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Friday 5 — 1.10.2014
1. If you’re not shivering right now, perhaps you were at CES in Vegas this week. Among the loveliest of launches is Yahoo’s News Digest app, the fruit of its Summly acquisition a year ago. With this sleek app, Marissa Mayer is making good on her commitment to prioritize beautiful product. Yahoo is cleverly delivering not only well-designed mobile news, but the far more valuable editorial filtering via morning and evening digest editions (complete with a countdown clock to the next edition).
2. Is it OK to admit we’re all getting overwhelmed by the endless stream of information? This article makes the case for more filters and bridges, and summarizes recent attempts to staunch the flow like nuking your Twitter feed.
3. There’s been a saying for a while now — and Jonathan Zittrain takes a stab at its provenance here — that when something online is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product. In a similar vein, this article asks if we will come to regret the myriad small decisions we make each day — opting into free products like social networks, email provider, file and photo storage in the cloud — where we don’t pay with money, but with our private data.
4. Here’s a compelling argument for building online systems with empathy and not disdain in civic tech. It’s a great example of how digital strategy and communications are inextricable. The best digital platforms with stellar experience design, flawless cross-device rendering, and optimal performance become useless when impeded by content and communications that obfuscate rather then enable.
5. How do African Americans have access to or use technology differently? Pew’s recent report finds that there’s a 12 percentage point gap in broadband adoption, but that African Americans are represented in roughly similar mobile numbers for cell phone and smartphone ownership. And the phenomenon referred to as “Black Twitter” may be backed up by these numbers: 22% of online African Americans use Twitter versus 16% of online whites.
Weekend fun: If you enjoy black humor, you may already have played Cards Against Humanity. If you’re concerned about the future of news and painful linkbait headlines, why not go play Headlines Against Humanity?

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
January 10, 2014
Friday 5 — 1.3.2014
1. 73% of online adults now use social networking sites, per this year-end report from Pew. And more adults are diversifying their online social networking — 42% report using more than one service. Facebook and Instagram boast particularly strong daily engagement. 63% of Facebook users using the site daily, and 40% say they log in multiple times per day.
2. Facebook itself has released a comprehensive (and highly visual) report for partners with aggregated international and mobile data. After its early bad bet on HTML5, Facebook’s 2012 pivot to mobile has been effective: roughly a third of German, Spanish, French, and Italian mobile phone users using Facebook.
3. Reddit released its own 2013 year-end numbers — 56 billion pageviews is impressive, and nearly 16 minutes per visit is staggering. From the top ten threads it’s clear that laughter sells and that Reddit was, for good and for ill, a go-to source in the murkiness around the Boston bombings. One question: With 21% of Canadians on Reddit, why isn’t it a nicer place?
4. In the U.S. and frustrated with your internet service? It’s likely you’re paying more and that your internet speed is lagging behind the rest of the developed world. The impact of faster speeds on productivity, the article points out, is the “the difference between thriving and surviving.”
5. Wondering how to make sense of all this digital, social, and mobile activity? See this roundup of 2013 digital media scholarship from John Wihbey. One article examines gender and language use on Twitter, and finds that women use higher levels of first person plural and first person singular pronouns, intensifiers, and emoticons in their speech.
Weekend fun: Have 23 minutes to avoid your in-laws if you’re at home or avoid your work if you’re stuck in the office? Try this compilation of ridiculous/hilarious/profane Vine videos.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
January 3, 2014
Friday 5 — 12.27.2013
The end of each year brings a slew of “best of” posts — here are five of my favorites:
1. Flowing Data selected data visualizations that told great stories and made meaningful, real-world observations through data. See visualizations of everything from poisoned names to pizza to porn.
2. Looking for a way to spend your gift card spoils from the holiday? ReadWriteWeb summarizes the best smartphones and tablets of 2013 (including the perennially underestimated HTC One).
3. We’ve come a long way from webpages populated by Arial and Georgia only. Here’s a solid roundup of the best web and mobile fonts of 2013. Be sure to drop the term “semi-serif” in your next design meeting or at a particularly dull New Year’s party.
4. Want to see some great typography in action? Line25 has rounded up 40 great examples from 2013. We’re definitely in the year of ubiquitous text-over-full-bleed-photo and endless scroll, but the type treatments are varied and interesting.
5. With the constant distraction and our ever-shortening attention spans, productivity hacks can be a lifesaver. This list of best Mac OSX utilities can help you stay on track — my personal favorites Evernote and RescueTime are on there.
Weekend fun: Before you put away the Christmas decorations, anyone who has ever sat through a ponderous brand presentation led by a creative director must watch the Santa Brand Book. And if people in 2013 have been more naughty than nice in reviewing your creative, consider implementing a Hater Translator.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
December 27, 2013
Friday 5 — 12.20.2013
1. Mandatory reading for web design geeks: Snow fail: Do readers really prefer parallax design? New research poses good questions about user orientation to parallax scrolling, which may be better suited for content heavier on video and other visualizations rather than text.
2. NPR continues its leadership in forward-looking digital initiatives by securing $17M in grants. $10M will pay for the development of a new, presumably mobile-first platform to provide a personalized, location-based listening experience for content from NPR and affiliate stations.
3. Harvard’s Berkman Center published its annual compendium of essays in Internet Monitor 2013: Reflections on the Digital World. Sections include governments, companies, and citizens as actors in the digital world. Favorite excerpt: Potentially lost in the debates over privacy, security, and surveillance, is the fact that access to information plays a critical role in human development, governance, and economic growth across all sectors, including health, education, energy, agriculture, and transportation.
4. What’s App, a company of ~50 employees, is up to 400M users — and added 100M over the last four months alone. But how will all these social messaging apps make money? Some smart plays are emerging around e-commerce, with flash sales and sticker products driving revenue in Asia.
5. This terrific, long read outlines a step-by-step approach to digital marketing success. Written by digital marketing evangelist and bigtime analytics nerd Avinash Kaushik, the piece provides great guidance on how to focus your analytics efforts and avoid endless “data puke”.
Weekend fun: In case you’re suffering through an awkward office Christmas party or Yankee swap today, let me ratchet up your holiday envy: Bill Gates is an awesome Secret Santa.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
December 20, 2013
Friday 5 — 12.13.2013
1. Instagram Direct lets you send your photos, videos, and messages to select recipients. While comparisons to Snapchat feature prominently in the media coverage, this feels more like a catch-up feature like its video announcement back in June. One new ephemeral capability: you can delete your photos from recipients’ phones.
2. In another Snapchat-response move, Twitter announced you can direct message photos — along with a bunch of other enhancements designed to keep you in-app longer. Smooth new swiping action in the mobile app lets you see activity and “discover” more easily.
3. Canadian messaging company Kik at 100 million registered users may already be bigger than Snapchat, which declines to disclose its numbers. Kik’s support for HTML5-based content provides more flexibility to download games and content in-app — a big bet on the Web as its future.
4. Chart geeks, rejoice! In this season of best-ofs, the Wire has compiled the best 2013 charts. Big momentum behind fruit flavored candy with Jolly Rancher, Twizzler, and Starburst rising in Twitter mentions (and, allegedly, sales).
5. Open source software is eating itself, with more projects emerging and competing with one another throughout the stack. How can an enterprise know where to place its bets? Look for a strong community supporting the project, and code activity (releases, commits/month).
Weekend fun: YouTube Trends tell me that most of the country is watching 2013 rewind, so I guess you should be, too. I mean, it would be really depressing to dwell on the fact that all this stuff from 1994 is now 20 years old.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
December 13, 2013
Friday 5 — 12.6.2013
1. Google Trends is a handy, visual tool for comparing topics by their relative search volume — see graph of search trends for Hong Kong and Singapore above. This latest release uses its vast historical data to offer dotted-line predictions of future search interest. Another useful feature: the algorithms now aggregate different searches likely to be related.
2. Foursquare has released a new version of its check-in service, with a sleek new design and location-aware push recommendations. Just arrive at the Beat Hotel in Cambridge? Now Foursquare may suggest the tuna spring rolls based on your friends’ behavior. Since its 2009 launch, Foursquare has amassed a significant location data layer, and this release may be one way — apart from its rich API — to take advantage of it.
3. Monday Note pulls together a number of recent charts to recommend mobile trends to keep in mind if you produce digital news. Thoughtful validation of the power investment in content strategy, with “newsletters designed for mobile that are carefully — and wittily — edited by humans.” Mobile news consumers on smartphones need more than automated headlines and snippets to keep their attention.
4. In case you missed it, here’s a great post on Boston tech company / innovation economy performance. Fun fact: 51% of Boston’s “massive winner” companies had an immigrant founder.
5. Did Apple’s U.S. mobile hardware marketshare peak at 40%? Latest Comscore data spots a flattening trend, compared to a gradual rise of Samsung devices now at 25%. Google’s Android still dominates with 52% of the U.S. mobile software platform market.
Weekend fun: Sherlock fans and other Cumberbatch disciples, you are in for a real treat: Here’s a video of Benedict Cumberbatch reading R. Kelly’s Genius lyrics.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
December 6, 2013
Friday 5 — 11.29.2013
1. Shopping on your mind today? Jeremaiah Owyang posted Ten Trends for the Progressive Retailer. Not sure how far “purpose beyond profits” will go, but some very interesting ideas here about how companies will use data about customers to reward behaviors, and the impact of sharing as a business model.
2. Betaworks, the tech studio that brought us useful services like Chartbeat and bloglovin as well as sinister time wasters like dots, is raising another 20 million. Betaworks has always supported great ideas and terrific design in nascent companies. This round may allow the studio to do more with its existing adolescent companies like bit.ly and Digg.
3. A new report from Ovum determines “social messaging” is big and getting bigger quickly, with over 2B users by the end of 2014. These messaging apps are acquiring users, growing time in-service through expansion into games and payments, and finding paths to monetization. This growth and user behavior change have implications for both legacy “desktop-first” social networks and SMS providers.
4. For years companies and pundits have analyzed Twitter as an input to understand public opinion and predict election results. Now the South Korean Intelligence Service is alleged to have posted more than 1.2 million tweets to sway a presidential election. Not the first instance of astroturfing, but what some are calling “a systematic and massive intervention in elections”.
5. Testing is the least sexy word in any digital development process. You’ll pack the house for a presentation of mood boards or a design review, but your audience vanishes when the conversations turns to usability, accessibility, or load time. Here’s a practical breakdown of useful testing considerations.
Weekend fun: Check out ten hilarious Twitter feeds to be thankful for. My own addition, especially in this holiday season of specious, multi-column trends pieces: The Times is On It (@NYTOnIt).

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
November 29, 2013
Friday 5 — 11.22.2013
1. Spotify closes another $250M in funding at a >$4B valuation. The streaming music service enabling instant listening now has more than 6 million paid and 24 million active free users.
2. Is it inciting generational warfare to imply that the youngs shape the direction of technology differently and more significantly than the olds? Mathew Ingram makes the case.
3. Last year I read Thinking Fast and Slow, a thought-provoking book about the different systems of thinking and their applicability to life and work. Recently Sonya Song wrote in Nieman Lab about how these two modes of thinking, fast and slow, attract two different types of attention. Interesting implications for individuals and organizations sharing content to social.
4. Most people frustrated by carrying a phone and a wallet everywhere they go were pleased by the widely-publicized launch of Coin. The digital all-in-one credit card last week met a $50K crowdfunding goal in 40 minutes. This week, Coin is answering criticisms about security and design flaws.
5. Wondering how to plan for and execute a redesign of a highly-trafficked digital property? You could do worse than read Brad Frost’s write-up of how he and his colleagues achieved the Techcrunch redesign. The part about development being part of the design process is key — the days of designers throwing PhotoShop files over the transom to front-end developers are long gone.
Weekend fun: I’m sure you’ve seen Jean-Claude Van Damme in his brilliant self-parody for Volvo already. Instead, in honor of Harvard-Yale weekend, how about some Harvard students giving fake tours of Yale (“if I hit the floor, you do the same”)?

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
November 22, 2013
Friday 5 — 11.15.2013
1. So, lots of talk this week about Snapchat turning down a 3B acquisition offer from Facebook. Was this a shrewd move, or an example of millennial entitlement run amok? Facebook’s 2012 purchase of Instagram for 1B is starting to look like it was a pretty good deal for a company concerned about its waning teen audience. And Google snapping up YouTube for 1.65B in stock back in 2006 now seems like a steal.
2. Where are those teens who are eluding Facebook? A lot of them are immersed in messaging apps like What’s App or Kik. The line between messaging and more traditional social is starting to blur as messaging apps add features like gaming and music. Also unclear: Will these services grow on their own, or be snapped up by the tech giants?
3. Wondering how much effort to put into optimizing your news site for social? 30% of U.S. adults get news on Facebook. And people who get news through social networking sites are more likely to get their news on mobile, underscoring the mobile mandate for publishers.
4. Dropbox announces 200M users and a total revamp of its platform for the relaunch of Dropbox for Business. Which they should totally just call “Dropbox for Business that You Can Admit to Using” because it’s already pervasive in the enterprise in a clunkier and less secure version.
5. How much does employee co-location matter when you’re building a company? According to Automattic’s recent 1B valuation, not a whole heck of a lot. The money quote from Matt Mullenweg: “if you give people autonomy to execute on something meaningful, and bias the environment to moving quickly, amazing things can happen.”
Weekend fun: Want to see something cool, even if it makes you (OK, me) regret your own slacker parenting? Check out Dinovember.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
November 15, 2013
Friday 5 — 11.08.2013
1. Benedict Evans says mobile is eating the world, and I am inclined to believe him. Slide 7 (above) highlights remarkable smartphone growth juxtaposed against PC flatline.
2. The news has been all TWTR all the time this week, with a few well-timed research reports and a Storify integration adding to the IPO hype. Yesterday, Twitter users Patrick Stewart, a 9-year-old girl who sold lemonade to end child slavery, and a representative from the Boston Police Department all took the podium to ring the opening bell. Perhaps overpriced at the end of the day, the media mood couldn’t have been more different from that of the Facebook IPO back in May 2012.
3. “I need help with …” pre-fills the search box on the public launch of Google Helpouts. The service provides free and paid real-time video assistance if you’re trying to master anything from Caribbean cooking to Adobe InDesign. As video consumption surges across myriad handheld and tablet screens, the time may be right for how-to videos.
4. I was late to the party on The Skimm, and started reading it only this summer. Warning: once you’re addicted to the 5:59 am snappy daily email of what’s going on in the world, it’s hard to stop. This week The Skimm received $1M in funding to grow their user base.
5. More on the funding front: Newsle, the service that alerts you when your friends make the headlines, closed 1.8M in a Series A. Founded by two Harvard undergrads, the service personalizes the news for you by serving up headlines for your address book and social media contacts.
Weekend fun: I bet you were wondering if you could watch two Harvard professors sing the names of all the Chinese dynasties to the tune of Frère Jaques. Well, sure you can.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
November 8, 2013