Flickr and Webshots – A classic web2.0 case

November 25, 2005 eirikso18 Comments

Alexa is a web site that tracks traffic over time. The data from Alexa is collected from the people running the alexa toolbar in their browser, and in general that is enough to give a quite reliable picture of how a site is doing.

You can also compare charts, and the chart that shows the traffic rank of the popular photo sharing site Webshots vs. the chart of the relatively new but much hyped and right now just as popular service called Flickr is a very interesting illustration.

Webshots started as a general photo sharing site in 1999 and are celebrating their 10th anniversary as a brand these days (they started out as a professional service around 1995). Flickr emerged around february 2004. So, how come that a new site with a name that is difficult to spell and impossible to pronounce can rival Webshots after less than two years? It is difficult to say exactly why Flickr has this fantastic success. But, as it has been discussed all over the web as people realize this interesting and relatively new service – there are some properties of Flickr that is a good example of the successful web 2.0 service:

– A system that is easy to understand
– A clean interface with focus on usability
– Social functions like tagging, groups, commenting, evaluations and friends
– RSS feeds for everything
– An open API

The high usability grabs even your mother as a user. RSS feeds and an open API give them cred and collect users from the tech savvy digerati. The social network and possibility to create communities make both your mother and the geeky neighbour happy.

And while you’re here, please vote for my blog in the Norwegian competition that wants to elect the best technology blog in norway: Now I really need your help 🙂

Update:
Thomas Hawk has extended this article with more thoughts on the comparison of WebShots and Flickr here.

Update2:
Narendra Rocheroll has some interesting issues as well. Definitely worth a read.

Update3:
Due to a heavy load of spam on this post I have closed the comments and trackbacks.

Illustration at Om Malik’s blog

November 21, 2005 eirikso1 Comment

I am honoured by the fact that Om Malik has used one of my illustrations in his recent post about Skype.

It was originally drawn on the back of a business card. A good reason to immediately send you all over to Gapingvoid and the classic post on creativity.

And for the people coming over here because they want to see more of my strange little drawings, here are some links:

How Bob the Millionaire became a pirate
The similarity of cars and computers
Norwegian princess daughter named after Princess Leia
Legal threats and the internet

And no, I am by no means a designer. Anyway, if you like my kind of childish lines, they’re licensed under a creative commons license so feel free to use them. Any feedback (good or bad) is considered motivation.

More amazing circles

November 10, 2005 eiriksoLeave a comment

I have posted on Oyvind’s Amazing Circles before. I could not resist and went through his tutorial. The method is ridiculously easy and once you start making circles of your pictures it is actually quite addictive! You find the Eirikso Amazing Circles Photo Set here. You can do this using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. The Amazing Circles Flickr Group is growing and now counts more than 350 circles.

How to avoid making boring presentations

November 8, 2005 eirikso20 Comments

I have been doing a lot of presentations lately. So, inspired by the classic Steve Jobs and Bill Gates comparison, and after reading these comments over at Presentation Zen:

If someone emailed you both presentations, you’d probably be more likely to make out Bill Gates’ message.

How would you scape from bullet points and charts if you are presenting a technical subject?

I’ll have to throw in my little presentation guide as well. Hell, I’ll even give you an example. I am going to show you the presentation I use to tell students about pixels, colour schemes, dynamic range and a complete explanation of run length encoding of pictures.

Without one single bullet point.

The typical bullet point hell version of one of the slides would be like this:

Nicely done with a horrible default gradient background and an ugly font.

The first quote from the comments is answered by my presentation rule number one:

If someone that did not attend to my presentation can understand anything if I mail them my slides I have made a really bad set of slides. Really bad.

Why the heck would I bother spending money on a ticket to London and do a presentation if I could just mail the people my presentation and they would get the same? Ladies and gentlemen: slides are an illustration to what you are saying.

…but what about the people that did not attend? If they are important you’ll have to do another presentation or you’ll have to produce a document that people are supposed to read. A set of slides is not a document that people are supposed to read.

I’ll show this with my example.
Continue reading “How to avoid making boring presentations” →

Reality or not reality – that’s the question

October 28, 2005 eirikso3 Comments

Picture by Glenn C. Feron

You can’t buy the effect of photoshop in a beauty saloon
The brilliant retoucher Glenn C. Feron has a wonderful portfolio where you can see the difference between the original and the picture that he has touched with his photoshop magic.

As you can see from the picture here, to the left you have a beautiful lady. Already beautiful to the point that is not possible to reach for average people because she is already prepared by the finest of professional make-up artists, hairdressers and an excellent photographer. To the right she is even more beautiful. Beautiful to the point that is completely impossible. To look like her in real life is something that is as difficult as looking like Donald Duck or any other fictional creature.

The problem is that a lot of average people think it is possible to look like the girl on the right. Huge industries of beauty products rely on the fact that people want to look like a creature from a fairy tale. For my own kids it won’t be a problem. They grow up with photoshop and all the knowledge that lets them separate fiction from real life.

The problem is the digital divide. All the people that actually think that a cure of pills, powder and skin care can do the same magic that photoshop can do.

And what’s the conclusion? Stop artists like Glenn Feron? Put a warning on the magazine cover saying that the person in the picture is fictional?

Of course not! Glenn, keep up the good work.

The solution is knowledge. Understanding. Analytical skills. Go home and tell your fourteen old girl.

Via Digital Media Thoughts

Amazing circles

October 7, 2005 eirikso1 Comment

Oyvind has made a very nice Flickr set of what he calls “Fantastic circles”. I would call them amazing, beautiful and inspiring.

Flickr set: link
Post on Oyvind’s blog: link

Bad usability – Nokia Memory card

October 3, 2005 eirikso5 Comments

I was presenting at the stage in the picture last week (no, it’s not me in the picture). During my presentation I have a part about usability, and I could not help mentioning the picture of a horrible example of bad usability hanging behind me. A picture of a Nokia 6630 with a hand that is about to insert a memory card. Marked in red in the picture.

Looking at the closeup, someone could think that the photographer snapped the picture at the wrong moment. The memory card has its back facing towards the user. It should be like the next picture in this post.

The same situation. Looks OK, the front of a phone, the front of a memory card, and a slot on the side of the phone where you are supposed to insert the card. But, no. This is the wrong way to do it. The photographer is not stupid, you are supposed to insert the card with the back facing towards yourself. Why on earth would they put the card reader into the phone that way?

The correct way to insert a memory card in a Nokia 6630 is how it is illustrated in this picture. Because I am interested in technology on a level that is above average people tend to ask me when they have questions. Lately I have had quite a bit of questions regarding the Nokia 6630 and Nokia 6680. Questions regarding music, pictures, podcasts and navigation software on the memory card. I have tried to observe closely, and not one of the persons have tried to insert the card in the correct way on the first try.

Simply because the correct way to insert the card is what most sane people would think of as the wrong way.

And, as a finishing note:
If you insert the card the wrong way, it will lock itself into the slot and you would have to use some kind of tool to get it out. When you get it out you have to insert it the wrong way once more to release the slot and then insert it the right way.

Nokia – why?

Groovy art installation

June 29, 2005 eiriksoLeave a comment

BoingBoing pointed me to this German company selling groovy reproductions of 1970s-era wallpaper. My brain works quite visually and told me that I had seen something similar before. In Helsinki, Finland… At an art exibition… Hmm…
So I flipped through my pictures in Adobe Photoshop Album. And actually found the picture I was looking for. An equally groovy installation of psycedelic patterns and loudspeakers and microphones. Everything connected so the patterns got a very strange accompanying sound made entirely by feedback from the microphones and amplifiers.

Maybe they bought the wallpaper in Germany?

An example of good and bad usability design

June 16, 2005 eirikso5 Comments

After travelling between Oslo and Stockholm several times I started making note of an interesting example of good and bad usability.

When you arrive at the platform where you wait for the airport express train in Oslo you meet the following board:

It clearly states that the next train will leave at 17:45

And, I ask you: is this really the information you want?

If you say “yes, of course I want to know when the train leaves when I am at the station“. Think again.

I don’t think so. This is what you do:
You look at the sign:
“Okay, the train leaves at 17:45…”

Then you find the nearest watch:
“…right, it’s now 17:39..”

Then you do some calculations:
“…let me see.. the train will leave in 6 minutes… okay, I have time for a coffee!”

Is this good usability design? Is this following basic rules like “give the user the right information”, “make it fast and simple for the user to find the answer”?

So, what you want to know when you are at the station is how many minutes you have before the train leaves.

When you plan your trip the day before is something else. At that point you want to know at what time the different trains leave. But, at the station you want to know how many minutes will I have to wait?

An interface that consist of one single line of information and they got it wrong. Usability design is hard.

So, arriving at Stockholm Airport Arlanda I go for the Airport Express train, and meet this sign:

Yepp, the Swedes got it right…

Continue reading “An example of good and bad usability design” →

Thumbnails of my old background pictures

February 22, 2005 eiriksoLeave a comment

To give a better complete view of the HTPC-Backgrounds I made two years ago I have set up this gallery. Click the thumbnail to go to the download page: