Where to start? To the uninitiated, Apple has essentially created their own self contained social network with iTunes Ping. iTunes Music Store users can now follow friends and artists, a la Twitter or Facebook and share their favorite songs and albums. On the surface, it seems like a logical plan for Apple to push themselves into a new field and continue to iterate the iTunes world. However, there are many flaws with the service under the surface.

I, like many people, love to talk about music and debate different tastes with my friends. However, I don’t find much use for Ping in it’s current set of features. In a very Apple-like move, the service is locked into the iTunes desktop software. If they are trying to build a social network from the ground up in 2010, why WHY on Earth do you lock it down to just the in-club of existing users. I think this walled garden of Ping, which is even more a set away from Facebook’s walled garden, will be a major blow to their growth. If you are looking to grow the network, it must be sharable with outsiders. Apple should really work on a web based version of this service to accompany the in-software version.

Secondly, actually posting to your own profile is too many steps to be useful. I should be able to like and post albums right from my own library. If I have a music blog (which I have considered starting), I should be able to import the RSS feed from that to my Ping. On the reverse, I should be able to get a feed of my latest Ping posts into other services and sites. Right now, with this lack of somewhat basic, important functionality, the service is acting like a way for me to sell iTunes songs to my friends (just without any kickbacks). There should be more incentive, or some sort of easier recognizable gratification for using the service by sharing my favorite songs.

Right now, Ping is too closed in and lacking too much functionality for me to actually take advantage of it. Which leads me to my last point: where does it get too be too many social networks to manage? iTunes Ping is just another feed to check, another Inbox. As is the problem with any service: if your friends you actually care about and maintain relationships with, then what good is another service? This was the downfall (among other things) of Google Buzz. Sure, it’s only been out for a few days, but I really don’t see Ping taking off as much as Apple is hoping it to be. We’ll see though.

I’m going to keep trying it out for a little while to get a better opinion, so you can follow me on Ping over here.

P.S. – Don’t get me started on the new iTunes icon or the new interface icons…

You may also remember Ping, the Chinese food delivery boy, from Seinfeld. Also: golf clubs

Click to Enlargen

I’ve been thinking: How much do I depend on traditional broadcast for my regular video/TV entertainment? By that I mean, how much do I need traditional cable/satellite TV to get what I see? While Hulu and Netflix provide quite a lot, there are a few holdovers that I still rely on traditional TV for. This Venn diagram represents the video/TV shows I watch on a regular basis and currently in production* if it is on TV (red), online only (blue), or a show broadcasted on TV that I choose to watch online (purple). And yes, I realize many of the ones in the red could be moved in the purple, but it is simply my habit of watching those on TV.

I love the idea of on demand online video like a Hulu or Netflix. I truly believe this is the future of how we get our video content. There will always be live events or current news that must be broadcasted live, but there is no reason that can’t be moved online either. I am no expert in the business of TV or entertainment, so I do not know how profitable a mainstream show would be online only, but I would love to see someone experiment with that. Keep Reading »

I realize folks involved in technology and gadgetry are obsessed with the latest, the greatest, and the ever pursuit of the “perfect gadget” (whatever that means). Let me preface this by saying that I am guilty of this too. To some, the iPhone is a closed device that stifles competition and customization. To some, the Android OS is an ugly user experience nightmare designed by engineers. To the market analysts (who’s sentiments eventually trickle into the mainstream, outside of our little circle of tech enthusiasts), the iPhone/Android/Blackberry/Palm smartphone market has to be a zero-sum game. That one device must clearly be a winner, while others must be losers.

Let’s stop with that and take a step back from the cynicism. Regardless of what smartphone or mobile device you use, or even desktop/laptop you use, it is quite amazing what technology can do. Ten years ago, heck even five years ago, who said you would be able to access nearly any television show or movie from a pocket size computer? Your mobile device can locate you anywhere in the world and give you information of businesses and restaurants around you. This stuff is just amazing, never mind what platform or operating system you are using. We are only a relatively few years into this smartphone revolution, imagine where we will be in short future?

We will always argue what is the best way to do these amazing tasks, which is what our industry has always been about. I think because Microsoft was the clear winner by numbers and dollars along in the desktop market, that we expect a clear winner for mobile. Fortunately, since so much innovation has happened so quickly in mobile, there isn’t a clear winner. There are roughly four or five strong platforms in mobile, and maybe that will change in time, but that gives so much promise to the future of this stuff.

Sure, everyone wants to talk about the iPhone, but it still has a long way to go to have the numbers of being dominate smartphone in the US. Android has a long way to go to catch up to the iPhone’s user experience, which is something a little more intangible.

I guess my point is, these are really exciting times we live in. I really believe 2009-2010 will be looked back on as being a pivotal time in the world of technology.

Mr. Jobs has once again delivered the newest iPhone and related goodies from the mountain top today. If you had been following the Gizmodo-stolen-phone-gate, the new iPhone announcement does not come as a huge surprise. However, unlike most Apple announcements, this doesn’t stir me quite like other new products have. Unlike the iPad unveiling, which gave me strong emotions both ways about what it actually is and does, the iPhone 4 has left me a bit undecided. Basically with iPhone 4 you have:

New case design – The new case design is pretty slick. It calls back more to the original iPhone from 2007 with the flat back. I feel it is much better looking design than the previous iPhone 3G and 3GS.

High resolution screen – The 3.5in screen has been bumped from 320×480 to 640×960. That is huge. This is the only new feature that I would greatly welcome. This will be even better for reading long text. I am also curious as to how this will affect mobile web design. Should designers not use pixels at all for units of measurement? Stick to percentage and EMs? I am curious to see how this plays out.

HD video recording – I feel this is just a marketing move to keep up with competition. Yea, it’s HD 720p video it’s shooting, but remember its all through a tiny pinhole of a lens. Megapixels and resolution only matter to a certain point, the lens is a huge factor in cameras.

FaceTime video calling and front facing camera – Yeah, its the future alright. I actually think this would be of value at some point in time. Though people wouldn’t use this for every single call, there is still a lot of potential in having a handheld video phone call. However, it would be pretty useless if it only is able to call other iPhone 4 owners. That greatly reduces it’s value. Hopefully the Skype app will be able to use the front facing camera at some point.

Overall, while the new high res screen and case design are amazing, the features I care more about are in the software. The renamed iOS 4 will be a good upgrade when that comes up. It will be cleaning up a lot of little things that should have been there all along, such as the home screen folders, unified email inbox, and a few other things. The major change will be the multitasking, which I am very pleased about. Just being able to leave Last.FM (yes I use that instead of Pandora, I’m weird) open while checking my tweets or email will be welcomed. One intangible thing that I will look for are the little polishes throughout the system. This is one thing Apple really excels in over any other tech company. Major OS updates, be it Mac OS X or iOS, bring a list of new features to help sell the product, but it’s the little things that really make it shine.

Now, this goes completely without saying anything about AT&T. I’m a Verizon user, and based on everything I’m told about AT&T, it’s not amazing. iPhone 4 remains an AT&T exclusive, unfortunately. My dilemma over this will be saved a for future blog post.

As a last note, I am glad they decided to rename the mobile OS to iOS. From the iPhone, iPod, to the iPad, it makes sense to call it a certain name, since they are all running basically the same operating system. In the past, I referred to the Apple devices as “iTouch”, but it feels better to have a official canonized name now.

Editor’s note: I’ve discussed this kind of topic recently, but I think it’s worth bringing up again.

I’ve said a few things about Facebook privacy before here. I don’t want to belabor the point made by Jason Calacanis and on Diggnation, but there is something bigger going on here, bigger than just Facebook, to discuss.

Facebook has been moving more and more to resemble the always public services such as Twitter, Flickr, and others. The controversy mainly stems from the history of Facebook being a private service with your information only facing towards your friends. Great, sounds good. But as so much of this information is public and searchable by people outside of your circle of friends, there are some issues to consider.

My point is: If I give all my information out to Facebook, or even Twitter, or even this blog for my friends to see. We friend each other and discuss different topics and catch up on the latest we’re doing. Fine, great, sign me up. The real issue going on here is when companies use this information to fine tune their marketing. If you take away the part of social media that is your friends and contacts, it really just becomes a feeding ground for marketers. In reality though of using these services, we get the benefit of keep up with our friends and sharing what we are doing. If you consider that next time you tweet or status update or whatever, it will make you ask: am I sharing something useful to friends or am I just feeding the marketing department of some company?

While, yes, I would rather see ads that are relevant to things I care about, I worried that Facebook is seeing us, the user, as a point of data to be used for advertising dollars and missing the mark of the people using the service. I know I’ve said this before, but at what to degree will this go on?

Social media sites will come and go, I don’t know if the problem is necessarily Facebook right now as it is the culture of over-sharing. Yes, Facebook’s privacy settings are confusing, but as public-ness becomes more and more a part of our society, maybe it’s time to really rethink how much we share. The tool isn’t just the problem it’s us.

This post isn’t directly about design and the web. It’s more about the idea of what good design should be. Certain ideas of what makes something truly great, something beyond the standard, are ideas that transcend just one medium. When I talk about design in this post, or really any time, I am talking about something bigger than just the way something looks. It’s how things work and what’s capable of. Today, we are talking about car design.

Sure, we have our favorites, the standard bearers of great design: BMW, Audi, Volvo, Mercedes, etc etc. Car manufacturers seems to go out of their way to change their product lineup every year. Lately, I’ve been wondering just how sustainable that mode of operation can last. You can only change the lines of a car’s shape so many times. Cars are not a commodity item that people need to buy on a frequent basis (unless you are made of money). The auto industry knows this and spends millions, if not billions, yearly on making you want this year’s model. Aside from maybe having a GPS built in and maybe a few dials on the dashboard are different, how is this hugely different from last years model?

Enter the Tesla

Tesla Motors has been known for their all electric roadster. The company has been producing this one model for a few years now, but now has plans for an all electric sedan, the Model S. This is where great design falls into place. This is a car that is drastically different from anything before. A 45 minute full charge can give the car a 300 mile range. In addition, it will feature a 17 inch touch screen display to handle the car’s climate controls, sound system, and navigation. A 3G connection will give passengers access to restaurant listings, Pandora, and possibly other types of data from the Internet.

All of this inside a beautifully built exterior and an all electric motor. The Model S is currently in preproduction under pre-order. If this can be delivered, this will be one great car. It will be a great example of design, thinking beyond cosmetics and lists of features. It’s the start of something fresh with automotive design.

To bring this full circle

Great design in any medium be it automotive, web, phones, houses, or whatever should be striving to stand out. Find the what the thing you do is and focus and sharpen that area until it shines. Quality and innovation will stand out.

Well, here we stand at the soft opening of a new portfolio design. It seems that this thing happens about every six months. While I loved the previous design, it really didn’t allow for much expansion. It was all one long page, which wouldn’t really work in the long run. Updating the portfolio content involved a lot of copy and paste and uploading files. So it was time to try starting from scratch with a content management system. Having worked with it a lot in the paste on other projects, I decided to have it a go with building my entire portfolio site around WordPress. I absolutely find it a joy working with WordPress, there is so much flexibility beyond building a simple blog. This also gave me an opportunity to try a fresh new look for the site, breaking away from the traditional sky blue and spectrum of colors.

Enter SmithScott.Net

I have also decided to drop the Silver Box Design moniker. When I first came up with that name about three years ago, I knew it was to be temporary until I thought of something better. All along, I really just wanted my name, Scott Smith, as the domain. However, since my name is so common, is a little difficult. So after a long time finding the right combination of first, last, and top level domain names, I landed on smithscott.net.

Change bookmarks accordingly, please.

On the new aesthetic

The Silver Box symbolism, I’ll admit, was never very original. I had started using the cut-out “S” for a few months now, and luckily this is also my initals. Perfect match by accident.

I also wanted to experiment with a new color palette and opted for a shade of gray complimented with yellows, blues, and greens.

I have also begun experimenting with the TypeKit service that helps bring non-standard fonts to the web. It’s a really wonderful service that I may write about in more detail down the road. Currently, I am using League Gothic for the large titles and navigation along with Etica Display for the blog titles.

The orange comes from my desire to celebrate my home state, California (which is featured on the home page as well). Southern California, particularly the inland areas, was once a major hub of the citrus industry in the US. I grew up seeing a lot of orange crate labels in my house and had my German ancestors settle in Orange County with their orange groves many generations before me. So it is something to celebrate, even if it doesn’t exactly tie into modern day web design.

No Comments

Also on this blog, I have not chosen to allowing commenting on posts. This is by design. I’d rather you drop me a direct line rather than litter my front lawn, so to speak.

Enjoy!

I hope you like this new layout. I sure do. I plan to update this blog about once a week with posts mainly about design and technology. Elsewhere, you may still read my personal blog over at Tumblr and follow me on Twitter over here.

Is it just me, or has Facebook lost it’s soul? The whole original premise of the site was a perfect storm for success: college students, later non-students easily able to connect with each other around the world. Great, sign me up! As with any Internet startup, there comes a point where they need to grow. They need to prove to investors and the mainstream that they are not simply a curiosity. I believe, for Facebook, it was around they introduced the Fan pages (which are now “Liking” something, same thing with different vocabulary). Fan pages gave business’, non-profits, groups, clubs, etc a platform to broadcast their message out to a lot of people at once. While in principal this is the same premise as Twitter, this was fully integrated into Facebook’s walled garden.

In order to keep up with future of the open web, Twitter, and being more visible in Google search, Facebook began experimenting with unlocking our data. First it was the confusing privacy settings, the accidental public settings for the photo albums, and now to the latest: the profile/fan page linking. In the age of the Internet, where free and openness reigns, business can take more and more advantage of this public data. I believe this is the idea behind Facebook’s ongoing destruction of it’s own walled garden. It also doesn’t help that the privacy settings require a PhD to deciefer. The more Facebook goes down this path of opening for the sake of business and leaving their original base of people connecting with other people, I feel they are loosing the magic of what originally made Facebook so popular.

Testing 1, 2, 3.

Is this thing on?