Materials science and the future of publishing
Archive for July, 2010
More ideas on iPad design
Jul 29th
Which is harder, designing for the iPad or having your app approved?
- Time Inc. Frustrated by Apple Over iPad Subscription Issue – Apple rejects Sports Illustrated app that would allow in-app subscriptions. Whaaat?
- An In-Depth Look at How People Are Using the iPad – The biggest category that has been affected by the iPad is that of standalone e-readers.
- Derek Powazek – Thoughts on Designing for iPad – From the article: ”Design language [is] still emerging. We’ve had 15 years to figure out a visual language for the web, and it’s still evolving. The iPad has a few conventions, but they’ll look as silly in a year or two as the candy-colored iMacs look now.”
- More Touchscreen Innovation: ABC News for iPad Launches – Another example of user interface madness spawned by the iPad.
- Newsweek for iPad – How NOT To Do a Digital Magazine – Author’s summary: “It’s crap – don’t waste your time.”
Kindle: Device or platform?
Jul 29th
Maybe the Kindle isn’t going anywhere?
- New Amazon Kindle announced: $139 WiFi-only version and $189 3G model available August 27th in the US and UK – Amazon looks like it is pursuing a twofold strategy:
1) Make the Kindle platform ubiquitous on all devices
2) Dominate the eInk dedicated reader niche market - Why the iPad Hasn’t Killed Kindle – Dan Lyons (of Fake Steve Jobs fame) argues that the Kindle device (as well as the platform) is actually here to stay.
Why intelligent people fail
A list by Michael Anissimov (via Matt Mullenweg).
How many apply to you? I counted four…
Traffic estimators don’t work (well)
Jul 20th
The social news website Reddit has a post “Experts” misunderestimate our traffic, and we dont know why that documents how traffic estimator sites like Compete.com, Quantcast, and Alexa don’t work very well. They compared their own server log data and Google Analytics data to the estimates provided by these other sites.
These traffic estimating tools use their own voodoo to generate numbers so advertisers can compare sites without having access to the actual traffic numbers. The problem is, they’re skewed (and as the Reddit post documents, inaccurate).
For example, Alexa samples users who installed the Alexa toolbar, considered by Symantec and McAfee to be spyware. Do you want to rely on data generated by the kinds of users who would install BonziBuddy?
If you want real usage, you need the server logs. If you can sacrifice some accuracy (resulting from Javascript and privacy blockers), use Google Analytics. If you want a guess, take your pick.
Sudden impact?
Jul 1st
Acta Crystallographica – Section A came out of nowhere to knock the New England Journal of Medicine out of the #2 overall spot in this year’s 2009 ISI Impact Factors. How in the heck? More >
1099-0488/asset/cover.gif?v=1&s=8d2ea1baa63a6897c48d0101eba1465dd14e8017 "The Journal of Polymer Science: Polymer Physics will be the main forum for the international polymer physics community.")