We are in the midst of some heavy riffing on what makes for a good digital app here at F/F, and have noticed that many of our favourite apps fall into what we are calling the 3S formula:

Simple + Social = Successful

A highlight app on heavy rotation across mobile and tablet at the moment is photo sharing app Instagram. It exemplifies the 3S formula perfectly.

Simple: Take photo, apply filter, share. View photos from other and Like.

Social: API connectivity to your existing social accounts (twitter, Facebook, Flickr etc). Internal user follows and easy activity streams/notifications.

Successful: In the case of Instagram, it has recognised that content, not connections is the primary currency. Users come together through mutual content appreciation as well as existing connections.

I only have one personal experience of content bringing two people together as users in say Facebook (excluding people joining a page). In Instagram it’s a given much like Twitter that if you post interesting images you will attract followers, likewise if you see interesting content you will follow.

Flickr before it managed this social connectivity by content appreciation well as a website, but their app has never quite delivered for me – so much so that Instagram is my workflow tool for day to day photo saving to my Flickr account.

This is where the Simple factor is such a fine balance and increasingly we are finding an attraction to the most controlled and refined in terms of number of tasks the app performs.

Better 3 or 4 focused apps for individual tasks than a one stop does all – especially with the limited real-estate of the smallest mobile and touch devices.

As is said in these parts Keep It Simple Idiot.

Our top 5 3S apps will follow soon.

As we sit at the dawn of finger based interaction vs the old mouse method, I’m looking at how to best establish the differences this interactive method causes to the user experience?

One question that initially came up was if using your finger is in some way similar to what users who use a graphics tablet rather than a mouse experience on a standard desktop machine.

One exception being the difference in feedback between smart touch devices and a standard computer OS in that there isn’t really a hover state for the touch device as you are either taped on or not, ie you have clicked or you haven’t.

Note there is in some cases hover activity as if you move you finger away from say a button before releasing then you don’t actually activate that trigger and you will have seen the hover state. Having experimented with this behavior it is interesting that this isn’t intuitive in the way hover with the mouse pointer is – with our finger we click and release instinctively, we almost don’t expect a hover or intermediate piece of feedback to occur. We just tap around until we find the buttons/trigger so to speak.

Well hope to have more in depth notes to share on this subject over the coming days and weeks.

Posted via web from ThinkingOutLoud™

However we will go into what we think about the device so far in some depth in another post – here we want to look at some general observations about content and specifically eMags like Time, GQ and Popular Science.

In short the big thing we noted very early on is there are a few commonalities in usability and interaction like left right finger scrolling to move through articles at a first page and ad level and then vertical (top to bottom) scrolling to read through the actual article. This seems to have been adopted widely and for all of us is familiar from the early Wire videos we saw. However beyond this things get a little messy in that, each mag has it’s own take on deeper interactions – like scrubbing through thumbnails, launching embedded media or launching to a website.

This is interesting for the user as switching from eMag to eMag or between eReaders for your eBooks and then back again involves learning and remembering a number of subtle interaction models for each title or platform. This is a major difference between real print titles and their eVersions. In print we pretty much get to read from front to back or from back to front, a page is a page it’s there in front of us to read or scan.

Now things have got a whole lot more interesting in terms of content layers, relating embedded media and creating a very immersive experience, but they have also got more complicated – how to interact with each and everyone of these experience has it’s own unique twists.

Beyond the interaction itself there is another area of usability that is already creating problems – the design elements themselves. In our experiences so far most titles we have tried have used graphic devices from their print cousins that become misleading in the eVersion. Certain shapes and devices can give the user the impression they are buttons. Round shapes, outlines with rounded corners even some ratings devices have lulled us into tapping with the finger thinking we will see more content, an overlay or another image. Obviously you learn quickly but at the moment we only have hand full of eMags to compare what when we have access to the whole newsstand – again there aren’t really shared conventions for this stuff – in print this has never been an issue, you just look decipher and consume you don’t interact.

Much of this can be explained by the main difference in interaction between our touch devices and our computers – the lack of a rollover or mouse overstate, it’s a touch device not a hover device, so we don’t get intermediate feedback, we can’t test for interaction once we touch the device will do something on release or it won’t, but you don’t really wave your finger around over things like you do the mouse. It’s not say you can’t but it doesn’t feel intuitive to do this. (note this has in the past day been highlighted as one very valid reason why Flash and this device aren’t compatible at this stage – most Flash video players have playback controls that are revealed on hover, these would just not be there if browsing this content on an iPhone OS device – the user would have the impression it was broken. On this count alone Apples decision makes a lot of sense*.)

But in summary it is still early days, some content apps feels they may have been a little rushed to market, but on the whole it’s a really exciting way to consume content we are used to in print – it certainly questions wether a magazine needs a traditional website anymore – could the not just embed the UGC, and extended news content into these new eMags.

Also the opportunities for advertising are also very interesting and in the these early stages are clearly being missed – we haven’t seen anything yet that is engaging at a tactile level, just embedding a video or overlaying some web content is barely the beginning – even the iAd platform seems to rely on the idea of putting the old school micro-site into the ad rather than making the ad itself interesting in a way that is unique to the qualities of a touch device. More opinion on this to come.

Finally our biggest observation is how quickly this moves from a nice personal intimate entertainment device to something you pass around the group like you would a print mag, likewise when you are gaming it’s so easy to share, take turns, and it moves easily from my device to our device.

For anyone doubting that this is not just computing, well it isn’t this is a new device it’s not a smart phone and it’s not a computer it’s not even as Apple say ‘something in between’ it is so much more.

* read more here regarding on Flash on the iPad

Creative review articulate some of the views on tablets and the future of magazines we’ve been discussing at Function/Form since the arrival of the iPhone and the future of tablet/touch devices.

True Northern Class!

Posted via web from tony’s posterous

Nice use of Google Maps and apps like CASA’s Image Map.

Posted via web from tony’s posterous

I find from time to time that standing on your head really is the best way to get a new perspective on things. I remember at school when I did my first self portrait that we were advised to look at our drawing upside down as it was easier to spot where the drawing wasn’t working.

Well so it is with the age old approach to media and advertising strategies. Not only does looking at these things upside down highlight some problems in the present multimedia/digital age – it may also provide the basis for the answer.

In general terms for years and years we have delivered emotive but mostly passive messages through traditional advertising streams like Print, Outdoor, TV and Radio. At their very best these messages are engaging and thought provoking – initially hitting an emotion and then staying with you on a deeper level. At their worst they are either pretty, superficial brand implementation or a cheap joke that lasts till the next ‘cheap joke’ gets your attention. Fine in a traditional media approach, executions from the great to poor all have a degree of success or so we think (no real hard metrics to prove either way!!).

In this model the perception of what we need to create and how we create both a strategic plan and spend to achieve this are based on the top down TV & Outdoor + a mix of print and radio + followed some consideration for new digital channels like online and mobile.

‘But if this ever changing world in which we live in‘ is to be embraced then we need to look at things differently. The basic principle of engaging as many of our target audience in an effective and engaging manner is being missed if we follow the traditional model – principally because the figures tell us TV and magazines (traditional media) are in decline – while new media is on the up. Further more those who engage with new media are doing so in an interactive not passive model.

So simply ‘turn it on its head’. Flip the model round with 5 easy steps:

1) identify your target audience
2) identify all the non traditional media they engage with
3) build media strategy and spend from the bottom up – you might not even need to make a multi million (insert currency here) TVC
4) develop a message and creative direction that works for an interactive/cross media world
5) deliver & measure

Here’s to handstands.

image by ‘Perfecto Insecto‘

The LMC are a State Government Corporation responsible for managing South Australia’s portfolio of land assets. Their primary aim is to provide social, economic and environmental benefits to all South Australians, by creating, facilitating and developing a range of land-based opportunities.

The Port project site follows up the launch of the main LMC Corporate site earlier in the year.

Find out more about our friends at Nicknack.

Barack Obama’s Presidential transition website Change.gov has put the entire site has been put under a Creative Commons license.

The actualCreative Commons license chosen by Change.gov, the “By” license (one of many options), replaces the default US Copyright of “all rights reserved,” enabling visitors to reuse any of the content from the site as long as they give attribution back to the original source. Standard Copyright is for protecting scarce content but Creative Commons is a legal framework set up to make sharing and reuse as easy as possible.

This Creative Commons license is a favourite of bloggers as many images on the popular Flickr platform use the CC “By”. Any image under the CC “By” can be used commercialy and in derivative works, as long as attribution is given to the original publisher.

To learn more about Creative Commons licenses read here.

Note the Obama team had already introduced OpenID login to the site for all it’s commenters.

It’s true the lack of posts is due to a busy period here at F/F. The lead up to Christmas has seen a few things of interest come our way and 2009 is certainly looking like it will be a rosy time on the work front. In the meantime it’s been pitch docs, costings, timings and continuing creative work…

In general news our work on the Pioneer Australia website, has been recognised for an Outstanding Achievment Award by the Interactive Media Awards. F/F were invited to Art Direct the project by Flash Group where we worked alongside the digital team that included Paul Wilson now of White Labelled.

We are also beginning to look into the start up of a collaborative studio space in Melbourne, bringing together some of our favourite collaborators under one roof, in a space we hope will be a little more than just another studio space – stay tuned for news.

The actual list was compiled by Information Aesthetics a great resource for all you info graphic junkies out there.

Our personal favourite on the night was the simple NYTimes dashboard that gave feedback and updates. We also enjoyed there full-scale map, of interest is the view where you get to see voting shifts between Democrat and Republican compared to the ’04 election. That map seems to be very Blue.

Finally back into the swing after the end of year jaunt to the other side of the globe. While we have been away election fever in the US has been hotting up, as the world sits on the edge of it’s collective seat waiting to see if American has grown up to be a nation that could elect their first black president.

With this global backdrop the whole issue around Bush serving his allowance of terms and the general importance of the US as a country came up in conversation a number of times. The general thread being how could a nation have elected a dummy time and time again, and isn’t it about time the rest of the world got to have some kind of say in the decision of the next president when that country keeps involving the rest of us in their problems – financial collapses, wars, oil prices etc etc.

So I’m glad to see someone out there is at least giving us the chance to cast out votes – and show what the rest of the world might collectively be thinking – as they are at iftheworldcouldvote.com. Simply put it logs where you are voting from and lets you chose between Obama and McCain, then the results are available broken down by country.

Hopefully this kind of thing will help the average American make up their mind, so we can all start being friends with the USofA again.

For the 125-day event, employees wear pedometers and measure their daily step count. They then enter those steps into an event-specific website to embark on a virtual journey around the world. Used daily by more than 50,000 participants across three continents, F/F were asked by Flash Group to develop the online direction for the 2008 version of the site which incorporated an integrated Flash and Javascript framework.

Built and developed by the in house team at Flash Group the final site presented a great example of seamless technology integration.

We’re very pleased to announce that Adobe have chosen the site as today’s ‘Site Of The Day‘.

A big well done to everyone involved.

They are a young bunch, full of love and great ideas, and F/F are happy to be their friends.

We tellstories, is an impressive experimental project in online story telling. Six stories are being posted online over the course of six weeks, each has a different theme and execution and is based on or inspired by a Penguin Classic.

Week one ‘The 21 Steps’ is a Google Mash Up that takes in cue from the classic ‘The 39 Steps’.
Week two sees a story, ‘Slice’ told through a series of blogs and Twitter entries.

It backs up an already impress list of online launches including amillionpenguins.com (a Wiki novel), Spine Breakers (a book community for teenagers) and Blog a Penguin Classic (blogging and user-reviews for Penguin Classic).

Good to see publishers getting online and embracing digital media in such creative ways.

In ad land the words are pretty much playing the co-lead with the actual creative execution. In brand land it’s pretty much the same again. As a result a great deal of time and craft are applied to these words. Art Directors work along side their wordsmith counterparts – Copywriters. Yet in digital land words are pretty much the last thing to be considered, if they are actually considered at all. It is far to common an occurrence that a ‘copy deck’ is compiled by an account director/producer and or the client in the dying moments of a project.

Yet the words are critical on so many levels. For one the way the actual content of the site is written sets a tone for the brand just as it does for an ad or any other piece of marketing. But more importantly for a user centric space like digital land the words play an essential role in the user interface. It’s fine to put the functionality in the best place with a structured layout and clever hierarchy but if the words on the signposts don’t call out to the user then the experience breaks. Still most digital projects are tackled with a negligent disregard of the words.

It generally starts when costing a job as there is unlikely to be any budget allocation for ‘copywriting’ – it just isn’t considered. With this it is pretty uncommon for digital agencies to even have copywriters in their team (with the exception of the big global networks).

To some extent it seems endemic of a general trend, in communication in a wider sense that users themselves are probably not as critical of these details as they should be. The younger generations have become more adaptable than their forefathers and the odd bad bit of copy here or there on a website will not prove to be the biggest downfall for them.

When pondering this issue I am always reminded of one of my favourite applications of good copy online – the user welcome on Flickr, each visit you are welcomed in a different language. This simple copy device sets a warm welcome to all with every visit real displays the power of well thought out applied copy.

Mingalaba Friends!
Now you know how to greet people in Burmese!

Over at MacDailyNews the big rumour of the day is MacBook Touch by October. Yes this is Apple’s secret product, and it’s all but ready to ship at a low price point to flood the market.

More interesting mock-ups for how the product could look over at Gizmodo. If this has been done well this really should be more than just a gimmick product for sure.

This ‘emarketer’ article has various facts and figures from a few world mobile markets, the first table compares sms to internet use on mobile.

It would seem for now it just isn’t going to happen.

A direct competitor to kyte and Flixwagon, Qik has taken nice steps with it’s service by adding features specifically for groups and events.

The groups features, allow users to select who can upload and view selected clips. Included privacy options are:
public groups – anyone can post tor
restricted groups – anyone can view, but only select users to post
private groups – restricts viewing and uploading to a specified group of users

The events options are essentially a temporary group that is associated to a particular event.

Last week they announced the iPhone to their list of supported devices.

Techcrunch walks you through a nice breakdown of all three services side by side.

Well App Store shows there is at least intrigue in mobile based web/desktop apps. And the support Apple is putting into developing this platform certainly shows they believe mobile browsing is a big part of the future of digital connectivity. On the whole though App Store is still a home for iPhone versions of apps that presently exist as Widgets for Mac or Gadgets for PC, most of which are basically feed readers for a particular type of information – like ‘shares’. But there are some great apps as well and the initial level of game development would suggest this platform is going to be a serious competitor over time for Sony and Nintendo products alike!!

GPS for us offers the real excitement. Obviously the device is a really small laptop with a phone and a camera so great desktop like apps will get developed for it – the key is for developers to tap into the unique nature of this device over any other CPU and that is GPS. This thing is on the move with you and while in contact with the network service it knows where you are and can connect to where millions of other people are. It can feed unique information to a user based on their location, it can personalise the user experience based on that data – this is a genuine first. However there is still quite a way to go.

We already have apps like Loopt and CenceMe that tap into the idea of connecting to your network of friends and seeing what each other is doing in real-time. This type of functionality actually brings the social back to social networks, by bringing the experience and connections to the real world. Heading to a spot in town at the weekend and seeing via your map where all your other iPhone friends are.

Citysense another app that is available for the Blackberry and is coming to the iPhone is another nice early example of bringing real life data to users finger tips. They aggregate massive amounts of anonymous user data so you get a break down of activity in your area – how busy the CBD is to plan your travel. The busiest night spots or restaurants etc etc Though reliant on users being happy to be tracked it is anonymous and over time the useful data that can be captured is interesting.

It is obvious even with these very early and basic GPS based apps that the economic opportunities will be huge and also why the addition of open mobile platforms like Android and LiMo is going to help grow the space very quickly.

Users themselves are already pretty familiar with geo-tagging and now the device enables this to happen automatically, live blogging from the field will open some interesting opportunities in the news and reporting arena – see CNN’s Magic Wall and you start to get an idea of where this can be taken for mainstream news casting – then switch it back to the user and you get personalised interactive news casting to your phone.

This is the start of what we at F/F are coining ‘NextWeb™’.

More info on geo-broadcasting.
More on mobile social networking.

The figures
1 million units sold by about middle of last week
10 million downloads from app store in the first weekend!!
Around 800 applications available for download in the App Store, over 200 of these are free; at launch, there were about 550 apps available.

“It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world,” said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs in a statement.

So all in all a pretty major success for Apple!

The problems
Well releasing a new firmware update barely 2 days after launch threw a few people and it would appear the sheer volume of units pushed inevitably made things tricky for the retailers and there staff but on the whole most articles are reporting positive feedback on the buying experience.

But not everyone is happy of course here are the top 10 reasons to hate the new iPhone. On the whole we feel this is a good article that highlights the main areas where the the new 3G iPhone is a of a let down – though we feel hate is a very strong word!! It would appear that what we are really seeing here for the first time (second with the original iPhone) is Form without function. For years Apple products were the workhorses of the faithful creative industry and therefore function was everything, they weren’t public facing products. Since the original fruity flavoured iMacs, and the march of the iPod revolution things have been moving to a consumer focus for Apple with great success. On the whole however they were competing in areas where they had the lead over their competitors – with the telco market this is somewhat different and although this is more an exercise in creating the first generation of mobile web devices – Apple has many hurdles to jump in needing to placate the telcos themselves. This is why we don’t have instant messaging out of the box, and is possibly a big reason behind no web cam and certainly no forward facing camera – how long would it be before there was a skype hack. It’s a shame because many people want the old telco model to be broken and if every new product innovation that comes along is trapped to their network architecture then we surely stay in the mobile web dark ages, regardless of how well the browser renders!!

The big issue
The price of plans!! The prices from country to country are all over the place and the big issue F/F have is that ignoring the phone aspect of this – what you are really wanting to pay for with this phone is the internet and email capabilities and this is where it sucks. In Australia where broadband is still quite expensive you would think the iPhone plans would reflect broadband packages not other mobile packages – or at least reflect the pricing of Blackberry packages. But no and this is the case in many other countries.

Pricing is also a big issues for overseas business travelers as unlike the Blackberry the methods used to serve emails and documents with attachments seriously lack the needed compression to keep your data transfer to a minimum – this can quickly prove very costly. It would appear that buying your iPhone and getting it unlocked and going pre-paid in which ever country you are in may be the best option for now.

But the bottom line is there are no unlimited data plans and for power users the Blackberry will win out over the 3G iPhone in every market. Because of this the Blackberry is surely likely to remain the phone of choice for big business.

Price revolution
Though a small concession, consumer action across the web has managed to cause a reduction in plans in Canada, showing that with enough voices the consumers can get results. But I fear the sheer hype and demand around this product means most people will just swallow the cost of plans as if this product is so much better that this is just what it costs. Remember for many people this is the first time the will have used such a phone, they won’t have any experience of competitor phones or their associated data plans – and the telcos are obviously fully aware of this.

Thoughts
As it stands no one has an iPhone here at F/F. We really do want one, the apps and the future of mobile web truly starts here but for now the price really does out weigh the need.

Disturbed by the statistic they have taken action with this simple downloadable desktop image produced by DDB Sydney.

Though a very simple and somewhat ‘old school’ device it makes total sense here to hit the users at the heart of the matter, on the device from where all the needless printouts are sent. F/F find it particularly depressing that far from creating a paperless working environment for many electronic communication like email and the internet have just added to pile of things that need to be printed and filed!!

Remember folks BGreen™.