Dan Zambonini design + technology * people = culture.

A Couple of Tiny Twitter Experiments

I recently created a couple of quick experimental pages that use the Twitter API to find out what people are talking about. I’m fascinated by the possibilities of being able to query the real-time ‘voice/opinion of millions’, especially as it’s non-intrusive, and less susceptible to bias than explicit surveys. Some businesses are going to make a lot of money quite soon from this opportunity, I suspect.

Anyway, the experiments update twice a day, and show:

• What people are saying that they ‘want’.
• What people are saying ‘is a good word’.

Clearly there’s no money to be made with these, but I’m inching closer… :)

posted 3 weeks ago

The Increasing Annoyance of Advertising

I use Spotify almost every day. Even so, I’m one of the few people who still enjoys buying and owning CDs, so I refuse to pay for the premium version: I use it for discovery, and buy the physical formats of the bands I like.

If I listen to it for an hour, I’ll probably be subjected to at least five advertising slots. The chances are that 75% of these will be the same advertiser (currently, this is a hair product company).

Strangely, and unfortunately for the advertiser, I have found myself really, REALLY beginning to dislike the brand. It’s not that I have anything against advertising; when I’m watching TV or listening to the radio, I accept that it’s part of the business model for the medium. They choose what they broadcast, not me.

But Spotify is different. It’s incredibly personalised to me: I can choose exactly what I want to listen to, put them into playlists, and access anything I want whenever I want. Because this feels like a personal experience, it also feels like the advertiser is constantly intruding into my personal space.

I chose to specifically listen to something, not like in broadcast media, where I sit there and think myself lucky for being in front of the TV at the right time if something comes on that I enjoy.

And this advertiser won’t leave my personal space alone. Every 10 minutes, they interrupt MY choices with the exact same grating message. Imagine if a cold-caller kept interrupting your dinner (which YOU chose and prepared) every 10 minutes.

This feels like a problem that future apps are going to have to overcome. The more personalised an experience, the better it is for the user, but the more imposing and rude advertising then feels.

(PS I’m not saying that Spotify should remove adverts for free accounts; I understand that they are currently a necessary part of their business model.)

posted 1 month ago

Who I Don’t Follow On Twitter

I was going to call this Who I Follow On Twitter, but given my fairly liberal following requirements, I decided on what you see above. Basically, I follow any real people who follow me. There are exceptions, of course: anyone who isn’t really ‘using’ twitter, and is trying to scam or spam.

The (very quick) process I go through when assessing whether to follow someone who has just followed me is:

1. Do they have a username that looks like a spam account (you know, the britney ones and the sexual terms)?
2. Does the photo look like a spam account (nudity, usually)?
3. So far, if all looks good, click on their profile. Are they following around 2,000 people (the limit), but have far fewer followers?
4. Do they have many thousands of followers, but are only following a few hundred? (If so, they probably use one of those automated bots that follow lots of people, then unfollows once the person has reciprocated)
5. Is their entire feed made up of tweets posted via an API, TwitterFeed, or some other automated system? I’m only interested in people who are actually ‘on’ twitter, not just feeding it, and therefore I expect to see at least one or two @replies on their profile page.
6. Do they have tens of thousands of followers, and are on relatively few lists? I’d expect at least 1 listing for every 500 followers.
7. And finally, I’m a little wary if they’re one of those people (usually ‘social media’ people) who have follower/following numbers up beyond 50,000, and yet I’ve never heard of them. It’s likely these numbers are mostly from automated bot following, and the person has ulterior motives for building their audience.

You can follow me at @zambonini - having read this, you’ll know whether I’ll follow back or not.

posted 1 month ago

The Biggest Problem of the Web

Let me briefly describe what I think is the biggest problem that is holding back the full potential of the web.

The majority of web applications (the useful websites that actually ‘do’ something) are conceived and created by developers:

And yet the make-up of the global population is very different (the following graph is exceedingly over-estimating the proportion of web developers in the world):

And that, in summary, is the problem. Can you imagine if 90% of books were conceived and written only by people who knew how to work the printing press?

This will, of course, be solved over the next 10 years. We (yes, web developers…) will start to develop applications that make it easier for anyone to create functional web apps. Then we’ll have parents, children, pensioners, mothers, charity workers, cooks, newsagents, and everyone else creating services that they see a need for.

And it will be incredible.

posted 1 month ago

On Fractal Quality and Startups

Some recent interesting blog posts have talked about the fractal nature of quality: quality items (software, restaurants, whatever) will exhibit the self-same high-quality at every level. A great restaurant will not only have great decoration and great food, but a well-serviced coat-check and high quality napkins. No detail is left to chance.

Companies like Apple epitomise this concept, designing even the parts of their products that people rarely see, such as the underside of laptops.

Startup software companies need to exhibit this to compete with larger competition, yet by their very nature it’s incredibly difficult. A startup usually has to employ only those people they can get away with employing given their limited cash; this usually amounts to a few software developers. So how are they supposed to also know about great user experience, interface design and customer service?

This is why I’d suggest that startups always try to find a Generalist among the first 3 or 4 employees. It’s too easy for startup founders to fall into the trap of employing people-who-look-like-them: a developer entrepreneur will look for more developers. A generalist who knows how to develop may not be as quick as a specialist, 100% developer, but the additional value they bring can help to round-out the shape of the company and approach problems and solutions from a new angle.

posted 1 month ago

The Forensics of Twitter Bullying

Due to the sensitivity of this issue, I’ve decided to remove this post. Hope you understand.

posted 1 month ago

Bun Girls

I recently purchased a stupid domain, and can’t decide what the best thing is to do with it. However, I’m pretty certain that the current Bun Girls: Ladies Got Bread isn’t it.

Any ideas? Maybe a superhero comic-strip; “Bun Girls: Better Bread Than Dead”?

posted 1 month ago

Cheapest Best Places to Live?

What are the cheapest, best places to live in the world? If you want to be somewhere that has a cool nightlife and local amenities, and is probably close to another great city, where would you go? For example, what are the best cheap places in North America, UK, or Japan? Can you live cheaply near Tokyo, and only be a 30 minute train ride away?

Where would you suggest?

posted 2 months ago