Do you know what you should be talking about right now? A TV show just told me what I should be talking about. Most shows implicitly hope that you do talk about what you see, but this one told me–explicitly–to talk about it, and how to talk about it.
I used to watch quite a bit of the Food Network, and I credit Mario, and Emeril, and Alton, and David Rosengarten for whatever cooking ability I have. I don't watch much of the network anymore, but I just watched an episode in the series that promises to answer the very pressing question, "Who will be the next Iron Chef?"
The episode featured a lineup of chefs I've seen on other cooking shows over the years competing in standard Top Chef/Iron Chef-type challenges, but it featured a new element. Throughout the show, there was a line of text sitting in the top left corner: #NextIronChef.
The #hashtag started as an interesting, original concept to aid searches. It's a new step to have a show take up screen real-estate telling me just what #term I should use just in case I should happen to mention it on a social network.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
On Google Reader
Have you ever had a skill or a talent that everyone loved? Well, everyone but you? Like a talented juggler who cringes every time someone asks him to juggle at a party. That's how I imagine Google feels about Reader.
Google finally unveiled their facelift for Reader. Before today, quite a few people have been up in arms about Google's decision to kill the "sharing" and "following" functions. I barely used those features, but it struck me as really odd to kill features that have very loyal fans (including Iranian revolutionaries) and cost nothing to maintain.
Reader is not a product for casual users. It's a powerful tool for keeping track of of literally thousands of articles and posts from many, many sources. It lets you make snap decisions about what to read, what to skim, and what to skip without navigating away from the Reader page. If you polled a thousand users about interface updates, I don't you'd get too many responses begging for way less information per square inch of screen real estate. But that's exactly what they did.
I get that Google+ is not the smash hit they'd hoped for, and I understand their plan to nudge more people into the service. But how many times does Google get to take a hatchet to successful products with loyal fans before they lose their golden status?
Google finally unveiled their facelift for Reader. Before today, quite a few people have been up in arms about Google's decision to kill the "sharing" and "following" functions. I barely used those features, but it struck me as really odd to kill features that have very loyal fans (including Iranian revolutionaries) and cost nothing to maintain.
Reader is not a product for casual users. It's a powerful tool for keeping track of of literally thousands of articles and posts from many, many sources. It lets you make snap decisions about what to read, what to skim, and what to skip without navigating away from the Reader page. If you polled a thousand users about interface updates, I don't you'd get too many responses begging for way less information per square inch of screen real estate. But that's exactly what they did.
I get that Google+ is not the smash hit they'd hoped for, and I understand their plan to nudge more people into the service. But how many times does Google get to take a hatchet to successful products with loyal fans before they lose their golden status?
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| It's like they decided to double-space everything. |
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