May 2013
34 posts
3 tags
"because they don’t know what the hell it is"
The Real Reason Yahoo Is Buying Tumblr | John Herrman | Buzzfeed
To Tumblr’s users, Yahoo doesn’t just represent an outside force or a threat of advertising. It represents adults, and everything that word connotes: order, boredom, not “getting it.” Tumblr’s most coveted users aren’t afraid of Yahoo because of its turbulent management over the last ten years, or because of its current leader,...
Exclamation: Tumblr. + Yahoo! = !! →
Best press release ever.
yahoo:
I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr!
We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and…
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Why Did Obama Run for a Second Term?
Pyromaniacs on the Potomac | Robert Reich | Guernica
Barack Obama is allowing the fires to dominate because he has not defined his core agenda. During the 2012 campaign it appeared to be restoring jobs, rebuilding the middle class, and reversing the scourge of widening inequality. Since then, though, the core has evaporated—leaving him and his administration vulnerable to every pyromaniac on...
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The Goal of Aesthetics
‘Bad Design’ is Sometimes the Best Design | Bobby Goodlatte| Medium
Beautiful and ‘well designed’ are not synonymous. Too many app designers are tasked only with making beautiful veneers. They’re really decorators, not designers. Building a great product requires consistency—between goals, product mechanics, interface, and aesthetics.
Aesthetics should serve an overall goal. In Snapchat’s...
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iOS 7: All Part of the Plan
The future of iOS design? | Tim Green | Medium
To me, there is a distinct movement towards a particular style and I would be very surprised if Apple were ignorant of it. It’s not “flat design” per se and it’s certainly nowhere near the “Metro” levels that people are suggesting they may follow, but it’s a mellowing out of the visual indicators that people need to trigger the idea of a tappable...
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In Retreat
Night in Vermont. When gazing into the distance of darkened vistas one never feels lost or alone. The air is alive, accompanying you on journeys of introspection. It is a calming ether for your soul, welcoming you home.
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Know when to stop
Design is nowhere | Robyn Morris | Medium
Embellishments and fluff often creep in when we overthink and overwork. Don’t hide behind these. Be clear on the thing(s) you’re trying to do. Audit the design against these objectives. If it ticks all the boxes, stop adding and start taking things away.
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How many people are really using your product?
The only metric that matters | Josh Elman | Medium
While big numbers are a nice signal of, well, big numbers, I don’t think they are an indicator at all for whether a product is really working. Whenever I hear some of these stats, I always ask the same question:
How many people are really using your product?
You need a metric that specifically answers this. It can be “x people did 3...
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“I use a trick with co-workers when we’re trying to decide where to eat for lunch...”
– Jon Bell
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Forever Young
The Money Shot | Kara Swisher | Vanity Fair
At a party just a month later, at a retro cocktail bar called Bloodhound in San Francisco, to celebrate millions more users, Krieger toasted Cohler and the group.
“To the good old days,” said Krieger.
“Mike,” replied Cohler, who was the grand old man of the group at 33 years old, “these are the good old days.”
Instagram, forever the...
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Growth > Ads
Grow First, Ads Later: Facebook’s Strategy For Desktop, Mobile, And Now Instagram | Josh Constine | TechCrunch
Facebook and Instagram can afford this growth > ads strategy because its thinking long-term. Not long-term like Google with its moonshots, but Facebook is confident they’ll be dominant in their fields for at least a few years. Their large userbases and network effects luckily...
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WatchComic Sans
Never for use in a golden goblet.
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“He had done a few good sketches but so far we hadn’t seen that special...”
– Hunter S. Thompson, The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved
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“People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we...”
– Don Draper
April 2013
91 posts
1 tag
1 tag
Jony Ive paints a fresh, yet familiar, look for... →
parislemon:
Mark Gurman:
iOS 7 is codenamed “Innsbruck,” according to three people familiar with the OS. The interface changes include an all-new icon set for Apple’s native apps in addition to newly designed tool bars, tab bars, and other fundamental interface features across the system.
Innsbruck is the capital city of the federal state of Tyrol in western Austria, known for its skiing....
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Robert Scoble on Google Glass
My two-week review of Google Glass | Robert Scoble | Google+
I’ve been telling people that this reminds me of the Apple II, which I unboxed with my dad back in 1977. It was expensive. It didn’t do much. But I knew my life had changed in a big way and would just get better and better.
Would be an interesting chapter in tech history. How many times has there been a truly...
