How I got a Yahoo Mash invite in 5 minutes

September 17, 2007 at 11:01 pm · Filed under Web Applications, Usability, Web 2.0, Alpha, Social Networking, Beta, User Experience

I like participating in betas for web sites and web-based applications. Trouble is, I’m just a regular guy. And, historically hunting for invites has yielded a relatively poor return on my time investment. Thankfully, a new site has made it easier for us regular guys to participate. It’s aptly called InviteShare. Here’s how it works:

How Beta Invites are Distributed
When a startup with a killer moves into a limited beta phase, they delve out a small number of invitations to friends or people who have requested participation online. Each of the people receiving the invitation are granted the ability to invite a few more people. And so on… And so on…

Enter InviteShare
InviteShare’s has formalized (and in essence taken control of) the whole process by creating an exchange for beta invitations. Since the distribution of invites usually proliferates exponentially, if a user who receives an invite simply returns the favor to other InviteShare members, the ball keeps rolling.

My first experience with InviteShare was great. After creating my account I logged in, and, after a bit of fumbling around with the site I arrived at the Streamy.com invite page and gave my last Streamy invite to the next person waiting in the queue. Then, I searched on Mash and requested an invite. Less than 5 minutes later I had an invite in my Inbox from another InviteShare member named Ian. Genius.

Any negatives? One glaring one: This ain’t no 37signals app. InviteShare’s user experience needs an intervention. Applying some sound usability principles would go a long way for InviteShare.

Share This

Comments (9)

Facebook for the iPhone

August 15, 2007 at 10:18 am · Filed under Web Applications, Hardware, Usability, Mobile, Social Networking, User Interface, Information Architecture, User Experience

Facebook released a new UI for iPhone users. Customized specifically for the iPhone, the UI is much more intuitive to use than the Facebook mobile UI (m.facebook.com). It also greatly improves the user experience from simply surfing the ‘regular’ Facebook site (www.facebook.com) in Safari on the iPhone.

There are no signs of Facebook Applications created by third party developers being supported at this time, but, I would imagine that Facebook has that on their radar for both Facebook Mobile and the Facebook iPhone UI.

Share This

Comments (3)

SuperDrive Update 2.1 not so super

August 9, 2007 at 11:38 am · Filed under Usability, Hardware, Applications, User Interface, User Experience

Since I downloaded SuperDrive Update 2.1 and ran it (on my MacBook Pro), whenever I restart my Mac, it still launches, telling me there are no devices requiring the firmware update. I know this, because I already updated it!

What the SuperDrive update doesn’t let me know is how to stop it from opening each time I restart my Mac. So, I hunt and pecked and found the answer. If you’re having the same issue, read on…

Removing SuperDrive Update 2.1 from a Mac’s startup sequence is easy:

1. Go to > System Preferences…
2. Under the System header, click the “Accounts” option
3. Select the “Login Items” tab
4. Select the SuperDrive Update 2.1 Application (so it is highlighted-not the textbox-just click on the name of the application so it is highlighted)
5. Click the ” - ” button to delete the application from your startup sequence
6. Close the Accounts window

That’s it - you should no longer be prompted by the firmware updater at startup.

Share This

Comments (4)

Windows Vista Support: How to open the box

August 9, 2007 at 9:46 am · Filed under Usability, User Experience

For some unknown reason, Windows Vista is reporting that it cannot authorize my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, that my Product Key is already in use. I’m not sure what the root of this is. Regardless, here’s a little support site UX humor.

After clicking through a few screens to try to resolve the problem, Vista took me to the “Windows Vista Solution Center.” On this page, there are several links to articles.

Here’s the one that blew me away: Number four of nine under “Installing and upgrading > Before installing or upgrading” : Opening the Windows Vista box.” I think the new Vista and Office boxes are a pain to open and simply not user friendly. Akin to wrestling with arcane CD packaging. Apparently, I wasn’t alone. But, to have a specific article about it? I clicked on it to see what the support site had to say about opening the box. Sure enough, an article on how to open the box.

It’s a three step processed, outlined in the article complete with pictures. The funniest part: At the top of the article, under the heading “Opening the Windows Vista box”, there is a helpful tips section that readys “Applies to all editions of Windows Vista.” It also includes a handy link to “Which edition of Windows Vista am I using?” So lets back up a bit, set the stage, and play the part of some sorry person who can’t open the box (regardless of how good or bad the packaging is).

1. A purchaser of Windows Vista cannot open the Windows Vista box (not good). They go to Microsoft’s support center to get help.
2. The page lets them know that the article which they are about to read applies to all editions of Windows Vista.
3. Directly below that declaration, even though the article applies to all versions of Vista, is a link to determine which edition of Windows Vista they are using.
4. Clicking on that link takes the already confused user to the support article “Find which edition of Windows Vista you are using.”
5. This page declares that the article “Applies to : Ultimate” below the title and again includes the link to find out which version of Windows Vista you are running (which, as we’ve mentioned, is the page we’re already on). Let’s ignore that for now, and find out what version of Windows Vista we’re running.
6. The article instructs: Just “Open Welcome Center by clicking on the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System Maintenance, and then clicking Welcome Center. The edition of Windows Vista you are running is displayed with your computer details near the top of the window.”

That all sounds great, but our theoretical troubled user hasn’t even opened the box yet, never mind install the operating system. At least there is a “Was this helpful?” link at the bottom of the article.

Share This

Comments

Joost Beta review

April 15, 2007 at 11:28 am · Filed under Usability, Television, Peer-to-Peer, Content, Video, User Interface, Applications, Beta, User Experience

I’ve been using Joost now on and off over several weeks.

A few thoughts:

• Video Quality: VERY good for the Internet. What the Joost team has done with Internet video quality is nothing short of remarkable. That said, it’s not ready for a high def set, however.
• Streaming: Fair to Good. At work I have a better experience than home. My home setup is broadband delivered wireless (Pre N). I experience streaming delays once every few to several minutes that last anywhere between 5 and 20 seconds.
• Usability: Good to Very Good. The user interface works well, but not great. On some of the menus, I have sluggish responses when navigating through lists of channels or shows. UI elements make sense to me for the most part, but I don’t think that the average consumer would understand it as readily.
• Overall Experience: Fair to Good.

In its current incarnation, Joost isn’t for me. Why:

• I want to watch video on a television. I don’t want to watch it on my computer.
• Video quality is important to me. While the quality of video is impressive for the Internet, the quality I’m looking for is better.
• The social networking aspects aren’t all that compelling at this time.
• Performance matters. Whenever the service stops to buffer video, the content consumption experience is abruptly interrupted.
• Dynamically inserted commercials (in the middle of viewing video content—not the bookend static ads that previously existed) are implemented poorly, derailing the consumption of content without warning. They also make it feel like… well… watching television.

Does Joost have promise? Absolutely. Why:

• Bandwidth and video compression technologies are improving rapidly.
• Whether it is a scramble to try to understand the streaming landscape and not miss the boat entirely, or, because they know more about Joost than we do, several premium content providers have announced content provision via Joost. Desirable content will bring advertising, and advertising revenue will enable continued improvements.
• If the service takes off, it will naturally be brought into the living room.

What else could propel Joost forward?

• A feature that is new and innovative; something that simply doesn’t exist right now at all which would allow a very different take on the way that users interact with video. For example, what if transcripts of all the video that Joost offered was indexed allowing more advanced ways of finding content and consuming it.
• A well thought out partnership. While the UI isn’t as polished as one coming out of Cupertino, it certainly feels Apple-esque. What if Joost was another option on the Apple TV interface? Joost would make it to the living room, and Apple TV owners would have access to FREE content.
• Killer content. What if Joost delivered new movie releases two weeks prior to DVD releases?

I’ll keep watching Joost, but that ‘watching’ will likely be in terms of reading the press to see what is happening as opposed to firing up Joost to watch video on my computer. I won’t be surprised, however, if next year I’m watching Joost in my living room and experiencing content in a whole new way.

Note: I’m currently viewing Joost on a MacBook Pro with 2GB of ram, utilizing the current version of the Joost client (0.9.2). At the time of writing this I have zero invites to give out.

Share This

Comments