I haven't done much today about this cancellation thing.
The inertia of the process is annoying me: Next to the couple friends who see my decision as a near-suicide, there I can count a hundred and more not having given any kind of feedback whatsoever, including people I've been knowing for ages.

I am probably right about Facebook lamentably failing to fulfill its prior promise to bind me to my friends in an ever communicating digital paradize.
I still see the Farmville updates though.
Speaking of news feed, this morning a friend got tagged in the picture of a beheaded corpse, it showed in my updates.
Corpse-coffee is bad, even on Thursday.

In other news, I've had plenty of exchanges through e-mails about pretty meaningful things. Is that why I am feeling old?

More tomorrow, stay tuned!

Posted via email from Living Without Facebook - A diary

I've began preparing my exit by sending an explanatory note to everybody, plus a direct message with my phone number, blog address, Y!M ID and so on...
It looks like I am going to commit suicide, or leave the planet or something, I even end up feeling guilty at some point. Come on, you can do it!

Here is what happened in details:

The Facebook Tagging function is terrible.

May you've seen me complaining about it on Twitter. Here is the deal:

- Write a note
- Tag as many people as you can in the note
- Reach the tag limitation
- Remove people
- Try adding people again...

Voila. The people you have untagged are still receiving the notification, and you can't add anybody anymore. Very, very practical.

I thought I could use it to tell my friends about important things

But Facebook probably thinks that you can't have more than 20 real friends, thus a 20 tag limit on direct messages.
I know, it's made to limit spam. But the one time I had something really important to say turned into a mind numbing chore.

Several Y!M contacts added

Well, that was to be expected.

People don't seem to care much

Apart from a few people, most of whom I used to communicate with off-facebook, and in spite of the personal message AND the note, not many reactions here.
Either they are too busy (though farmville still works for them), either they don't really care. Shall I feel sad?
Well 6 more days to go, so I shouldn't worry much.

But some are very sad

Some of my friends are reacting as if I were leaving the country. Which is funny since I didn't interact with them on facebook much.
I am not ending my days, be assured.

I've been more or less subtly called "silly" by a random stranger.

More here: http://bit.ly/a79KrV .
In the original Mashable thread, I think the dude also calls me pretentious. Ah. Maybe.

More tomorrow!

Posted via email from Living Without Facebook - A diary

Mashable has posted a short but nonetheless relevant article: Nobody can stop Facebook because nobody understands Facebook.

I commented there, saying that I was closing my personal Facebook account (I keep the diary here). It's both a personal choice and an experiment. My comment received a very interesting answer, I quote:

Just curious, how old are you? I know it's virtually impossible to go without Facebook at my age (20) without losing contact with lots of friends and acquaintances. I have friends all around the world, those who have moved because of school, work, and those who I've met through vacations, traveling, chance encounters as well as my own website.

It's hard to keep track of all these people as well as continue to keep in touch without Facebook. It's just plain silly to say that you can close your account and still be up to date with everyone in this day-and-age.

I don't have time to call or meetup with all my friends and those who I want to keep in contact with everyday.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

Mashable has posted a short but nonetheless relevant article: Nobody can stop Facebook because nobody understands Facebook.

I commented there, saying that I was closing my personal Facebook account (I keep the diary here). It's both a personal choice and an experiment. My comment received a very interesting answer, I quote:

Just curious, how old are you? I know it's virtually impossible to go without Facebook at my age (20) without losing contact with lots of friends and acquaintances. I have friends all around the world, those who have moved because of school, work, and those who I've met through vacations, traveling, chance encounters as well as my own website.

It's hard to keep track of all these people as well as continue to keep in touch without Facebook. It's just plain silly to say that you can close your account and still be up to date with everyone in this day-and-age.

I don't have time to call or meetup with all my friends and those who I want to keep in contact with everyday.

Posted via email from Walking down the dragon's back

I will close my Facebook account in one week from now. I will take notes about what happens and how, and keep the diary here. Later on this blog will be open for anyone to share their experience about a life without Facebook.

Facebook... a tool to connect with your friends.

In 2007, I wasn't intending to open one. My boss made me. He said it was good for marketing.
So it began, I opened it, and began playing with it.
After I moved to another job, I kept it, and made it my personal account, began to look for my friends and yes, connect with them.

I am now a Facebook Ninja. I know how to keep my stuff private, what to hide, how to stop receiving Farmville updates even if I don't play it... oh and I know how to see your pics even if you hide them (some of them).

Now the social media craze is here and very real and I need to deal with it in a professional way, since I am a technical adviser in the web field. I need to play with the "like" button, the social graph, I need to make my data available, I need to expose my persona.

So I am taking the decision to kill my personal Facebook account, and recreate one only for research purpose.
The new account will include nothing from my private life, and I will not add anybody I know personally or consider a Friend.

Why?

Practical reasons:

• I do not share much personal items. Actually, I never do. My digressions are all in my personal blog.

• I've had enough of being tagged in useless photos. It happens much more often than you think.

• I do not want to be tagged in silly web pages when the Facebookers finally come to use it on regular basis.

• I've had my share of Facebook drama. I am tired of people asking why I am a female on Facebook (damn, they know me physically) and make a fuss out of a "wrong button" moment.

• I am tired of the "Please, add me, pleaaaase" requests from people I barely know. Like having a lot of "Facebook friends" is an achievement in life.

• I prefer getting to know someone by having a cup of coffee to reading a profile.

• I want to pool my data somewhere else. I actually find Facebook unpractical, the features it offers are way better in dedicated sites (Deviant Art for my photos, Posterous for my rants).
  

 Personal reasons:

• I do not want my behavior to belong to Facebook. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but having Google tracking everything I do is already enough. I can't get rid of my Google account for both practical and professional reasons, but I'd do it if I could. It has nothing to do with paranoia, I don't have anything to hide. It's just that my life is mine. I'm territorial.

• I am curious, I want to know the alternatives to everything. I am not using 10% of what Google has to offer because I use alternatives, I want to explore the vastness of the web, and I feel that Facebook is the lazy way to do so.

• There must be a way to keep on sharing like crazy while keeping your privacy as you want it, that doesn't force your friends to join a network or another, I want to find it.
  

You're not deleting your account, you're creating another, cheat!

Nope. I have 139 Friends on Facebook, I have met them all (minus one or two people) at least once, and deleting that account will delete my Fabebook Bound to them. By creating another persona, I will start from scratch, and never include my private life, the approach is entirely different. Plus, ignoring Facebook now would make me the most incompetent person in my field right now, and I don't want it to happen any time soon :D

Stay tuned for the updates, starting tomorrow!

Posted via email from Living Without Facebook - A diary

Facebook is everywhere now. I won't emphasize on it, just go to any tech site and you will see what everybody is taking about now.
I've never liked wearing a uniform, and I am thinking of closing my Facebook account.

But I've been thinking, I still have some friends I want to keep in touch with, and there is still a part of my work I want to share (show off, really). Of course, I don't want any of my friends to feel obliged to subscribe to any service to give their feedback, so I am looking for the most open ways to share my life. You'll see, you can even gain more control on your privacy.

Here are the features Facebook proposes, and what you can do to replace them:

Sharing Photos

If you only need to let your friends know about how wonderful your last drunk pole dancing was, there are two pretty discrete ways:

Posterous, the service I use to blog, can also double as a password protected (that's optional) site to share your pictures, you just need to send them from your email. It allows "anonymous" comments, meaning that you don't have to sign in to leave your feedback.
All you need to subscribe is an email address and 3 minutes of your time.

E-mails are still a very good solution. I sounds old school and much less grandma-friendly, but the truth is my 76 years-old auntie knows how to use it.

If you're more into sharing for the show, Deviant Art is the best solution out there, with plenty of features (enough to make you forget there is a premium version). The community is wonderful and you'll even get advices on what you publish. Only subscribers can comment, this is the exception on the list.

Sharing Links

Delicious, if it's not the ultimate solution, allows you to make your bookmarks public. Your friends can view your delicious bookmarks and even subscribe to your RSS feed.

While you're at it...just send them the link by email or messenger. Copy-paste is not that difficult.

Sharing Thoughts/Status/Chat

Who doesn't have MSN messenger, Y!M, Google Talk or BBM? Seriously?
The question is: Do you want to let the whole world know what you had for breakfast, or just your friends?

Here I'll refer to Posterous again. You can open a blog there and everybody can comment, commenter can see each other's comments, no worries here :)

Dialog online

Facebook inbox or email?  Same use, without the updates from all the groups you joined out of fear of disappointing your contacts. Email has more features too.

Organizing events

A phone call. Seriously. I've never had any difficulty organizing something with a simple phone call or a couple of sms.
If it involves more than 3 people, just send an email.

Discovering content

The whole web.
You don't need "real life" friends to discover content, and joining Twitter, Delicious, Flick, Picasa, YouTube... random googling are as many ways to extend your views on the intertubes.
I've discovered many awesome bands, comics, rss feeds. Funnily enough nothing I have ever been tagged in on Facebook has ever had any value to me.

Finding friends/Keeping in touch

If you're thinking of getting rid of your Facebook account, you probably are the type of user who only added people you really know anyway. Keeping in touch with them is not really a problem then. Phone, emails, blogs, they are available for you to use at will.
You might be asking: What if we lose contact? My answer is: Up to you to foster your relationship with the person you love. Friendships are a lot more than tagging a picture.

The password thingie

With that many services (well, really a blog and an email), you may wonder how you are going to manage all the credentials.
That's actually pretty easy. All browsers have a "remember password" function. Write you credentials somewhere safe (on you home computer, a note on your phone, somewhere only you can access) for the sake of having them remembered and just forget them :)

I might close mine soon, I'll blog about it if it happens. Stay tuned!

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

I'm peeping at the crystal ball again, and here is a forecast for the month to come.
Of course I could be completely wrong, but at least that's good discussion material.

Look at what the others are doing:

I've written about it already in my chapters about the "Internet Wars" (there is a tag for it, if you want to dig in).
Here is, again, how can today's web giant's "estate" can be summed up:

The three main actors are now Apple, Google and Facebook. While Apple doesn't do social yet (and it would be wise for them to keep it this way unless they want to become the next OVI network) , Google is trying hard.
Google is also, of course, engaged in the "real world" market race with Android, Chrome OS and , in fact, since Chrome Browser.

Facebook is still 100% online, but it might not last long. When you see that Facebook's search is topping Google's, you can think that they got the job pretty much done with, and it's time to think about expending.

Who said Palm? Perfect timing?

Speaking of who goes down and who goes up, Palm is not really having fun lately. They are selling. it's not a news anymore.
Not everybody want them, but someone could be more than interested...guess who?

So, Facebook OS or Facebook Hardware?

Maybe both, actually. Why not? A Facebook OS on a Facebook branded hardware, with GPS and Camera, so you can upload everything about yourself without effort, and with, for Facebook, the greatest control over their API.

That's another chapter about the internet wars, stay tuned, this year is definitely interesting.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

I've ranted a lot about this phone, I know.
But now it's cracked and enhanced, I love it again, and I found it the perfect companion.
The fist pic is the free and dirt easy way (provided you don't have to smoke the whole pack before taking your picture)
The second and third pics are the slightly harder way, where the same pack is used for both landscape and portrait more.

Go and take pics now! :D

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

 

And here it its! The very fist video of the Vlogging serie!

This also mark a turn to this Blog's short history, new tagline and now a real domain name: www.danny-fr.com.

Here, yours faithfully is all about telling about that little "fever moment" that comes when you plan to write an app. That moment that can make you forget about your real goal if you don't keep it real. Just hit the play button and tell me what you think, there is a lot of effort behind this video :)

Posted via web from @Danny_Fr

I just wanted to update my phone.
Nokia boasts about the terrific connectivity of their last N series, I got tempted, and got myself a N97.
I wanted to get these bashing new email functions as well as this rad Ovi Contacts thingy that could allow me, for 5 bucks a month, to chat and email at will.
No unlimited data plans here in Indonesia (RIM gets loaded over that, just saying), that offer was more than tempting.

I bought the phone (second hand), and, in order to access these latest features, I went to their websites to look for a firmware update. There it began.

Limited OS support.

That is, Mac (and Linux) users can go sit on it, that's apparently not going to change. I work on a MacBook Pro.
No problem, I went to the Nokia service center, not too far from my place, and after an hour of waiting in line...

Incompetent customer service

"Oh by the way you'll lose all your data in the process". - That's after an hour of waiting and filling in the blanks.
"You mean you can't back it up?"
"No we can't"
"You are a customer care center and you can't back up a phone's data?"
"Nope"
"Thanks for telling me earlier..."

Hideously unfriendly "PC Suite"

Ok, after all I'm a geek. It's seriously an overkill to bootcamp a copy of Windows XP (install it in parallel with MacOS)  just to update the phone, but no other solution.
Once done, I proceed to download, install, backup...
The software is slow and unpractical, I remember now why I never used such things for my previous phones.
Backup done, update.. failed.
Turned out that I somehow had to remove my XP theme first. Weird, but at that point not so surprising.
Upgrade, then. Good.
Restore the backup....oh, wait.

Broken backup system

After the backup restored, I notice that some of my old apps shouldn't be there, since the upgrade hard-resets the phone and cleans it all.
No problem. I'll remove them.
Not.
Impossible to either remove or install an application after the backup restored. Nice. Hard reset again.

Second upgrade

Yes. It's not enough to have gone that far. Now there are other updates to download, this time from the phone.
Lucky I could access a wlan , because my data plan would have died of shame and exhaustion.

Memory leaks

Nokia isn't very smart. The N97 has 32GB of flash memory and... 100MB of phone memory.
Of course half the updates install themselves in the phone memory as well as, by default, are stored all the emails, sms, mms, notes, temporary files...
The only benefit I got from the hard-reset is wasted by a dodgy design choice, 26 MB free after all the updates are installed.

Unfinished apps

Now I finally can access the new Messaging and Ovi contact, I launch them for a test run.

Mail: Nothing to see there, my old LG Viewty had the same interface.

Ovi Contacts: Nothing to see there either, I have to use a long and not very reliable workaround if I want to add my messenger's contact.
Yes, you can only use Ovi Contacts it with other OVI members.

Sorry, Nokia, you are not RIM. I can use any java app to chat with my other contacts and use my email through Opera. That will do.

Cherry on the cake?

All these efforts for nothing, no price deal for me, and to top it the nice fade-out/fade-in effect for the landscape/portrait mode transition is gone.

Get real, Nokia!

You can't possibly make me believe that one of your flagship phone is a memory-hog, under maintained, inefficient BlackBerry wannabe.
You've just been slacking, your customer service is the proof of it. And I will not buy another device from you unless you pay me to use it (and even so, I still wonder...)

What now?

Well, I'm stuck with the phone anyway, and there is no way I use either an iPhone or a Blackberry, so... I am SO going to hack the bejesus out of that device, I don't care if I brick it in the process. At least if it's not functional, I'll be fun. Plus, it takes nice pictures.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

"This is my girlfriend Jane, she's from England...so, come over here, you have a girlfriend? Cause she's horny tonight!"

First things first: I know this is a cafe, I know it's near midnight, I know I've come alone, I know I'm an expat, a male expat.

Now, lady, let's talk (here comes the 'but')

I do realize that, around Jakarta, one tends to come across plenty of expatriates, generally in closed groups that include a minimal percentage of locals (mostly girls), usually speaking the most broken Indonesian possible, if at all, and roaming from cafe to cafe in the holy quest for boose and bosom.
I also take in consideration that you are now, as you just told me, thirty-one years-old, that you speak fluently several languages, make a wealthy living out of your own job and spend half your time in Europe or the Middle East.

Regarding all that, why would you think that by being alone in that cafe, and merely being what I am, I would not be more contained than, say, a stray dog?
Lady, you annoy me. I'll be over there, that's where you shouldn't go.

As what you just asked me is still dipped in adrenalin (yes, being treated as a gigolo tends to annoy me), I am thinking...

I once had to deal with seven drunk Afghans who swore they heard me scream death to their country, rescuing a lost and oh so innocent girl being dragged down the street (do not look for the metaphor, there is none) by a man thinking she was a prostitute, corrupt and probably fake policemen, and many, many more edgy situations.
But why does what you said upset me more than all the previous awkward/potentially dangerous situations I just thought of?

Because you made me realize three things:

1) Too many wealthy, educated, articulate people I have met in Indonesia ended up at the very top of my list of Reliable Sources Of Crass Prejudice and Downright Xenophobia. I can quote "I hate Chinese" and "You foreigners are only interested in sex" as the two best ranking statements, and my all time favorite "Eating is difficult" (apparently, so is thinking).

2) Too many foreigners go out in groups of liquor-dipped,self content neo-colonials. I am not that closed minded, but what I have heard makes me regret being white;
I quote again" Living in Jakarta is so easy when you're white", "Indonesian girls are easy", "Local girls, meh, just throw in the money and you'll get one". I can go on, it comes in many flavors.

3) The only people to have actually screwed me (pardon my French) in nearly five years in Indonesia are expats. Examples?
The only thing someone has ever tried to steal from me in the last five years is my hat. That expat girl she just took it. I got it back by running to her taxi.
The only fight I ever had in Indonesia was with a very drunk English speaking white male who did urinate in the kitchen of my friend's cafe.
No local has never said anything aggressive after I made eye contact with them (I don't usually do that on purpose anyway). Foreigners? Too many times.

How many is too many? Too many is when a situation happens so often you start seeing a pattern, and are tempted to generalize.

Shall I stop here? Yes indeed, with a conclusion though.

To all expatriate living in there, time to learn the language and see what's happening outside your circles. You have the privilege of living in one of the most active city in the world, a fascinating place where everything can and does happen, all the time. Don't waste it, navel gazing is bad for your health.
To all the wealthy, educated, articulate people who are still dumb enough to ignore their lack of knowledge about [insert race here], same advice, go out and meet people.
If you've done that already, you are probably sharing my thoughts.

To you, lady, since you and your friends are the ones passing the "too many" limit (congrats), here is, as a reminder, a list of fact you guys should refer to as a truth:

- Not all expat are alcohol-guzzling perverts
- Not all local girls are gold digging man eaters

I guess that's all, folks. Don't worry, I still love you all, wherever you're from ;)

Posted via email from Walking down the dragon's back

3 a.m.

Tomorrow is Saturday, I can afford some late sleep.
Well, I just did. Spent the night playing billiard, I'm still pretty bad at it but all in all, that was an enjoyable evening.

Now, I'm about to enter my Kost.

"Kost", while often translated as boarding house, is most often merely a place to sleep and I'd rather translate it as "lodge".

Any urban area around Indonesia will provide an plethora of such places, the cheapest being nothing more than a box (believe me, nothing inside the room, at all), and the most expensive, usually ten times the price, are labeled as luxurious "Residences". These are actually small apartments where everything is done for you, including washing your clothes and cleaning your room.
Kost have rules. Some are gender segregated, some close after a certain hour, some don't receive students or unemployed persons.
They are usually under the benevolent (read: malign and merciless)  supervision a "Ibu Kost" of "Bapak Kost", landlady or landlord (I am in luck here, my Ibu Kost is adorable).
Kost have maids, even the smallest ones have a guard or a cleaning service to take care of the door and the day to day chores.

The kost where I live is a middle class one. I get my clothes washed and Ironed, I've got aircon and sometimes hot water.
The gate closes at 11, and you can ring the maid so she opens it for you in case your come dead tired from an after hours overtime bender.
Anyway there is no other choice, since the residents are not given the keys.

I sometimes work overtime.
Also, I'm a bat: during week ends, I go full nocturnal.

3 a.m.

I ring the bell. Nothing happens.
I wiggle the cable running from the bell to beyond the gate. Ring again. Silence.
Still, I can knock at the gate, the guard will wake up and...wait...no guard, he's gone home and the new maids arrived today.
Obviously they didn't hear me knocking. Knock harder, whistle the same tone as the bell (despair should be the title), call them over...
Apparently these are either ignoring me or in some kind of coma.

3.15 a.m.

Climbing is fun.
Barbwire is not.
Nor jumping down.

I made it to my room, yes.
Betadin was there, patiently waiting for me to use it over the scratches from the rusty barbs.
And sleep. Glorious sleep.

The conclusion?

Maybe I should move.
Maybe I should tell you all that if you're looking for a kost, remember asking Ibu Kost the right questions, such as: "Will I eventually have to become a night ninja and pull a Chuck Norris over the gate?"
And yes, betadin.

Bonus: A photo of the spiky baby.

By the way, don't leave just now. If you want more kost stories, I can deliver them by the metric ton, I have moved 13 times in 3 years and not always because I wanted to see around the city. So just let me know :)

Posted via email from Walking down the dragon's back

A lot of news this week... it made me think: with all these new features announced from the three web giants, we might forget they are competing. What could happen next in the "I buy you" game? Google has all the reasons to buy Twitter.

Facebook is updating like crazy

Unlike Twitter, who's upsetting the developers and taking all the time it wants to air a new version of its web interface, Facebook forces the users to adapt to its new layouts and functions. The risk is minimum, try remembering what it was like two years ago...yeah, me neither.
Now, two major moves have been publicized, the security page and the Question feature.

The security FAQ shows a positive response to the user's worries. Not much to say about that but "kudos".

Now, the question feature appears to be a direct competitor to Aardvark.com. Who just bought Aardvark? Google.

Twitter has more ties to Google than you think

• Twitter is build with several components from Google: maps, analytic (statistics) and Ajax (key framework for web development).
• You can search tweets from Google.
• You can tweet from Buzz.
• Yesterday, Google launched a Twitter timeline feature.
• Today, Google launches a the Follow Finder feature.

Apparently they are really good at "filling holes" or they have something else in the back of their mind.

Google can't do social, is slow with mobile.

Orkut, Waves and Buzz are two examples of big G trying to get social, and failing.
Which is too bad since, if they had a good, well known framework to begin with they would be able to port it to the exec level, along with Google docs.
Which is too bad, since they could play a little bit more with their adds through real time web.

Facebook mobile VS Google search mobile? You bet, Facebook wins. And now Tweetie is the official Twitter app, who's left behind in mobile traffic ?

Twitter takes on the add market

Now Twitter launches sponsored tweets. Everybody is wondering what it's going to look like, but one thing is sure: advertising benefiting to Twitter may show in Google search.
I wonder if they are going to like it much.
Until now, real time search has been a good way to collect more data about our googling habits, and the new features are for sure a consistent addition to it.

Google can't buy Facebook.

No they can't. But they can invest in/buy Twitter, and it wouldn't surprise me it happens if the sponsored add campaign is successful.

Wait and see...

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

So, lots and lots of noises about Twitter buying theTweetie app.

The news has generated plenty of discussion elsewhere, and I won't discuss the developer VS twitter point of view here.
Instead I'm going to tell you why focusing on apps might me a huge mistake.

Twitter's traffic is actually stalling

They can brag as much as they want about their international growth, but the fact is: they are stalling. Just take a look at this graph, voila.

There is a lack of new tweeps: Web users.

I am going to repeat it, again and again, new users are still subscribing from their website.  From.Their.Website.
A newbie is going to visit their front page, and subscribe from there, because of the keyboard, because of the big screen of their desk/laptop and because users are not used to register from an app, even when the app gives them the possibility.
Users have been registering from the web since...the web, and they'll keep on doing it for a while.

Apps better than the web interface?

Maybe because Twitter's web interface hasn't evolved much, except for the a retweet function everyone hates and a hover card function nobody cares about.
Randomly, I pointed myself to a trending topic and counted.

• 60% of the tweets come from an app.
• 50% of apps users had more than 300 followers
• 40% of web users would also tweet from an app

• 100% of web/mobile web only users had less than 300 followers

Would it mean that the web interface is either disliked or not practical enough? I take it as a yes. Once again, that's where new users will register.

Justin B. Fanclub and ugly profiles, that's what the newbie sees

Another detail that's more a hunch than anything, but have you looked at the start page? Have you look at the trending topics?
While Chinatown's fires and the death of the Polish political elite may pop in to say hello, Twitter looks like either a Justin B. fan site or a list of what people listen to.
This aslo bad since JB's fan's pages can be real eye sores.
That might be repelling. That repelled me from using the service for a full year.

Why buying Tweetie is partly a mistake?

Well, dear Twitter, you have proven us to be pretty looking, but not the best at designing a great user interface.
Now you are alienating the same developer community that made your popularity possible, by letting you go lazy on your own interface.
Don't you think it's time to launch this massive overhaul everybody is talking about and raise your standards and/or listen to your users a little?

Why Apps are Twitter's Junk Food?

Just like apps, junk food is easier than home cooking and cheaper than high-end service.
And when you abuse it, you tend to get big (in size) , slow (your size prevents your reactivity) and lazy (to cook at home).

Ok, tell me what you think about all that, I'm going to grab a cheezburgerz.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

So I've been wandering on YouTube, no more than the average geek, but I've noticed the change of interface.
As a good friend of mine puts it "It sucks". It indeed suckles much.

But don't be fooled, beloved readers, this is totally on purpose.
This is a technique called "eye tracking", where you determine where your users look based on the amount of clicks on "hotspots"  on your web page.
Facebook do that a lot.

Let's decompose YouTube new layout and see what new purpose the frabjous eye tracking technology is serving this time.

(1) The new toolbar

Gone are the stars, you can now see who likes and dislike the video
You can save it to your playlist (not your hard disk, no, never)
The embed code is put there now, same for the flag
And last but not least, the share function that doesn't display Buzz as an option (maybe because I have deactivated it

It takes now more clicks to do several things you could do without clicking at all wit the last layout (get the embed code, see the ratings).

(2) Comments now just under the video

That's where the real fun begins. Comments have fled the top right corner to lend just under the video. Why is that?
Beside the video itself, what do users most often look at?
The poster's comments and the user's comments.

It's logical then, to thread them in the same column... just under the huge irrelevant ads at the bottom of the video.
Bad if you like to see user's comments quickly though, since it makes you scroll down even more than before.

(3) Additional ad on the top right corner

Haha! You thought you'd find the comment there, right? You've been punked, that's an ad for you!
Since the poster's comments were a hot spot, what's best to fill in the blank than one more ad?

You've been framed

Most of us read from left to right. Considering that the video is the most important part of the page, that's what you're going to look at first.
Then, looking for the poster's comments, you are going to look further right, and stumble on the ad. Then you are going to look for them under the video, and in your way, the overlay ad will catch you by the eyeballs. The video is now literally framed with ads. That's what the eye tracking was for.

That's it, my two cents on the topic, I wish I had more than that but I have hard time framing my blog with ads.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

Mister Orange who?

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

So, the iPad is out.

One of the first questions coming to my mind : how good is the soft keyboard.
Answer: not good enough so there is no need for an optional keyboard/docking system.

It made me think. Handhelds are now in more or less everybody's life, and are sometimes said to increase productivity.
While receiving and composing emails on the go is for sure an improvement, bringing it to the next level would mean editing document without getting the curly thumb syndrome.

And, sorry to say, there is nothing better then a real keyboard to be productive or simply do more stuff, here is why:

1. 10 fingers typing

Nothing can beat typing with all of your fingers. The learning curve is pretty fast, and professional typists can achieve speeds above one hundred and twenty words per minute. A Blackberry keyboard won't usually allow you to go over sixty five for a very skilled user.
You can see how fast you can go here, it's a cool test, try comparing with your thumb typing skills.

2. Comfort

That one is easy. Lots of big keys and space to rest your hands. Nothing can beat that, ever.

3. Keys

Yes, it seems easy, logical and whatnot, but a clear delimitation between the keys helps the fingers keep on striking the right spots, take a closer look at the "F" and "J" keys on your own keyboard.

4. Keyboard shortcut

A keyboard shortcut takes no more time than typing two letters or three letters in a row. Many users, on all operating systems, are used to shortcut. Undo, redo, cut, paste, open, close, save and exit... at least. When working on a text document, shortcuts are also available for bold, italics, underlined and more.
Nice gestures are now available, notably on Apple products, but I doubt they can all help you to navigate and format a text as quickly as shortcuts.

5. Hotkeys

Keyboards... have space, a lot of space, and usually twelve function key that can act a hotkeys anyway. The best example I can find is the MacBook Pro keyboard, where the functions keys double with systems hotkeys for screen brightness, volume and so on.

6. Gaming

I'm not talking about Mafia Wars here. Take WoW, Command and Conquer, any first person shooter (all the descendants of "Doom" and "Quake")  and ask the players if they want to drop their mouse+keyboard combination. Then run.

Just for fun, here is what a pro gaming keyboard may look like:

7. Stock food

Well that's not properly speaking an advantage and it could be the perfect place for an ants colony to dwell in, I have seen it happening in a MacBook. But hey, that's still a story to tell.

Are our thumbs doomed?

No, not really. At least not always.

Editing documents won't happen in the bus, and more rarely (though it does happen) in a taxi. If you want to carry a brain heaving editing task outside your office, you may as well do it in a cafe, where you have some more space for these little monsters down there.

The bluetooth folding keyboard is my favorite because of the hard finish, you can feel the key response, it's important to me (laugh, I hear you).
Here is a version compatible with Symbian S60, Poket PC/Smartphone under Windows mobile and Palm OS:

Ok, it looks taken straight out from a Terry Gilliam's movie, but Oh So Practical.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

I know who you are.

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. At times you have serious doubts whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.

Or not.
The sentence you just read is the most obvious example of what is called the Forer's effect (a.k.a. Barnum effect), it means nothing in particular, refers to mostly anybody in general, and everybody can relate to it due to it's vagueness. These statements are mostly used in astrology, cold reading, and any for of, excuse my French, utter marketing bullshit you can find around the web.

Consider this paragraph

Interested in social marketing? Make up to 1000 bucks per week with our cutting edge new system!

Out-the-box thinking and user centered dashboard designed by our specialists are the two component of the system that will allow you to make up to a thousand bucks per week, increasing your traffic and assuring you a high CTR for your PPC campaigns thanks to viral buzzword strategies.

Watch our free introductory video here  [the video shows very motivated, well off people talking about this method]
Take a look at this free case study [link to a free case studies quoting percentages and numbers int the hundred of thousand range]

Order now and receive a free complementary booklet! Over 400.000 happy marketers already!

Here I can list 7 instances of downright fallacy (a.k.a. bullshit)

1. Forer's effect
   "Interested in social marketing?" : Duh, I wouldn't be reading it, you posted it on my SNS marketing blog.

2. Weasel Word
   "Make up to 1000 bucks": Up to? It means it starts from 0.001, right?

3. Illusory Correlation
   "Watch our free introductory video here": So, the dudes look well off. It doesn't mean they got wealthy by using their own method, does it?

4. Gambler's Fallacy
   "Take a look at this free case study": Even if this case study is related, what tells me it will work for me?

5. Ignorance of Regression Toward the Means
   "Viral": Viral is creativity+good content+LUCK. It worked before, it's not sure it can work every time.

6. Bandwagon effect
   "400.000 happy marketers": Happy of what? They have a lot of reasons to be happy... But they are a lot, right? That's also a nice instance of Forer's effect

7. Jargon/Obfuscation
   And here we go!

• Cutting Edge: Overused, the edge of what, what technology are we talking about?
• New: New compared to what? You mean it's never done before, ever? All the bits of the product? Wow!
• Out-the-Box: Overused, trying to substitute for "original" when it means "horizontal thinking" and the latter is hard!
• User Centered: Really? I thought it was animal centered!
• Specialist: Specialist of what? Any reference?
• Traffic: Google bots also make good traffic. I want money.
• CTR/PPC: Acronyms make you appear clever. Or so you think. For me, it's obfuscation.
• Buzzword: Same as "viral", you can try your best, but there is no guarantee.
• Strategies: A strategy apply to a single case, your offer is a package. Thanks for thinking I'm dumb.
• Free: There is no free meal. Ever.

And the ultimate conclusion

If you can make so much money, so fast, why would you need to sell me your method for a ridiculous price and use all this jargon? Google doesn't use jargon.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr