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March

Why Buzzfeed is The Most Important News Organization in the World

I know I've been heavy on the Buzzfeed bandwagon lately, but Ben Thompson's analysis is too good an opportunity to pass up. Seriously, follow this guy.

This small tidbit serves as the perfect example to his argument — overheard at a recent New York Times editorial meeting:

[...] When the conversation turns to a vivid story from Liberia, where Ebola has overtaken a particular neighborhood in Monrovia, one editor proudly reports that she believes the Times is the only outlet with a reporter on the ground, which makes everyone happy until another editor says, “I think BuzzFeed actually has somebody there.” There is momentary silence.

On Surveys — Erika Hall

A bad survey won’t tell you it’s bad. It’s actually really hard to find out that a bad survey is bad — or to tell whether you have written a good or bad set of questions. [...]

Most seductively, surveys yield responses that are easy to count and counting things feels so certain and objective and truthful.

Even if you are counting lies.

Surveys are usually the easiest way to gather “relevant” user feedback, but it's easy to see how they can be used to cop out of really listening to your users.

Not saying surveys are now forever banned as good practices of user research, but when Erika Hall is saying stuff like this, you tread carefully at the very least.

Hillary Clinton Runs Her Own Email Server
The computer server that transmitted and received Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails — on a private account she used exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state — traced back to an Internet service registered to her family's home in Chappaqua, New York, according to Internet records reviewed by The Associated Press.

From her residence, no less. That's some serious badassery right there.

Also, illegal in the United States since 2009. Oops.

People doing Business

Idiotic Business Stock Photos with Vince Vaughn

Hilarious team-up between Fox and Getty Images for the upcoming Unfinished Business movie — a set of 12 cheesy business stock photos with the film cast, including Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson.

The stock photos are available for free download here, although only for non-commercial use.

February

A black llama in blue stripes and a white llama in golden stripes

A Hint of Magic, a Bit of Science

This week, a dress broke the internet (with the help of two llamas), yielding BuzzFeed 28 million pageviews for a single article in less than 24 hours — and leaving traditional media shuffling their feet trying not to miss the tsunami.

Paul Ford on Medium tries to understand the reasons behind the dress's success and the consequences it will bring to newsrooms around the globe:

I know from experience that Internet events like this have consequences. Meetings. Memos. Jealousy. Twenty-five million [at the time of publication] is a number to make an editorial director angry. [...] How do I get that? They’ll wonder. How do I get that sweet, sweet traffic? Why do those children get the traffic with frolic while my attempts to go viral fall flat at hundreds of thousands of impressions?

Brian Morrissey echoes a similar feeling on Digiday and proclaims that “Buzzfeed won”:

In this game, BuzzFeed is winning. It must boggle the mind at traditional publishers that seemingly the entire Internet is talking about content that was created not by a seasoned reporter but a “community growth manager.” These so-called premium publishing brands will inevitably lose their pricing power in the ad market as they continue to copy BuzzFeed.

With a massive audience that's becoming bigger and wider every day, solid “news” coverage, an experimental app development team and a friggin' movie studio, Buzzfeed is shaping up to be the media company of the future.

Btw, they're hiring.

Futures of Text
I believe comfort, not convenience, is the most important thing in software, and text is an incredibly comfortable medium. Text-based interaction is fast, fun, funny, flexible, intimate, descriptive and even consistent in ways that voice and user interface often are not. Always bet on text

An extensive article exploring why chat might be the interface of the future.

The Shape of Things to Come

The New Yorker profiles Jony Ive — a good read, albeit a bit long. Worth skimming at least.

Lots of insight on Apple's design process, but this quote takes the cake for most amusing:

Ive once sat next to J. J. Abrams at a boozy dinner party in New York, and made what Abrams recalled as “very specific” suggestions about the design of lightsabres.

“I thought it would be interesting if it were less precise, and just a little bit more spitty.” A redesigned weapon could be “more analog and more primitive, and I think, in that way, somehow more ominous.”

Your Dick Pics Are About to Be All Over the Internet

Everything you feel, smell, and see is leaping onto the Internet, just as everything is becoming a camera. A Really Good Camera. Perhaps your naked image is already on a neighbor’s Dropcam, which happened to see in your window as you walked past without any pants on. (...) The nudes are out there.

We just have to stop caring about other people’s nudity. We should quit being shocked, and we should quit being shamed, because the shame is not ours, only the genitals are. And your genitals are wonderful. You should show them to the world.

Unicorns vs. Horses

Great article by Andrew Wilkinson about the importance of building a small-scale business that provides value to a small number of customers.

On the same note, Jason Cohen's article from 2012 highlights the perils of "successful unsustainable" companies, while Fred Destin's article from 2013 does pretty much the opposite, in a fantastic defense of Snapchat and similar companies with no revenue or an apparent business model.

Slack: First Year in Numbers
Slack is now adding an additional $1 million in new Annual Recurring Revenue every 11 days.

Anyone following Slack's trajectory already knows they have great numbers, but this is just ridiculous.

It's like every message sent generated $0.01 for them.

Affinity Photo Beta

The photo editing application that will surely make Adobe lose some sleep is now available for (beta) download. Good discussion going on at Designer News.

Drunk Mountain Gorilla Punches Photographer
Completely drunk from eating bamboo stems, which ferment in gorillas’ stomachs causing them to become intoxicated, the primate, who is the leader of the Kwitonda Group, is said to have felt threatened by a rival male, causing him to become excitable and defensive of his territory.

Tech’s High Barrier to Entry for the Underprivileged

I met Maurice on February 22nd, 2014, at a high school hackathon. [...]

Later that night, I received a phone call from him, and he asked if I would be able to teach him how to code. I love teaching, and Maurice seemed like a nice kid, so I offered to help. He immediately said, “okay, go,” and awaited instruction. I explained that I wouldn’t be able to teach him over the phone, but then I found out that he didn’t have internet at home.

It's really easy to overlook these "details", specially with the president of Y Combinator (the most prestigious accelerator in the US) tweeting stuff like this.

Why I Would Never Want to Compete with Travis Kalanick
He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t lose focus. He will even forget to eat. He executes again and again, inspiring those around him to have the same passion for the end game as he does.

Impressive account of how awesome the CEO of Uber is.

It's also an impressively self-serving pat on the back, as this randian-esque admiration makes for a cozy narrative in which Uber investors can accomodate Travis' general douchebaggery and predatory business practices.

We Won the Internet Back
In a statement given to Wired, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler revealed his plan to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

This GREAT news, as it means carriers will have much less leeway into fiddling with the way people get online.

It's also great news for the rest of the world, as lawmakers abroad now have a stronger example to follow in their own countries — even though Brazil already passed a Net Neutrality law last year .

Steve Ballmer Laughs at the iPhone (2007)

Ballmer: We've got great Windows mobile devices in the market today -- you can get a Motorola Q now for $99, it's a very capable machine [...]

Interviewer: But how do you compete with that, though? [the iPhone]

Ballmer: Right now we're selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year, Apple is selling... zero phones a year.

There's just too many good quotes here. Can't really fit them all, so go watch the video.

We are Five Years Old. Here's what we learnt.
Unless you can learn to be less sure of your own individual ability to come up with the right answer then you'll struggle to make things that other people actually want.

Lots of terrific advice and process in this Made by Many article from 2012. Not that the year matters much; hard-earned lessons are timeless.

CSS Reference

Splendid documentation on the basics of CSS. Finally someone giving CSS-Tricks a run for its money.

Designing Twitter Video
A prototype is worth a thousand meetings.
Paul Stamatiou breaks down all the interaction design, prototyping and research work behind this huge design problem. Great read.

January

Fuck You, Pay Me

This video goes way back to 2011, and I couldn't care less. If you have already watched this legendary talk from Mike Monteiro, watch it again. Then read the follow-up book by the old man, Design is a Job.

Designers Who Code

This is pretty much the nail in the coffin of the "Should designers code?" discussion. Designers who don't code shouldn't be dead worried, but seriously, read it.

Welcome to Business Town

Weirdly amusing comics about our "highly intangible, deeply disruptive, data-driven, venture-backed, gluten-free economic meritocracy."

Fear of Writing

For someone who constantly flakes out when trying to write, this really hits home.

How to Give Feedback that Doesn’t Suck
I’ve seen design feedback sessions go both uphill and crashing terribly downhill. With that, here are my 6 guidelines of how to give feedback that doesn’t suck.

Gotham 7.5k

The most mind-blowing pictures of NYC you'll see this year (or maybe ever).

Xiaomi's Ambition
The Xiaomi generation [...] has grown up in a country that has been growing by near double digits every year they have been alive. To their minds of course China is a global power, and why wouldn’t they embrace Chinese brands?

The Everything Book: Reading in the Age of Amazon
For Amazon, paper is more than a material for making prototypes. It’s the inspiration for the Kindle of the future: a weightless object that lasts more or less forever and is readable in any light.