I got a call last night from my buddy Mario Armstrong advising me that he was first in line and camping out for his iPhone at the AT&T/Cingular store in White Marsh, Maryland. I asked him... why not the Apple Store in Towson? Turns out, you can't "camp" in the mall. They're closing the store at 2:30 and reopening at 6:00pm sharp, so there was no way for him to guarantee pole position, and there's definitely going to be some element of crowd control needed there.

I was headed to the Apple Store anyway with a tech question, so I thought I'd check out the scene. There clearly was a buzz in the air. I could feel it. It was like all the people working there were bracing themselves, and the customers seemed like it was Christmas Eve.

So I got my question answered, talked to the manager for a couple minutes and got permission to shoot a couple photos outside the store. Once I got my camera out, another employee came out and started asking me if i was with "the press." Of course my answer was a definitive "yes" and I told him it was all cool with the manager, so I was in the clear.

When I got home, my wife informed me that Mario had been on the local news all day long. Story in the Baltimore Sun, WMAR, etc. I'm looking forward to hearing from him "first hand" how it really shapes up, and if it compares to all the hype that's surrounded its introduction. I'm just glad I'm not waiting in line in the rain right now.

(Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)
Jun 26, 2007

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Many sports fans fantasize about how it would be to own their own team (especially O's fans). What would happen though if sports management became a democratic model in which fans were the owners?

Our friends across the pond are playing with that idea right now.

A Briton by the name of Will Brooks has created a site where he is pooling funds together in order to buy a team, but he is only putting down around 70 American dollars towards his goal. However, he has already over 33,000 other investors by his side. This team will also be as much theirs as his own, for he has a decree that all decisions on the club will be made through the team's site. The decisions would include hires, trades, etc. You could say that this would be a real-life fantasy sports team. It is so much more than that.

This may be a very popular way for communities to build and invest in ideas and projects of the future. I saw the same type of concept in Microsoft's PhotoSynth project, a mass of people and input are organized around a central hub in which the input can be used by the hub to build. Communities are already well established, and in many instances are well organized. It is just a matter of time until these communities are much more proactive and used to build real, tangible constructs (instead of just focusing on intellectual property). Facebook has unleashed their development platform and it would be great to see the wealth of quality information build a project based on mass individual support.

Yeah, Google Street View is cool, but what's the business model? Perhaps Google's endgame is going to be something like the shot above: dynamically-inserted, click-able ads posted into "real-world" billboard (and other) spaces. Maybe not. But it'd be a very interesting idea and would certainly tick off a heck of a lot of folks in the outdoor advertising world.

Labels: advertising, Google, speculation

Labels: advertising, Logo, pepsi sign

About six years ago, I designed a large promotional print piece for the Washington D.C / Baltimore 2012 Olympic Bid Committee. I did the best job I could do with the materials I had to work with, yet I remain happy that the effort failed and the Olympics, in fact did not land here. Imagine that security nightmare.

In any case, when I stumbled on an article today about the actual 2012 logo for the London Olympics which was unveiled this past Monday, I was somewhat in shock. It looks amateurish, childish, unsophisticated, etc. As I continued reading, I was happy I didn't also suffer convulsions.

How does stuff like this happen? What are these people expecting?

There's an old adage that "there's no such thing as bad publicity." I have to disagree. There's an online petition including over 45,000 signatures calling for the logo to be scrapped.

To make matters worse, a promotional piece of animation featuring the logo is suspected as potentially triggering epileptic seizures, and had to be edited out of video footage, and scrubbed from the website. How ironic the logo encompasses the paralympic games as well.

Amazing.

Labels: identity design, olympics logo

Labels: magnum, photography

Labels: action figures, fine art, long tail economics

If you haven't seen this already, then take a moment to checkout Google's newest addition to their ever-so-ubiquitous Googlemaps tool - Street View.

I won't try to describe the experience for you, as I'm sure you can find out for yourself by going to tool and checking it out for yourself.

I will however address a few of the issues that surfaced as a result of the added functionality. As with any new web tool that allows users to see themselves in real-time, which apparently is more real than real-time, the issue of security and accidental exposure arises. A co-worker of mine, a few actually, who had yet to experience "Street View" immediately questioned whether or not the tool was streaming the images or if they had been taken from a bank of images. One would think that the "streaming" quality of the image is an important factor in interpreting the whether or not this new tech is acceptable; if it is streaming, then perhaps "they" could really catch one in the act of doing something, or even more so, reaffirm the 1984 tendencies that are brought along with new technologies that expose human behavior. However, the dynamically stitched imagery is pulled from an array of images that have been captured by a multi-lensed camera device that is driven around by a black-VW bug (note my cynicism). In turn, the static quality of the images transforms the experience of using "Street View" into viewing an ongoing document that is "safe". However, is it only a matter of time before we begin to see similar cases, such as those taken from Youtube, of situations that happen to be "found" by the unknowing viewer of crimes being committed, and if so, how is this possible given that the images have been taken from a database? Is the big "G" taking it to far? Again, the issue of responsibility comes to mind; but hey, who cares? I can see my reflection in the window of Macy's...Cool!

<3google

Normally, when you click on a word on the web or on most word processing applications, the word is selected. Right?

Well, recently, I noticed that in addition to selecting a word, the New York Times website also launches a new window to display the search results associated with the double clicked word or phrase.

Here, try it. Double click on any word found in the body of the article that is not a link. It’s quite amazing, right?

This is a perfect example of significantly extending and improving function, usability and experience without eroding value or creating cognitive barriers for the user.

Granted, finding this function was a mistake. I was simply reading an article and double clicking on words that were key for me – and suddenly the pop-ups started coming. It took two or three occurrences before it dawned on me what was really happening. I went around the office and share with some people and everyone was consistently blown away.

In their defense, they keyed off a common user pattern: the double-click-as-you-read-thing – it turns out, I am not the only one that does it. Secondly, the have a note (albeit lost in the texture of the page) that reads “Tips: To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.”

The information provided in the search is incredibly useful, too. It offers related articles, dictionary definition, political dictionary definition, historical relevance, and much more.

Here’s a tip of the virtual hat to the NYT interactive group.

Labels: Design, New York Times, usability, user experience