design

You are currently browsing the archive for the design category.

Iconic Designs: Porsche

April 5, 2012 in design by George | No comments

Haven’t done an Iconic Design post in a while, and I’m sad to be compelled to do so upon learning that Ferdinand Porsche died today.

Whether you feel the Porsche design (particularly the 911) signifies all that is right with automotive design, or a feeble attempt made by middle-aged men to recapture something lost (or both/in-between), it undeniably stands the test of time, and illustrates Mr. Porsche’s mantra:

“Design must be functional and the functionality must be visually implemented without gags that need to be explained.”

Tags: ,

what I love about now: from idea to action…fast

March 5, 2011 in design, entrepreneurship, innovation, marketing by George | 5 comments

I wrote a post a bit ago called “Buy One, Give One Free” that got batted around the Internet a bit.

The basic gist of my post was that artists (musicians, writers, poets, et al.) could adopt some ideas from Social Entrepreneurship , and repurpose these ideas to their benefit; specifically, the idea (most visible via Toms Shoes) of making it possible to give a product away when a customer buys one.

I bemoaned the fact that I didn’t see an implementation of this type of thing in the arts:

I’ve been frustrated by the lack of a mechanism for this type of sharing of information, which makes it easy for the existent constituent to introduce the work to her friends. As above, one may exist, and, if so, I’d love to see some examples, so please leave them in the comments.

Well, I’m really happy to report that, due to the fact that I have some brilliant friends, we’re making some progress.

I saw the following tweet from Ty White the other day, and new I was in for something good:

As Ty says in his blog post

A few months ago, George Howard blogged about a great idea for artists trying to get their word out: offer your fans the option to send a free copy of the record to a friend when they buy a copy for themselves. It’s a great way to offer your fans additional social capital (by sending a copy of a great record to a friend) while helping the artist get introduced to new people.

I took this idea to Jim from All Smiles, who immediately agreed to try it out with the new record. Easier said than done. As it turned out, we needed a new API call from Topspin (BIG thanks to Varley and Kris!) to detect when the purchase was complete, and also needed a way to store the sharers name, recipient’s name, and recipient’s email. I dove into PHP and MySQL for the first time, and thankfully Topspin bent over backwards to help get the API calls working.

As you can see, it takes a unique type of person (like Ty unquestionably is) to not only see value in an idea (and give credit where credit is due), but implement the idea. As Ty wrote, this was “easier said than done.”

Nevertheless, he did it, and the results have been solid:

Two weeks ago we launched pre-order, and this Tuesday the album hit the street. As of writing, we’ve seen 21% of purchasers take the option to send the album to a friend.

Ty feels this number (21%) can be higher with some tweaking, and offers some good suggestions on how to improve.

My point in all this is that we live today in an era where we can rapidly go from idea to execution. This delights me to no end. Not long ago, in order to get any type of web-based idea up and running was a long, expensive, tedious process that more often than not took the wind out of the excitement of the idea. In other words, you knew that it was going to be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to try something out, so you didn’t try. Not good.

Today, we can try with much lower costs (real and opportunity).

I’m fully aware that it takes a uniquely talented type of person, like Ty, to be able to pull something like the “Buy One, Give One Free” idea, but it can be done, and, increasingly, it can be done quickly and cheaply.

This bodes very well for all of us. The more ideas that can get to market – in order to succeed or fail – faster, the better.

Thanks, Ty, for making my little idea manifest. Let’s now continuously improve.

Tags: ,

9GS Review: Sonos

October 4, 2010 in design, reviews, tech by George | No comments

I recently wrote a piece called, “The Stream that Snuck Up On You.” It got batted around the Internet a bit, and – according to the letter I got – was read by the founder of Sonos.

This resulted in me getting a very nice package of Sonos gear.

Sonos never asked for anything (review, etc.) in return for this gear. UPDATE: Sonos has graciously provided the equipment to me for a long-term test of the experience. That said, I’m gonna give it a review.

Sonos Review

Overview
Sonos makes mutli-room wireless music streaming products. I’ve been aware of Sonos for some time, but never pulled the trigger on the system for two (related) reasons:

First, the price. To get up and running, you’re looking at a minimum of ~$400. The newly introduced Zone Player S5 gets you in the game; so long as your Internet connection/router is in the same room as where you want the device.

If you want to put the S5 (or any other Sonos equipment) in a room where there’s no router, you need the ZoneBridge. This will run you $100.

For every other room you want music (assuming you have either the ZoneBridge or the S5 connected to your Internet connection) you can either buy more S5s, the $350 ZonePlayer90 (which allows you to connect to your powered speakers or otherwise amplified equipment), or the $500 ZonePlayer120 (which contains a 55w/channel amp, so you can just attach speakers).

So, however you cut it, you’re looking at a minimum of $350 per additional room where you want music.

I strongly urge Sonos to introduce a ~$150 small speaker option that can be used in kitchens or bedrooms. The current product array really doesn’t offer a solution for kitchens or bedrooms (too big/too expensive), and these rooms are where a LOT of music is (or would be) consumed.

The second reason I’ve not taken the Sonos plunge was because I’ve been able to cobble together a multi-room wireless solution using a combination of Airport Expresses, iTunes/Airfoil, and M1 Audio Monitors.

With this set up, each room runs you about $200 (AEs and Monitors both being around $100 each). Of course, if you have your own speakers already, you can just get the AE, and you’re rocking for $100. I’ve got AEs scattered all over the house, and use the audio out jack to plug into boomboxes, etc.

Price aside, it’s not a perfect A/B comparison between the AE/powered speakers v Sonos.

In virtually every category except for price, Sonos has the advantage over the AE approach.

Multiple Zones
The most emphatic difference is that with Sonos, you can have different music playing in different rooms (“zones” in Sonos parlance). In other words, the kids can be rocking the Jo Bros in their room, while I listen to Horace Silver in the den. Importantly, both the Jo Bros and Horace Silver are being pulled from the same source.

To accomplish this same trick with AE you’d need multiple sources (i.e. multiple iTunes libraries on different computers). Switching between the two is a pain.

Interface/UX
The second key distinction is ease of use. The Sonos iPhone, iPad, and Desktop Apps are all KILLER; far easier to navigate than even the revamped iPad Remote App. This is VERY significant when it comes to basically anyone other than me operating the music in the house. It takes zero tech savvy.

Robust Connectivity
The third key distinction is connectivity. For whatever reason, I’ve never been thrilled with the AE connectivity. One of the units always seems to start blinking yellow at the wrong time (i.e. when you want to use it). The Sonos connection just seems more robust. Additionally, there’s less lag between time of remote press and music switch on Sonos than on the AE set up.

Multiple Music Sources
The fourth – and for many, the most significant – key distinction is that the AE/iTunes set up is limited to the music in iTunes and Internet radio stations (though even getting those to work is sort of a drag).

Sonos expands greatly on what you can stream through your speakers. In addition to all music on your hard drive and Internet radio (which is less wonky than the iTunes version), you can also access:

    Pandora
    Last.fm
    iheartradio
    Napster
    Sirius
    Wolfgang’s Vault/Daytrotter (Disclaimer: I am an advisor for Daytrotter and Wolfgang’s Vault)

It’s hard to understate the significance of these many streams. We all hit a wall with our iTunes library, no matter how vast, and to be able to use the same controller to switch over to Pandora, Wolfgang’s Vault, etc., … well, it’s amazing.

If Sonos adds rdio, I’ll be pretty well fulfilled.

You simply can’t stream this amount of stuff from the Apple Remote. You can, of course, stream from a desktop using Airfoil, but it’s SO nice to have it all controllable from one device.

If Sonos is able to keep adding great sources like Wolfgang’s Vault to their stream, they may very well succeed in rising to my challenge to create One Player to Rule them All; an interface that serves all the musical needs. It needs to be a big part of their strategy going forward.

Minor Features
The above are all BIG differences when you play a lot of music. There are also some subtle, but nice, elements of the Sonos set up:

Line in and line out options. So you can, for instance jack a turntable or other line in device into the Sonos players. This allows you to control the volume, etc. remotely. They even let you label this line in whatever you want (e.g. “turntable”), which is a nice touch.

Alarm. You can program any Sonos device to wake you up with whatever music you have on your hard drive (or what you’re streaming). (See what I mean about them needing a unit for the bedroom?) Sure, you can – conceivably – pull this off with a Mac, but I never trust that it will work.

Ethernet pass thru. On each device there are two Ethernet jacks, so you can use one to add connected devices (NAS, for example)/expand your Internet connectivity. This is also great for our increasingly crowded routers.

Things That Aren’t Quite Right
I really have very few complaints beyond what I mentioned above (price, a smaller unit for bedrooms/kitchens, addition of rdio as a stream).

There are a few things, however, that currently seem like afterthoughts, that with a bit of effort could really help expand the market for Sonos.

First, they have a terrible social integration in the apps. You can, for instance, connect your Twitter account, but when you tweet out what you’re listening to, the autogenerated copy is just sort of odd:

“[artist] is playing all over my house.”

So, if, as I did, you have the Meat Puppets, uh, playing all over your house, that’s what it says, “Meat Puppets is playing all over my house.”

Beyond the weird grammar, talk about a missed opportunity to brand the company, let alone get more followers. How about, tossing in an “@sonos” or even a hash tag (#sonos). Better yet, a link where people who see the tweets could learn more about Sonos.

This leads me to my next complaint/suggestion. A high-end product like Sonos attracts a customer base who tend to be passionate about the stuff they buy/use. They feel elite, and they want to talk with others who use it, as well as share what their using with others.

While I’m not suggesting Sonos create some sort of social network, but they should create a compelling space where Sonos users could connect/share with others, using music as their social object.

I got into my Sonos system really fast (perhaps this 1600 word review is a clue), and yet got bored with the Sonos web site quicklyt, and found nowhere else to go to see what other Sonos users were listening to/how they were using their systems.

At the very least, provide a platform to allow those who want to connect to do so. UPDATE: I found the Sonos forum; seems pretty active. I could not, however, find a Sonos Facebook presence.

A Note about Apple’s Forthcoming moves
One concern I imagine many will have when considering whether to rush out and buy a Sonos system is the forthcoming upgrade to Apple’s iOS.

The new version, iOS 4.2, which is scheduled to be available in November is due to introduce Airplay. The Airplay functionality, in theory, will allow you to stream music from your iPad/iPhone to Airplay equipped devices; either devices connected to AEs or – and here’s where it might get interesting – to devices that have built the technology into the hardware; a set of speakers, for instance.

It remains to be seen if Airplay will be limited to iTunes, but even if it’s not, and you can stream, for instance, Pandora from your iPad to Airplay equipped components, you’ll still need to switch out of whatever app you’re currently streaming from (iTunes, for instance) and into the Pandora app before you can stream. Multi-tasking and background operations will help, but it’s not the same as having it all in one UI, ala the Sonos app.

Bottom Line
If you’ve got the money, get a Sonos system.

It does feel indistinguishable from magic in much of its usability. In fact, things like the above-referenced half-baked Twitter gesture stand out so much primarily because they break the otherwise magical spell.

There’s room for improvement — smaller, less expensive devices, more streams, better social integration/community — but it’s pretty killer.

Tags:

A Challenge: One Player to Rule them All

September 12, 2010 in design, marketing, tech by George | 1 comment

I believe we’re increasingly heading to an era where filtering of the unlimited sources of stuff that is thrown at us is the holy grail in terms of apps, etc.

For music, iTunes is a perfectly fine player so long as you’re playing music found on your hard drive. Certainly, it appears that Apple will move to a streaming service at some point. However, as much as I love Apple, I doubt seriously that it’ll be a solution for anything beyond the streaming of songs purchased from the iTunes store (and, candidly, why should it be?).

However, most of us now get our music from a variety of sources. As above, we play what’s on our hard drives via iTunes, and many of us also stream from some service (rdio, spotify, emusic, pandora… whatever)

Some of the above are sort of applauded for their “iTunes-like interface.” The problem is that even if these interfaces are exactly like iTunes, we’re still dealing with interfaces, plural.

We need an interface, singular.

There are some sort of half attempts at this (some only in the Windows, UNIX world): Fubar, Amorak, Songbird, etc. Even Boxee sort of tries to address this (though more for video).

None of these interfaces/clients really give a user what she should have: an interface that pulls in your streams/queues/songs-added-to-collections and songs on your hard drive all in one place.

I should, for instance, be able to play a song I have on my hard drive from the same interface I stream a song I’ve added to my rdio collection.

This isn’t a rights issue, by the way. I pay the $10 a month to stream whatever I want from rdio; I’d be happy if I could stream Pandora from this interface even if it meant having to see ads/hit a paywall if I go over the limit. However, when I do this now, not only do I have to switch interfaces, but I also have to quit iTunes (to make sure I’m not connected to an Airport Express speaker – soon to be AirPlay), then connect Airfoil to the new interface, and re-connect to the remote speaker. Drag.

I believe the net result of this would be far more music consumed, and, thus, far more revenue generated for rights holders, services, etc.

This is at the essence of VRM: Customers must be able to manage relationships with their vendors/suppliers on their terms.

Anything short of this leads frictions that are not beneficial to anyone.

So…someone hack one of these things together for me, please.

Tags: ,

The iPad and the development of Markets

April 5, 2010 in design, innovation, tech by George | 2 comments

The release of the iPad is bringing to the fore a topic that is near and dear to me, and one that I believe will be at the center of design thinking, marketing, etc., discussion for the foreseeable future.

Essentially, some are threatened by the iPad’s “closed” system. The most vocal seems to be Cory Doctorow. In his piece, “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either),” Mr. Doctorow puts forth the idea that the iPad represents a closed system, and therefore is a “gadget” that stifles innovation, etc.

With respect to Mr. Doctorow (who I do indeed respect immensely), I feel he’s dead wrong here. As someone who at 14 wrote my first piece of software on a Commodore 64 (it was a program that attempted to teach my 6 year-old brother some basic math aptitude by rewarding him with a piece of a picture every time he got the arithmetic problem correct; get ten right and you’ve “built” a race car), and as someone who now likes few things more than devoting an hour or so every other night to teaching myself Ruby on Rails, and as someone who’s been instrumental in the development of two successful iPhone apps (here and here), I just don’t understand his thought process.

The iPad is a delivery device, and, as such, relies on creative types to develop the content to justify its existence. Developing this content — books, movies, tv shows, apps of all stripes — and having an elegant distribution channel and device for our users to consume and enjoy our creations represents a massive win for the creative class.

Did developing not only this device but the distribution channel require Apple to make some decisions that were not informed by “open source” wisdom of the crowds? Absolutely. And, thank God.

The “wisdom of the crowd” could no more design the iPad nor the delivery mechanism (i.e. the App store) than “they” could design any other elegant system.

Why people have not yet come to the realization that wisdom of the crowd/crowdsourcing, etc. is simply a variant of design by committee (taken to a massive extreme) is beyond me.

This is not to say that there is no value to be had from crowdsourcing, etc. There is. What people seem to be neglecting is that these crowds tend to lack experts, or that the sheer volume of the crowd often mutes the experts.

Below is a quick little graphic I created to show the development:

As the Cluetrain famously taught us, “Markets are conversations,” and in a pre-industrial society that’s all we had.

Conversations were muted entirely during the industrial era; Henry Ford: “You can have any color Model T you want, so long as it’s black.”

Conversations were inauthentic during the Modern era; companies attempted to manipulate us into believing we had choice when we didn’t, etc.

The Internet — a medium for conversation and storytelling — allowed us to reclaim our voice, and thus, our choice. Amazon rankings representing the earliest and most cogent example of how “civic sharing” destroyed the Modern conceit of brands über-alles, and began our move towards “wisdom of the crowd” fascination.

We’re in an interstitial period now where we realizing that the wisdom of the crowd alone isn’t working. The recent kerfuffle over negative Amazon reviews for Michael Lewis’ new book, based not on the content of the book, but rather its lack of availability as an e-book, represents an example of this failure. The crowd wasn’t wrong exactly, but rather the current system did not allow the crowd to communicate their collective voice effectively.

What is required now is more filters and crowd leaders. Taking a cue from social entrepreneurship, “teams of teams” must emerge that allow for better organization of the crowd. Again, this requires people with real expertise to marshal the voices.

What is required is that someone with a point of view and knowledge make decisions. This is what the iPad represents. Decisions were made. Cory Doctorow and others were left out of this decision making process, and they don’t like it.

I personally am delighted that I can read Mr. Doctorow’s work on my iPad; I’ll read more of his work more enjoyably because of it. However, I’m also very glad that Mr. Jobs (and his team) designed the iPad and not a collection of Mr. Doctorows.

I know precisely what would have been developed by the “open source” community. It would have been a watered-down version that attempted to please everyone.

I refer to this dynamic as the Coder/Manager Dilemma. Essentially, without a strong manager the coders will water down an idea and leave the manager no economic choice but to ship a product that is less than what had been envisioned. Mr. Jobs is one of the few that seems to combat this (The Kindle is an example of the coder/manager dilemma writ large).

This post (via Daring Fireball) sums up the need for expertise:

…open source has nothing to teach literature or indeed any artistic creation, since talent doesn’t scale as you give more and more developers check-in access to the version-control system set up for your novel. It further explains why one’s inability to hack an iPad means precisely nothing. Nobody needs to program an iPad to enjoy using it, except those who have no capacity for enjoyment other than programming and complaining about same.

This was the weekend those of us with high standards lost their remaining residue of patience for ideologues who hyperbolize about open systems without actually creating something people want to use.

Tags: , , ,

« Older entries