app. UI can be exported to let the developers get a jump on UI coding.

$$$ ($499)

ProtoShare
A new one to me (thanks @virgosun!) Lets you build clickable wireframes in a collaborative tool.

$+ ($29 - $199)

Paper
Drawing on paper and paper prototyping are by far the cheapest and best means to get your concept out. Also included in "paper" should be any UI editor you currently use: Visio, Omnigraffle, Illustrator, etc.

FREE

So which to choose when?

Deciding which on to choose is not always easy, especially when you have enterprise consistency to be concerned with. Instead of being prescriptive, here's what I think is most important for each of types of prototype above.

Prototype as documentation
Developers & business partners need to understand you (but they don't usually speak the same language). This argues for fairly high-fidelity documentation. A semi-functional prototype with integrated documentation would be best.

Winner: Axure
Runner-up: Protoshare

Prototype as pitch
This needs to be high-fidelity, flawless in execution and interactive. Stakeholders need to be able to glean the sexiness of your execution and the vision of the direction. 

Winner: Fireworks
Runner-up: Expressions

Usability prototype
Needs to be fast and representative of core interactions. The ability to create derivative prototypes for new studies is important.

Winner: Paper
Runner-up: Fireworks

Experimenting through prototyping
You need to be able to try new things without being fussy. Sketches are good for getting a general idea, but at times you have to go deep in order to understand if critical usage scenarios will hold up.

Winner: Balsamiq
Runner-up: Paper

Smashing Magazine's Mobile Design Trends for 2009

In typical Smashing Magazine fashion, their recent post on contemporary mobile design trends is both comprehensive and thoughtful.

I won't go into it too deep, but here are the trend highlights:

1. Simple options
2. White space
3. Lack of images
4. Sub-domains instead of .mobi or separate domains
5. Prioritized content

They go further to outline common challenges:

1. Variety of screen sizes (see my previous post)
2. Lack of understanding
3. Rapid change
4. Testing challenges
5. Deciding what is essential

Then have a pretty great section on design and development considerations which is a must read for any designer and developer new to mobile. The summary of Sitepoint's March 2008 post, Designing for the Mobile Web covers many other basics that are important for the webdev folks as well as the business folks.

Finally, they include a gallery of the best out there (I am proud to see my Bank of America team's work highlighted.) I had not see their source for this, Mobile Awesomeness. Mobile Awesomeness is well worth subscribing to.