How much caffeine is actually in your coffee
Xuebing Du
Mike Driver
Cosimo Galluzzi

pixel skylines
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me

@theartofmadeline

shark vs the universe

JBB: An Artblog!

JVL

ellievsbear
Cosmic Funnies
Peter Solarz
art blog(derogatory)
Show & Tell
Sade Olutola
Acquired Stardust

roma★
Keni
Misplaced Lens Cap

Kiana Khansmith

seen from United States

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@currycloud
How much caffeine is actually in your coffee
Almost 2 years ago today, I quit my day job and started building something. After months of customer development, discussions with my wife about my plans, savings and sleepless nights, I finally decided to take the plunge.
I’m glad I did
That day I quit my job marked the beginning of an...
Hi there! My name is Daniel Davis, and I run Steam Crow with my wife-partner, Dawna.
In 2005 I took my wife Dawna to the San Diego Comicon, for a much needed vacation. We’re both artists; she’s an Art Teacher, and I was a frustrated Corporate Graphic Designer working for a...
Test Infographic
It’s almost exactly a year since I started documenting my startup lessons learned through this blog, and since my first post last November, I’ve blogged 26 times. I’ve been lucky enough to have fantastic comments on many of my posts, and this has always extended my learning even further by...
itsjaredc:
If you want to learn to code and build stuff and you’re starting by asking someone else what you should do, you’re already thinking about it the wrong way. Immediately, right now, with no preparation, in the blink of an eye, you can take a huge step toward your goal by realizing that you don’t...
It's good to share a few things from my childhood with Naira. She made these for me as a belated birthday present.
Vizualize.me - visualize your resume in one click (Taken with instagram)
This is the StartupWeekend Toronto winning team. Vizualize.me. What an incredible weekend.
pieratt:
I am the CEO of Svpply, Inc., a social shopping S-Corp operating out of New York City. My company has been the recipient of over half-a-million in investor dollars, for the stated purpose of building an unknown, 3,000-member web service into a cultural phenomenon, and I truly have very little...
Born like an artist, Bloom like an artist
Mobile patterns - reusable designs for apps
As a software developer, I use “design patterns” without even thinking about them. Design patterns are general reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems in software design.
As I evolved into a mobile developer, I began to recognize that there are similar patterns of occurring “problems” or “interactions” in mobile app design. Stuff like how to show an activity feed, or a sign up screen or a location check-in. These are problems/features that many mobile social apps have. Why reinvent the wheel?
Mari Sheibley, Foursquare’s lead designer has compiled a list of mobile patterns using some of the world’s most popular iphone apps. They're brilliant. I use them almost everyday.
Here are some examples for the Sign Up Flow pattern: (Check out Mari’s mobile patterns website for more)
The meaning of photos in today's world
Is a photo worth a thousand words? Can a photo still change the world, etch its meaning in our minds forever? As part of SnapCast's idea validation research, we interviewed 20 photo sharers, surveyed over 50 people and did passive "ethnographic" observation on photo sharing behavior on Instagram, Flickr and Facebook over a period of 4 weeks. Here are some of our findings and interesting implications for photo/image apps such as Canvas and Color:
Photos are ephemeral and no longer "sticky"
Photos used to be a thing that lasts forever. A shared photo is now more similar to a status update or a tweet. It's meaning and importance are fleeting, it lasts only for a moment and then perishes among the firehose of other information in our social stream. Very few actually search for past photos or even bother to organize them aside from the default organization offered by software. The implications? Because our attention span on photos are so short, there is no reason to spend a lot of time or effort on them. What's the point of spending hours editing your photos, putting in funny captions or creating interesting collages when people will only look at them for a few seconds, if at all?
This is a problem Canvas will have to surmount. How can Canvas engage users to invest their time and effort when their creations are meant to be adapted by others in a moment?
Photos are all about "me" - vanity is a very compelling motivation
People are interested in photos of themselves, their friends, their community or their interests. People post photos that make them look good. People post photos of themselves doing interesting things or visiting interesting places. They take artistic or ironic photos that cry, look how cool I am. It's not surprising that the #1 reason people mentioned as their reason for using Instagram was because it made their photos look better. Instagram's killer feature was the "auto-tune" filters for photos.
Photo apps must have significant utility by itself for continuos usage
Despite all the hype about "social" apps , the typical user uses photo apps mainly for its utility, at least initially, before getting pulled into the social aspects and becoming part of a community. The utility of the app comes first because it requires continuous engagement over a period of time before one accrues benefits from the "social" aspects of a new community. Thus, a photo app that requires a large user base before it is useful will not succeed.
Photo communities are real and centered around interests, and they take time to build
A new user in a photo sharing network starts out with a few friends. As time goes by, the user builds a community of friends or followers, usually around people who share similar interest or taste in photos. They start commenting on other people's photos, and build relationships with other users. This process takes time and requires commitment. Hence, I don't believe in the usefulness of "elastic" networks ala Color where users have not invested time/effort.
Most people use different networks to share different types of photos.
This is quite obvious- Facebook is mostly for personal photos, Instagram is more for artistic or professional photos, Flickr is for professional photos (but only for people 30 and above. Flickr is an aging photo network, but that is another story). What does this mean? There will be a place for niche photo social networks. This is one of our key learnings, and we are now working on Petstagram - photo community for pet owners.
I will save the rest for the next post. Send me a tweet at @wooyi if you're interested in participating in Petstagram or want to discuss my thoughts there.
What Rebecca Black’s Friday can teach us about problem/solution validation
Unless you've been living under a cave for the last week, you would've seen some form of Rebecca Black's music video, Friday. The video has garnered over 45 million views and has been a top trending topic on Twitter for the last 2 weeks.
Like all well adjusted internet users, I usually read comments when I am moved by a video, especially one with over 90% of dislikes. A lot of the commenters were incredibly passionate about their disdain for the song's inane lyrics, formulaic pop rhythm and the singer's auto-tuned voice. I didn't think anyone could have more haters than Justin Bieber.
As part of SnapCast's lean startup process, we've been doing problem/solution validation interviews for the last 3 weeks. Whenever we find someone who responses passionately about your problem or solution (good or bad), our eyes light up. We have spoken to many people who were luke warm - they were neither extremely excited nor incredibly negative. They say things like, "Yeah, I can see how this could work" or "If I tried it and I liked it, I'll use it". To me, reactions that are in the middle are the least useful when analyzing our data.
What you want to look for is a passionate "I love it" or "I hate it" response. Then you know you've hit a nerve. You want to avoid the dreaded "zone or mediocrity".
Obviously if you find users who are passionate about your solution, you are on the right track to turn them into your early adopters. But how do you deal with the haters? What if people hate your idea or your solution? How do you pivot?
There was one segment (hobbyist photographers) we interviewed who were really critical of our idea and solution. (SnapCast creates visually engaging photo "stories" from your photo sets, sort of like a web version of Instagram, but for photo albums). Another segment, mobile phone users, were really luke warm. We dug deep into our data and came out with very interesting insights, pointing us to a different segment of users.
As for Rebecca Black, I think her critics points out the obvious too - her segment is not the internet trolls who are lambasting her with negative comments. Shallow lyrics and cookie cutter rhythm? Sure, maybe for you and me, but ask the 12 yr old girls I over heard singing Friday at my daughter's grade school and they will tell you Friday is awesome! (and tomorrow's Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards...)
St James #Toronto (Taken with instagram)
From my collection #rockpoint #fossil #wooyi (Taken with instagram)
Jump! #Naira #wooyi (Taken with instagram)