February 2012
1 post
3 ground rules for PR crisis management
At some point, your company will have a PR crisis. Airbnb had its infamous home ransacking, Curebit was recently caught stealing web designs and background music for a product video, my kid’s daycare had a teacher quit and send vitriolic emails to the parent listserve. Even 37signals recently had a crisis when one of their developers publicly disclosed the name of a file that a user had...
January 2012
6 posts
Twitter spam is the best kind
I just crossed 100 followers on Twitter, a dubious honor that confirms my standing as one of the least cool people on the internet. But I have a secret. I’m even less cool than it seems. The two followers who put me over the top were both spammers,
Did I report them? Heck no! If only there were 9,347,443 more like them, I’d be on par with Ashton Kutcher. My Klout score might not go...
There are only so many corners you can cut
Yesterday, I read an article in TechCrunch about Curebit, which just raised $1.2 million. I clicked the link to their site and did a double take. Wait, what?! Their homepage looked exactly like the Highrise homepage from 37signals, which was the subject of a great blog post on A/B testing.
I dropped into gchat and hit up my friend Trevor who works for 37signals. He was perplexed. He sent me a...
No, you don't need to build an app
Why does everything have to be an app these days? You’d think there were no businesses before web or mobile apps.
App mania is actually pretty destructive. Here’s how the narrative usually goes. Someone comes to me and says, “I have this great idea for an app. It’s like this for that and it’s gonna be amazing!!” Next comes a question: “So where can I...
Learning how to get things done
Joel has a great, concise set of criteria for hiring: “Smart and gets things done.”
At its best, the education system does a good job teaching the “smart” part — english, math, science. But what about the “gets things done” part? I’ve never heard of a high school or college that teaches a course in time management or project management. It’s...
Nudging email closer to the cliff
Email is a scourge. Extreme email efficiency and inbox zero has helped keep me sane over the last few years. I bet most people would list their burgeoning inboxes as one of the biggest causes of stress. At the very least, it’s definitely one of the biggest productivity killers.
At CaptainU, we have long been practitioners of “conversational email.” No greetings, no signoff, and...
Rooting for the downfall of credit cards
Why do we still use a payment technology that Elvis carried around in his wallet?
Last month, 17% of the credit cards CaptainU attempted to process on monthly web-app subscriptions failed.
To be fair, we try to run cards for a few extra months after their first failure because some of them are debit cards that don’t have sufficient funds for a month or two. So 17% includes build up from a...
December 2011
8 posts
We're missing the point on SOPA
It’s been fascinating to watch the fallout over GoDaddy’s support of SOPA. The web community has rallied in an inspirational way to challenge their support of a law that would basically wreck the internet.
I’m afraid, though, that we’re missing the real point here: SOPA is a microcosm of the corruption that is destroying America.
I’m not much for histrionics like...
A restart for Women's Professional Soccer
I really want WPS to succeed and I’ve been thinking a lot about how a fresh approach to technology can save the league. The other day, I suggested that the league should blow up its existing website and start from scratch using a lean approach. This go around, I want to get more specific.
Goals of the new website
Let the players’ compelling stories on and off the field sell the...
UX breakdown of Ron Paul's campaign homepage
“…And if you pledge in the next 10 minutes, you not only get David Sedaris’s new book about people with funny voices, you also get the NPR tote bag, a $5 gift certificate to Whole Foods, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing that you supported NPR.”
That’s the first thing that comes to mind when you visit ronpaul2012.com: apparently, Ron Paul’s...
Technology can save Women's Professional Soccer
It’s fortunate that US Soccer has granted Women’s Professional Soccer a lifeline. The writing, though, is on the wall: it’s do or die.
The first thing WPS should do is hit restart on their use of technology.
In the early days, I met with the Chicago Red Stars’ folks to talk about how to use the web. They were walking the typical “we need a shiny website”...
People of the Internet: We can fix the English...
The English language is a beautiful thing. Is any language better suited for rock operas? But there is one glaring deficiency.
If you spend a lot of time writing copy for the web or answering support emails, you know what I’m talking about. When you start a sentence, you can feel the nausea coming on from a mile away: there’s no gender neutral third person singular pronoun.
It...
An Open Letter to Wesleyan University President...
Dear Michael,
In October 2006, Netflix launched a remarkable contest called the Netflix Prize. The company was in search of an algorithm that would improve the results of its movie recommendation engine by 10%. Netflix made a bunch of its data publicly available on the web and offered a million dollars to the person who could solve the problem.
This year, Wesleyan tuition, room, and board...
November 2011
23 posts
mittflop, verb
1. Unabashed, 180-degree change of viewpoint, uttered with presidential self-assuredness and charm.
2. Maneuver that, while done initially for the sake of political expediency, comes back to bite you in the ass.
“Is there a word for “Holy shit something huge is happening around us, but...”
Is a product ever complete?
I was thinking earlier about how annoying it is that Campfire makes you scroll to see who is in a room. With all that space on the right hand column, you’d think they’d let the list push other stuff down — especially the non-everyday things like Guest Access and Conference Calls.
More interestingly, this got me thinking about the question of whether a product is ever...
“But it is not Zynga’s failure to grasp this basic fact of startup...”
– http://rondam.blogspot.com/2011/11/in-defense-of-google-chef.html
I love the internet -- and the people on it (some,...
Today I was thinking about a better way to display points on CaptainU. So I started searching around for “CSS scoreboard.”
That led me to this pic on Dribbble:
In turn, that led me to its creator @josiahkatz and the follow conversation:
Rad.
Then again, Twitter was over capacity for a minute while I tried to assemble this post.
“This article estimates the health costs associated with six climate...”
– http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/11/2167.abstract
The Climate Change Argument for Homo Economicus →
Is This Google Innovation?*
Today, in a much ballyhooed announcement, Google+ introduced — gasp! — a revolutionary new feature. It’s something the world has never seen before, something that will transform how people interact.
Google+ announced…wait for it…Pages. Yes, fan pages.
It’s embarrassing to watch Google try to play catch up with Facebook and Twitter. Other than Circles, which...
World's Most Popular Sport, World's Worst Coverage
I often marvel at how bad soccer coverage is on the web. Other than the players themselves, there are few people who have anything interesting to say about the game.
How is it possible that we know so little about the fascinating personalities, life stories, and daily dramas that play out in what is by far the most popular pursuit — even more than sex — on the planet?
Instead, we...
Getting Good Data Ain't Easy
We try so hard to be rigorous and data-driven. Having clean data that informs a decision is like aspiring to some state of nirvana. Bottom line is that it can be really hard to get good data.
And bad data? Well, you may as well be driving a bumper car. (Does that metaphor work?)
It’s remarkable how much time our developers have spent trying to get good data. As a result, we have a pretty...
Developer Giveth, Developer Taketh Away
If you’re building a great technology product, you’re constantly testing new ideas. If you’re really smug (and went to the University of Chicago), you also say “Our product development is driven by the scientific method.”
Hypothesize. Test. Measure. Decide.
Modify hypothesis. Test. Measure. Decide.
Sometimes problems arise when you present users with a new feature,...
October 2011
3 posts
