Utility Ambiguity

I was thinking about this (again) the other day and thinking on it makes me want to slap every designer that worked on the One Laptop Per Child project. Granted, the technology might not have been as readily available… but, inventing a language of shapes and icons which is interacted with between a tiny screen with an incomplete keyboard pretty much says “Hi. Welcome to the past.”

viafrank:

I get excited when I see new tools that I have no idea how to use. I get this deep, gut sense that they are somehow useful. I think we’re going to see more and more powerful new tools, device, sites and ways to interact that don’t have a clear value proposition. They can’t say “this is important because it lets you do this.”

It’s why Twitter is so different from Facebook. The value proposition of Facebook is clear: stay in contact with friends and share with them. But what do you use Twitter for? No one knows, because there’s no right way to use it. It’s why it fascinates some, and beguiles others. Twitter can’t even craft a clear value proposition on their homepage to say what the site is for. If you are someone who needs convincing, that’s frustrating, because everyone is talking about Twitter. If you are observant, it’s a sign that something big is happening. It’s not a hammer with one specific use. It’s not even a swiss army knife that can do many different things. It’s more akin to two pieces of stone, from which you can make your own tool: arrowhead or hand axe.

And what of the iPad? What do you do with it? “Isn’t it just a big iPhone? It doesn’t have Flash!” I don’t care. I look at it and all I see is potential. Essentially, a big, touch-sensitive blank slate. What’s it for? It’s hard to give a keynote on something that’s value is based on the fact that it’s a device that can go almost anywhere and do almost anything. How do you sell something that can be a medical device for doctors but also a gaming platform for bored tweens? A kiosk display unit for a sales person or an educational device for a fifth grader?

What do we use this stuff for? It’s hard to get excited about new platforms because their value is ambiguous. Twitter is about making the zeitgeist accessible through a platform. It captures and makes accessible the defining spirit or mood of not just an era, but of February 1, 2010. (Apparently, this is a sullen Monday morning, because lots of users are wanting to contemplate the “worst feeling ever.”)

What’s the iPad for? Well, right now I reckon it’s for media consumption, games, and simple computing (note, not basic computing). But the value of it won’t be determined until third parties grab a hold of it and harness its potential to make a clearer value proposition to users.

You can sense the issue with how Apple sells the iPhone. Yes, it’s a phone, but it does all this other stuff you can’t even imagine. Apple’s commercials for the iPhone literally have to tell us how to use it so we can grasp the immensity of it’s potential. Get ready for a similar campaign for the iPad, but prepare to be surprised. Even the tech-geeks are getting future-shock by how the utility of the device is amorphous. (Or maybe it is just as bad as everyone says it is and this platform is a plank.)

Regardless, it feels like an important shift that the two cultural markers of early 2010 aren’t products, but platforms. Clear-cut utility won’t ever completely go away, but I think that more and more, I’ll place value on products and sites and ideas by how excited I am to participate with and contribute to them.

Initially, it’s hard for a consumer’s mind to understand the value of the platform. But, it’s easy for the maker to perceive that value. In fact, the platform’s worth depends on it. It some how seems right that the early value of a platform is completely dependent on the imagination.

So, here we are. We’ve two rocks. Make your own tool. It’s what made us human to begin with.

1 month ago  /  47 notes

Lea Michelle of Glee at the 2010 Grammy Awards.

wow. yeah. she’s good at being nerdy.

itsamazing:

Drop dead gorgeous!

1 month ago  /  15 notes

My Celebrity Dopplegangers AREOscarWilde

• Oscare Wilde
• Jon Bon Jovi
• Carrie Fisher
• Al Pacino
• Joe Perry
• Anne McCaffrey
• Hal Sparks
• Klan Egan
• Alex Yoong
• Paul Walker

In middle school and at the start of high school, when Hal Sparks still hosted Talk Soup, people told me I looked like him and the guy who hosted Talk Soup before him. Otherwise, I’ve never considered any of the others.

1 month ago  /  1 note