Link | Ulysse Sabbagh

And the old design we tested didn’t work very well on a 10-inch Netbook. A single story might not even fit on the viewport. Not to mention, many people who access the website every day only use Facebook through their PC—no mobile phones or tablets. Scrolling by clicking or dragging the browser scrollbar is still commonly done because not everyone has trackpads or scroll wheels. If more scrolling is required because every story is taller, or navigation requires greater mouse movement because it’s further away, then the site becomes harder to use. These people may not be early adopters or use the same hardware we do, but the quality of their experience matters just as much.

Julie Zhuo, product designer at Facebook, replies to Dustin Curtis.

Mar 19, 2014 ∞

WhatsApp is Different

Here are charts on the exceptionality of Whatsapp, by Om Malik.

Feb 22, 2014 ∞

Five Hard Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Starting Up

Ryan Hoover for some pragmatic, necessary questions you need to ask yourself before starting up. The most important one, for me, is passion. Would like to do what you’re doing for the next five years?

Jan 9, 2014 ∞

We’d all be better off with our health records on Facebook

There is no unified, single patient record—every doctor I’ve ever visited has his or her own separate copy of my records. And in an age where we can conduct banking transactions on my smartphone, many patients still can’t access or contribute to the medical records their doctors keep for them.$

Controversial but not baseless. Should a private company solve this problem?

Dec 15, 2013 ∞

Amazon Drones: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

The naysayers were out in force. “Even if the Feds Let Them Fly, Amazon’s Delivery Drones Are Still Nonsense,” bleated Wired‘s Marcus Wohlsen. Dan Lyons reacted to the piece with a condemnation of “the credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes,” again complaining that drone deliveries are “years away.” The Guardian‘s James Bell dismissed it as “little more than a publicity stunt,” and added: “what happens when next door’s kid decides to shoot the drone with his BB rifle?” And Slate called it “hot air” and compared it to an April Fool’s joke.

What is wrong with these people? Do they moonlight as stock analysts who only care about the next quarter’s results? Do they have no vision at all? Do they not care about anything unless it will directly interact with them tomorrow, or at the absolute latest, next year? They’re the same ilk who, I’m sure, claimed that credit cards would never work, that merchants would never adopt them, that people would not use them, that fraud would make their use untenable.

I fully agree with Jon Evans. People say it won’t happen. But can you now imagine a world where this kind of stuff does not exist? I’m not sure. It looks like it’s bound to happen. “Is it bad?” is the correct question, not “will it happen?”

Dec 13, 2013 ∞

Product Hunt

Product Hunt is a project by Ryan Hoover and Nathan Bashaw. It’s a HackerNews-like feed of new products. It currently does not accept submissions nor comments in order to to keep quality high. And it’s high. Highly recommended if you’re into product design.

Dec 11, 2013 ∞

News: Mobile Trends to Keep In Mind

A compilation by Frédéric Filloux for Monday Note. Very interesting.

Nov 21, 2013 ∞

Was Snapchat right in refusing the $3 billion offer from Facebook?

Michael Carney writing for PandoDaily:

The answer boils down to your belief about whether the company can defy the odds and stay hot within the notoriously fickly teen and young adult demographic. Because that’s what this valuation is all about: teens. Facebook is losing its grip on young social users; SnapChat has them in spades.

What will Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy come up with to make teens stick to the service? How will they monetise?

The real problem here is that if teens just change their mind about Snapchat, or suddenly find Facebook attractive again, the trend will fade away. There needs to be constant innovation in terms of stickiness (making people want to use the app and especially come back) and the Snapchat team should not be resting on the sight of exponential user growth.

Jul 22, 2013 ∞

Taking emotions at face value

Remember when you read about this fascinating study in which it was explained that all humans could universally recognise 6 different emotions, such as disgust and happiness?

Well, the study was not so well conducted.

May 3, 2013 ∞

Everything you need to know about sleep but were afraid to ask

We spend one third of our lives sleeping, it’s crucial for muscle recovery, fact retention and preparing the body to operate at full speed the next day, sleep is one of the most important things when it comes to day-to-day happiness. From students studying late into the night reducing the amount of information they retain to athletes sleeping in warm and loud environments missing out on crucial muscle and immune system recovery.

Follow the link, as there is more.

Mar 17, 2013 ∞

Scotty

Wirelessly transfers iPad, iPhone and iPod touch photos and videos to your Mac or to another iOS device.

Nifty little app.

Feb 22, 2013 ∞

Where have all the scientific geniuses gone?

Do you sometimes think that we’ll never see a new Einstein or Newton? You might be right:

Today, according to Simonton, there just isn’t room to create new disciplines or overthrow the old ones. “It is difficult to imagine that scientists have overlooked some phenomenon worthy of its own discipline,” he writes. Furthermore, most scientific fields aren’t in the type of crisis that would enable paradigm shifts, according to Thomas Kuhn’s classic view of scientific revolutions. Simonton argues that instead of finding big new ideas, scientists currently work on the details in increasingly specialized and precise ways.

And to some extent, this argument is demonstrably correct. Science is becoming more and more specialized. The largest scientific fields are currently being split into smaller sub-disciplines: microbiology, astrophysics, neuroscience, and paleogeography, to name a few. Furthermore, researchers have more tools and the knowledge to hone in on increasingly precise issues and questions than they did a century—or even a decade—ago.

Feb 12, 2013 ∞

Two scientists are using the NYT, Wikipedia and more to predict the future

Software v. humans:

For example, they examined the way that news about natural disasters like storms and droughts could be used to predict cholera outbreaks in Angola. Following those weather events, “alerts about a downstream risk of cholera could have been issued nearly a year in advance,” they write.

Horvitz and Radinsky acknowledge that epidemiologists look at some of the same relationships, but “such studies are typically few in number, employ heuristic assessments, and are frequently retrospective analyses, rather than aimed at generating predictions for guiding near-term action.”

Feb 8, 2013 ∞

Even without a government ban, game consoles won't fly in China

Even without a government ban, game consoles won’t fly in China

A rumor based report, published last week in China Daily, revealed that the Chinese government might lift its ban on video game consoles. Apparently, machines built by Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo can’t be bought in China.

This appears to be untrue, according to some investigation led by the good folks at Wired:

But those with knowledge of the Chinese game market told Wired that they believe the ban will remain in place, and that little would change in China even if it were lifted, in part because the ban is largely ignored.

“I’ve stood in a bank lobby [in China] where the promotion for opening a new checking account is a new Wii,” said Lisa Hanson, founder of Niko Partners, a market research firm focused on the Asian game sector. “Not even banks know that this is illegal.

Nov 28, 2012 ∞

Creativity guidebook by Google

On another Google-related note, here is the place where they showcase how companies use Google to build efficient marketing campaigns.