Dollars for Services

Tim Bray laments the fact that IBM made $46 billion dollars selling services and $96 billion selling products. I think he sees this as a failure to produce easy to implement systems.

Perhaps it is my services providing bias, but this makes sense to me. The challenges developing and implementing good technology solutions are more often human than technological. Finding out how people use and could potentially use information systems should be the focus of IT development. If this means resources need to spent on it, spend. Users will be better served.

The Ultimate Reduction Usability Test

Here is a series of before and after images showing one person's (Philipp Lenssen) perfect versions of some well known websites.

15 things you can do with RSS

15 things you can do with RSS (it was supposed to be 10, but I got carried away) - Tim Yang's Geek Blog

More great examples of RSS in action. Why is this interesting? I appreciate any tool that makes it easier to filter out needed information. With an overwhelming amount of data accessible, the signal to noise ratio becomes very important. RSS through my aggregator allows me to scan and evaluate a lot of information quickly without loading and browsing web pages.

Coming soon - the best RSS feeds around.

Podcasting

If you haven't heard the term already, get ready. "Podcasting" is an amalgam of the term broadcasting and iPod, Apple's extremely successful portable music player. Podcasting involves creating Internet broadcasts (small aural segments typically in MP3 format) that other users can download and play at their convenience. Akin to time-shift recording of a TV program with a PVR (Personal Video Recorder, the Canadian equivalent to TiVo) for playback later, podcasting is a delivery channel that puts control in the ears of listeners, allowing them to play back the broadcasts on their time, at their convenience, from any location they want to take their MP3 player.

Contrary to the name, you do not need an Applie iPod to play podcasts. Any MP3 player will work for podcast audio fies in MP3 format. However, expect that video formats will also be podcast in the not-to-distant future -- if it isn't happening already.

Perhaps given my 30-something age -- and my lifestyle which involves single parenting -- I am not as tied to my iPod as some of the younger single friends that I know. Nevertheless, having owned an iPod for some time now, I love the convenience of portable music and carrying the bulk of my music collection in one small lightweight appliance. Recognizing that I often miss parts of the morning radio show on my drive into work, the idea of being able to play back my local Ottawa morning program (or from New York, Paris, or Hong Kong) on my schedule, at my convenience, at any location I choose, certainly strikes an appealing chord.

Podcasts aren't just limited to personal music lists and radio programs. Podcasts of all topics and sorts are popping up. The CBC has a podcast pilot project happening including podcasts of its popular Quirks & Quarks. In theory -- and knowing the Internet, likely in reality too -- podcasts can exist on any subject matter of interest -- indiviudal users' music, an accountant's tax advice, a professor's lectures, a radio or TV station's programming, whatever. Given the nature of the Internet, expect to see a broad range of podcast content to meet your interests, no matter how common or unusual.

Whether it's meeting a market need or simply an extension of the self and our inclination towards self-promotion, podcasting is obviously an extension of the success of blogging and the "everyone's-a-publisher-on-the-Internet" phenomenon. By allowing ourselves the opportunity to create, compile, and share a piece of ourselves -- our thoughts, music, interests, and preferences -- perhaps we feel that we are informing, if not educating, the world about us. Of course, expect a rush of enterprising individuals to find ways to capitalize on the craze.

Podcast future watch: Watch for web sites and new podcasting technology based around vertical listening, allowing users to choose collections of podcasts on like topics, whether it be literature, music, pop culture, taxes, technology, or more nefarious subject matter.

The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work

I came across the phrase "The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work" italicized in a recent Tim Bray Ongoing post. Although the topic of the post was not too relevant to my work, I appreciated the concept that some solutions can be perfect and unusable. I liked the phrase itself so of course I googled it. It turns out it is associated with the Extreme Programming movement. A quick search on Wikipedia and I'm exposed to an interesting approach to solving problems with technology.

I had a professor at Library School that would often say The best is the enemy of the good. Looking back on various information management projects it is clear that the simplest solutions, even when some functionality is sacrificed, are the best. I have seen many more projects fail by making them overly complex than by adding more features and functions "just in case".