The Web!
Tumblr continues to add little updates. The latest round is the ability to create pages based on Tags.
Like an idiot, I’ve only been using limited tags on posts, mostly for design purposes. Today I went back and tagged two months worth of posts as well as adding a topic list on the right hand side of flingLog in case anyone is interested in browsing posts by topic.
I’ve had a few new ideas for version 2.0 of flingLog, including a different layout, adding a location-based travelogue and breaking off content into unique streams. I also plan to make a few tweaks to improve load times and to open source my Tumblr theme and stylesheet. Of which I structured into a primary structural stylesheet just for Tumblr and additional stylesheets to apply branding.
In the meantime I’ve stopped cross-posting blog posts to Twitter and have started using Twitter directly. Even though a few folks expressed their dislike for the technique, I still think the idea has its merits. But with many people that use Twitter, I’m still not convinced its for me. But I’m giving it another shot nonetheless to see what happens.
I still believe that microblogging concepts like Tumblr that are able to connect to easily reblog content and connect to multiple services represents the future of blogging. Tools like Twitter are great for communication of presence, but I’ve noticed a decline in blog posts as the tweet count goes up.
There seems to be a conflict between the benefits of communicating to a group and communicating with substance. But at the moment, I think I’m the only one that cares as it could just be me.
Google Doctype
“An open encyclopedia and reference library. Written by web developers, for web developers.”
It includes a lot of great reference material, including HOWTO’s and browser compatibility charts for CSS properties and Javascript methods.
The Dark Side of Web Comments
I hate anonymous comments. They are time consuming and can be highly destructive. But at the same time I can’t ignore the power of knowledge sharing and discussion online and comments have had a big part in triggering an ongoing open discussion.
This article from Business Week talks about JuicyCampus and how idle remarks and false accusations through anonymous comments can be damaging to a persons reputation and identity.
Just take a look at some of the most viewed posts (sorry, I refuse to link to the site) on the site and it will have you wondering if anonymous comments on this site is a good idea. And the site has a policy of not removing posts. The accused should at least have the opportunity to face their accuser.
Growing up is hard enough as it is, and kids can be really cruel. But imagine the name of your daughter being posted for thousands of others to see with some sort of inflammatory remark. Plus I did a quick search on some of the names listed on the site with Google and found that the remarks made on JuicyCampus were to only or top result for this young person just starting out in their life.
As a parent, I wonder what my daughters life will be like in the a digitally-infused age. Looking at JuicyCampus make me feel really sad and lose faith in the web, a medium that I believe so fervently in.
Seriously?
This is like saying, “sorry you can’t view this TV Show because you don’t have the right brand of TV.”
Maybe this is payback in some way for my call to stop supporting IE 6?
I got an email today from Friendster announcing it has “new releases and [is] easier to share.”
Wow that is amazing! I didn’t know that Friendster still existed.
Should I Support IE6 by Default?
I’m certain this will draw a lot of criticism, but hey its Friday.
I’m seriously debating whether I should continue supporting Internet Explorer 6 for my clients by default. Instead offering IE6 support as an optional service for an additional cost.
Given that IE7 is a mandatory upgrade for all Windows users and with the numbers of IE6 are rapidly dwindling, is it something that should still be supported by default?
I know there are still plenty of IE6 users out there and some clients will certainly need IE6 to be supported, which I’m fine doing. But should it come at an extra cost? It certainly takes extra time, so at the moment I need to add “IE6 Time” to each of my estimates. Why not remove the padding and tell the client where their money is going and have them make the choice?
For the launch of Fling Media, I chose to launch without fixing for IE6, which has drawn a murmur of controversy, but not thankfully much. Frankly I saw it as a non-issue. I had to pick and choose my battles to get everything ready for launch, making a choice to either hold off launching because of IE6 or fix at some point in the future. My traffic from IE6 users historically has been pretty low even when it was adjusted for IE6, so I focused on my target, not the minority.
In the mobile space, you have to make tough calls of which browsers you are going to support all the time. The level of support for web standards is so fragmented that is makes it virtually impossible to support them all. The desktop browser space isn’t nearly as bad, but I’m accustomed to making a choice of what is cost effective to support and what isn’t.
So at what point do we draw the line in the sand? Don’t we need to make hard calls in order to push the medium forward? To be able to innovate and create using the most adopted standards? Or do we wait? And if so, how long?
The initial Web Standards movement couldn’t have succeed unless we claimed Netscape 4 was the first victim. The number of users at the time for Netscape 4 was far lower than IE6 is today. But Netscape 4 wasn’t effectively recalled by its maker, as Microsoft has done by requiring an upgrade to IE7.
Anyway, something I’m pondering but haven’t come up with a firm decision yet. What do you think?
I tried to unsubscribe to some newsletter that I don’t remember ever subscribing to and after putting in my email address twice, I got this error.
It seems like all too often when I use a web-based unsubscribe form that there is some sort of validation error like this, or “we can’t find the email address that in our database, even though we just sent an email to it.”
Every email blast should give you the ability to opt out via email. These web forms just never seem to work reliably.
Basecamp: Reply to a message via email... Finally!
37signals has finally added the ability to reply to a Basecamp post via email. This is long overdue. I’ve found that many clients don’t use, or were confused by Basecamp because of this oversight.
If you were away from your desk, Basecamp was virtually unusable without a laptop and a good Internet connection.
Is The Future of Movies… Free?!
Slash Film, inspired by the recent Wired cover story, runs the numbers to show that it would be possible to show movies in theaters for free. Having spent a bit of time in the movie exhibition business myself, I believe this is completely possible and could actually be a benefit to the lagging movie industry.
In Portland, Oregon the local micro-brew behemoth McMenamins runs a number of pub theaters, showing second run movies (originally for a $1 per ticket, but now for $3). Making there money on a full food menu and beers and not on the ticket price, which is pretty much true of all movie theaters.
Movie theaters only get a small percentage of gross ticket sales in the first week, like 10%, the lions share goes to the studio. The longer a movie is in “first run,” the higher the percentage of the ticket gross the theater gets. So a movie like Cloverfield which only had one great week, then dramatically trailing off, makes the studio millions and each theater relatively little. But a movie like Juno, which sees a long run in the theaters makes both a nice profit.
So the problem here is that studios have no cost benefit to make good movies. All they care about is the first couple of weeks in release, which is where the recoup their investment (or not). Theaters on the other hand and being punished for the low attendance from competing DVD sales, or “free” airings on cable. But I think mostly the problem stems from consumer feeling ripped off. Paying $8-10 to see a bad movie is a bitter pill to swallow.
As the quality of movies goes down, the shorter the runs, meaning the ability for theater owners to make a buck becomes increasingly difficult. This all equates to higher ticket prices, infinitesimal screens per multiplex and pretty crappy cinema experience for you and me. Which just makes a bad movie worse for the wear. It is a classic Catch-22 scenario.
Back at McMenamins, I was always surprised how a lame Jim Carey comedy, that performed relatively poorly in first run, would have people rolling in the aisle. It was apparent that people enjoyed themselves a lot more at the movies when their pocket books weren’t being pinched on the way in. Like some sort of cinema going Taoists, their expectations were lowered, allowing themselves to enjoy the experience.
I’m not sure if Peter from Slash Film has the right formula, but Free (or really cheap) is a good idea worthy of exploring. Something is obviously broken in today’s movie going experience and the industry needs to start trying new ideas, or I believe they will quickly find themselves irrelevant.
iTunes Now Number Two Music Retailer in the US
Apple today announced that iTunes is now the number two music retailer in the US, trailing only Wal-Mart.* The iTunes Store — now with over 50 million customers — has sold over four billion songs. In fact, it sold an incredible 20 million songs on Christmas Day 2007 alone. And with over six million songs from all of the major and thousands of independent labels, it offers the world’s largest music catalog.
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