@gordonbowman

The Google Reader Redesign

Google has rolled out a new design to Google Reader. Previously announced, this release primarily includes a new design and Google+ integration. 

My friends and family know that I love Google Reader. Over the years I have curated my RSS feeds carefully into a heirarchy that I like. It's a bit messy but it works for me. I have broken my feeds into folders for the startups, entrepreneurs, VCs, etc. that I like to keep daily tabs on.

The general breakdown is like so:

• Startups
• Entrepreneurs
• Big Tech Companies
• Tech News (Hacker News, Techmeme, PE Hub, etc.)
• Venture Capitalists (Fred Wilson, Ben Horowitz, Mark Suster, etc.)
• Design
• Advertising
• Sales
• Sports 
• Financial news
• Investing/Traders

Essentially I can glance at any folder and get a good snapshot of all the blogs and news that I care about and follow on a regular basis. 

A lot of my reading typically takes place within Google Reader itself. Yes, I'll occasionally click through to look at and engage in the comments or explore other articles. But I like having all of them in one place for quick reading and scanning. Since so much of my reading is done within Google Reader, this redesign was pretty impactful to me. And after playing around with it for a few days, I have to say that I'm dissapointed.

I didn't use the sharing features within Reader all that much (only to push to Twitter really) so I am pretty apathetic to the Google+ integrations. Do I think I'll share more of what I'm reading on Google+ now because of it? Not really. But perhaps it will grow on me. 

My beef is mainly in the visual and UI changes. Now, don't get me wrong. I am all for visual consistency. And I have been really impressed with Google's new design across all of their products, including the new Gmail design. 

However, my sentiments on the Reader redesign echo the feelings of Brian Shih, formerly a project manager for Google Reader. Here's what he had to say on the redesign:

In the name of visual consistency, Google has updated the visual style to match Gmail, Calendar and Docs. I have nothing against visual consistency (and in fact, this something that Google should be doing), but it's as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something.

When you log into Reader, what the hell do you think your primary objective is? Did you answer "stare at a giant header bar with no real estate saved for actual reading"? Congrats, here's your prize:

Shih also does a comparison of old Reader vs. new Reader so we can see the difference side-by-side down to the first subscription (click to enlarge):

As you can see, there is a lot of more room for text and reading in the old design. On laptops and small screens every pixel is important so this space really matters. 

Another more obvious change is the full grey-ing out of Reader. There are now no blue links within titles or posts which leaves a pretty bland, boring reading experience. 

Most importanly, my favorite feature -- the reading pane -- is now gone. It allowed you to hide the subscriptions panel to let you have the full screen for reading. I loved it. 

I am all for the use white space and a clean design. But Reader is a product built to read and read quickly. The old UI wasn't perfect, but it was designed for the primary use case of reading. I hope Google takes more note of this in their next iteration.

Update: I just came across a post by Kevin Fox, a former UX design lead on Google Reader, who has offered his services to restore and enhance Reader while keeping in line with Google's new visual standards. I hope they take him up on it.

How Square was Almost Named Squirrel - Part 2 (with Video)

“One of my passions and one of the things I think I’m really good at is making something really approachable to the point of bringing it around in your pocket.”

  - Jack Dorsey, Co-founder, Twitter; Founder and CEO, Square

In my last post I discussed the importance of naming and branding for a startup, specifically related to Square and how Square was almost named Squirrel. 

Unfortunately there was no video of that interview between Jack Dorsey and Kara Swisher at the Commonwealth Club. Fortunately however, Jack and Kara sat down again for an interview yesterday at the D9 Conference.

My favorite part of the interview is about how Jack demoed Square for the first time to legendary investor Ron Conway and swiped his AmEx black card on the spot. And Conway was immediately able to check his mobile banking statement for a debit to Jack for $500.

Here's the abbreviated video from AllThingsD:

I'll also keep a lookout for the full video and post it here if they make it available.

To me the Commonwealth Club interview was a bit more intimate though so if you have time to spare you should listen to the full podcast here.  

Also: Some Thoughts on the Old Spice campaign

How Square was Almost Named Squirrel

The other night I went to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to see Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Square, speak and accept Inforum's 21st Century Visionary Award. 

Jack sat down with Kara Swisher to talk all things Twitter and Square. The whole interview was informative and inspiring. However, the highlight was the discussion about the origins of Square. To me, one of the most fascinating parts of a founder's story is the first ideation and naming. There is so much that goes into this and it is vitally important. 

Jack relayed that Square was originally named Squirrel. The idea behind it being that the verb form of squirrel, or 'to squirrel', means to store or hide away money -- a fit for their mobile payments service. And their first card reader, instead of the white square, was originally designed to be a wooden acorn. (Another potential name considered was Seashell, since seashells were the first form of human currency.)

The news of the original name Squirrel was known already, however it was revealed for the first time in this interview that the impetus for change actually came about from a lunch at Apple. Apparently Jack was set to have lunch with Apple SVP Scott Forstall when, minutes before the meeting, he saw a point of sale system in the Apple cafe from a company called Squirrel Systems. So he had to change the name and approach. He looked up squirrel in the dictionary and went down the line until he found square and the verb form of square, or 'to square up', which was obviously a great fit. It is hard to imagine Square having the same success that it has without a reader that is so white, minimal and squared off.

Interestingly, apparently this was the same method used to name Twitter. The original name idea for Twitter was 'Twitch' (they were going for the audible sounds your phone makes when you receive texts) and founder Ev Williams pulled out a dictionary, started at twitch, and worked his way down to find Twitter.

It was neat to be in a place where news was breaking and to see it happening in real-time. I relayed the news on Twitter, as did some others under the hashtag #inforumsf. Check it out to see some other interesting tidbits and quotes from the evening.

It's always great to get a glimpse at a founder's first inspiration for an idea. It is clear to me that Jack is one of the greatest entreprenuers of our generation so I feel privileged to have gotten the glimpse straight from him.

Update: Part 2: How Square was Almost Named Squirrel - (with Video)

The End of the Mouse. The Beginning of Touch.

Here's Macworld's first look and review. Essentially, with the Magic Trackpad, you’ll be able to use all the same multi-touch gestures you’re used to on any Macbook, i.e. the two-finger scroll, swipe, rotate, etc.  

My favorite tech blogger right now is MG Siegler of TechCrunch (mainly because of his clever and hilarious headlines). Yesterday MG wrote about the Magic Trackpad and caused quite a stir in the tech world by saying that it signals the end of the mouse era. Then due to controversy on this post, he followed up with further clarification on why he thinks mouse is dead.

Here are some of MG's main points:

"What I am saying is that the Magic Trackpad is the device that is signaling the end of the mouse era. It’s a harbinger, if you will.

I believe that we’re going to start seeing more devices like this (and obviously, not just from Apple) which focus on touch as a way of interacting with desktop machines. But even if we don’t, the desktop machines are slowly fading out as the primary computers in most peoples’ lives. Some people will think that’s absurd, but ask yourself if you already use your notebook or netbook more than your desktop? I know I do. It’s not even close.

That’s exactly what Apple spoke to today with the unveiling of this new peripheral. Most Mac users are now using trackpads as their main point of interaction with their machines. Going forward, this trend is going to continue.

And that’s not even including devices like the iPad and yes, the iPhone, which are also computers. Going forward, tablets and smartphones are also going to be the computing devices that people use much more than desktops.

The mouse is a desktop device. Sure, you can bring a portable one to hook up to your laptop on the go — but just look at young people, kids in college and high school. They don’t do that. The only reason some of us do that is because we’re accustomed to the mouse."

We always have to take what MG says about Apple products with a grain of salt because, well, he is an Apple fanboy after all. However, I agree with MG here that touch will be the main method of input in the future.

Again, back to my earlier post, KP's John Doerr may have said it best when he wrote the issue:

"We’re going from the Old World to a brave New World. From the Old World of the traditional, tired window interfaces… to the wonderful new world of TOUCH. From the Old World of Point and Click to the new SWOOSH of Fluidity."

I, personally, can't wait. Bring on the Minority Report-style computers please.

John Gruber on 'First to Do It' vs. 'First to Do It Right'

FaceTime Will Successfully Bring Video Calling to Mobile and Here's Why

The Next Big Thing Is Touch

I was catching up on some links I've been storing up in Instapaper and came across this article by John Doerr on the iPad and the the expansion of Kleiner Perkins' iFund.    

The whole article is great so I recommend reading it in it's entirety. However, I felt Doerr and team really nailed it with this graphic and section titled under "The New World." It really resonates with my last post about the future of computing being Touch:

The New World

We’re going from the Old World to a brave New World.

• From the Old World of the traditional, tired window interfaces… to the wonderful new world of TOUCH.
• From the Old World of Point and Click to the new SWOOSH of Fluidity.
• Instead of old, artificial, indirect interfaces, the iPad is direct and NATURAL.
• Instead of WYSIWyg – what you see is what you get – it is WYTIWis. What You Touch… IS what IS.
• Instead of holding a MOUSE, you’re holding MAGIC.

The second bullet is my favorite here. With iPad, HP's Slate, Google's upcoming tablet, and other future Android-powered tablets, Touch is entering our worlds in a big way.

Need more evidence on the growing importance of Touch? On a day when Apple updated their Macbook Pro line, typically a very noteworthy announcement, the Apple homepage looked like this:

Great iPad UX Analysis From a 2.5 Year Old

I came across this great video on Laughing Squid of a 2.5 year-old using an iPad for this first time.   

Granted, the author mentions she is already used to an iPhone. Yet with an entirely new form factor she still takes right to it — quickly finding and playing her favorite spelling game, figuring out how to enlarge iPhone-only apps to full-size, navigating from one app to the next, and scrolling through photos (there's a really cute moment when she sees a picture of "her and doggy").

It's just fascinating to me how she interacts with the iPad. She really is one of the new Children of Cyberspace. This first line from that article stuck with me:

"My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader."

Unlike you and I, these children are growing up completely comfortable with multitouch interfaces. As the Laughing Squid author mentions of his daughter: 

"Her expectations about computing will be shaped by the fact that she’s growing up in a touchscreen world."  

And he's right. For these children it will no longer by point-and-click. It will be TOUCH-and-SWIPE.

The iPad Is The First Personal Computer... What You Have Is A Work Computer.