DISQUS

The reason to have a so-called "nice theme" is exactly what you're interested in: to help readers focus on your content more.

Any theme that distracts from content with curlicues, shiny surfaces, colors, etc. has failed at perhaps the highest aim of site design, which is to clearly communicate the content of the site, and provide obvious and well-structured navigation to additional content.

A theme needn't be "plain" to be effective and clear any more than having a beautifully designed site automatically makes it less-usable (see, for example, the marriage of form & function in Apple gadgets, to cite a perfectly cliché example).

Your site, to be specific, could benefit from a fixed width. It'd increase readability without at all becoming less "plain." And alternative methods for navigating the archive might also be more usable.

But your overall point is very well taken, and I think more folks should consider the design of their sites from the inside out, adding "decoration" only as necessary to communicate something integral to the audience.

I completely agree with you, Bob, and a quick assessment of my CD-buying habits of late confirms that the way to get me to buy a CD is to offer something else of value along with it. If all I'm getting are the songs and a so-so glossy booklet, I'll pass. Particularly when the music is cheaper and easier to get on Amazon or iTunes (Seeing $10 albums on "Sale" at Virgin makes me shake my head), and physical storage space is ever harder to come by.

The last CD I bought (and only one I can remember buying anytime in the last several years) was David Byrne's "The Knee Plays", which came with a DVD containing a phenomenal synchronized photo slide show (1 shot taken every 30 seconds) of Robert Wilson's performance work for which the music was originally written. Talk about worth it. Of course, this was preordered from Amazon...

Hey - lovin' the ones that I designed! :) Tragedy I didn't get any cool prizes for them, though.

Seriously, though, some good stuff in that collection. Hope you guys make a zillion bucks.

Wow, that's a good deal. You can't get movies for $10 anywhere, either. Only bummer in the whole thing is that your free DVDs seem to have to be HD-DVDs, which - oddly enough - will end up being less "future proof" than the standard defs.

And the more I think on it, the more I think you and Saul are dead on regarding Blu-Ray's competition. Upconverting will be the way to HD for a lot of consumers who buy mostly on price.

I heard about this this morning and thought of you. I'm honestly surprised Netflix took sides so early. I, too, am hoping for some comprehensive (and Mac-able) streaming by year's end. It'd give me a reason to get on board.

Domenico: You're right, people need to be safer. But companies have an interest in protecting their users (customers, after all!) against their own bad habits. (See: seatbelts, airbacks, antilock brakes, etc - hyperbole, sure, but it pertains). 1Pwd is cool, but not everyone knows about it/can afford it/etc. For companies like Facebook, MySpace, etc, where their users are the single most important asset, failing to protect them in any way possible can lead to serious problems. All it takes is one leak, and the flock will run.

Besides, this is a programming problem that has been solved for years. No one is asking these companies to build a secure login from scratch. Easier, more cost effective to do it in the beginning than to deal with a problem down the line.

Here's something to consider - because I think there are actually two separate pieces to this:

Should the company send you your password automatically when you sign up, or only if you've forgotten it?

Absolutely, Bob. I'm surprised at Mahalo, too, in this case. Emailing passwords (especially when it comes in a message titled "here are your login details") is really bad form. Even though most people don't use separate passwords, this practice makes it super-easy to get into all manner of accounts if one's email account is compromised. Add this to the fact that even security-conscious folks tend to make their email passwords far more insecure (low body image?) than their other passwords, and that most web services require little other than email access to change login details, and you've got a perfect storm.

Amen, Bob. Exactly my feelings. My father is an EBay freak, and I could never understand it. I bought a few things from it in college (like a box of 72 shot glasses), but I never really got the hang of it. Dealing with payments in the early days also pretty much sucked (though that's better now). I guess there are a few odd items that can't be found anywhere else (like an old French printing of a play by Ionesco I bought last month for my girlfriend), but for 99.5% of things worth purchasing, Amazon is the place to go, for all the reasons you mentioned.

It was a snap. Took a couple seconds to find the link (I'd used the customer service stuff before so I knew how to get there), and another couple seconds to type a sentence about the price drop. Hit send, and boom.

Payment was processed this morning, btw.

Thanks for the reminder! Scored a $10 credit (on the Rocky DVD Boxed Set) this morning using the web form on the site.

Got a prompt email response saying I get my money back, but see if you can decipher this part, which came after a couple paragraphs about my $10 credit being awarded:

"Further, I've verified that the $ price you are referring to is actually offered by another seller, . Because Amazon.com does not have a price matching policy, we cannot match the price offered by another seller on our website."

Looks like an orphan of some sloppy copy/paste action, along with an empty form field. :)

I can see where Bob is coming from here - that for the "outside world" things might be a little unclear. But I actually think Google has done a good job in trying to explain with whom Shared Items are shared. The first time I used the feature it told me that things were being made public, and I would argue that those who use the feature to begin with likely have a decent idea of what they're doing - having most likely shared stuff on other social networks and used the "email this" buttons on news sites, etc. in the past.

It's tough to know where the non-tech-savvy users fall on the spectrum of understanding, but my guess would be that by and large they understand that sharing means "make public." Could be wrong, of course, but again, I think Google did what could be reasonably expected of them. If a person doesn't understand the basic concept of sharing to begin with, granular privacy controls are pretty much useless.

That said, the thing that bothers me about this debate is that individuals who throw around terms like "URL Obfuscation" were somehow surprised by this. I have a strong feeling that much of the indignation expressed is not personally felt, but on the behalf of some (perhaps imaginary) users somewhere out there.

As with the Facebook News Feed, I get the sense that the noise is being made by a small contingent of "privacy is dying!" folks, while the vast majority of users think, "oh cool," and the "openness people" trumpet their usual "privacy is dead" horns. Two edges attempting to rile a mass of people who probably don't care.

Wow. That a single person believed this to be true (or even possibly true) blows my mind. Lyons is a good blogger/marketer/satirist, in that hints of what he posts are true, or are at least believable, but much like Nostradamus and other prophets, he needs only to get about 5% of his predictions/claims correct for people to take everything seriously.

Duped bloggers (or ones who wanted to stay on the fence while still opening up the possibility of a Techmeme listing) have called this a "marketing ploy" or a "hoax," but in no way is this different from every single post on FSJ. My impression is that Lyons saw an opportunity to juicily parody the ThinkSecret scandal, and when it got a huge response, he smartly continued to fan the flames.

For me, "Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like you do when nobody’s watching" means "Report Spam."

Oops!

Seriously, though, not my cup of tea, and most of these - even if not taken semi-offensively - are too long, and not clever enough.

My suggestion:

"You smell." - me

Bob - I was just joking, of course, but looking at your list again actually makes me feel great - compared to GigaOM and Gizmodo, I seem to be doing quite well! :)

Isn't it wonderful that Google Reader now says more than 100+?

Hey Bob,

How come my blog has 11 unread articles?!!

Seriously, though, great explanation. I'm hoping that new versions of the big browsers (and the RSS implementation in Apple Mail in Leopard) will start to expose a lot more people to such a great time-saving and really quite addictive technology.

The link is where it ought to be, highly visible to anyone with enough brains to actually read about the features of a product they're about to spend $400 bucks on.

And, especially if you live in a rural area, you need to have the foresight to think, "hey, we don't get great cell reception here and don't have broadband internet...maybe I ought to check to see if I'll be able to connect" before jumping on the early-adopter bandwagon. Companies can't hold your hand every step of the way, and they certainly shouldn't automatically disqualify you from making a purchase (as some have suggested surrounding this debate).

"What time is it? No time to look back."

So said David Byrne in True Stories.

That's when I stopped wearing a watch.

Don't know about podcasts, but it can play audio - mp3 files and the format from Audible.com. These - as far as I know - you can't download over EVDO. You have to plug in via USB, but it does play them, and there is a headphone jack.

Hey Bob, a couple answers for you:

2. Battery can be replaced. It's lithium.
4. E-ink is a great technology. I've checked out the Sony Reader and it's much more like reading a book than looking at a screen. This should be the same.

Some other questions are answered in the Users Guide and About Your Kindle guide, that you can download on the Amazon Product page.

It's the difference between advertising based on Brand and advertising based on Product Features.

"Pepsi Generation" vs. "Exhilarating, Invigorating, Aids Digestion"

A brand that is able to position itself as "cool" certainly gains a measure of immediate success. But as we all know, trends are trends, and what's cool today is lame tomorrow.

I suspect some of Apple's current popularity is due to this cool-factor, but it's hard to deny that they do make quality products that offer a clear alternative to other competitors, and that this very real and organic word-of-mouth as done wonders for their success. If iPods and Macs and iPhones didn't largely work as-advertised, they wouldn't continue to sell or be cool. That is, if the features didn't largely match the brand promise, people would start talking about it.

Not a lot of people outside of Silicon Valley and the tech blogs know about the Reality Distortion Field (or even who Steve Jobs is). All they know is their personal experience with a product that they bought because they hoped it would solve some (real or perceived) problem they were having.

I sympathize with your technical issue. Lord knows I've had my share of them on Macs and PCs alike over the years. And I share your feelings about the smugness present in the loudest members of the Apple Zealot Army.

But I find it hard to believe that you - a smart guy with a long history in the industry - actually believed the advertisements. Apple's or any company's for that matter. I can't say I've seen a single ad in the last decade that qualifies as "non-ridiculous." And maybe I'm totally wrong, but I like to believe that most people understand this about advertisements, and know better than to expect the life-changing experience promised by them.

That said, Mark is right that this uses Javascript, so the traditional SEO benefits of putting this on your blog are changed, though I imagine Google is now taking things like this into account anyway (feed subscribers, shared items, stars, etc...).

Mark, I am getting the new functionality by following the instructions. Could be yours isn't live yet, perhaps.

Exactly what I thought, Adam.

What Mark describes in this post is a feature that's been available in Google Reader for awhile - the "Shared Items Feed," which I'm using on my blog now.

This new blogroll is great if for no other reason than it saves tedious amounts of Copy/Paste.

I understand your dismay here, but calling FSJ a "fake blogger" is very untrue. He's a real guy, and a real writer, blogging under a persona that allows him to stretch the truth just far enough to get people talking about it.

Why get so upset if he's just "fake" even if others buy the story?

Would you yell so loud if the Onion ran the same story? Or is it only problematic because Dan Lyons’ realness means that people will take him seriously? A rumor is harmless unless people believe it, and there's obviously something non-fake about FSJ that gets people thinking.