Jay Meydad's Life Mashup

I logged into the Disqus console today to change some settings and noticed a new feature. The settings pages do not have a visible “Save” and “Cancel” buttons.  Instead, only if you change a value/option on the page the buttons float and appear from the bottom of the visible area. This is a big usability improvement as it eliminates the need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and hit save. I think this is very innovative and very cool. I have not seen this feature on other website but I am sure it will happen soon.

Just got an announcement from Xoopit that they are shutting down Xoopit for Gmail in order to focus on improving Yahoo mail and My Pictures. This comes as a surprise to me and does not smell like a business decision for two reasons:

• Xoopit should have more resources now that they are part of Yahoo
• I agree with Ouriel that Yahoo could benefit a lot from the data Xoopit collects about Gmail usage

For these reasons and also for the way their email ends, I actually think that it was Google who forced Yahoo and Xoopit to make that decision -

Thank you for using Xoopit for Gmail. We’ll miss you!

Anyways Xoopit, it was fun to use you. You helped me find some forgotten pics that were buried deep inside my Gmail archive. I will miss you as well.

But as a long time user of TweetDeck’s desktop client, when I read that an iPhone version was just released, I thought to give it a try.

Well, I must say that TweetDeck for iPhone still has a long way to go before it becomes my preferred twitter client on the iPhone. Here are a few reasons why based on a 5 minutes usages:

• The app is not stable at all. In 5 minutes it crashed 5 times on me. In one of the cases, after a crash I had to try 3 times before the apps actually worked
• Strange error message indicating that I am not connected to the internet appeared while I was on Wifi kept appearing (see gallery below)
• The app does not seem to have a local cache of draft messages. If the app crash while you type a tweet, after restart you will have to start all over again!
• If you type in a tweet and then attach to it a photo, your tweet message will disappear and gets replaced by the link to the photo. Ugh!
• Search is not easily accessible. A few steps are required before you can do that which makes search a feature for power users only. First you need to add a new column called “Twitter Search” and set its initial search tern. Then whenever you want to actually edit the search term you have to: (a) navigate to the search column (b) click on the column settings wheel (c) change the search term. However, on TwitterFon search is a main function that is always visible at the bottom bar which makes it very easy to modify a search term
• Too many times and extra click is required:
  • TweetDeck opens by default in the column preview mode and it forces you to hit another time a column in order to make it use all screen area. IMHO, this should not be the default logic as for most user the Friends column is what they want to read most of the times when the app loads. Better usage of the 80%-20% rule would help here
  • When viewing a streem of tweets, you can not just click on a link that was tweeted to open it. You first need to open a specific tweet in a large preview mode and only then the link becomes live
• Last personal preference is the UI color. I prefer a light and bright app

On the positive site, TweetDeck has some features that I wish could be added to TwitterFon like:

• Growl integration – those little notification icons that float at the upper left corner whenever there is a new update
• QuickFollow button which lets you quickly type in a user name and follow

It is interesting to see how the battle to be the most popular twitter client is accelerating. But for now, I stick with TwitterFon Pro as my preferred Twitter client for the iPhone.

For a detailed comparison check out this great post.

[View with PicLens]

Back in Oct 2008 Yahoo was testing a new homepage. This version of the homepage has not become live yet and probably won’t given the fact that Yahoo has now a new CEO, Carol Bratz, that has a very clear vision for the company. A vision that is also reflected in the new version of the homepage I just got (probably as part of a small percentage test Yahoo is running) – big focus on search, display advertising and a better portal to generate more page views on the Yahoo network.

Couple of observations:

• The header height was shaved by a few pixels, the Yahoo logo was moved right next to the search box instead of above it, and almost all of the essential information is viewable above the fold! pretty impressive that Yahoo was able to achieve that without getting eliminating links and content that is on the current homepage

• The expandable tabs that are used in the left side bar (called Favorites) make the home page extremely extensible with all sorts of information and applications, from Yahoo properties (Finance, Messenger, Flickr, movies) and partners (eBay, NPR, BBC, and more). It is also great for advertising since there is a medium rectangle ad (most desirable ad size on the market) on every tab. This should increase the number of home page ad impressions sagnificantly. Anyone wanys to model what it will do to the stock price?

• Yahoo clearly wants you to do more searches and that’s why they moved the “popular searches” box to the top and made it so prominent

• Yahoo also wants to regain their position as a portal to the Yahoo network. That’s why they:

(a) placed the link “View Yahoo! Sites” which expands to a directory of all the Yahoo sites at the top of the Favorites left bar

(b) moved the articles section to the top and increased its size from 5 to 10 links

• One very interesting application that was pre-installed for me on the favorites bar was MySpace. I wonder if that is a first sign for a deal that might happen between MySpace/FIM and Yahoo (the Google deal is supposed to end in mid 2010) or is that just a traffic aquisition campaign mySpace is running on Yahoo

Overall, I like the new design. It is lighter, cleaner and the information is organized in a more logical and accessible way compared to the existing homepage. Who knows, if this version will eventually become the live one, I might switch my homepage back to Yahoo like in the good old days.

Update: According to Sillicon Alley Insider, this new homepage is not a test but a phased rollout.

Here are some photos of the new design

[View with PicLens]

Arik Fraimovich (the co-creator of QassamCount which I blogged about in the past) together with Ouriel Ohayon (VC & Blogger) launched a very useful service for Twitter called Topify. It is an improved new follower email alert that addresses one of Twitter’s weaknesses – getting bio information and other useful stats (following/followers counts) inside an email and being able to follow back using a simple “reply”. Topify also makes it possible to reply to direct messages (DM) using email. I signed up earlier today (super easy & friendly sign up) and already noticed the benefit. You should do the same. More info on how it works here or on TechCrunch and here is Ouriel’s announcement.

Related to that, I was thinking how come Twitter has not released this feature and kept their new follower email so basic. After all, you would expect that with all the hype and buzz around Twitter and the almost-endless resources they have ($55M in funding to date), the Twitter team would be releasing new features constantly. So, I put this short list of pros and cons and this is what I came up with:

A: Why twitter should have implemented improved email notifications long ago:

1. Twitter’s basic new follower email has been a major user pain and many users have requested this feature. Listening to your users & enhancing your product to address their needs is important and it creates an engaged user base.
2. The current email notification is actually hurting Twitter since it is not optimized to help users grow their network. Users don’t check their email constantly. Even when they do that, they don’t immediately take the necessary action. Many of them are limited in time, attention or don’t have the right device (ie a smartphone) that makes it easy to visit their new follower’s twitter page, read the bio located on the right side bar, and then, log into your Twitter account and follow back. This is a very long and cumbersome process which leads to poor conversion.

B: Why twitter has not implemented improved email notifications:

1. Keeping the product feature-lite encourages more & more 3rd party developers to use the Twitter API and it cements Twitter in the center of the eco-system.
2. The current basic email alert forces users to visit the twitter website in order to get information about the new follower. This helps increase the number of page views & unique users Twitter.com gets. After all, if the entire Twitter usage comes from 3rd party apps & clients, how can user-rating services like Compete & Quancast measure Twitter’s growth?
3. Investing resources in email related features is a low priority to Twitter (same as SMS these days) since they see their future in its robust API.

My wild guess is that the folks at Twitter deliberately chose (B) despite the fact it makes their product inferior, and that they will continue to do that until they establish their web property as a top destination site and get bought by Google.  Once this happens they won’t have to worry about how to position the company for an exit and then they will start releasing new features like crazy, including one similar to Topify. They might even acquire Topfiy like they did in the past with other missing features (Summize the Twitter Search company).

What do you think?

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC just launched a new exhibit called “State of Deception: The power of Nazi propaganda”. Beyond the live exhibit which I hope to be able to see in DC someday, it also has a Flash based web site which contains a fascinating multimedia collection with all sorts of materials showing the sophisticated propaganda that the Nazi party created in order to spread lies about its political opponents, Jews and the need for war.

Those materials include photos, posters, books, videos, sound recording, newspapers articles, paintings and drawing and more. All have commentary and are categorized under 7 different themes that demonstrate how well the Nazis understood topics such as mass communication, marketing & branding, and how well they used them in order to promote alluring ideas that appeal to the masses such as freedom, unity and prosperity, rather than pure hate.

The Themes and Gallery Search sections gives access to these materials from the years 1919-1948. In addition, there is an interactive timeline section which goes all the way from 1919 until 2008 and it lists major events around the world that are related to anti-semitism as well as genocide.

I find the timing of releasing this exhibit & website extremely important, especially in light of the recent anti-semic voices the are spiking as a result of the current economic crises, the recent holocaust denial statement made by British Bishop Richard Williamson (”There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies”) , and of course, the constant anti-Jews and anti-Israel speeches and announcements made by the leader of Iran, as well as other terror organizations such as Hamas & Al Qaeda.

This is by far of the most impressive website I have seen lately. Add to that the fact it is about such an important topic, that I have already selected it as my top website for 2009.

I highly recommend spending some time on the site, navigating through the different sections and reading the materials. It is important to remember what the Nazi’s did in Europe 60+ years ago and remind others, so it never happens again.

So, Share it, Bookmark, Digg, Twitt, StumbleUpon it, and use every other social media method you know to spread the word about this site.

Here is the link: http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda

ushmm.org - nazi propoganda exhibit - homepage

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One of my new year resolutions was to refresh the design of this blog with a new theme. I am happy that it took me less than a month to complete it and get it off my task list.

I am now using the stylish iNove theme, created by mg12. I like its simplicity, cleanses and how it brings the content to the front. I also find the RSS button implementation very cool (hover over the button to see it). Hopefully it will get more people to subscribe to this blog and consume my thoughts regularly via RSS readers or email.

I kept only the essential widgets on the site in order to shorten page load time:

• Twitter badge shows the number of followers I have on twitter (if you are not one of them, now it is a good time to do it) and the latest twits.
• MyBlogLog gives me information about the community who reads this blog
• Disqus powers the comments and integrates very well with this theme and Wordpress
• Outbrain lets you rate my posts and provide feedback that helps me improve my writing over time
• And of course, all external hyperlinks are enhanced using the product we have created at Snap – SnapShots
• For analytics I use both SiteMeter and Google Analytics.

The last credit goes to Alex Sirota, founder of FoxyTunes, who took my portrait picture that is displayed at the top right corner.

I hope you will like like the new design as much as I do.

I was using Microsoft Excel the other day and had that Eureka moment. I typed in a simple formula that had a closing parenthesis but forgot to put an opening parenthesis. An error message popped up and I realized that I have been getting that same error message, for doing the same mistake, ever since I have been using Excel. And even though Microsoft has released several Excel versions along these years, this specific problem has been carried from version to version without getting an elegant solution.

I am pretty sure that the same exact error happens to millions of users every day, and many of them are clueless and do the same thing – they get frustrated, delete the formula that has a minor error and start over.

So, here’s my suggestion to a very simple killer feature – AutoParenth. Excel should automatically add an opening parenthesis whenever it detects that a cell: (a) has a function (first character inside the cell is minus, plus or the equal signs) and (b) it has a closing parenthesis. This feature should be built similar to the AutoCorrect feature to give the users greater control.

If that’s too difficult to implement, Excel should at least provide an informative error message, just like Apple Numbers and Google Docs do. This is such a common error that a specific error message with clear instructions is necessary.

Apple Numbers informative error message.

Google Docs also provides enough information to guide the user.

I hope that someone at the Microsoft Office team will read this post and add this request to their todo list.

Big buzz today around the revamped Flickr mobile site (see TC, RWW, Mashable), their “universal access point for all device types.”, but a simple test that I did on my iPhone shows that the folks at Sunnyvale have missed one important and frustrating issue that mobile users experience daily when accessing Flickr urls.

This is not the first time I write about the fact that a direct link to an image does not load in its mobile version. The solution is so simple, that I am amazed no one at Flickr caught this while building the new version. All they have to do is detect the UserAgent and in the case it is of a mobile browser, change “www.flickr.com” to “m.flickr.com”. A simple manual test proves it is working.

So from now and until it gets fixed by the Flickr folks, you can use this manual hack and edit the url in safari’s address bar whenever you get a link (via email or twitter) to a Flickr image.

flickr-on-iphone-manual-hack