Iridesco Watercooler

"Used to be that when you would visit someone for the first time, you would scan their CD collection..."

Mon, 11 May 2009 16:51:40 -0400

“Used to be that when you would visit someone for the first time, you would scan their CD collection — ok, I started to write “record collection” because that’s where it started for me — and their bookshelf. You would get an idea of the personality of your host their experiences and interests. These personal identifiers were conversation starters or at least access points to each other. Today, you almost never see a CD rack. Everything is ripped to the computer. And that’s a good thing. People have their collections shared, they have them streamed through Express networks throughout the house, they can shuffle endlessly and create a soundtrack of everything they like. But it is one less way I get to know you when I walk through your door.”

- Big Spaceship | Think Blog - The Kindle and our Personal Identifiers

"I think in careers you need two things. You need a long-run dream and a short-term plan. The..."

Tue, 05 May 2009 22:47:13 -0400

“I think in careers you need two things. You need a long-run dream and a short-term plan. The short-term plan is between 12 and 24 months, and is not longer. The stuff in between is a big waste of time at best, and completely anxiety producing and counterproductive at worst.”

- “… If you want to be a physicist, don’t work at McKinsey. You want a long-run dream that’s aligned with what you are doing. And then you need to plan for what am I doing this year or the next year or two, where I’m learning and growing, and building not my resume (because that’s silly), but my skills. My ability to get things done, my ability to scale, my ability to motivate people.” - Sheryl Sandberg on Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leadership Podcast

Fantastic video by Andy and Carolyn London of London Squared...

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:47:09 -0400

Fantastic video by Andy and Carolyn London of London Squared Productions (based in NYC).

The time savvy hackers over at Evil Mad Scientist published...

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:49:12 -0400

The time savvy hackers over at Evil Mad Scientist published these brilliant photos and a detailed how-to for making The Bulbdial Clock. It’s no secret we love clocks here at Iridesco, but this is one of the most unique I’ve seen. It uses different color LED’s to tell the time, so it’s useful and beautiful. One of my favorite combinations. Kudos for a job very well done.

Our friends, Language in Common, recently launched a project...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:28:00 -0400

Our friends, Language in Common, recently launched a project that tracks what brands people are talking about on Twitter. The project is called TweetBuzzer, and I asked Josh Kamler a couple of questions about it:

What is TweetBuzzer and why did you guys build it?

TweetBuzzer lets you track the buzz around brands on Twitter. What’s most useful about it isn’t the home page. that’s just kind of cool candy. What’s interesting is that you can sort of gauge which brands dominate the conversation on Twitter by looking at the “top 100 tweeted brands” link. You can also see the percentage change in conversation around a particular brand over any given day, week, or month period (tho, the site hasn’t been live for a month so we haven’t captured that data yet). You can also see the number of impressions (that’s every time a brand appears in a user’s Twitter feed, so were actually capturing roughly how many users are seeing an instance of any given brand name) for any tweeted brand. We think that stuff’s pretty useful.

The big brands are, well, big and famous enough already - why would we need TweetBuzzer to tell us how much buzz they’re getting?

If you were a brand manager at one of these big companies you’d probably want to know what people are saying about you. Mostly, big companies require a ton of momentum to learn how to harness new technologies for their benefit. TweetBuzzer offers a free and easy way to find out what people are saying about your brand. And, since the launch last week, the number of brands we’re tracking has more than tripled. There’s some really small brands, and of course the giant obvious ones. We’ll be adding functionality shortly that lets people tracking a specific brand to actually see the conversation thread as well as the number of mentions and impressions.

What’s next for Language in Common?

We just started a new project. It’s a new company actually. It’s called Mustache LaRue and it makes iPhone games for non-gamers. We’ll be launching this summer.

It’s trying times for newspapers in today’s evolving...

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:17:00 -0400

It’s trying times for newspapers in today’s evolving media landscape. Just Friday, The Boston Globe was threatened to be shut down by its parent company, The New York Times Co, which makes this TED video so timely. Polish designer, Jacek Utko, asks “Can design save the newspaper?“ See what he has learned through his design efforts for major Eastern European publications and enjoy some beautiful print and information design in the process.

We’ve all been there, it’s the curse of the...

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:52:34 -0400

We’ve all been there, it’s the curse of the technologically savvy. Tangles of wires and cables running everywhere, and there just seems to be no good way to keep them organized. Have you ever wonderered what the tangle of cables that keeps our tangles of cables running must look like? Look no further! Royal Pingdom has a wonderful, yet scary, gallery of tangled power lines from around the world. (Photo above by Augapfel).

SuperNews! Twouble with Twitters // Current

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:19:59 -0400

SuperNews! Twouble with Twitters // Current

A couple years ago, we launched a side project called the World...

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:09:00 -0400

A couple years ago, we launched a side project called the World Clock Project. The idea was to create a gallery of public clocks from around the world, and use the photos from the gallery to power a timepiece where each minute is represented by a different photo (showing, of course, the correct time). Since our flagship product is all about time tracking, we saw the project as a perfect mix of art, community involvement, and relatedness to our business.

Recently, New York Times writer Zahra Sethna came across our project and reached out to us to do a shopping column for wall clocks. Here’s that resulting story:

Shopping With Shawn Liu and Danny Wen - Springing Forward With a Fresh Batch of Clocks - NYTimes.com

Teleport me back to the early 1900s because I’m quite fond...

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:09:54 -0400

Teleport me back to the early 1900s because I’m quite fond of the brandmarks of those early days.

20 Corporate Brand Logo Evolution

YouTube remix by Kutiman. All the mixes. (Hat tip to my buddy,...

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:39:55 -0400

YouTube remix by Kutiman. All the mixes. (Hat tip to my buddy, Mike.)

Spring’s just around the corner, and here are some...

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:52:00 -0500

Spring’s just around the corner, and here are some fine-looking bikes for your warm-weathered commutes to work.

2009 Commuter Bike Round-Up

We recently had a discussion around the virtual watercooler...

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:59:00 -0500

We recently had a discussion around the virtual watercooler about punctuation. We were specifically discussing capitalization, and what words in a title should be capitalized and which should be left lowercase. The state of the world being what it is, the answer to the most obscure questions is just a few clicks away. This is not the case with punctuation.

English is a funny language. There are many rules, from many different sources, and they all seem to change over time. Strunk and White disagree with Sir Kingsley Amis who disagrees with the MLA, while Lynne Truss just Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Over the years I’ve used MLA style as a lit major, AP style while working in public relations and Chicago style for some research on the side. Chicago style is the simplest in many ways, and we at Iridesco have decided to adopt this as our internal guide to good grammar. Henceforth, our capitals will follow these rules, as set forth in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Always capitalize the first and the last word.

Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions (“as”, “because”, “although”).

Lowercase all articles, coordinate conjunctions (“and”, “or”, “nor”), and prepositions regardless of length, when they are other than the first or last word.

Lowercase the “to” in an infinitive.”

Now, go forth and punctuate correctly according to your preferred style.

Can’t Win Them All and That’s Just Fine

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:35:00 -0500

Wired.com recently published an article entitled Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone. The article explores the reasons behind the low adoption rate of iPhones in Japan, whereas the iPhone has found success in many other countries. One primary issue is that the iPhone simply doesn’t have the feature-set the Japanese market expects:

Besides cultural opposition, Japanese citizens possess high, complex standards when it comes to cellphones. The country is famous for being ahead of its time when it comes to technology, and the iPhone just doesn’t cut it. For example, Japanese handset users are extremely into video and photos — and the iPhone has neither a video camera nor multimedia text messaging. And a highlight feature many in Japan enjoy on their handset is a TV tuner, according to Kuittinen.

The article makes a good case with its 20/20 hindsight analysis for what it’s worth. What’s more interesting to me is that another way this article could have been written is “How Apple Ignored the Japanese Market and Created a Product Loved by Millions Worldwide.”

If Apple tried to satisfy the advanced requirements of the Japanese market, the iPhone would not be available today, and when if/when it came out, it’d also likely have a harder time being adopted by most people around the globe.

Similarly, in our world of web application development, we focus on developing for the markets we know. We don’t spend time worrying that our online time tracking software is not perfect for lawyers, for example. If we get the experience right for the markets we are in, that’s already a big first step in where we want to be.

One in 8 Million, a beautiful NY Times weekly web series about...

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:24:00 -0500

One in 8 Million, a beautiful NY Times weekly web series about the different characters in New York. The story I just watched (and shown above): Freda Degannes: The Walking Miracle. Photo by Todd Heisler.

What we talk about when we talk about Interface Design.

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:23:00 -0500

We’re looking for a top-notch interface designer to join us at Iridesco. The job title is vague, so I’ll to try and explain exactly what the job is about here.

By “interface” we mean web interface, and in particular, interface for web applications, such as Harvest and Co-op. So: lots of forms, lots of buttons, lots of charts and bars, lots of work flow decisions, etc etc.

And by design, we mean more than just “making things pretty”. We mean design as in making a web interface (that’s usually a page) easy and simple to use for whoever is using it. It’s not glamourous work, folks. In fact, the kind of great interface design we’re looking for is quiet and completely out of the user’s way.

Lots of web applications are developed by programmers first, and then UI design is brought in later. It’s not like that at Iridesco. We designed Harvest and Co-op from the ground up by ourselves, and we sweat over every single detail you see in our apps. And so far, we have been lucky and our products are used by many great companies all around the world. So, for our interface designer, not only will the person be able to put design theories and innovation into practice, but the person will be working on useful products that thousands of companies trust and use daily.

So we’re looking for an interface designer to help us with Harvest, Co-op, and many other ideas we have. We’re looking for someone who loves and obsesses over interface design, and someone who is damn good at it. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, and you think you fit the bill - please take some time and fill out this application. We look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for taking the time to read this!

The Legend of Zelda theme performed with Tesla coils. Two great...

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:12:37 -0500

The Legend of Zelda theme performed with Tesla coils. Two great geek tastes that go great together.

The amazing Siftables Music Sequencer. The Siftables is created...

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:39:46 -0500

The amazing Siftables Music Sequencer.

The Siftables is created by David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi. Watch David’s presentation on TED here (only 7 minutes).

Air - La Femme D’Argent

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:06:57 -0500

Air - La Femme D’Argent

Movie Marketing

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:11:00 -0500

In a recent issue of the New Yorker, an essay uncovers the how’s and why’s of modern day, big budget Hollywood film marketers. Here’s a snippet on how they think about demographics:

The collective wisdom is that young males like explosions, blood, cars flying through the air, pratfalls, poop jokes, “you’re so gay” banter, and sex—but not romance. Young women like friendship, pop music, fashion, sarcasm, sensitive boys who think with their hearts, and romance—but not sex (though they like to hear the naughty girl telling her friends about it). They go to horror films as much as young men, but they hate gore; you lure them by having the ingénue take her time walking down the dark hall.

Older women like feel-good films and Nicholas Sparks-style weepies: they are the core audience for stories of doomed love and triumphs of the human spirit. They enjoy seeing an older woman having her pick of men; they hate seeing a child in danger. Particularly once they reach thirty, these women are the most “review-sensitive”: a chorus of critical praise for a movie aimed at older women can increase the opening weekend’s gross by five million dollars. In other words, older women are discriminating, which is why so few films are made for them. Older men like darker films, classic genres such as Westerns and war movies, men protecting their homes, and men behaving like idiots.

Older men are easy to please, particularly if a film stars Clint Eastwood and is about guys just like them, but they’re hard to motivate. “Guys only get off their couches twice a year, to go to ‘Wild Hogs’ or ‘3:10 to Yuma,’ ” the marketing consultant Terry Press says. “If all you have is older males, it’s time to take a pill.”

Note that the desires of the young movie-watching male was summed up in a single sentence. Read the full article at the New Yorker.