Receive, Hunt, Do

The history of the Web is a transition between these phases:

What a great way to summarize the Web in this Businessweek article

Why do remote controls still ask you for the number of a TV channel?

It would seem that remote controls as interfaces are falling behind in usability with the deluge of 1000s of cable channels, VOD and DVR options….

I want:
- a small wireless keyboard or touchscreen
- and/or speech recognition
- semantic search by actors, genre, recently viewed

What I really don’t want is to have to remember whether the channel I am looking for is 653 or 249 on my cable box!… imagine looking for websites using the IP address instead of the URL and you will get the insanity of the current approach.

Hopefully Tivo is thinking about this…

Can’t believe this functionality is not more promoted, but if you use gmail you will appreciate this…

When reading an email, if you want to archive and then read the next email message (instead of having to go back to the inbox and then open the next) you just have to hit [

After a full work day in front of the computer, the last thing I want
to do when I get home is use the laptop. Bet you often feel the same.

In our intense digital world we need to be able to disconnect, at
least a little bit, at least sometimes and computers can be
used for fun and entertainment… but you associate them with
work.

So this is what I wish I had on my lap when sitting on the sofa
surfing the web or using instant messaging …. I wish not my hot laptop burning my legs, I wish not by blackberry with the small screen… I wish that the
promise of the tablet pcs had become true and I could use a big screen
with the same ease with which I use a notepad or read a magazine.

If it does not look like my work computer then it will not feel like work.

So dear Steve Jobs, this is what I want for Xmas: I want a notepad
sized iphone. Please disregard the other pundits asking for iphone
nanos, you can get to them later in the product roadmap. What I need is a cool
solution to my urgent desire.

Don’t need the phone bit, just give me a beautiful touchscreen with
good wifi connectivity and great multimedia capabilities. And while
you are at it, please add an integrated webcam for skype.

I can’t trust getting the user interface to anyone else so I am sure
you will do a great job…. and that using a computer at home will
become something more fun and casual.

As Jeff Bezos did when he was designing the kindle… I am looking for that magic invisible device.

[image via Flickr]

What a great legacy he has left behind:

As many of you know, I have been a huge fan of the Rhapsody subscription service for quite so time now.

When I need my music “to go” I have so far relied on my sansa m250. Still, the software glitches have made the thing unusable lately with far too many “synchronize to continue” and disk reformatting to make it worthwhile.

So I decided to look for.a portable light player that I could use in my running training. Ipods were out of the question as I wanted to opt out of the itunes ecosystem, and the shuffle does not have a display.

I decided to get a sansa clip at my local Best Buy. So far so good… very light, easy to set up, has good sound and a nice display.

So far I have gotten no error messages… fingers crossed… maybe subscription based portable devices are ready for mass market.

Sometimes clumsy DRM just slows down success.

[Image via Flickr]

I had always been hesitant to try out online shoe retailer zappos.com and when I first did a few days ago, this is what happened:

Dear Juan Lopez-Valcarcel,

Good news! Although you originally ordered Standard (4 to 5 business days) shipping and handling, we have given your order special priority processing in our warehouse and are upgrading the shipping and delivery time frame for your order.

Your order will ship out today and be given a special priority shipping status so that you can receive your order even faster than we originally promised! Please note that this is being done at no additional cost to you. It is simply our way of saying thank you for being our customer.

[...] We are constantly striving to improve our service. If there is anything that we can do to help improve your experience, please don’t hesitate to let us know. We like to think of ourselves as a service company that happens to sell shoes, clothing, and a whole bunch of other stuff! If you’ve enjoyed your experience with us, please tell your friends and family about Zappos.com! Thank you!

In the online world, the same rule applies as in the offline:
Happiness = Reality - Expectations.

So there is nothing like it to build customer loyalty than to underpromise and overdeliver.

I am now a happy Zappos customer and (guess what) I am telling you all about it… how’s that for word of mouth driven by top notch service

[Beijing Olympic Stadium via Flickr]

From the NYTimes:
With the Beijing Olympics less than two months away, hotel operators, travel agencies, and foreign businessmen say new Chinese visa restrictions are proving bad for business, casting a pall over Beijing during what was supposed to be a busy and jubilant tourist season leading up to the Olympic Games.

I experienced this first hand a month ago while getting my own visa: longer queues than last time, multiple new requirements, hassle, hassle, hassle… I just hope this gets sorted out before the Olympics so that more people can visit China and admire first hand the amazing growth trajectory of the country.

As a fan of political debate, I was very saddened by the loss of journalist Tim Russert last Friday. If it’s Sunday… it’s Meet the Press…. and that was the show that I waited for all week.

Turns out that he was also a true believer in the importance of friends and family… and of treasuring life’s moments. He will be missed by many.

I have pasted above a video from the memorial service where Bruce Springsteen dedicates Thunder road to him. May he rest in peace.

[Vantage Point Poster via Flickr]

A few weeks ago I watched Vantage Point, an engrossing movie about the US President and the Secret Service that takes place in Salamanca (Spain).

There was something too perfect about the way Salamanca was being shown on screen… so I looked up the shooting location and foudn out that the film was actually shot in Mexico with a reproduction of the main Plaza Mayor (Square) of Salamanca:

To build this plaza, the production discovered an ideal place in the southern part of Mexico City. Executive Producer Callum Greene explains, “We found an abandoned four-story mall which became a perfect area for us. We built our construction, carpentry, metal work, and plastic shops in the abandoned mall. Next to it was a pit where we built our Plaza Mayor.”

There is something about the scale of efforts of money that goes into movie productions that got me thinking about the boundary that still separates the movie business from TV, videogames or online. To get a sense of scale of this production, imagine building Times Square on a set to show a realistic backdrop to a movie.

So how long must we wait until a film studio automatically goes for computer generated effects to create such an illusion and not old-school carpentry? I don’t follow the film industry that much but thought we were very close to being able to realistically reproduce any environment in detail… take for example Grand Theft Auto.

Who knows, maybe we still have a couple more years of “pit building” for movies. In the meantime, enjoy the show, and the carpentry.