Sometimes people think that a simple description of a product means there isn’t much there. But really it’s the opposite. You have to be able to distill down what you do in a way that your customers can easily understand the value proposition. It’s hard, but it’s also a business necessity.

— Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

(Source: TechCrunch)

When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it.

— Redfin blog

(Source: blog.redfin.com)

So while I don’t expect Twitter to master its own destiny as far as the decentralization of the medium goes, I do support the idea, and I hope that Twitter as a business can coexist with the need for the world to have a free, open, reliable, and verifiable way for humans to instantly communicate in a one-to-many fashion.

— Alex Payne, former lead of Twitter’s developer platform

(Source: al3x.net)

Twitter’s growth curve is unbelievable.

RSS isn’t dead, it’s just too complex

There is a debate going on among tech personalities and companies over whether or not RSS is dead.  Here’s a quick roundup:

• It all started when Steve Gilmore claimed RSS was dead in 2009
• Bloglines - owned by IAC - announced they are closing shop
• Yesterday, Matthew Ingram from GigaOm said RSS is not dead
• Dave Winer - credited with the invention of RSS - responds saying RSS “forms the pipes through which news flows”
• The Google Reader team followed up with a post about Bloglines shutting down, highlighting Google Reader’s amazing growth.
• TechCrunch’s MG Siegler summarized and added his thoughts here.

Ironically, I had been in a debate about this very thing prior to Bloglines’ announcement last week.  RSS is an amazing “standard” for connecting sites and services together - or forming the “pipes through which news flows”, as Winer puts it.  However it has failed thus far to hit mainstream with consumers.  It is just too complex.  What it has succeeded with is becoming the plumbing for things like Twitter news accounts, aggregation, etc.  This is made possible by CMS plugis that hit Twitter’s API, and services like TwitterFeed that pull items from RSS feeds, and post them via Twitter.

If all browsers - including IE - had a standard way of allowing people to subscribe to various services, and the feed readers didn’t resemble email inboxes, then maybe the outcome would have been different.  If you could click on the little orange subscribe link, and be taken to some usable page that walks you through the process of subscribing, everyone might be using RSS today.  Instead, most people have no idea what it is, and many - including myself - have turned to Twitter and Facebook to consume content.

The future of RSS

In order for RSS to even have a future, there needs to be cooperation among browsers, publishers, and feed readers. RSS also needs to be rebranded, as the acronym is too daunting for technophobes.  Let’s call it “Subscriptions”, and when you add a feed to your reader, you are “Subscribing”.  This is how it should have been from the beginning, but nobody stopped and thought about the implications of using such a non-consumer-friendly term.

Let’s summarize what needs to happen:

• Browsers need to have a standard way of allowing users to subscribe to content.
• Publishers need to have a standard “Subscribe” button.
• Feed readers need to make kick ass products, with great mobile experiences.  Google Reader is great, but I don’t need another inbox.
• Rebrand RSS as “Subscriptions” so the name implies what it is you’re doing.
• An open board needs to be formed to revitalize RSS.

Who’s with me?

Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.

— Dieter Rams, legendary industrial designer

There used to be such beautiful trees by my parents house. Now they’re putting in a highway.

At Chandler Hill Vineyards. Vineyards are so beautiful.

Finishing the swim at the 2010 Chicago Triathlon.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough

— Albert Einstein

iPad Art: Kind Old Man

iPad Art: Sad Orange

iPad Art: Cool dude

iPad Art: Hoo Hoo