Good Services Allow You to Walk Away

Being technologically adventurous in this "Age of The Beta" we live in is a lot of fun. I love checking out new web-based services as they make their way on to the scene. In fact this post is coming to you via Posterous (a service I happen to be checking out for the first time right now) written with an app that's in beta (Gmail, the perpetual beta). But the level of trace info which it leaves scattered across the internet is beginning to make me paranoid. Each social service, website, mailing list, etc. that I've signed up for has a small thumbprint of me- usernames I've selected, bookmarks I've liked, email addresses, people I've communicated with, etc. These user accounts will likely live on as long as the service stays in business. They'll likely even live on much longer than I do.

I can't tell you why this bothers me. It's not like anyone could siphon value out of my hijacking my dull life. But just having the loose end hanging there bugs me. Which is why I love services which allow you to try them out, and then walk away cleanly if things don't go well. One prime example of this is Delicious. I recently tried it out, and while it's a nifty service, I couldn't fit it in to my daily internet groove. Instead of just abandoning the site hoping that someone someday deletes my data, Delicious allows you to delete your account. This little feature not only makes me feel more comfortable, but it leaves me with a positive impression of the service- a service that I didn't even like much to begin with. I might try it again some day, simply for how easily they let me leave.

So if you're designing a new service or open beta, give your users the option to walk away cleanly. If they do leave, they'll leave with a smile.

Posted via email from I/O: Tech Introvert

Last.FM goes dark on Songbird

One of the main reasons I use Songbird over other media players was integrated Last.FM scrobbling + radio streaming. The latest Last.FM plug-in requires a paid subscription to stream radio. More 3rd party apps which stream Last.FM could soon follow.
$3 isn’t much, but with other free services available (not to mention my own digital library), do I really need Last.FM and yet another monthly charge?

Posted via email from I/O: Tech Introvert

Am I Expecting Too Much from Technology?

I’ve been disappointed by several recent product betas & launches, which is making me wonder if I might be expecting a bit too much from technology these days. I’m willing to follow along, but this had better be leading somewhere. Some examples:

• iPhone 3GS: Welcome upgrades, but not enough there to get many people to break their existing 3G agreements.
• iPhone 3.0 OS: When you have to search the UI 15 mins. looking for the new stuff, chances are it’s not an earth-shattering update.
• Apple Snow Leopard: See above. And Apple actually has the stones to mock Windows 7 as “Vista R2″?
• Firefox 3.5: I love you Firefox, but you’re boring. I pretty much already had all this stuff in Chrome i.e. Speed, private browsing, HTML 5, etc.
• Wolfram Alpha: Google killer? Boy was that overhyped. A neat stats calculation engine that most of us have little use for.
• Opera Unite: If you’re going to claim to reinvent the web, you had better have something amazing up your sleeve.

Did I miss any?

Now I know that each of these upgrades introduce much-needed and welcome improvements, especially under the hood. Except Opera. I can’t explain that one. But “under-the-hood” rarely shifts units, so I’ll wait with much anticipation at what these companies do with these new product capabilites.

Outrage for Letterman Joke Directly Related to Low SAT Scores

Not pictured: Intelligence, people with jobs and/or better things to do

It’s depressing that there are people who don’t have the mental capacity to correctly parse the joke. Do we really need a screen ticker to scroll past an explanation of exactly what is meant/implied by a comedian?

Also depressing: people who mix font sizes on their plywood protest signs.

[Via NY Daily News]

TwAds: Worse Than TwitSpam

This kid probably has like 30,000 Twitter followers.

Recently, I noticed something icky creeping into the Twitter stream of a favorite foodie blog. Tucked innocently amongst delicious recipes and informative how-to postings were little, tiny advertisements. Links to get rich quick schemes followed by the word “ad”. My first real exposure to Twitter ads (which I officially dub TwAds).

Twitter spam is nothing new. It’s a phenomenon that’s been on the rise for some time now. Usually the spam accounts are easy to spot:

• Small numbers of followers and/or updates.
• Have a screen name that no normal person would ever chose. (“MakeMoney012″)
• Include an avatar of a ridiculously attractive person.
• Use a shortened URL as their web page.
• Or simply, their recent updates are obviously spammy topics like getting more Twitter followers, etc.

But this is different. This isn’t a spambot I can block/report, it’s a trusted blog I’ve followed for a while now which provides useful and entertaining info. It’s like having a telemarketer call you using your friend’s cell phone.

Now I’m bombarded by ads every day on the web. Even some RSS feeds push along posts which are titled with “Advertisement:”. A decade+ of internet usage has trained me to ignore ads completely or delete them before my brain can waste a cycle processing it. But with real-time media, personal bandwidth is at a premium. Info flows by at a very fast pace, and I have a finite window to view it all. Ads take up some of that bandwidth which pushes other valuable content back up the stream. I find this infuriating. I’m all for the owners of that site seeking compensation for their hard work, but TwAds is not the way to go about that. In fact, I’d rather they just email me “Can I have $5?” every day than see ads in their Twitter stream.

Charge for the content, beg for contributions, run a damn pledge drive or bake sale. Do what you have to do to make your $$. But do NOT interfere with the rushing real-time information stream.  We’re addicts, we’ll simply abandon the well and find a more pure source elsewhere.