Just so I can be one of the cool kids and so that I can keep up some sort of blogging, I have set up a Tumblelog for those quotes, snippets and images I come across.

For those who’ve never heard of a tumblelog, a tumblelog is a mini blog. Small snippets, no comments. More like a scrapbook rather than a journal.

So why not tumble on “over”:http://tumble.interfacelounge.net/…

Having studied a few languages (German, Mandarin and Japanese for those interested), I’ve had my fair share of flash cards. While I don’t think it is always an ideal way of learning, it does have it benefits. There are a number of tools and sites out there that allow flash card testing. Quizlet does this but very well with an amazing amount of polish. Solid UI, good usability, support for UTF-8 and lots of great little touches. The UTF-8 cards allow quizzing in non-western characters which is great for Japanese and Chinese.

I’ve had a very similar idea running around my head for a while now. Kudos to the developer for making it happen.

The added social benefit in the site are a real strength. Sharing your quizes, seeing the most incorrect questions and groups around a topic of interest. Naturally I had to join the Japanese language group.

One thing caught me as something great that is very overlooked in most web applications (especially social software). Print support. The site has some of the best support I have seen. Not an after though like most but something beneficial. Foldable print designs with dotted lines for cutting out and clear concise instructions on how to use.

Very impressive. Congratulations to Andrew Sutherland for an impressive job. Time for me to brush the cob webs off my Japanese vocab and get working on “JLPT”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JLPT Level 3!

A smart move. Nikon got a great example of the use of the camera. The photographers got a new camera. The community on flickr got the benefit of the visibility and the blogs got to spread the “viral message”:http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/06/use-case-how-companies-can-use-photosharing-correctly/.

The use of flickr was certainly a good move. It was very easy to identify the photographers who would be suitable both from the images they produce, the friends they have and the micro communities that they belong to on the site. While the Nikon campaign site uses flash (simply and effectively), it does manage to embrace flickr by providing links back to the photographers profiles. The whole current web 2.0 meme of remixing sites, although not used to its full extent is integrated.

Back to the Canon competition, the opportunity to use a mature site such as flickr that is open would have been better in so many ways. The users, the community, the CGM, the mature photo tools (tags, comments, notes, etc) and even a relationship with Yahoo/Flickr (cross promotion anyone?). As it is all API based, it could be pulled out into a site that is branded like the competition but has all the rich functionality provided by flickr. If done right it could have avoided some of the issues that I mentioned in the “last post”:http://interfacelounge.net/2006/10/05/snap-snap-crash/

To the credit of Nikon, they were ahead of the curve for the competition. As far as I am aware they are the first to do something like this. Smart, fresh thinking. I’m looking forward to seeing more ideas like this (and even more, building these sort of things at “syndeo::media”:http://syndeomedia.com)

On initial inspection, a reasonable looking site, with fair bit of gratuitous flash. “Hyro”:http://www.hyro.com/ and “Leo Burnett”:http://www.leoburnett.com.au/ managed to get their names snuck in the footer as developer and designer. If I was them I probably would be removing any association with the site.

My bemusement started when I registered an account. It errored half way through the process and still managed to get an email and an account but only having completed half my details. According to the Terms of Service many of the details I missed are required for winning the prize.

After finding the profile page and adding what was missing, I tried to upload a photo. While it worked reasonably, and even offered a progress meter for the upload, it looks as though someone was not doing any decent testing as the progress bar increased horizontally (which would be normal) but also vertically (which basically pushed the whole page downward).

The footer made me cringe… _”Site optimised for Internet Explorer version 4 and above”_. The html code didn’t do too much either to make me feel better, some bright spark still thinks tables are used for laying out content. What happened to web standards?

Yesterday was meant to be the launch for the viewing and voting on the submitted entries. That didn’t happen and come this morning the first indications that the gallery was about to be released started appearing… in the form of .NET application errors. Not exactly a great start but after the errors were fixed, what was left was a fairly average looking gallery without the ability to view the details of the submissions (and I would assume vote).

From looking at the number of photos it would appear that they have seen a good response (which could explain the downtime). Lots of pages of photos (roughly 2000 photos on a quick check) but no way to search properly. Yes, they have a search feature but for me did not return anything I searched for, so I had to browse through 250 odd pages to see if I could find my entry (I still haven’t found it yet!)

So a rather bumpy ride in trying to launch what appears to be a fairly simple web application. What amazes me is that they haven’t even considered making something that is engaging and that creates conversation.

What would be a perfect use for a blog to keep people updated is a missed opportunity. Presenting a personal face to keep everyone informed about the downtime or bugs would have worked to their benefit. We are all human (yes, even big multinational corporations and agencies) we make mistakes, admitting to it can work in postive ways.

The site is a very impersonal, part brouchure, part gallery with no real care for the user (I won’t even start on poor usability). Ironic, seeing that the users are the core of the site and also the purchasers of the cameras. I guess social web applications are slow to catch on over here in Australia (or perhaps a lack of vision in agency land). The benefits to brand experience in letting your members communicate is huge. Theres a handful of great photo sharing site out there that could have been used as a model, why not use what works with “Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com. Let the members be the experts, let them post the tips. Let them comment on how to use their great new Canon camera or even let the winners give feedback on their experience with the new camera. So many options for to engage in a conversation.

From the “cluetrain”:http://www.cluetrain.com/:

Markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can’t be faked.

Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

Can you tell I am a little bored of cookie cutter websites with no thought for the user or their voice? I’m certainly ranting over the poor launch and yes, I’m a little ahead of the curve in “pushing”:http://www.syndeomedia.com/ the social internet but for a site that is carried by user generated content, it is virtually a ghost town for any real human communication. Come on Canon, do us a favour and start a conversation!

It was getting to the point where it was getting a little embarassing having the default old wordpress theme around. Although nothing innovative coming from me on the design front (I have just installed the lovely “Hemingway”:http://warpspire.com/hemingway/hemingway-for-wordpress), its a good change. There is even a nifty flickr feed, showing my latest photos.

For those of you observant I have a little “About” section now and for those with even keener eyes I am now no longer working at Pandora Squared. I’ve decided to move on from the old company and continue in a similar direction with the new “Syndeo Media”:http://www.syndeomedia.com/. Busy times getting the new company started, we haven’t even got a new blog running over there but fun times none the less.

I have been posting mostly over at Pandora Squared but looking to start things up again and do some person blogging. Time to find a nice little rails web host and look at putting up a new blog soon.

Since the last post, Malaysia.net, Indonesia.net, Singapore.net and Tamil.net have been launched, along with the sites and blogs for Zed Tycho and Gooru. Things are really moving along at a rapid pace. Stay tuned for sneak previews of the great features of Gooru soon.

Just to make life even more busy I found the time to get addicted to the buzz that has been going around about Ruby on Rails - the ducks nuts for quickly building web2.0 applications. I’m my rare idle moments I’ve been sitting down and learning the language & framework. Fantastic stuff for things like Ajax and Web Services. I’ve been toying with the idea of using it for rapid prototyping of Gooru as a fast way of demonstrating the UI.

I finally took the plunge and picked up a iPod. A nice multicoloured cube arrived by courier this morning containing a nice 60Gb iPod Photo. My old 40Gb player (a Neuros) was just feeling a little too clunky - a bit too big and a rather average UI. Now to get my head around iTunes, fit as much of my music as I can (currently around 70Gb) and find a way to convert a bunch of OGGs over to MP3 without too much pain.

To add to that, as a suprise my father picked up a Mac Mini for my Birthday on the weekend. Pretty unexpected. I had been discussing the little Mac with him for his own use but I had not expected one to be presented to me. Oh well suprises abound. I’ve now started looking at ways to move over my typical workflow and since I am finding my workflow becoming simpler and more refined it might be easier than expected.

I’m liking the whole small Computer things thats going on at the moment. The Mac sits quite happily on top of my ‘little’ PC (which now looks quite obese) and the iPod finishes the whole stack off.

Well… lots of toys to keep me busy. I was planning on re-skinning the blog and posting some thoughts on social software but looks like I will be sorting these out in the sort term.

Since not much was happening with the old frame work I have decided to ‘retire’ it and rollover to a new fresh blog package. Things might be a bit rough for the short term but bare with me as I clear out the cobwebs and put on a fresh coat of paint.

Stay tuned… do not adjust your set.