A plea for parking lot etiquette at the shopping mall
December 23, 2010 | 8:02 am
ETIQUETTE, people!!
What about parking lot etiquette don’t you understand?
More than the rain or the lines, or the coupons that didn’t work on anything I wanted, it was the nerve-wracking cruise through the parking lot that turned today’s mall expedition into the kind of ordeal that makes online shopping seem downright fun. For those of you who missed the memo about holiday parking lot navigation, here are a few simple requests from those of us who need parking spaces, to those of you who already have them: If you sense a car crawling down the aisle behind you, don’t presume they’re sightseeing.
THEY WANT YOUR SPACE.
And they are willing to block an entire lane to get it. If you’re just dropping off your shopping bags and heading back into the mall, GIVE US A CLUE: Shake your head vigorously, wave us around you, mouth the words “I’m not leaving” with the sort of exaggerated gestures you’d use with a child.
And if you are leaving, make eye contact please, then nod and point toward your car. Remember where you parked, and DON’T MEANDER. It’s aggravating to stalk a shopper to the end of a row, only to watch him cut across to a different aisle, pull out and let somebody else grab the spot before you can wheel around. If you’re lost, just signal.
We’ve all had those “Where’s my car?” moments.
Just don’t leave that car crawling behind you guessing while you wander around. When you get in your car, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. Don’t phone your friend to tell her how crowded it is, or sort through the receipts stuffed in your wallet. Don’t let the car warm up or fiddle with the radio dial. You can do that after you pull out -- when you join that line of idling cars waiting to leave the parking lot.
As we head down to the wire in this shopping season, Talk Back and tell us what complicated your gift-buying trips: parking lot follies, clueless clerks, that customer with a handful of expired coupons whose credit card just wouldn’t go through.
Or was that you?
Thursday, December 23, 2010
A plea for parking lot etiquette at the shopping mall | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Beauty rest, getting enough? If not, you might be looking a bit less attractive - latimes.com
Beauty sleep does make a difference in how you look – and how you look to others. A new study finds that people who don’t get their beauty sleep could appear to be unhealthy and unattractive.The Swedish study published in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday measured the effects of sleep using 23 adults who were photographed before and after they were deprived of sleep. Observers then viewed randomly selected photos and rated their perceptions of the people in them.
Not surprisingly, the sleep-deprived folks got low marks on the healthy and attractive scale. Those who scrimp on sleep don’t just feel tired, they look it too, the study said. Here's an abstract of the findings and the full study.
And you can’t make up sleep loss as quickly as you think, this Los Angeles Times story says.
So it pays to work on your beauty rest, not good news for new moms and dads, though.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Is Multiscreen Enough? Why 'Write Once' Shouldn't be the Goal | UX Magazine
Is Multiscreen Enough? Why 'Write Once' Shouldn't be the Goal
Another of Adobe’s annual MAX events has come and gone, and I took quite a bit away from my time in Los Angeles. The clear message from Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch during the first day’s keynote was that the company’s immediate focus is on enabling solutions for “multiscreen” applications, citing dozens of new form factors, abundant broadband availability, and more Internet-connected devices in the home than ever before.
The literal connotation of ”multiscreen” would be ”many screens.” Sure it’s catchy, and sounds great on marketing materials, but it’s far from accurate. Though the idea of “write once, deploy everywhere” is enticing to developers and project managers alike, should that be the goal? Granted, productivity is paramount and time is money, but simply resizing the same application to fit on multiple devices doesn’t necessarily ensure the best experience for users.
Another interesting concept from the conference came from Adobe Evangelist Ryan Stewart: “Contextual Applications.” This expresses an idea that has great promise, although it has yet to be realized. In Adobe’s own words from a little over a year ago:
These solutions are broader in scope than a device, a campaign, or a single service; rather, they encapsulate the various contexts in which the end user exists, interacts, thinks, consumes, and purchases.
- Design contextual solutions and applications, Adobe [pdf]Adobe’s demo of Dreamweaver CS5 was intended to showcase the re-flow and automatic layout abilities of HTML pages that take advantage of CSS3 media queries. This makes it possible for each page in a website to adapt to the browser it’s being viewed in, and each page that Adobe demoed did so marvelously.
I applaud the efforts to make content more customized to the device it’s being displayed on, but there are two rather clear indicators that context is not at the forefront of this workflow.
1. The layout change is superficial
Context is not only about differing screen sizes. In fact, screen size is only a small part of the equation.
To be more specific, content-creators must leverage the advantages each context affords. For example, in the mobile scenario, many other factors should be considered. The user’s location, network connectivity, time-relative information, hardware and software performance limitations, light sources, viewing angles, contrast, sound, user presence, and privacy are each equal parts of the whole experience of a mobile device. When an application or site is used on a phone, it should take advantage of the things a phone can do, not simply readjust the display to be readable on a smaller screen.
Your content is of little value to its users if it ignores the context in which it was viewed, manipulated and processed.
- Cameron Moll2. The path to the content is made longer
Also in the demo (at time marker 3:25), the homepage of the example site is previewed across a 3-up view: one for a desktop browser, one for a tablet, and one for a smartphone browser. The phone's content becomes buried beneath the main navigation, adding an extra interaction to get to the information in the site that the user wanted. On a device that can afford the least amount of extraneous actions, these extra steps mean extra time spent waiting, extra data transferred, and extra battery use. It may seem minuscule, but over time, data usage, battery level, network activity, and even data costs can add up. These types of decisions made during an application’s planning can make or break the experience.
Admittedly, it was just a demo, and before I seem too focused on only the less-positive aspects of the keynote, l’m happy to report that as far as Adobe’s message regarding UX message is concerned, it gets better. Adobe seems to be shifting of the way it thinks about and approaches multiscreen application development.
Kevin Lynch made the statement, “We really need to shift now to building mobile first,” a concept that Luke Wroblewski is credited with championing, and that many in the experience design field are shifting to. In the words of mobile-first convert, RJ Owen, the idea that designing and planning for the mobile “version” of your application first makes the most sense because:
- Mobile is more important than desktop these days.
- Mobile forces you to focus on what's really important.
- Mobile extends your application's capabilities (GPS, touch-screens, etc.).
You can view the clip from Kevin Lynch’s keynote where he talks about mobile-first on Luke’s blog. So, there is a silver lining, and I’m glad to see Adobe making strides towards providing better experiences across application end-points.
Martha Stewart joined Kevin Lynch to unveil her Martha Stewart Living magazine iPad app, proving once again that interactive experiences are breathing new life into the struggling print industry. The app itself is simple and beautiful, refreshing and stunningly original, and showcases just how expressive, sensory, and immersive a magazine experience can be. From using multitouch and gesturing to break apart delicate Phyllo dough in a recipe, to displaying a time-lapse montage of a flower blooming, presenting a “living cover” to the user, this iPad app represents the rebirth, and redefinition of the magazine. During Martha’s time on stage, she made some statements that showed just how much she gets it:
We want to tell a story, but we also want to also show a story.
This allows you to go as deep as you want to go, or as shallowly as you want to go.
Indeed, Martha understands just how much of an impact that maximizing context and staying current through technology can have on a brand’s identity and presence.
Continuing with the multiscreen theme, another sizable push by Adobe has been aimed at developing content for the “digital living room,” specifically the television. Adobe announced AIR on TV, a new version of their powerful Flash-based runtime that will allow developers to create applications for products such as Google TV.
Developing interactive content for televisions isn’t new, the technology and consumer-readiness are finally in sync. With more and more bandwidth and Internet-ready televisions being announced regularly heading into the holidays, folks want to start getting their web content on televisions. From a development perspective, it’s not as simple as throwing content onto a web server, plugging a USB drive into the TV, or submitting work to a centralized marketplace. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to providing a quality experience on televisions.
Companies like litl, where I work, are helping to educate developers wanting to create applications for the TV, by providing information about television-specific display issues such as overscan. This is a new frontier for many people, so it’s important to understand the ins, outs, and gotchas” in order to keep applications optimized and performing well.
The applications we develop are on more devices and operating systems than ever. Planning for multiscreen (or contextual) applications needs to begin with mobile-first and cover far more than varying screen sizes. Instead of the idea of “write once, deploy everywhere,” we should embrace something along the lines of, “write for mobile, provide the best possible contextual experience on each additional device.” That should be our goal.
American Internet Use Catches Up With TV Use - NYTimes.com
American Internet Use Catches Up With TV Use
By JOSHUA BRUSTEINAmericans are now spending as much time using the Internet as they are watching television, and the amount of time people spend on the Internet has increased 121 percent over the last five years, according to a survey published Monday by Forrester Research.
While people younger than 30 years old have spent more time with the Internet than television for several years, Forrester’s survey shows that this is the first year that people in older age groups are also doing so. The amount of time spent on the Internet for personal uses tails off among older groups, ranging from about 12 hours a week for adults under 30 to about eight hours for people over 66 years old.
At first glance, this seems like further evidence of the much ballyhooed, if statistically suspect, trend of cord-cutting, whereby people transition from watching television to streaming online video. Pay TV subscriptions in the United States are down this year. In addition, wireless carriers like Verizon and Sprint have been encouraging the idea that faster new wireless networks could serve as a substitute for landline broadband services. So cable companies that bundle broadband access with cable television service are seeing threats on multiple fronts.
Forrester’s survey does show a significant increase in the number of people using the Internet to watch streaming video; 33 percent of adults surveyed this year said they use the Internet to watch video, up from 18 percent in 2007.
Yet the amount of time people spend with their televisions remains relatively stable. (By contrast, the survey found that people were spending significantly less time listening to the offline versions of radio and reading printed newspapers and magazines.)
The rise of the Internet is not necessarily leading to a drop in television consumption because the Internet, and particularly the mobile Internet, simply creates more opportunities for people to consume media, said Jacqueline Anderson, an analyst at Forrester who wrote the report. Until recently the supermarket checkout aisle was not seen as a prime opportunity for media consumption.
But the survey did not address directly a vital question: whether people who are watching streaming video on their televisions consider themselves to be watching TV or using the Internet. So some television replacement could be hidden behind this ambiguity, if people who are watching Internet content through set-top boxes or Internet-connected televisions see that as television use. It is this activity, of course, that poses the real threat to the existing business model of cable and satellite television providers.
And it is clear that younger viewers are increasingly comfortable with the Internet as the place to watch their television.
“For the younger population, the TV is still important, but where they’re getting that content from is changing,” said Ms. Anderson. “For the generations that are coming up, that’s where we’re going to see the cut.”
How to Measure ROI for Online Video | OnlineVideo.net
How to Measure ROI for Online Video
You work with video, but is it working for you? Is your video initiative delivering the results needed to justify itself?
No matter what kind of video initiative your company has planned—whether it’s internal communications, B2B, or marketing—you’ve got to show that it’s delivering results.
Measuring those results, the return on investment (ROI) for your video project, can be tricky. To help you out we spoke to Steve Vonder Haar, an expert on video ROI. Vonder Haar is the research director for Interactive Media Strategies, a company he founded in 2002 to look at the business communications market space. He’s been examining video ROI for years.
“if video doesn’t pay for itself, then nobody’s going to use it,” says Vonder Haar.
Here are Vonder Haar’s top five ways for measuring the ROI of your video campaign.
1. Identify Your Objectives
The simplest way to measure ROI is to decide what you want your video to accomplish and see if that’s being done. Who are you trying to reach? What message are you trying to deliver?“Only when you identify your communications objectives can you identify the returns you’re likely to get from the implementation of video,” says Vonder Haar.
For organizations that are new to video, it’s best to look for the simplest ROI calculation possible. It might be as simple as saving on travel costs. Does using video mean that more people can attend an event at a lower cost?
“This is the classic mode of generating ROI: by keeping people off of planes and out of hotel rooms,” says Vonder Haar. That’s all you need to justify the implementation and get your organization started embracing video.
2. Look for Benefits
You’ll have to get creative in how you search out ROI, says Vonder Haar. Can you get your sales team information more quickly? And does having information faster translate to more sales or increase the selling time of a product?You’re getting into intangible benefits here, and knowledge is difficult to measure.
“What’s the impact of a sales person who knows a piece of information two to three weeks earlier than would have been the case?” asks Vonder Haar. “You have to have faith that enhanced communications enhances the effectiveness of your workforce.”
Keep in mind that no one asks the ROI of the long distance phone bill, Vonder Haar says. That’s seen as an essential communication tool and it’s not new technology. Streaming video is a next generation tool that can make people more effective.
3. Look at the Analytics
If you go with the right video platform, you can get detailed analytics data that will show you how people interact with your video. If you do a webcast, see what people watch to the end. Those could be clients who have taken the time to learn about a new product or service and are due for a sales call.Some analytics tools can let you know as soon as a potential client has finished watching a video, so a sales person can call them while they still have it in mind. Video can be the first step in building engagement with an interested prospect, says Vonder Haar.
4. Examine Customer Support Savings
Support and tutorial videos on your website can help employees or customers learn things by themselves. A video can take the place of a glossy four-color brochure, providing more engagement for less money.“Any way an organization communicates today can be improved or augmented by the implementation of outbound video,” says Vonder Haar.
5. Look for Work Hours Saved
Repetitive tasks are often good choices for video. It you have trainers who teach new hires the same information every week, consider putting that training on video. This frees your corporate trainers to teach more advanced topics. Work hours that you saved by using video count toward the ROI equation, says Vonder Haar.That’s all the ROI talk for now, but check back next month when we’re talk to Vonder Haar about business video analytics and the tools available to make business video more measurable.
Friday, December 10, 2010
AT&T's new ad campaign: If we lived in a fantasy world, we'd have you covered | Technology | Los Angeles Times
AT&T's new ad campaign: If we lived in a fantasy world, we'd have you covered
December 10, 2010 | 12:03 pm
If you stare at the above collation of images from AT&T's new advertising campaign for its mobile network, a peculiar theme emerges.
In each case, a poster paints a picture of a fanciful, non-existent world -- Camelot, Lilliput, Atlantis, "state of Euphoria" and Neverland. The image is accompanied by a statement that, if there really were such a made-up place, AT&T would "have you covered."
Except, there are no such places. Does that mean that AT&T, then, doesn't have you covered?
It seems to follow the classic logical rule that, "If false, then anything." Meaning that: If the statement upon which the logical rule depends is itself false, then it doesn't matter what the conclusion is. For example, if we began a sentence with,"If the moon was made of green cheese," then you could finish it with anything. If the moon were made of green cheese, then it would rain dollar bills seven days a week.
That's a logically sound statement, even though it doesn't have much application to the real world.
AT&T took licks earlier this week, being ranked the overall worst cellphone network by Consumer Reports, coming in last in a number of categories used by the magazine. But the provider has been rallying, putting out a press release recently noting a research firm found its network was the fastest among all major carriers -- more than 60% faster than Verizon, and 40% faster than Sprint. Its competitors did not explicitly disagree with those findings.
Still, the question remains: Why doesn't AT&T want to focus on reality?
-- David Sarno
Photos: Posters from AT&T's new advertising campaign. Credit: David Sarno / Los Angeles TImes
World Map Of Social Networks Shows Facebook’s Ever-Increasing Dominance
Just in case you had any doubts about the fact we live in the age of Facebook, just check out Vincenzo Cosenza’s latest edition of the World Map Of Social Networks.
Based on this month’s Alexa & Google Trends for Websites traffic data, Cosenza posits that Facebook has managed to overtake some local incumbent social networks in the past few months, particularly in Europe.
According to his analysis, the site is now market leader in 115 out of 132 countries.
Other social networks on the rise: LinkedIn and Twitter.
Going back to Facebook, things get even more interesting when you look at how and where the site has made strides over time, starting in June 2009.
Can Anything Stop The Facebook Juggernaut, indeed.
Website: facebook.com Location: Palo Alto, California, United States Founded: February 1, 2004 Funding: $836M Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users.
Facebook was founded by… Learn More
Information provided by CrunchBase
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Pilot Program - Chrome OS
We're all ears.
The Chrome operating system is a work in progress. We’re looking for the right users to try it out and tell us how we can make it better.
Each participant in the Pilot program will receive a Cr-48 Chrome notebook; in return, we'll expect you to use it regularly and send us detailed feedback.
Sound interesting? Please note:
Chrome OS is for people who live on the web.
It runs web-based applications, not legacy PC software.The Pilot program is not for the faint of heart.
Things might not always work just right.The Pilot program is open to individuals, businesses, schools, non-profits and developers based in the United States. Learn about Chrome notebooks for business
Applicants must be at least 18 years of age. We'll review the requests that come in and contact you if you've been selected.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
5 Facebook profile pics that make you look like a tool - CNN.com
(CNN) -- If a Facebook picture is worth a thousand words, we're pretty sure there's one word in the lexicon you'd be loath to have associated with you: tool.
(Unless you're a handyman, in which case, carry on.)
Yes, Facebook started off as a gated community for college kids awkwardly trolling for chicks in their rooms because the outside world was just too bright ... too bright. But now, as Mark Zuckerberg sallies forth with his plan to consume all of society, it has become kind of legit.
Last week, Zuckerberg unveiled a messaging system for the book of faces that will consolidate e-mail, texts, chat and Facebook messages. While we (unlike myriad reactionary news outlets) won't be calling Z's new baby a "Gmail killer" any time soon (dude, eradicate all those FB phishing scams and then we'll talk), the fact that Facebook would take such a step got us thinking.
Every day, 4 billion messages are shot off via Facebook, and next to those 4 billion messages is something that could make or break the legitimacy of your missive -- or, at the very least, amuse or horrify your friends: your profile picture.
This is your calling card, your public face. So why do so many of you contort it into that of a duck?
Read on for five common types of Facebook photos that make your friends want to block you, potential employers take pause and future suitors weep with frustration at the state of the human race.
The "MySpace shot"
Oh, the "MySpace shot" -- in which men pose shirtless in front of their bathroom mirrors and women pout into their boobs.
You think it makes you look sexy, but, truth be told, it makes you look like you have no friends. Which makes sense, considering the dudes are always hanging out shirtless in the bathroom and the chicks always look so freaking depressed.
Fun fact: Research from OK Cupid shows the "MySpace shot" is the most effective snap for women when it comes to racking up messages. Still, that same research shows that shots of a chick doing something interesting, as opposed to looking sexy, garnered more meaningful communication.
Yes, Facebook is not OK Cupid, but the research holds true: A cell phone pic may get you some attention, but, well, so will drunkenly passing out at a party and flashing your underwear.
And for those among you who are too deeply entrenched in the morass of narcissism to pry iPhone from hand, might we suggest getting an account on DailyBooth? This service lets you take a photo of yourself every day in order to track how your appearance changes over time. At least then you can call it art ... or something.
Subbing in an inanimate object/pet/baby
"Hey Tim... so, I've known you for about five years now and I'm pretty sure you are not a crude drawing of a dinosaur, a cat with lasers for eyes or a green square. No, I'm pretty sure you're a skinny dude with an only slightly unfortunate haircut."
So thinketh your friends when nary a picture on your Facebook profile is actually of you. Also, people will start to wonder if you have been disfigured in some horrifying accident and -- Phantom of the Opera-like -- are masking your hideous face with that of Conan's.
If you insist on getting creative with your profile pic, check out Twibbons, which lets you create profile images that promote a cause.
Liquoring up
A couple of party pictures in which you're holding a glass of wine or a beer are fine, but a parade of profile pics that could pass for Budweiser ads -- or, for that matter, the photo above -- are probably not the best choice when it comes to looking like a professional/not an alcoholic.
Yeah, that pic of you in the pool doing Edward 40-Hands might be hilarious to your poker pals and fellow former frat bros, but the kids you teach fourth grade math to (and their parents) will probably be less than amused.
Group shots
Let's say you meet a new dude at a dark party. The guy seems nice, and looks to be cute from what you can tell through the haze of the smoke machine and Four Loko (it hasn't been banned everywhere yet, folks), but you can't quite tell because of the crudely markered-on Castro beard (oh, forgot to mention it's Halloween).
The next day, you eagerly seek out homeboy on Facebook, only to find a profile picture that features not one, but five similar-looking dudes lying in the grass -- wearing Wayfarers and fedoras. How are you supposed to tell which is which, and whether you should click "friend"?
Yeah, Facebook is not technically a dating site, but let's face it, the first thing you do after meeting a new romantic interest is stalk the hell outta him or her. According to a survey from Seventeen magazine, within one week of meeting someone, 79 percent of 16-21 year-olds add that person to their Facebook circle.
And, as shallow as it is, folks will judge you based on your profile -- that same research shows that 43 percent of girls would decide not to date someone if his profile was a bust. So don't hide behind your friends in the shot that's supposed to show who you are. Save that for after the breakup, when you run into her at your local watering hole.
Holiday or wedding pics ... months after the wedding
Yes, it was totally awesome that that Halloween party you went to featured not one, not two, but three Fidel Castros (you are the dude mentioned above, btw), but it's not so awesome that you should still keep a picture documenting this phenom front and center in late November. A week or two tops, friends, and then it's back to that lovely shot of you wearing pleated pants and a polo (we'll tackle that problem at a later date).
The same goes for wedding photos. It's really nice that you got married, and we all pored through every shot from the ceremony, but leaving up a portrait of you in full bridal garb for several months is akin to shoving your ring in your friends' faces daily.
We are no longer happy for you. You are now just gloating. We fear the day when you produce offspring.
Some of my Facebook friends REALLY need to take a look at this post. hint hint.