Clipped from a blog i recently added to my feed…
“I’m a fan of various blogs and have a habit of subscribing to the feeds of the blogs and sites which I like to read it daily. But over a period of time, my Google Reader got piled up with the lots of RSS feeds. So, now I’ve a difficult time to read each and every RSS items. And most of the news items seems to be duplicated over various blogs and sites.”
Experiences built on hubs are those that make the content the hero, choose several salient attributes of that content and build simple experiences around it all. Two great examples are Disney.com and sesamestreet.org.
This post is inspired by our recent experience with sesamestreet.com’s latest Beta site. I did not give it a heuristic analysis or anything official. I simply went there looking for a video of Elmo to entertain the little one for a moment.
I was pleased with the focus employed by the new beta design. The things we initially looked for were all there at the center of the experience. A character, and a particular song. The type of content (video) is allowed to shine as the hero of the experience. The search for content that we wished to watch was made simple by not having to sift through search results as the primary way of finding content.
Surprise content interest:
I was surprised by how compelling the banner ad at the bottom of the sesame street site was to our 16 month old daughter. Even though the video was moving and singing, she was compelled to point to the Snuffalupagus (sp) within the banner.
Interesting Experience Observation:
While this was surprising from a content standpoint, it was also clear that a mouse is a totally foreign concept to someone who has never used a computer of today. Her instinct was to point directly to the content she wanted. of course, who would think to move a mouse and click a random button. why not point.
I can’t help but think the site was in some ways inspired by the very focused redesign of Disney.com. They did a great job of recognizing that their amazing characters should be one of the hubs for the experience. This is another site that allows the content to be the hero of the page. The Flash-only implementation leaves much to be desired, but the hubs of the experience are clear and smart. I am glad the sesame site did not lock all of the content into Flash.
more flow. I am seeing if this pic appears as i would like it to and testing the Flickr blog API. Hopefully this will allow me to reduce the steps required to take a screen grab and comment on the contents.
I realize it is an extra step than just uploading the file from my desktop, but i am trying to eliminate that steps and create an image library from which to draw upon for the future. So multiple goals (beyond just flow) are at play. If this works it will be a great step in the right direction.
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
Eventually, through the muck and more of the first Internet bubble a successful company emerged. Google had the magic combo of coolness, eyeballs, style and most importantly a licrative biz model. Not too many sites besides amazon, google, etc have really made it out of the flurry of immense creativity and speedy ideas of the early two thousands.
Here we are today faced with another rush of brilliant and useful tools, apps, sites, etc. Unfortunately they can’t all make it without pulling in some dough. Which site will emerge as the next great idea that actually turns a great profit? Will ads, subscription or something else be the cornerstone of those profits?
Who is the next google? VCs around the world are placing their bets. I am going to think on it before I fathom a guess.
Trying to increase the flow of my posts. I am mostly inspired by a site that i see or some design pattern or best practice-ish kind of feature. I like to collect stuff along my web travels.
I recently put together in my mind the best way to take a screen grab and post it to the web. I use SnagIt to grab the section of the page i am interested in, make any updates and then email it to Flickr. That way i no longer need to collect my snips and snails on my hard drive in folders. I can also tag and notate to my heart’s delight.
Still haven’t fingured out the best way to take a screen grab and post it directly to the blog for further comment and pithy insight.
This is a test of the Press This feature of WordPress. Hopefully it is a step in the right flow direction. Here is my text to press:
“Lessons on Blogging from Jon Stewart
this article is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of journalism. It shows how the informality and attitude that we take as characteristic of blogging can be combined with the tough-mindedness, research, and craft that is displayed by the best investigative reporters.”
Lessons on Blogging from Jon Stewart – O’Reilly Radar.
I already see i don’t have to CTRL select the title as it is already populated in the Title text field.
I commute a lot. I like hearing crickets and other bugs when i stroll outside in the AM and I enjoy having 15 lunch choices on one block. Therefore i commute from my country home to my city job. It is good to know every once in a while that I am not alone in my travels. Though I have been taking a car lately and rolling in my bubble world, i am soon heading back to the rails of NJ Transit.
The point: I am pleased to follow the blog of a former colleague who sheds a pithy light on what can be a crappy commute next to some nice though smelly, and at times loud people. I too enjoy a good rock tune once in a while… just not necessarily coming out of someone else’s ears.
Feedly has indeed added a slick feature called the river. There are also some other updates in the latest version.
The best upgrade is the more readable “latest” area of the What’s New pages. The spacing is much improved and digestible.
First I want to say that I am fast becoming a fan of Feedly. It is not Google Reader and I think that is perfectly OK. It gives me a different view of the same world. The What’s New feature in magazine mode could be 20 hours old at times, but that does not bother me. It is not for the buzz junky. I just love the fact that myriad sources could have such a clean and elegant presentation. I am very visual and the addition of the pictures has helped me make reading choices.
I look at the River feature from a very specific use-case. I am in a snacking mode looking for the latest from my favorite feeds. It is a very bouncy behavior that does not sound like a common use-case for this product.
I always thought of myself as a pretty casual RSS consumer. It was interesting to think of the target user for Feedly being more casual than I. Perhaps beginning a blog about my use of rss feeds is a sign that i am not the average Joe.
Features like the river make me a little greedy for more control over the posts.
I dove into the feature after I upgraded to the latest version of Feedly (that’s where the new stuff lives). It already helped me discover some cool stuff.
igoogle hooked me in a couple of years ago. I created 6 tabs and filled them up with exciting new widgets.
my igoogle google reader widget
I am now down to only looking at one tab and two of the 8 widgets within that tab. I stack my gmail above my google reader rss feed.
This is my primary means of consuming the latest and greatest trends and such in the world of user experience, financial services, marketing, design, etc. The only context is time. The most recent stuff followed by progressively older stuff. I have long since ignored the “1000+” drop down. There are just too many feeds and i feel i get the gist. When I see a story fly by 4 or 5 times, i know it is pretty widely covered. Without the preview mode I think this would be less useful, but being able to dip into a headline more deeply is just enough about 90% of the time.
Goal: general consumption
Key Context: time – most recent first (don’t need to see time/date, i assume the top story is the most recent available)
Behavior: check in on headlines every hour or so, use mouse scroll button to load more stories. stop scrolling when i see several stories i’ve already clicked on. Occasionally – ctrl click a headline to see it in original context to bookmark or snip.
one of the key reasons i check into google reader is to catch up on some of the feeds that i know are top of mind. The left navigation list of feeds and the software-esque loading of the stories into the right pane allow me to simply click on a feed (ie. bankwatch) and see the last however-many are listed (infinite with the progressive load). Another key to this feature is the highlighting of what i have and have not read. Usually there are about five or six not-reads at the top. The titles are fully shown (as wide as i stretch the browser). and i never seem to have trouble making a decision on which to drill into.
I’ve been trying to replicate this behavior on Feedly and aideRSS and the closest match is to select a feed at a time and peruse that way. Feedly has great controls over the display, but i have yet to tweak to display the way google reader does naturally. Neither have the same emphasis on: all feeds, organized by time, latest first, highlight not-reads — oh and low-risk previews. I can click away and not have to refresh the page.
With a couple of clicks in google reader i am all caught up (well, i still have 1000+ staring me in the face). I am caught up on what matters to me.
Goal: catch up after period of time
Key context: Personal Trust in Feed, Then time
Behavior: select a feed folder to see at a high level, then select several individual feeds, preview stories of interest based on the title and snippet. Occasionally click through to the actual story (more so if pictures or more stuff is offered, or if i want to bookmark the page)
Gonna put together some thoughts on my various rss readers. Ihave been trying out 5 different ways of organizing and consuming info. They all have different pluses and minuses. I also get a different view of the world through each, even though the deeds are the same.
The thing I’ve learned the most is to keep backup copies of my opml file.
Isn’t rss dead? To some, but I am still an avid aggregator and I feel the masses who have yet to even try building a feed will determine Its live-ness.
Not all pages are created equal. At least they shouldn’t be. An important driver for digital products (web sites, et al) is a clear perspective on what the hubs of the experience are. The hubs should be some of the most interesting screens and they should serve a purpose which is quite different than other supporting pages.
A hub page can serve as a point at which a user can take a step back and survey the scene before deciding the next move. It offers a chance to connect even the most complex array of content and information in a logical context.
Deciding on the hubs requires thinking of the most salient bits for which to provide a 360 view. What are the pieces of your experience that you want people to be able to examine, explore and kick the tires on?
Some examples:
There seem to be a few different types of hubs. Some which are concrete in nature – like a document, product, vehicle, etc. Some which are more conceptual – topics, popularity, solutions, etc.
Jared Spool took a look at the gallery pages as the hardest working pages on your site. Beyond just a product listing, creating smart hubs requires thinking about the different types of ‘galleries’ you wish to create.
One of the key reasons I began this particular blog was the fact that wordpress released the iPhone app. Here I am… Testing it out. The more I type on glass the better I get.
What do I think so far. I am wondering how to add a link of embed an image. Maybe the app is not the place for that.
Ok. Picture of a horse rear added. Pretty simple. I expect it will tag onto the end. The way this is set up it may be better for observations in the physical world. Not a lot of screen grabs in the iPhone.
I also can’t emphasize text without SHOUTING. No formatting.
Overall, not too shabby. Limited but should do the trick.
I have created a personal blog. The third such attempt in the last 8 years. i have a couple others with tumbleweeds on blogger. This time I have more ideas swimming in my head than i have outlets to convey and capture them. Thus, I am busting out of my 140 character shackles and posting my thoughts in extended form.
As for the design i’ve chosen… it’s stock. that works for me, because i am busy. I like that it is minimalistic. I like that i did not just say minimal and i went with the full on -istic. These are the thoughts i wish to explore and expound upon more. I say ‘thus’ a lot, hence this sentence. ‘hence’ is a favorite too. followed closely by ‘circa’. You something is well established if it has a ‘circa’ on it. anything that is ‘circa’ anything has a story to tell for sure.
enough about me… oh wait this is mostly about me. let the posting begin.
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