Samsung’s Smart Window
This is seriously amazing.
(Source: youtube.com)
Color App - Pool Hopping Commercial
And that is how you should NOT make a commercial. Also not fair for the guy who had to stand out of the pool to shoot them having all the fun.
(Source: youtube.com)
A good friend asked me this question a few days back and I thought more about it this weekend. So here are some quick thoughts why I feel people share stuff online:
Ego Boost
Like it or not, a majority of us share stuff online with the final motive of being liked and commented upon. It is one of those things everybody does, nobody likes to accept. All my posts about my new gadgets belong here.
Journaling life
In lack of a dead simple tool that lets you journal your life and all aspects of it, people choose to use the services that they love to journal their life. Half of my Instagram and Path pictures fall in this category.
Your perspective of the world
I know many people in this category. People who share with the simple purpose of sharing how they see the world through their eyes. Or just an opinion. The other half of my Instagram is this. Random photos of oddities I witness everyday.
Random thoughts that cross your mind
I post almost every “safe for work”, not highly opinionated thought that crosses my mind on Twitter. I am guessing there are more like me. It is more like an alternate blog that just takes a lot less time to post on.
No matter what you say, people share for some random combination of the above reasons. Their is most of the time, not just one reason to share this. Like everything else, it is complicated.
If given the choice between expressing an opinion and being useful, or pleasing most people most of the time by saying everything is great even when it isn’t, I’ll choose expressing an opinion every time. And if that results in derogatory feedback, so be it.
It is good to have opinions, it means you have thought about something. And what good are opinions, unless voiced!
Marco’s quoted text from his article pretty much summarizes my viewpoint on opinions.
Earlier in the day I got an email from NYTimes that talked of how my subscription is getting over. Surprisingly I have never been their subscriber.
Then I read the following on Twitter:
And then I get this in the email:
Hey New York Times, here is lesson #34 of screw up management. Don’t let two versions of the same story come out from the company. And if you ask me, here is a simpler rule, just be honest.
San Francisco in 1955: Interesting to see how cities evolve. Wonder what the parallel of “survival of the fittest” is for cities.
“As a designer, you have your baby that you want to try and sell. To make it saleable, you might pick someone who has really nice photos in their profile and use that to make your mockups,” Felton says. “But you’re ultimately just lying to yourself and the rest of the group if you think everyone’s page is going to look like that.”
In what is a lovely article, Felton describes something that I have myself learnt over the years. It is the simple fact that when you are creating mockups, you can either choose to have the best of the photos to adorn content and make your design saleable, be that to a client or team members, BUT you know deep down that it would not be looking this awesome once you create some not -so-awesome content in those placeholders. Sadly that will be the case more often that not. So why fool yourself by using the best images and content for placeholders.
A corollary to this is that it is always the best to design for edge cases than designing for the average cases. If your design can adapt itself to the extremes the averages will of course fit in just right.
“Yeah, it’s kind of hard to do.”
-Drew Houston in the first meeting with Apple on being asked how they hacked their way into Finder
I will admit it. I am a big fan of Dropbox and have immense respect for the engineering prowess of the team. I am eagerly waiting for the first Operating System that utilizes the doors of possibilities that Dropbox opens.
However, that line right there, shows the attitude that made this possible in a market that others assumed was already over saturated.
It’s kind of hard to do, it always is. That is why it has probably never been done before or not been done in just the right way. That is why you have a chance to do it. That is why you chose to do it.
Crazy mountain biking video
(Source: youtube.com)
This is my first major release at Pulse and I could not have been happier, proud and humbled at the same time with what we were able to come up with to enable a better reading experience and a far superior way to discover new sources. Enjoy while we craft the next marvel.
To wrap up an incredible 2011, we’re bringing you one last release. Just in time for the holidays, these new features will make your Pulse experience more enjoyable with improved browsing and discoverability. There is a lot packed in this release, so let’s get started:
Completely Redesigned…
(via akothari)
