“Don’t lose control of your content”, writes the guy on Medium

Facebook is apparently making a deal with publishers to host their content on Facebook itself. I think for many people that sounds like a terrible idea, leaving yourself at the whim of a company whose interests are not necessarily aligned with yours. It also means these publishers will lose the customer interface.

The question is, whilst this seems dangerous, is resisting like King Canute trying to hold back the incoming tide? Possibly. Facebook has all of the content (provided by the publishers) whilst paying none of the costs. They also have the final interface with the customers, which is where all of the money is. And this brand of thin, final-layer company is growing and growing – think Uber and Airbnb.

Most telling of all, Twitter’s favourite riposte to the Facebook/publisher plans was posted on…Medium, of course.

Dave Pell, writing on Medium:

“Technology has shaken old media to its core. I get that. But they can and must figure out how to deliver content to their readers without ceding the last mile”

Bit rich, no?

(Disclaimer – I like Pell’s NextDraft newsletter, just think this post in particular was a little hypocritical)

Will people buy more than one smartwatch?

Marco Arment on the "future of the dumbwatch":

“The Apple Watch isn’t just a watch, interchangeable like any other. It’s an entire mobile computing and communication platform, and a significant enhancement to the smartphone, which is probably the most successful, ubiquitous, and disruptive electronic device in history.

Once you’re accustomed to wearing one, going out for a night without your Apple Watch is going to feel like going out without your phone.”

I think Marco's right. People who collect and wear watches might have  a formal watch for work, a comfy watch for the weekend, a waterproof watch for going to the gym, a fancy watch for special occasions. Any of those will do the same job for which they're primarily designed – i.e. tell the time – and so are interchangeable depending on the mood or activity of the wearer. Marco’s proposition though is that smartwatches are not interchangeable with traditional watches. This is because, once you get used to notifications on your wrist and whatever the other alleged benefits of a smartwatch are, putting on your fancy traditional watch for that special occasion won’t provide anything like the same experience.

Some questions then:

  • Will people buy multiple variations of the Apple Watch for different occasions? (surely not)
  • Will people buy different bands for different occasions? (more likely, but does this have even close to same feeling as a different watch for different event?)

Update:

If the answer to both of the above questions is 'no', is it possible that people will wear both a smartwatch and a traditional 'dumb' watch?

My initial reaction to the Apple Watch was that it would replace entirely the 'watch' category of products, much like the iPhone did to 'dumb' mobile phones: no one continued to carry a flip phone once they had a smart phone.

But maybe this initial reaction was wrong? What if instead smartwatches are to traditional watches as  the iPad/tablet devices were to books? Some people read on their iPad, some people read books in paper form, and many carry around both a book and an iPad.

The US TV industry is not like the UK TV industry

Ben Thompson explains the US TV industry brilliantly:

“TV can be broken up into five distinct parts:

1. Content Creation is the actual creation, filming, and production of a TV show
2. Content Production is the commissioning and funding of a TV show, usually by a studio
3. Content Aggregation is the packaging of several different TV shows into a single offering, usually by a network/channel
4. Service Offering is the marketing of multiple networks and channels to consumers, usually on a subscription basis
5. Delivery is the actual transfer of television content into your home”
Created by Ben Thompson: http://stratechery.com/2015/changing-unchanging-structure-tv/

Created by Ben Thompson: http://stratechery.com/2015/changing-unchanging-structure-tv/

But does this structure apply equally to the UK? Sky seems to control more than the US cable companies. Whilst they do the obvious delivery and service, they also provide production by funding original programmes like Gomorrah and Fortitude, and do aggregation with their own channels like Sky Atlantic (showing 'must-see' series like True Detective, Made Men, Game of Thrones). They also own most of the major sports programming through SkySports, as well as using their hardware to deliver 'on demand' content from BBC and Channel 4, and even sell downloads of new movies and TV series.

Thompson's analysis is all in answer to the question of whether Apple can gain a foothold in the TV market with their rumored TV service. His conclusion is that, because of the structure, there is room for Apple to steal the march on the cable companies, even if they will still be somewhat beholden to the content companies for their 'must-see' shows and sports rights.

The dominance of Sky here means that I'm eager to see whether Apple's rumored proposal will be able to make a mark in the UK.

How to Stop Designing the Same Product

Great blog post by Richard Pope. His thesis is that, when it comes to making great digital products, the ‘design-test-develop-iterate’ process is too linear. As a result, new products are essentially copycats, variations on a the same theme, ideas “stuck shuffling around a local minima”.

I don’t know if he’s right but his argument is pretty compelling, and one of his proposed counterbalances – ‘writing a list of axes’ – is downright genius. The whole thing is thought-provoking, and should be required reading for anyone involved in making digital products.

The Authenticity Paradox

Herminia Ibarra has a sensational article in the Harvard Business Review. In principle it’s about ‘leadership authenticity’ but much of the discussion and advice applies to anyone who has ambitions at work. I found the whole thing incredibly provoking, as often it laid out feelings I have been unable to articulate to myself. I could have quoted several whole paragraphs, but this is as good a summary as any:

“Leadership growth usually involves a shift from having good ideas to pitching them to diverse stakeholders. Inexperienced leaders, especially true-to-selfers, often find the process of getting buy-in distasteful because it feels artificial and political; they believe that their work should stand on its own merits.”

The common thread of the article is that, if you believe your performance at work will be enough alone to get you promoted, you won’t be. I think many people (myself included) feel disdainful of those they perceive as ‘all talk, no substance’. It is clear though that, however “artificial and political” it may feel, there is nothing wrong with self-promotion, even if it requires ‘playing the game’.

Ibrarra puts it succinctly:

“Until we see career advancement as a way of extending our reach and increasing our impact in the organization—a collective win, not just a selfish pursuit—we have trouble feeling authentic when touting our strengths to influential people. True-to-selfers find it particularly hard to sell themselves to senior management when they most need to do so: when they are still unproven.”

Learning to adapt to different situations at work (Ibarra’s phrase is being a ‘chameleon’) may feel uncomfortable, especially at first, but it is entirely necessary.

Here’s one final (long) quote:

“I observed the importance of this approach in a study of investment bankers and consultants who were advancing from analytical and project work to roles advising clients and selling new business. Though most of them felt incompetent and insecure in their new positions, the chameleons among them consciously borrowed styles and tactics from successful senior leaders—learning through emulation how to use humor to break tension in meetings, for instance, and how to shape opinion without being overbearing. Essentially, the chameleons faked it until they found what worked for them. Noticing their efforts, their managers provided coaching and mentoring and shared tacit knowledge.
As a result, the chameleons arrived much faster at an authentic but more skillful style than the true-to-selfers in the study, who continued to focus solely on demonstrating technical mastery. Often the true-to-selfers concluded that their managers were “all talk and little content” and therefore not suitable role models. In the absence of a “perfect” model they had a harder time with imitation—it felt bogus. Unfortunately, their managers perceived their inability to adapt as a lack of effort or investment and thus didn’t give them as much mentoring and coaching as they gave the chameleons.”

This a brilliant, clever article, but the message is a simple one: Sometimes you have to 'play the game', and that is nothing to be ashamed of. You might even learn a thing or two in the process.

Unreal Paris

This is insane. Level designer Dereau Benoît uses the Unreal Engine 4 to create an astonishingly realistic computer generated, 3D Parisian apartment.

- UNREAL PARIS - VIRTUAL TOUR ----------------------------------- This is a personal project and no benefit is derived from this demonstration. ========== CREDITS: ========== Epic: https://www.unrealengine.com/ Archmodels: http://www.evermotion.org/modelshop/show_category/archmodels/103 Cgtextures: http://www.cgtextures.com/ Design Connected: http://www.designconnected.com/fr/ Sigur Rós - Fjogur Piano: http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/ ----------------------------------- Virtual Tour Made by Benoît Dereau http://www.benoitdereau.com/ ----------------------------------- this is a personal project and no benefit is derived from this demonstration.

Is Madeon a Journey fan?

Madeon’s debut album – ‘Adventure’ – is coming out in March. He has just released the artwork, the imagery and colours of which bears a striking resemblance to the (awesome) game Journey. The name's are pretty similar too...

The cover of Adventure, by Madeon

Artwork from Journey

Artwork from Journey

Wonder if he’s a fan?

Update: He is a fan

Roberto Saviano: My Life Under Armed Guard

Interesting essay in The Guardian – a self-assessment by Roberto Saviano, the writer of Gomorrah:

“I’m often asked if I regret writing Gomorrah. Usually, I try to say the right thing. I say, “As a man, yes, as a writer, no.” But that’s not the real answer. For most of my waking hours I hate Gomorrah. I loathe it. At the beginning, when I told interviewers that if I had known what was coming, I would never have written the book, their faces would fall. If it was the last question in the interview, I’d go away with a bad taste in my mouth, feeling like I hadn’t come up to scratch. I realised that I should have said, of course, that I’d do it all again tomorrow. That I would sacrifice everything, all over again. But so much time has passed now I feel like I’ve earned the right to share my regrets, and admit, I miss the time I was a free man. Whatever I would like my life to be, the fact is, I wrote Gomorrah, and I pay the price every day.”

Saviano’s “non-fiction novel” was turned into a brilliant TV series last year – probably the best ‘new’ television I watched last year (the second seasons of 'Orange is the New Black' and 'House of Cards' were both a little disappointing). Reading this article has made me order Gomorrah the book and Gomorrah the film (92% on Rotten Tomatoes).

Google's Focus is Mobile Search

“When it comes to major changes, there’s little mystery as to the ones Google’s search team regards as most significant. Search czar Singhal can tick them off easily. “The huge thing was the Knowledge Graph (Google’s vast organization of the world’s data) — as soon as you build that, you basically know facts about real world things. And the second piece is voice — because I really can’t type here,” he says as he gestures to the Samsung smart watch on his wrist. “And then we realized that we need some science behind predictions, so that people don’t have to ask all the time, and that’s where we built Google Now.”
Knowledge Graph structures the world’s information in a vast database. Voice Search incorporates spoken language into Search. Google Now tells what people want to know before they ask. All three, not coincidentally, are tied to Google’s focus on mobile.”

It’s clear how important Google thinks mobile search is – their three biggest search innovations have all been targeted at improving mobile user experience, as they expect that to be the most frequent use case for search.

This leads to the question, is mobile search as important for the legal sector as it is for consumers?

The Guardian Streams the New Mark Ronson Album in Full

The whole thing is available to stream on The Guardian, and Ronson has done a track-by-track guide too.

The album gets pretty good once you're past the superficial Uptown Funk. The two highlights by a longshot are the Jeff Bhasker penned I Can’t Lose - featuring vocals from the previously unknown Keyonne Starr (like seriously unknown - they drove around Mississippi bars listening to local singers until they found someone they liked) - and  In Case of Fire, for which Bhasker himself provides the vocals. Plus Stevie Wonder plays the harmonica twice so, you know, better check it out.

No Man's Sky

Keith Stuart in the Guardian takes a look at what will, for some people (me! me! me!), be the most exciting game of 2015:

“Your space craft touches down on the uncharted planet. In the distance, a craggy spine of mountains looms over a vast alien forest. No human has ever been here before; perhaps no one will ever come back. You are alone.

No Man’s Sky doesn’t work like other science-fiction adventures you may have played. There is no over-arching story, no grand scheme to funnel players through. Instead, it provides a vast universe filled with worlds that have been procedurally generated by computer algorithms, and it tells you to go out there and explore. You can fly your spaceship, land on any chunk of rock, get out and look around. Everything else, from here on in, is up to you.”

Can't wait.

The Wire in HD

The Wire is being remastered in HD and 16:9 aspect ratio and it's great that David Simon is on board. My favourite bit of Simon's blog post, though, was where he talks about how some of the scenes were framed:

“An early example that caught my eye is a scene from the pilot episode, carefully composed by Bob, in which Wee Bey delivers to D’Angelo a homily on established Barksdale crew tactics. “Don’t talk in the car,” D’Angelo reluctantly offers to Wee Bey, who stands below a neon sign that declares, “burgers” while D’Angelo, less certain in his standing and performance within the gang, stands beneath a neon label of “chicken.””

So clever.

White Progress

Chris Rock is so smart. This is from a great interview with him by Frank Rich, for Vulture.com:

“Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” ”

Pipino: Gentleman Thief

Epic magazine has an incredible true-story, told like a piece of fiction:

“Vincenzo Pipino was attractive in a classic Italian way, which is to say he wasn’t good looking at all. He had prominent moles, a high forehead, and slicked back hair, but he radiated a sense of confidence, as if he owned the entire city. In a way, he did. He had robbed many of the buildings he was looking at, and had cased most of the others.”

Seriously, read the whole thing. So entertaining, and brilliantly illustrated and animated. There’s a lot of nonsense on Medium, and the full-screen photos are already a cliché, but with ‘value-add’ (eugh) illustrations like this, it’s more or less the only site whose articles I don’t Instapaper.

 

Training to focus on user needs - addressing the wrong problem?

This is an interesting blog by Christine Cawthorne at the Government Digital Service, on training their writers to focus on user needs:

“We’ve provided training, support and access to more than 1,000 writers across government, who have published more than 120,000 pieces of content to the site. The word about user needs and transforming content has spread from the people we’ve trained to their colleagues and wider teams. The training is now so popular even people who aren’t in digital teams want to understand user needs and how to write for the web.”

It’s good that the training has been so popular, but I’m interested as to what impact it has had. Have the GDS noticed a difference in the way their authors are writing?

I have been involved with similar training sessions that encouraged writers (and others) to focus on user needs. Unfortunately, my experience has been that most participants take what they hear only as validation for the way they’ve always done things. They heard only what they wanted to hear. Everyone thinks they know their users, and writers are already tailoring their content and style to meet their (imagined) users’ needs. For me the more common problem is not that people don’t want to focus on user needs but that they don’t even know who their users are.

'Fail fast' is too cheap to interest big companies

Tim Harford has a nice post on the benefits of "fail fast, fail cheap". This bit at the end rang especially true to me:

“A subtler problem is that projects need a certain scale before powerful decision makers will take them seriously.

“The transaction costs involved in setting up any aid project are so great that most donors don’t want to consider a project spending less than £20m,” says Owen Barder, director for Europe at the Center for Global Development, a think-tank. I suspect that the same insight applies far beyond the aid industry. Governments and large corporations can find it’s such a hassle to get anything up and running that the big stakeholders don’t want to be bothered with anything small.

That is a shame. The real leverage of a pilot scheme is that although it is cheap, it could have much larger consequences. The experiment itself may seem too small to bother with; the lesson it teaches is not.”

iPad as a camera

“Apple didn’t anticipate people loving to use their iPads as cameras. I certainly didn’t either. But they do, and now Apple is embracing iPad photography. And for whatever the iPad Air 2 camera lacks optically, it makes up for many things through software.”

If Gruber thinks that the reason people use their iPads as a camera is the software he’s mistaken. Most people don’t edit their photos (or, in many cases, even look at them at all). The reason you see so many people using their iPad to take photos is that, whilst the size makes them worse cameras than phones, the big screen makes them much better viewfinders.