The New Roach Clip

I don't know why this email is getting so much attention.  Well, the best reason I've heard is simply that if BillG was concerned that much about user experience, why isn't MSFT perfect 5 years later.

It's a fair criticism, but not particularly.  There are many products that have been released since then from MSFT that have obviously invested heavily in UX.  Live Writer, OneNote, PopFly, Office Ribbon, Office Communicator, Live Mesh are some of these examples.

The article claiming that the BillG email is a "rant" is silly.  I hate to say it, but I've gotten emails just like that one from people who care about product usability: prospects, customers, C-levels, and I've even written similar notes -- though probably with a more neutral tone.  Frankly, I sometimes even seek that kind of email out.  In the middle of development cycles, you get wrapped up in shipping software, and get used to the idiosyncrasies that get introduced during development.  Shipping prototypes out to customers or screenshots early in the development cycles can help alleviate getting emails like this from the big boss after you've shipped.

Wow, I watched almost all of the premiere POV episode called Traces of the Trade last night.  I'd recommend it to anyone.  This documentary is about the De Wolf family of Rhode Island, and interviews the contemporary ancestors of this family during their self-exploration about their deep involvement in the slave trade.  Many of these ancestors had never even known that they were decendants of slave traders.  Wow.  How hard harsh is that?!

Recently, there's been much ado about McCain not "getting" the internets.  Well, I bet he doesn't.  And, that's a biiiig problem.  (BTW, I try not to hit up the politics much on my blog, but this one matters, IMHO.) 

The reality is that, like him or not, Tom Friedman is pretty dead on with "The World is Flat".  We no longer live in a world that has traditional economics, where borders matter.  The abundance of bandwidth is making the world an hyper-competitive marketplace. 

Anyway, there is an intuitive sense of how a networked world that, let's say, younger candidates "get" & will have positive impacts on public policy.  We'll see how older candidates do as a result.

Now that reddit has open sourced their platform, I'm wondering what contributed to their success or relative lack thereof.  Looking at the contributing factors for Digg's success, the primary one that stands out is that they were able to harness the network effect.  Arguably, the network effect can typically be attributable to a first mover advantage.  So, I'm going to do some live research here, and see what I can determine.

First, I'm going to check out archive.org to see who's website was actually first!

Okay, so, it looks like digg was around on Dec 9, 2004.  Reddit's first archive.org entry is July 8, 2002.  Looks like Reddit was actually first!

Next, let's see if I can figure out whether the "digg this" button contributed as a marketing & network-effect mechanism.  I *think* I might be able to determine this from when they introduced a platform API.  Digg Tools was introduced in December of 2006, oh wait, "Add Digg to your Site" was available in August 2006, but that actually turns out to be adding Digg news to your own site.  So looks like between mid-year 2005 and beginning of 2006 in late 2006, they added the digg button syndication feature.

Reddit appears to have launched their button on Oct 23 2006.

Hmm, so Reddit appears to have buttons first, but only by a month or so.

How about a blog as an influencer?

Digg: Feb 2006, http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://blog.digg.com

Reddit: October 2005, http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://blog.reddit.com

Does it all just come down to Digg being a cooler name?

Now that reddit has open sourced their platform, I'm wondering what contributed to their success or relative lack thereof.  Looking at the contributing factors for Digg's success, the primary one that stands out is that they were able to harness the network effect.  Arguably, the network effect can typically be attributable to a first mover advantage.  So, I'm going to do some live research here, and see what I can determine.

First, I'm going to check out archive.org to see who's website was actually first!

Okay, so, it looks like digg was around on Dec 9, 2004.  Reddit's first archive.org entry is July 8, 2002.  Looks like Reddit was actually first!

Next, let's see if I can figure out whether the "digg this" button contributed as a marketing & network-effect mechanism.  I *think* I might be able to determine this from when they introduced a platform API.  Digg Tools was introduced in December of 2006, oh wait, "Add Digg to your Site" was available in August 2006, but that actually turns out to be adding Digg news to your own site.  So looks like between mid-year 2005 and beginning of 2006 in late 2006, they added the digg button syndication feature.

Reddit appears to have launched their button on Oct 23 2006.

Hmm, so Reddit appears to have buttons first, but only by a month or so.

How about a blog as an influencer?

Digg: Feb 2006, http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://blog.digg.com

Reddit: October 2005, http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://blog.reddit.com

Now that reddit has open sourced their platform, I'm wondering what contributed to their success or relative lack thereof.  Looking at the contributing factors for Digg's success, the primary one that stands out is that they were able to harness the network effect.  Arguably, the network effect can typically be attributable to a first mover advantage.  So, I'm going to do some live research here, and see what I can determine.

First, I'm going to check out archive.org to see who's website was actually first!

Okay, so, it looks like digg was around on Dec 9, 2004.  Reddit's first archive.org entry is July 8, 2002.  Looks like Reddit was actually first!

Next, let's see if I can figure out whether the "digg this" button contributed as a marketing & network-effect mechanism.  I *think* I might be able to determine this from when they introduced a platform API.  Digg Tools was introduced in December of 2006, oh wait, "Add Digg to your Site" was available in August 2006, but that actually turns out to be adding Digg news to your own site.  So looks like between mid-year 2005 and beginning of 2006 in late 2006, they added the digg button syndication feature.

Reddit appears to have launched their button on Oct 23 2006.

Hmm, so Reddit appears to have buttons first, but only by a month or so.

How about a blog as an influencer?

Digg: Feb 2006, http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://blog.digg.com

Reddit: October 2005, http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://blog.reddit.com

It's unfortunate that there are many among us who poo-poo Twitter, Seesmic, etc as the "echo-chamber".  I think this is a new version of anti-intellectualism that -- for some unknown reason -- has not left American discourse.  The main utility of these new forms of debate is really to allow a more free-form intellectual debate among our citizenry -- but wait, this is actually not limited to American borders -- rather, this is a global phenomenon.  The "echo-chamber," of course, is Silicon Valley but not in reality, only metaphorically.  It's those techno-geeks, with time and bandwidth to spare, that endlessly debate.  The reality, however, is that we live in societies that are constantly on-the-go, disconnected, and distracted.  These services help us talk asynchronously by compressing the debate into consumable chunks of time.

1. Just gives me the creeps that Comcast would have access to all of my contacts when I'm not a subscriber of any of their services. 
2. I never really used plaxo since Facebook's network effect took over for me
• I never used it's core capability of address/contact info/friend synchronization -- email and IM addresses seem to be more persistent with friends these days.  Who sends snail mail anymore?!
• I don't need yet another social graph
• Storing all address change spam in Gmail seems to serve the purpose these days of plaxo -- especially since it's easily searchable from my mobile
3. liking FriendFeed and Twitter to keep up w/ folks...starting to like Brightkite (though even more creepy at times)

It's been a while since I've blogged a wine!  I've been wanting to try out some Rhone whites, and explicitly tried my first one a few weeks ago...the E. Guigal 2005.  I enjoyed it a lot.

Ok, here goes on the Domaine LaFond as I grill up some poulet:

Color: light straw -- similar to a sauvignon blanc

Nose: Big aroma coming out even before I've actually stuck my nose into the glass.  I'm getting some pear, light pineapple, mineral/wet stone, some vanilla (french oak), actually a good amount of oak coming through as it sits.  Time to grab the chicken...while the chicken is resting...  huh, more mineral, followed by oak.  Not particularly fruity on the nose now.  Mimi's smelling green pepper first.

Mouth: Medium bodied.  Again, mineral transitioning into some nice acidity, and hanging on there.  Seems like the oak is at the front of this wine, transitioning to acidity, then mineral.  Really sticks around for a while.  Funny, I'm getting some kind of kick at the end that is almost basic/alkaline (in the chemistry sense).

Well, there you go!  I really like this wine.  It's going to go really well with food.  Maybe not quite the sit on the porch on a hot day white, but a lot more interesting than the Barefoot Chardonnay I had a glass of last night.

Update: This Lirac is Grenache blanc 60%, Viognier 20%, Roussanne 10%.

Some highlights from our recent trip to Puerto Vallarta:

• Um, eating cricket tacos and the mole sauce at El Arrayan
• Canopy tour with ziplines -- nothing like endangering your life in a second-world country!
• Some Cuban cigar samples -- Cohiba, way to strong; Partegas, much better
• View from the Vista Grill
• Seeing dolphins from the deep-sea fishing expidition -- only in Mexico can you get away with a company named Master Baiters -- cool owner, retired Boeing engineer