V Bit Set

Coolness with Google and MailChimp

December 3rd, 2009

Subtitle this post: I am easily amused.

Often I keep track of planned participation in events for our Indian Guides tribe, the Iroquois, using a Google Docs spreadsheet. My use of spreadsheets and especially charts has become a running joke within our group. Normally our group uses Google Groups to communicate. It provides a simple means to communicate with everyone at once. However, while serving as chief last year, I found that the messages from our Google Group did not always get the attention they deserved. I finally settled on using MailChimp as a way to send messages that had a little more visual appeal, some personalization and to give me some feedback on who had opened the message so I would know who needed a phone call.

This past week while drumming up support for the Encinitas Holiday Parade I stumbled on a little bit of synchronicity when combining my Google Docs Spreadsheets with MailChimp. Someone humorously requested a pie chart in response to the link to the roster spreadsheet. After creating the acceptable pie chart in my spreadsheet I selected the publish link to get a link to the image. I then duplicated my earlier MailChimp campaign and modified the message to include the pie chart.

What happened next brought a smile to my face. When I received the message, gmail recognized the pie chart was coming from a Google Docs spreadsheet and offered me a preview of the spreadsheet. That in turn made me realize that the pie chart included in the mail message was dynamic and would update every time the mail message was opened, essentially converting the email message into a quick status indicator for the tribe. As I said at the beginning, I am easily amused, but isn’t technology wonderful?

One little bit of darkness in all this joy, you must have access to the spreadsheet to view the pie chart. I have thought of two possible workarounds for this. The first would be to create a public spreadsheet with no personal information that is somehow synced with the protected spreadsheet. The second would be to supply a static pie chart image to use if the first image is not available. And of course those people who have chosen to receive the text version of my emails are just plain out of luck.

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A Cursory Look at @vark Answers

October 7th, 2009

I recently decided that I could no longer avoid buying an iPhone. Let’s not go into the nasty details, but VoIP over 3G and the hope of tethering are certainly both in the mix. So where is the best place to buy an iPhone, or in my case, a pair of iPhones. It just so happens that I was standing in Best Buy when this question occurred to me. I carefully crafted a tweet to @vark and sent my message out to my social network.

vark 1 hours ago
Where is the best place to buy an iPhone? Why?

Answers came rolling in and you can read the @vark transcript.

The fastest to answer was Trey, an 18 year old from Arlington, VA. His answer included “duh”, so that one will get marked as not helpful. We can chalk that up to youthful exuberance and move on. It is interesting that the majority of the people answering the question did not understand the emphasis was on the word best and the request for an explanation.

Two good answers came in, one from Julian in Westminster, UK and one from Felix in Lexington Park, MD. These answers justified their choice of the best location although the two locations differed.

Results

The good: Aardvark did provide opinions that were useful. I believe that this question really exemplifies the type of question best handled by a social network.

The bad: Aardvark generated a lot of chaff surrounding the kernels of good data. Even when an answer was well thought out and complete, Julian’s answer may have not been useful since he didn’t have the same retail options as I do.

Aardvark needs to help users self regulate and also needs to progress in who is allowed to answer questions. This will be partially accomplished in two ways, as more people join more subject matter experts will be identified to answer questions and answer feedback will assist in the pairing out of the less qualified.

Word of mouth marketing is moving to social networking. As a result companies are now being forced not only to have a presence on social networks, but to identify experts in systems like Aardvark and ensure that their company is portrayed in the best possible light.

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Seeing the World Through @pogue Colored Glasses

September 8th, 2009

Imagine if Wikipedia customized answers for you based on your IQ. Now imagine if it customized answers based on your age or a poll of how attractive you were. Turning to social media to mine for data is a double edged sword, in some cases our personal networks are going to give better responses because our friends tastes are more likely to mirror our own than the tastes of the general public. However when it comes to factual information, limiting your search to people in your own circle may specifically exclude the expert opinion. When it comes to matters of opinion we are likely to have answers that support our own position rather than challenge it.

There is nothing inherently wrong in this as long as we understand it is happening. Where we experience problems is when we forget that our social networks represent the people we are connected to and start representing their responses as the world view.

This occurs frequently in David Pogue’s book “The World According to Twitter”. David repeatedly contrasts the Twitter universe to other online communities without making the distinction between Twitter as a whole and the people who follow and respond to him. In a book, largely for entertainment purposes, this is not necessarily a bad thing. As an exercise I leave it to you to imagine what “The World According to Twitter” might have looked like if the same questions had been asked instead by @oprah or @aplusk.

However, @pogue makes a serious mistake when he applies this same rational to a product review. In his coverage of Aardvark, a new IM based service for peer answered questions, he praises the service in the timeliness and accuracy of the responses. Unfortunately the value of the service directly relates to how many of your Facebook friends are already using Aardvark. In David Pogue’s case the answer was 54, in mine a measly 2.

I can ask the same questions of Aardvark and not receive any responses or worse yet I can receive responses that are incorrect without any way to assess the authority of the person who responded. It would be wonderful if we were all intelligent, witty and handsome enough to have great followers like @pogue. Until then I would recommend he, and any other reviewer, borrow someone’s social network and repeat your tests, break free from your ivory tower and see how the service works for us little people.

Tags: Aardvark, David Pogue, social networking
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Anatomy of a Bad Tweet

August 27th, 2009

Why You Should Not Tweet Your Headlines

I am starting to feel like a hater when it comes to the NC Times use of social media. I think that they are sitting around in some conference room thinking up new ways to irritate me. However, many people rely on the same tactic used by the NC Times when tweeting. They merely retweet the subject of their post without considering the usefulness or retweetability of their update. Hopefully by pointing out their mistake I can help you improve your tweets and increase your follower count.

Today I received the following tweet on my mobile phone:

First I will break down the incorrect elements of this tweet and then I will put it back together in a form that more suited to social networking.

Problematic elements of the tweet above:

Useless hashtag: The NC Times should not use a hashtag with their username on all tweets. This is redundant information. The @username construct is more powerful than a hashtag on Twitter. Hashtags are more properly used as subordinate labels.
Useless geotag: Useless may be incorrect terminology. The REGION: label above is meant to signal who might be interested in this story. Unfortunately Twitter offers no capability to use a label in this format. The more appropriate thing to do would be to use separate Twitter accounts for stories of limited interest and allow people to follow segments of interest.
Unnecessary words: When this tweet is taken in context, the words brush and camp are not needed. At the time of this tweet it was generally known that there were brush fires on Camp Pendleton. The intent of the story was to provide an update on the fires. The majority of people in the region would understand Pendleton to mean Camp Pendleton.
Unnecessary punctuation: Both the quotes around the headline and the parenthesis around the shortened URL are not required. These are elements of style more appropriately reserved for formal writing. The parenthesis also include parasitic spaces to separate them from the link.

When we remove the useless and unnecessary elements of the tweet above the tweet goes from 80 characters to 38 characters. We have removed an astounding 52.5% of the tweet.

The measure of success of a tweet is retweetableness. We can compute the maximum size of a tweet based on the following formula:

Therefore @nctimes could be composing tweets up to 127 characters long. This tweet falls well under that limit at 80 characters long. A tweet should not needlessly use that much space, but the second factor to consider is completeness of the content.

Our new 38 character tweet: “fires on Pendleton http://bit.ly/uBG5r” really doesn’t tell us anything that isn’t already known.

Probably the most important information in the article is the danger the fires present. That gives us the following tweet, “Two Pendleton fires pose no threat to structures http://bit.ly/uBG5r”. This new tweet is 68 characters long. Suddenly we have a tweet that actually gives us a status update and it is still shorter than the original.

We could add more details and stay within our optimal length, “SD Sheriff’s helicopters and back fires used to fight two Pendleton fires; no threat to structures http://bit.ly/uBG5r” is 118 characters long and captures most of the important details of the story. This tweet is much more likely to be retweeted.

In business we are looking at social media as a means to drive traffic to web sites or brick and mortar stores to increase sales or advertising revenue. It may seem like a good idea to depend on teaser tweets to get people to click through to your site. This may work occasionally if your content is especially compelling and useful, but in most cases this is not a good strategy. Your strategy should be to provide valuable content and build up an actively listening follower base. Your reward will be brand loyalty due to the enhanced reputation that your social networking presence is providing.

Tags: nctimes, twitter
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Innovative Sandwich Ordering Interface

August 13th, 2009

I love innovative user interfaces, not just user interfaces on computer software, but user interfaces on electronics devices and mechanical objects from cars to can openers. But I also like when businesses innovate their user interfaces.

Sandwich shops abound. For the most part they subsist on location, brand recognition and loyalty programs. After all, a sandwich is pretty much a sandwich. There are specialty sandwich shops which have a preset number of sandwiches, typically named after local celebrities or locations, and there are run of the mill and chain sandwich shops that may offer base sandwiches, but really allow you to build the sandwich from the ground up selecting toppings during the process.

The old model of ground up sandwich making is plagued by inefficiency. The sandwich artist forced to wait at each step of sandwich making for the customer to provide direction and unable to plan for the end product because the requirements were not completed when designs began. Customers stare at tubs of white cheese being asked to pick with little knowledge whether the provolone is round or square or consider a tub of diced peppers wondering whether they were jalapeños or serranos. If you are a computer user, like me, you find this cumbersome

On my first visit to Which Wich in the Carlsbad Forum I found a new twist on this build to suit model. Customers create orders themselves on preprinted sandwich bags that take them through the sandwich construction process. The advantages are numerous; the customer can take as much or as little time as he likes creating his sandwich because he is not holding up the line, there is less likelihood of a sandwich being built out of spec because of a communication error, additional cost items are clearly disclosed and the sandwich builder knows at the outset what will be going on the sandwich increasing build efficiency and decreasing aggregate customer wait times. They also have a flat pricing model with most sandwiches offered at the same price and only a few upgraded items.

If prefer ordering at Burger King electronic kiosks over ordering at the counter because of the clearly spelled out menu options then you owe it to yourself to give Which Wich a try and experience their innovative user interface experience.

OK, how can you do a restaurant review without talking about the food? I love food, especially free food, but really most food. I ordered the “Wicked” which is their signature sandwich sporting 5 meats and your choice of 3 cheeses. I found the sandwich to be a bit salty, but that was probably the massive amount of meat and my choice of toppings. I will definitely go back and try something a bit more simple.

What I liked best was the size of their sandwich. I am tired of places giving you a giant roll with a skimpy piece of meat and a single translucent piece of cheese. I am a huge bread fan, but on a sandwich the bread is a canvas that should support the work of art built above it. Which Wich’s bread was toasted excellently and was the right amount to provide a solid structure for the other ingredients without getting in the way. The sandwich held together beautifully and was evenly constructed.

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Revisiting Twitter’s Monopoly

August 7th, 2009

AT&T did it as Ma Bell, Microsoft did it, AT&T and Apple are doing it again, it seems monopolies of one form or another are all the rage today and everyone from the FCC to David Pogue wants answers. But who is crying out against the Twitter monopoly?

Twitter’s closed social network is a monopoly and this week we have two major demonstrations of why this is bad for everyone.

First, because there is no Twitter alternative, there is no recourse when Twitter is taken offline by a DDoS attack. Months ago Barrett Lyon was pointing out Twitter’s vulnerabilities and arguing that as a communication service Twitter had an obligation to provide a better network infrastructure. Obviously Twitter, as a money losing proposition, has to balance survival with investment, but in the long run competition is good for technology and business.

Second, there is no alternative to the unfiltered mess that is Twitter. As a result we are starting to see bans on Twitter. Whether it is the Marines banning social networking, the NFL banning tweets from the sidelines or your own company banning Twitter in the workplace to protect trade secrets the result is the same, all or nothing. Twitter being offered only as a monolithic service provides no opportunity for enterprise monitoring and filtering.

I have argued in the past that an appropriate business model for Twitter would be to sell their software after making it conform to open microblogging standards following in the footsteps of companies like sendmail. They could also sell Twitter as a service. A network of microblogging servers running different software would be more fault tolerant and would allow enterprise filtering of Tweets, permitting open communication while protecting everything from trade secrets to national security. It would allow consumer choice of providers and encourage innovation and reliability.

Tags: twitter
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The NC Times New Look

August 6th, 2009

A comparison to the NY Times

This review compares the site redesign done at the NC Times to the NY Times. It should be known that the NY Times spends oodles of money on their electronic assets and has in the past developed entire programs for the display of their news.

Screen shot of the North County Times

Screen shot of the New York Times

These two screen shots show the pages in a standard Firefox window at 1024×768, the most common display size currently in use.

Both websites are displayed with a horizontal scroll bar, this is an artifact of replicating the screen size. The scroll bar would not be present for a user full screen on a 1024×768 display. The inclusion of this scroll bar does affect the percentage numbers below.

I have left the light blue-gray box on the top of the NY Times page even though it can be removed.

Category	NY Times	NC Times
Number of Headlines	10	5
Number of Article Words	48	33
Number of Pictures	2	1[1]
Traffic	No	Yes
Weather	No[2]	Yes
Content Begins	~ 350 px (57%)[3]	~ 380 px (62%)
Number of Columns	5	3
Widest Column of Text	340 px (caption) 150 px (story)	600 px
Ads	3 to 4	1
Ad Space	180×90 (2) 80×30 (1) 340×80 partial (1)	740×100
Ad Space Total	62000 sq px (10%)	74000 sq px (12 %)

What we can conclude is that the home page of the NY Times is able to convey more news and use more pictures. The NY Times places more emphasis on their content by having the navigation along the left hand side, rather than at the top of the page.

The most important difference is in the layout of the columns. By using many narrow columns the NY Times is able to present more headlines and has more story content as well.

The North County Times does have a dynamic element that permits the display of more than one picture on the homepage. The NY Times picture element is static and related to the story content. The placement of the dynamic picture navigation control results in picture captions not being immediately visible and therefore the pictures lack context.

When discussing ad placement, the NY Times is able to display 4 ads. Two of those ads appear to be linked and display the same content. One of their ads is mostly off the display. The NC Times shows a slightly larger single ad, but the space allocated for ads is actually significantly larger and not in use in the screen shot.

While both of these sites change frequently, this review attempts to address the major site elements to evaluate the recent NC Times redesign. I am not impressed with the redesign and hope that the NC Times will continue to attempt to improve the site with a mind towards increased usability.

[1] Five pictures dynamically rotate through one space.
[2] Available after personalization.
[3] ~325 px (53%) after personalization

Tags: nctimes, newspapers
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NC Times Redesign

August 5th, 2009

The North County Times or NC Times launched a redesign of their site, and while I am no design expert I have criticized the functionality of their site in the past. It’s important then to revisit past criticisms and to see what the upgraded site has to offer.

My biggest complaint with the NC Times and the other newspapers is the walled garden approach they have taken with their content. Not only do they lock down the distribution of the content they create but the content that users on the site create in response. They do this to preserve ad revenue, but in the end they are competing against services who have figured out how to monetize content through syndication.

Results of my initial 5 minute evaluation are not good. While the site loads much faster and has an updated more modern look to it, the usability is poor because of the large type reducing the amount of content available without clicking or scrolling. This is exacerbated by the large amount of space reserved for ads and the masthead. While the large drop down auto-dealership banner advertisement is gone, and the site no longer crashes my mobile browser, the site still does not support alternative browsing via mobile devices in any real sense. On my phone I need to scroll halfway down the page before I get to the headline for the story.

The site now has breadcrumbs that improve navigation and the new menu bar navigation is cleaner than the old style, however key pages that were very useful are as far as I can tell completely gone. One I will specifically miss is the regional columnists page that provided at a glance the subject and date of each columnists most recent post.

RSS feeds appear to be the same clunky system that existed before. One really odd behavior is that the RSS icon on each section home page links to an RSS explanation page rather than being an actual RSS link. Of course they also didn’t bother to put RSS links in their page headers.

One of the most important features of the modern newspaper website is the ability to handle trackbacks and pingbacks. It will be interesting to see if this review is linked back to the comments for the announcement of the web site redesign. One really foolish thing that was done was to remove the comments from the story page itself into an alternate tab. Separating the comments from the story is one symptom of the newspaper arrogance that their content is somehow better than user generated comment.

One really weird aspect of the site that I find interesting occurs on the homepage. At the bottom of the main column appear objects that look like widgets providing a glimpse into each of the main sections.

This content appears on the home page and looks like a widget.

Unfortunately this content is not dynamic, clicking on any of the hyperlinks result not in the expected dynamic preview behavior of a widget, but an actual navigation to the story or section clicked.

While there are some positive things about the redesign, overall the NC Times took some steps backwards in usability and did not fix some fundamental technology problems. I believe this change will be yet another milestone marking the decline of the North County’s most important media asset.

Update:

As expected pingbacks and trackbacks do not register as comments. However we were informed that a mobile site exists:

ACE said on: August 5, 2009, 5:58 pm

We do have a mobile-optimized site at http://www.nctimes.com/mobile. It is not a default for mobile devices out of respect for iPhone users, who would then be limited to it. If you have mobile problems, let us know at website@nctimes.com. — Ace

While I agree that auto-detection can be problematic, I guess that the NC Times creators have never seen pages for m.twitter.com and other professional web sites. If you look at the bottom of http://m.twitter.com you will find a line that says, “View Twitter in: ” with a button that toggles between ‘Standard’ and ‘Mobile’. While the lack of RSS feeds pointing to the mobile site is problematic, the nonstandard use of a subdirectory versus a subdomain is inane, the most wrong headed part of their mobile site is a complete lack of advertising.

Tags: nctimes, newspaper
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Common Misconceptions about the State Park Access Pass program

June 16th, 2009

While I wait for the California State Park Foundation to publish an updated FAQ, I would like to tackle some misconceptions about the proposed State Park Access Pass.

First we visit the Mono Lake Committee staff blog who tell us, “If the new funding source does not survive that process, then 80% of the parks close.” This is false, both the elimination of the state park system from the general fund and the SPAP must be voted on. Tell your legislator to continue funding the state parks from the general fund, not through yet another vehicle fee. How many legislators will vote to defund the parks without a replacement funding source?

Many people on Facebook think the issue here is whether all Californians should support the state park system. In support of the SPAP Debra Brittain says, “The parks are there for future generations, not only for those who choose to use the parks now. It is not unfair to ask everyone in the State to maintain the parks.” Currently the general fund as well as usage fees support the state park system so currently everyone in California does support the park system. That is not the issue.

There are two real differences between supporting the state park system through the general fund and via a vehicle licensing fee. First the vehicle license fee is a new tax that would increase the total state budget. Second the vehicle license fee is a regressive tax, putting a disproportionate tax burden on the poor.

Update:

Modern Hiker incorrectly offers, “And, of course, because it takes a tremendous stride toward democratizing the state park system.” This is the stereotypical view of the current park user. Fearful of losing access to the park and grabbing on to any funding mechanism to support them they fail to look at the proposal critically. Removal of usage fees, and conversion of funding from the general fund to a vehicle licensing fee is not democratization. A regressive tax is, if anything, anti-democratic. The California State Park Foundation has done a wonderful job of selling their agenda of funding before accountability to the park loving masses.
Update:

Pete Thomas of the LA Times Blog Outpost parrots the California State Parks Foundation’s press release with his Good News, Bad News post. To avoid the term tax hike, he uses terms like surcharge to note that the increased VLF is simply replacing funding from the general fund. He thinks opposition will be from non-park users but who, after reviewing this proposal, would support a $143 million dollar tax increase with no accountability and no long term solution to the problems of how the state parks are managed?

Tags: california state parks, state park access pass, state parks
Posted in Opinion, Travel | Comments

Why I oppose the State Park Access Pass

June 15th, 2009

The State Park Access Pass program creates a new tax. As a State we can not spend our way out of the current financial crisis. If every program threatened with cost reduction seeks a dedicated source of funding we will double the State budget not halve it.

The State Park Access Pass funding source is not logical. It is not any more reasonable to think that the State Parks should benefit from vehicle license fees than emergency services who respond to vehicle accidents or education that relies on vehicles to transport students and staff to schools. Also consider the case of the two car family who has paid $30 in vehicle license fees to access the State Parks and who will have an additional fee to pay when they rent an RV to visit the State Parks.

The State Park Access Pass program removes entry fees as a way of moderating park traffic. Certain high traffic parks have entry fees that can be used to discourage casual visitors and encourage repeat visitors to visit less crowded parks. Removing this tool from the State Park system will cause additional crowding at the most popular parks.

The State Park Access Pass program is a regressive tax. It shifts the burden for the State Parks away from the wealthy, who typically bear the largest burden of the State Budget. It places an additional burden on the poor.

In conclusion, no matter how strongly we support individual State programs, the time has come for us to stop letting special interests of any kind drive the State budget. We need a well thought out budget that allocates a reasonable amount of revenue between the necessary programs and accept the cuts that will inevitably follow.

Tags: california state parks, state park access pass, state parks
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