Happy Holidays from Outsight!
December 21 2011
Happy Holidays from Outsight Interactive
- Denise
- holiday, iPhone
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Happy Holidays from Outsight Interactive
Outsight is currently seeking a short-term contractor (3 months) or potentially a summer intern to work with our Senior QA Analyst. Potential for full-time employment for the right individual. See our Jobs posting for more information
read more...I received a funny email today from Amazon. The subject of the email was "Amazon.com: Work Gloves" and the body stated that "Customers who showed an interest in work gloves mike like to know about our bestsellers". Ok, I'll bite... (click open the email).
Wow, the products offered were definitely "interesting" -- highlights included "Mechanix Wear" gloves pictured with screwdriver in hand, "US Forge" welding gloves, and perhaps my favorite, "BladeX5" Classic Cut & Slash Resistant Gloves (with a Cut Resistant level of '5' no less). Impressive.
BladeX5 : Classic Cut & Slash Resistant Gloves
I have to confess, I had never before realized that there was such a thing as a "Cut Resistance Level". I will never look at work glove "candidates" quite the same again.
Now, with many things -- that might work very well. I know, from experience as a bookseller, that people who buy a book from the New York Times bestseller list are VERY likely to come in and buy more books from the New York Times bestseller list. I also suspect strongly that people shopping for baby gear are very interested in learning what the best sellers are.
read more...I came across an article today in the NY Times, titled -- We have met the enemy and he is powerpoint.
In it, they present this image:
Plan for Afghanistan: A failure in data visualization
which was meant to convey the complexity of the military strategy in Afghanistan. Complexity was conveyed, but to what end? The key to effective data visualization is not to "convey complexity" but is instead to wrest clarity, order, or at the very least, some insight.
The General's reaction to this slide? “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.”
Highlights from the NY Times article:
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps
“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.” General McMaster
read more...
Frankenstein's Monster: Green Base, Red Hibiscus Saddle, Yellow Toe and heel shoe
Noonan, out in Truckee, California. All of us here at Outsight are deeply sorry.
read more...Announcement that Adobe is giving up on its "Packager for iPhone" that would have allowed Flash Developers to leverage their flash skills to output applications for the iPhone.
!Helpful starting point to separate the wheat from the chaff in social media marketing groups.
!Last week at a status meeting, I took a few moment of frivolity to joke about an issue we were having on a widget we had built -- instead of showing "what people are buying right now!", it appeared to be showing "what people are going to buy in roughly ten minutes". Yes, we had achieved the impossible, we could now predict a person's future behavior with 100% accuracy -- how cool is that?! Netflix, Amazon eat your heart out! (Ok, so, yes, the server on which orders are being processed had a date/time that was off by ten minutes.) BUT think about it, a prominent homepage widget quietly predicting future events...
So, this morning, I had another opportunity to peer into the future. This time the portent showed up in my inbox. Jakob Nielsen's alertbox gave his early iPad thoughts. The iPad was released on Saturday the 3rd.
Now, for anyone outside our industry, new device launches -- well, they are like new toys. They get dropped in our laps and we start trying to play with them. Every now and then, we get a toy that is a true "game changer" -- one that has the power to *change the way that we play*, work, live. The iPhone was one such "game changing" toy -- and although Apple is hopeful, the jury is still out on the iPad.
So, when Jakob Nielsen, one of the great usability pundits, releases his "early thoughts" on the usability of the iPad *before* conducting his user testing -- well, it is his prediction of the future.
read more...