Skype’s apology
December 31, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Nobody’s perfect, and neither is any technology. Continual growth and development is going to come with its hiccups, the important thing is how you manage the hiccups and recover from them afterwards.
Last week, Skype services went down for an extended period of time. During that period, Skype rushed to identify the reason for the service disruption and provided updates on their Twitterfeed every few hours. Although it came back online within the first day, the recovery was short-lived as service went back down the very next day. It took hours more to stablize the system again and to bring normal services back up for all users.
The culprit: a number of the support servers for offline instant messaging had become overloaded and one of the Windows versions of Skype became paralyzed. « Read the rest of this entry »
Kinect: YOU are the CONTROLLER
November 29, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Last night, an ad for the XBOX Kinect came on tv. I was on my computer, and so was only partially paying attention – but the last statement of the ad really jolted my attention back to the tv: “YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER.”
How profound. Are we here in the future already? How incredible is it that technology has now evolved to the point where you don’t need a controller to play video games anymore. Microsoft has completely changed the playing field this time, like Nintendo did with the Wii. And collectively, we are charging towards the reality that anyone and anything can be a vehicle and platform for technology, connection, communication, and interaction.
The rest of the ad itself is expressive in the simplicity of this concept. Just do what you know how to do already: move.
It made me go find it on YouTube to share – so they did something right.
So you want to create an iPad app. Some guiding principles to consider.
June 2, 2010 § 1 Comment
On Wednesday, January 27, 2010, the tech world was abuzz. Apple had just announced their latest shiny new toy: the iPad.
At the time and for the weeks and months following, the announcement has been met with mixed reviews. In one camp, people have labeled it as being just an oversized iPhone that was not quite phone, not quite computer. In another, it has been heralded as something that can be expected to revolutionize the gadget industry and way we interact with technology in ways we’ve seen Apple products do in the past. Within Critical Mass, we also had many discussions about the potential impact of Apple’s new iPad. However, regardless of our discussions and each person’s opinion around the iPad, one thing was sure. There was a lot of excitement – especially at the prospect of designing some of the first iPad apps for our clients.
Rather than talk about the impact of the iPad on our industry and market (if you want a great read on the subject, see Neil Clemmon’s post on Experience Matters), this post discusses some of the things we’ve learned about iPad app design and development through our own experience with some of our savvy clients. Through the course of our work with iPad apps, six main guiding principles have surfaced.
Social responsibility meets social technology.
March 21, 2010 § Leave a Comment
What happens when you combine volunteerism, opportunity and technology? A brand new iPhone app created by VolunteerMatch and imc². Not only does the app present a convenient, easy way to find volunteer opportunities from a network of over 70,000 participating nonprofit organizations, it’s being offered free.
Having just downloaded the app, I have to admit, I had some doubts initially. I had a hard time imagining how an app of this nature could function in a way that would engage me and hold my attention, and even add useful assistance in my everyday life.
Yes, I’m committed to volunteerism, but will you, dear app, really be different than websites and volunteer forums? The answer is a resounding yes. The app is intuitive and easy to navigate. Search results are abundant and can be filtered according to location, skill-base, keyword, or area of interest. It was a great call to allow search without forcing the user to register for an account or login first. It also links up fairly seamlessly with Facebook and Twitter if someone wants to share an opportunity with a friend or acquaintance – although you need to pre-sign-in through the “Options” section, which isn’t always apparant at first glance.
I think the only thing that is yet to be seen is how useful this app will be outside of the United States. I have to admit to being a little skeptical about whether I would actually surface any results in Toronto. So, when three location-based results appeared, in a way, I was pleasantly suprised. That said, it’s still only three for the whole of the Greater Toronto Area. Of course, there is always the option to include all virtual opportunities (I received two hundred postings), which admittedly suprised me. However, the user still needs to carefully filter through them. I seemed to get a lot of “virtual” opportunities that obviously needed me to be on location.
However, the potential is tremendous and this is only the tip of the iceberg. A really interesting app – one I’ll definitely be keeping on my phone.
Find out more or download the VolunteerMatch iPhone app.
Yes but, where can I buy that?
March 14, 2010 § 3 Comments
I was recently looking for a Massimo Dutti location as my favorite wool coat is starting to show the tell-tale signs of the years I have enjoyed it. In the time since I bought the coat, I have relocated back to Canada, and for the life of me have no clue as to whether there’s even a Massimo Dutti retail store here. Upon diving into their website, I was dismayed to find that although there is a very comprehensive country list upfront that you must choose your location from, when you actually get into the site, their actual stores are nowhere to be found. (It would also appear that your country selection doesn’t have any impact on the content you see whatsoever, which also begs to question – why force the extra step that adds no value to me in the first place? But I digress.)
The lack of, at the absolute least, a low-fidelity global list of store locations feels like a significant miss. It seems so obvious to say, but for every piece of communication, it’s important to consider what the overall purpose is. What you want people to think and potentially do in reading or accessing that website, email, brochure, newsletter, etc. I’m sure for most retailers, they’d love for people to fall in love with something, and go find it at the store to buy. In the case of Massimo Dutti – with the exception of certain cities where they have more prominence – potential customers would just leave and forget. A lost sale.
In the end, I stumbled onto an obscure unrelated wiki that happened to mention a Toronto shopping mall with a listing of all their stores. Luckily, Massimo Dutti was one of the stores listed. Unluckily, upon traveling there, it would seem that the store was closed more than a year ago. So, it would seem that the trail has turned cold until Massimo Dutti writes back to my inquiry on a store location. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how promising that will be as it’s already been over a week since my original contact – which is a whole other discussion.
