As I am writing this, in a google Drive Doc no less, the rage over the recent announcement over the eminent demise of google reader still stands strong. More than a week on from the announcement, the removal of the link to the reader from some of google’s services menus seems to have refueled the rage and sadness of all the loyal fans of google’s RSS (Really Simple Syndication) application. Although saying that the whole world was shattered is definitely an exaggeration, but the disgruntled users that signed Dan Lewis’s online petition, more than 145.000 now, the gain of another 500.000 users for the celebrated alternative feedly and the rising numbers of old reader, the three person team project, and that of other rss alternatives speak volumes.

Google says that the declining numbers, of users and traffic, are the cause of the shut down but Reader, according to BuzzFeed Network, drives more than 40 times more users to sites than Google+ and those are the users that Rupert Goodwins calls “busy information VIPs” and that is a crowd that any social network should cherish. Is it money then? Apparently reader never tried to make any money and, some say, even if it did it would be very hard to do so. But why, isn’t Facebook, or google+ for that matter, in a way an RSS feed? Why is it hard to incorporate ads, especially content targeted ads, to reader and it isn’t hard for gmail, Facebook or even twitter?

Brian Shih, Former Google Reader Product Manager, that left Google in 2011, says that not only reader was a struggling-to-survive service very long before the decision to kill it was made, but that it also was sacrificed by moving the people working on it to the Google+ team. And that makes sense because as he says “Reader team actually understood social (and tried a lot of experiments over the years that informed the larger social features at the company)[1]. Reader’s social features also evolved very organically in response to users, instead of being designed top-down like some of Google’s other efforts[2].”

There is however an even darker side to the closing down of google reader, that borders with conspiracy theory, and that is that in countries with “less” freedom of speech and more censorship google reader is the best workaround. Apparently the infrastructure, redundancies and servers of google make it harder for censors to block it and easier for the people to gain access to the information they are so deprived. The theory sounds far fetched, but given the way google gave in to china’s censorship request, I can see Google giving in to pressure in order to enter or grow in some markets.

Google Reader, for me, was a one-stop-shop for my daily dose of all things of interest to me after news and email. I used it more that facebook and twitter and definitely more that Google+. It served as a content provider for all my social outlets, my trend spotting and a good part of my online entertainment. But that is not a problem because there are other services to fill that void. And although at least 24.000.000 users (the CNN feed has more 24.300.000 subscribers) might be nothing to Google, to small, agile and success hungry startups that number is a reason to risk and innovate. So in terms of the actual service we might even be better off with the death of the leader.

It’s not even the fact that the shutdown of Google Reader constitutes a betrayal of the trust that people showed to Google by choosing to invest in a service, and upon which the company relies. Although it’s those people, few compared to the whole of the Google’s reach but probably very influential, that will inevitably begin to question the continuity and reliability of other services and start supporting those who fight Google. I know I will be more reserved from now on.

Google’s main failure, for me, is that they failed to see the potential of google Reader, even after the spectacular fail of Buzz, for entering the social arena through the back door. That is by providing the content and building around that service, a social network for those that are looking for something different than facebook instead of taking it head on. Even after Google+ plus came I still hoped that Google would not only integrate reader into Google+ but they would also take advantage of it. They didn’t and that not only drives me further away from an already dull, in terms of content at least, Google+, but it also makes me worry about my dependance on Google and it’s services but, possibly more importantly, makes me doubt Google’s future and purpose.

And of course I really don’t want to give Keep a go.

So naturally this was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this:

Now these are exciting times. Technology is running like Usain Bolt is chasing her to sell her something and the world around us is moving deeper and deeper into the Matrix and to a digital life. Everybody wants to get a piece, or even better the whole pie, of that digitalization. Google is dominating the search but wants social digital media, Apple has mobile hardware and music but wants  social media and the cloud, amazon has online selling but silently wants more and so forth and so forth. This latest effort by Google, called Project Glass, is a product, even as a prototype, of that war and, sadly as many before it, this one looks really good. If nothing else it sets the path for another battle, that of interaction, display and augmented reality.
My hope is that the battles go on for ever, because the ones that will lay down wounded in the battlefield are big corporations, but the victors will always be us, the users, with all the new products and services that the battles produce.

Battle on.

the design walk 2010 poster

Design Walk this year was curated by a specialized outlet in curating design events and the EBGE awards is becoming an institution. People outside the design community look to both for either good design or even design partners (not as much as abroad but a lot more than in the past never the less). Both teams responsible for those events seem to been learning from previous experience and mistakes and are building on that experience.

So to sum it up, although there is more to be said maybe in a non 15min restricted post, go do, think a little but get up and do, then do it again better and if you are in Greece be persistant and patient!

P.S.: iPad? Really?
P.S.2: Sherlock Holmes was good fun and well made with an excellent Robert Downey Jr.

Cheers

I finally managed to see the new James Cameron movie, which took 12 years in the making, Avatar. The movie it self, in terms of the scenario, was a well written script with real word allegories and, despite some heartfelt loses of main characters, with a happy ending. In terms of directing it is the work of a masterful director but not anything really matrix-slow-motion-mutlicamera like innovation. The alien word is really nicely done with lots of details and a good dose of dreamy assets. The actors were good with Sam Worthington standing out just a bit followed very closely by Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver and Jovanni Ribisi.
But the two strongholds of the movie were definitely the outstanding use of new technology. The 3d of both filming (and screening) and character building. There is no doubt about the fact that this movie is going to be a benchmark in terms of movies to come, that in some degree, are going to embrace this new way of filming in 3d. The experience, although you get use to it pretty fast, is mind-blowing  This dual layer 3D impersonator thing is really well done and in my opinion it won’t, and if it will it shouldn’t, be restricted to action movies. The second part of a technological breakthrough, in my opinion, is the seamlessly blend of 3d cgi with live action characters and especially the Avatar of Sigourney Weaver, Dr. Grace Augustine.
It’s an overall good movie but the thing that stroke me the most is that with this movie James Cameron made me realize that the most important thing is not doing it first but doing it right. Some form of 3D screening technology (if not the same) is being used in movies for quite some time now, as well as live characters going 3d (Benjamin Button and Beowolf being the ones that come to mind first), but this movie is the one that we are going to look back and say is the one that sealed the deal for 3D while making money at the same time. And I think this is true for all the pioneers, cause usually the ones that do something first are the ones that get overlooked for three reasons. First one is it’s usually a failure because although they might reach their goals (in this case make a 3D movie), it costs them too much and takes too much time. The second  reason is that due to the amount of effort required all attention/energy is put in the medium and not the message, which leads to the result being meaningless. But the third, and most important, reason is that, because it’s new, it’s usually received with negativity and skepticism which if nothing else limits its spread and popularity.

The perfection of the avatar word settings

The bottom line is that being movies, Internet, mobile or technology in general it is important to do it right than to do it first, and by that I don’t mean sit around and wait  for someone else to do it and then take it and make it better (not that there is anything wrong with that), but to take your time, energy and resources to equally bring all the aspects of what you want to do to the point that you produce the best result. Case in point is the iPhone where all stars aligned (multitouch, touchscreen, accelerometer, iTunes, apple sales, e.t.c) for it to be what it is today, which despite the novelties of multitouch and accelerometer its the combination of innovation with beauty and ease of use (thought among other things it’s supreme interface) that did the trick.

• consistent interface and functionality across platforms
• groups (tweet deck like)
• rss based syncing to overcome the 100 tweets twitter limit (I have that in google reader but it lacks the twitter app functionality)
• option to chronologically reverse the tweet display order
• last tweet read stamp, to remember where you left of
• easy retweet, mark as read (preferably by choice either when rolling over or by a button), favorite, reply
• search for user and ability to follow, unfollow and add to group
• shrink url
• upload image and add link
• upload video and add link
• add location link
• trends
• nearby tweets
• tweet shrink

I am not a programmer/developer but most of those features already exist in other apps and those that don’t i think are doable. Having said that, I am more than willing to help with the rest of the process (wireframes, UI, logos etc.) if anyone is interested in developing all this, but in any case I would pay for an app like that and i am surprised there isn’t one out there, taking the publicity twitter has gained.