Google+ View Profile As

As social networking & sharing information gets more complex, one use case not well supported on the Web so far has tailoring what a contact can see about you, and then keeping track of just what the aggregate result is (what they see about you).

You could see this problem grow, as Facebook added various ways to customize. (Still not by group, but whatever.)

Google+ has a great solution for it, with "View Your Profile As." Just enter the name of anyone in the Google+ universe, and see how you look to them.

Go to: https://plus.google.com/settings/privacy and look for "See how your profile appears to other users."



I'd guess we see a lot of this in the future.

Planning for Defaults

Having default settings that can be adjusted can be a pain, if software is being updated through time. I noticed in OmniFocus a way they have set it up that is actually pretty innovative, however minor.

There is a default setting for what day the week begins on (very common); you can change that (very common). The same option is there for time that the day starts on.
However, with the day, the default setting is "Default" -- meaning, they could change that later, which would alter user experiences for anyone who hadn't touched this (that is, who had left it set to "default").
The difference is twofold:
1.) If the software company changes what the default is, and a user notices or cares, and happens to look to see what the preference is set to, they see squarely that they are set to "default" and can understand this might change -- they themselves clearly haven't specified anything in particular.
2.) For the software company, there is a much better way to understand when the value has been specified by the user, in case they want to change what the default is. For example, with the alternative approach to this control, as used with the time (see #2), if a user pulls that down, changes it to 9:00, then changes it back to 8:00, it is unclear if this is a value that they care about, that they set, or if they were just looking at it. In the future, the software provider is unclear if they are working with a default start time (which they might choose to adjust), or something the user has selected and cares about.
"Default" as a value is interesting.

Flashcards with Mental Case

I think the realization might stick this time: in my "personal facility," my "personal digital assistant (suite of tools as an inter-connected framework)" must include a flashcard solution.
In this case, it was digging up the suped-up Excel file (okay, Macro-enabled Template, I admit it) to remind myself just how exactly I had worked out an ability to display one cell ("Side A") and then the other ("Side B") and capture flags such as as "learnt it" and categorize the items with an ability to sort for those "cards" I am still working on vs. learnt vs. no longer care about.
Enough of that.
With a google doc spreadsheet open in one iPad browser window, and a website I was learning from in the other iPad browser window, I copied & pasted items back and forth so that I could import the spreadsheet into TouchCards iPhone app. I added to the spreadsheet, re-imported, and found a new "deck" of cards for each import (all titled the same, with version #'s)
Okay, enough of that.
So today I've returned to Mental Case, and upgraded from "Lite." I balked at paying $40 six months ago for a full version, but now it's $15 in the iTunes store, so apparently they found the right price point. $5 more for the Full Version for both iPad & iPhone (which, thankfully, are different).
From a marketing and product perspective, I love their use of language. Mental Case is about organizing "Mental Notes" (flashcards) that you organize in "Mental Cases" (folders). The smile on the icon just gets better with each turn.
At this point, I'm looking only at the sample data, but I can tell already: this is as sweet as an Omni Group application. On the Holy Cow scale of Moo, I'd give it... well, a top score. I can't wait to load this up and put an end to several hundred little items that escape me. I think I'll start with my wife's new phone number. :-)
It appears Mental Case will not only become a new family member in my Personal Facility, but will become as indispensable as OmniFocus.

HTC's Facebook Buttons (a smarter phone?)

The brilliance of the Palm Pilot was 4 buttons. Instant access to the 4 things that made a business professional's minutes tick.
Then came the apps (on the Palm first, by the way). And, the app store. Then folders for apps. The Web brought competition and diversity in what we use our smart phones for.
With this one feature, however, we seem to be stepping backward--in a smart way.
One button access to what makes our minutes click by. And, let's face it, this is better than an icon on a desktop with a number on (indicating inbox messages, etc). Who cares about alerts of inbound, when we want to just check in, tune out, and wander our social sphere for a few minutes.
But it gets better. These are designed to even enhance the other functions of the phone, adding a hardware-based social element.
From Mashable.com:

Speaking at a MWC keynote titled ‘The Power of Applications’ this morning, HTC CEO Peter Chou said that the Facebook button ‘knows where you are.’
‘If you’re in an app you want to share, or listening to music, you can share it by pressing one button,’ he said. In practice, after clicking the button a menu will appear, letting you write whatever you want into that Facebook status field.

What do you think?

Personal Settings (not yet implemented)

Playing with a new supposed IRC-killer, Convore.com, I noticed a product choice they made in the settings that I think has some real value as a choice.
They are showing settings for functionality not yet supported, but allowing you to opt out of them already.
It appears under the "Notification Settings," and are for being emailed if someone mentions your name, or being emailed if you've missed a week of messages (you wouldn't want them to stack up to an unmanageable quantity like, say, your email inbox).
You can see there are two benefits to exposing road-mapped functionality like this ahead of time, such as at big launch.

• For new users who assess the options in settings, you let them make their choices once and avoid needing to communicate to them when you add functionality later (and new opt-in features have been added in their settings).


• As a website trying to decide what to build next, you have an opportunity to quantify how many users view their settings and OPT OUT of something you haven't even built yet. If it appears to be unpopular, you can put it off indefinitely. You could even just remove it from the page & product backlog entirely.


• As a website trying to communicating to the world what you are about and where you are headed, this gives visible commitment to concrete features, even showing you've solved some of the tasks of information architecture and usability.


• Finally, for anyone who has designed for a full feature set, then had to trim back to a "V1 release," leaving the full page design intact has many advantages. The overall balance of the page is not disrupted by tearing out things that belong there and ideally will eventually be there.

The Face of Information (just got thinner)

Apple had many wins this past year. The iPad would be one, for certain.

But something more subtle and to my knowledge undiscussed might have been even bigger.



In various main-stream media, we often see pictures of computers. They might be used to signify an activity such as "at work or at play," or "planning your vacation." They might symbolize common ideas such as "professional," or "modern."

And just like main-stream computing, these images have nearly always been of fairly ugly, black or grey, low-end PCs.

In my mind, 2010 was the year the MacBook arrived on the billboard. The mainstream, it seems, now knows what a MacBook actually is - it's a computer. And, advertisers seem to no longer want to associate themselves with the alternatives.

One campaign still running in Denver even shows a Windows desktop on a MacBook Pro. This provided both "window dressing" for the operating system more of the public was familiar with, and a "Oops! Made-you-look!" effect on Mac owners. Ironically, it was the MacBook they were selling last year, not the new model from 2010.

So, I was pleased this morning to notice my first instance of the new MacBook Air used as the face of information. In this case, it is the face of communication. On Skype's homepage, you can see the MacBook Air in one of the rotating promotions.

After handling a new Air, I don't think humanity will ever turn back. (Sorry Dell.)

And so we end 2010 having just squeezed in that next step, after trending to Macs on our billboards: beginning the conversion to the MacBook Air.

Facebook Nation (it beats tv)

When I started this blog, it was in part to focus on "access to information," and how it affects our society. With that as a focus, how could I not be curious about the evolution of mobile devices.
Paid content reports some interesting figures on accessing Facebook:

For a large segment of women, checking Facebook has become a primary part of their morning routine, with the act of scrolling through status updates the first thing they do when waking. In a poll last month of 1,605 U.S. adults who use social media, 34 percent told NBC Universal’s Oxygen Media Facebook comes before brushing their teeth and nearly 40 percent are self-described “Facebook addicts.” The survey also found that 26 percent of women 18- to 34 get up in the middle of the night to read text messages and 37 percent of that group say they have fallen asleep with a PDA in their hands.

There are more interesting figures, here. (Photo: VideoPresse)