Category: User Experience

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The great technology wars and the transition of software from B2B to B2C

The epic article by Fast Company about the technology wars of 2012 provides great insight into what's happening in Silicon Valley and software in general these days. Four players, or the Fabulous Four, are mentioned to be the real market and innovation leaders: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google. Each of these companies found its place where it dominates and invents new business models, and each one is a role model for new generations of technology startups and leaders. And if you didn't notice, all of them sell software to consumers, not other companies (in case of Google and Facebook, you are the real customer, but advertisers pay for it). Software is becoming more and more consumer-oriented, and the clash of these titans will determine the outcome, the software of the future.

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written 12:25 CET on chronolog
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Facebook vs. Twitter, Part 3: The phase of unification

I started writing about Facebook and Twitter because I saw these two services as the most impressive players of the social age. I received a lot of comments about the two of them not being comparable, which I disagree. They are the biggest global Web 2.0 platforms (LinkedIn successfully went public and has a lot of users, but it's hardly a platform) and two of the ten most visited websites in the world. They are social trend-setters, both super advanced on technical and conceptual levels. They are a lot, but with the latest sets of patches, they are also becoming a lot alike.

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written 9:22 CET on chronolog
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Optimizing computer input performance: learning to use the trackpad with both hands

I'm left-handed. Which is not that optimal for general use of computers, since they are designed for right-handed people. You use the external mouse with your stronger right hand, which means your weaker left hand stays on the left side of the keyboard, where most of the function keys are. I managed to adopt that. But now a much greater challenge awaits: learning to do the same with the trackpad.

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written 18:20 CET on chronolog
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You know what Google should include in Google+? A social Gmail client.

Social is a funny thing. Some get it, some don't, it's been around since ever (remember forums?) and it keeps evolving with a maddening pace. While there used to be a giant barrier between social and not social, this barrier is slowly disappearing, and the last of the old boys finally admitted it's competing against Facebook and not Microsoft. Google has had problems with providing a social service. But wasn't social potential always there to conquer, only not really noticed? Not inside their failed social projects like Buzz and Wave (and Google Me?), but there, in the core of their services?

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written 9:05 CET on chronolog
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A few thoughts on content categorization. No surprises there, less is more.

Since I've started collecting bookmarks using Delicious, I've put a lot of effort into their categorization, organizing them in such a way their browsing would be as simple as possible. The service supports two level categorization (tag – bundle) which helps to control massive amounts of links people have gathered. But it's the experimentation with different structures that gives real insight into content categorization, and because this topic was already mentioned and discussed a few times on this blog, it deserves a special mention. Let's begin.

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written 13:26 CET on chronolog
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I've developed a magazine based on my Delicious bookmarks. And a Twitter bot.

Last week was marked a great social achievement of mine – I managed to bookmark my 10.000th bookmark on Delicious. A lot of people have 10.000 tweets, but not many own 10.000 bookmarks, fully tagged and classified. I've been collecting these since December 2006 (probably one od my first 2.0 addictions), and they are becoming one of my greatest possessions – knowledge is the ultimate collection. Hopefully Delicious won't get shut down or left behind, so I will be able to continue with this obsession.

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written 8:34 CET on chronolog
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Why an actual Facebook phone could kick ass (with mockups)

The question if Facebook will start producing it's own mobile OS on top of Android made a huge buzz a few months ago. Technology authorities such as TechCrunch and Mashable gave us diametrical coverage about it, the first claiming the rumor is true, and the second denying it. Needless to say the mobile market is one of the fastest evolving. Since 2007, when Apple supposedly revolutionized the mobile telephone by introducing the first popular tablet smartphone without a keyboard with an app market, things didn't change much, but in 2011, Facebook has a great chance to reinvent the phone again.

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written 20:28 CET on chronolog
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