Twitter's Surprising iPhone App UI

Not previously known as a leading designer, Twitter has been on a roll with their latest iPhone app, iPad app, and New Twitter. Here is a good example of why - but with some learnings / advice on how to design features. Twitter has to accommodate for lots of functionality: reply, retweet, search, favorite, quote, etc. You can easily imagine an application overwhelmed with buttons. Twitter solves this by having the core functions available via footer buttons, a "more" ('...') button and a surprising single tweet pane.

I call it surprising because it was not clear to me that this functionality existed... but if you swipe a tweet to the right, a pane appears that allows for quick functions of that tweet: reply, retweet, favorite, email, user info, etc. It is super useful... but is also surprising because I only discovered it accidentally. And this is a complaint I hear a lot from products trying to solve numerous tasks (no matter how elegant the solution may be). A consequence of simplifying complexity is often having to hide functionality... and that itself can lead to confusion.

It is difficult to boil down layers of options into a simple interface. It is equally difficult to make the interface intuitive and the functionality easy to uncover. That's why it's an art!

One other note: I love the small interactions that Twitter layers in... in the second screenshot, notice the small star that appears is uncovered in the upper right corner. That appears when a tweet is favorited.

ESPN's Persistent Score Panel... Very App-like

There's lots of innovation currently around persistant headers, footers, and bars. I wrote about Quora's notification 'panel' last week. You can also check out Apture (which I had been testing), Meebo, Wibya, etc. As with Quora, the 'bar' phenomenon is making its way to the publisher side. And it is being used creatively to deliver key news (ie Quora :: notifications), navigational flows, or promotional content.

Here is another good example.

Months ago, ESPN introduced an interactive score panel (almost like the sports ticker that sits persistently on ESPN's TV channels). When browsing content within in a particular sport / league, ESPN now has the that panel lock atop the screen to provide persistent live scoring. The UI is very slick as the bar is glossy, animates nicely and maneuvers down the pages seamlessly.

Expect to see more and more of this around the web (and mobile). The experience itself is very much like mobile applications... and the web itself is starting to look and interact more like apps.

Here is the NFL score header on ESPN

As you scroll down, the scores panel attaches itself atop the screen and follows

The Social Network Movies Advertising on Facebook with Myspace?

The Social Network movie opens today (Yes: I loved it) and advertisements are appearing across the web. That's not 'newsworthy'... but:

- The ad units themselves look a great deal like Facebook (again: no shock) - And the main ad unit has an "Add to Friends" link (see below):

- when clicked, you arrive at The Social Network's website - ... which strangely lists MySpace, Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons in that order (shouldn't it be Facebook first? perhaps only?)

- If you click the Facebook share button, a lightbox appears to post a MySpace profile announcement for the movie on your Facebook page. And what is with the suggested creative?

Very bizarre... and for a movie dedicated entirely to Facebook - and marketing to Facebook users / fans - you would think this would be better thought through.

Goo.gl Shortens URLs... And Adds QR Codes

By far the most interesting part of Google's new URL shortener (Goo.gl) is that, in addition to a bundle of real-time stats, the URL's Goo.gl page includes a unique QR code. Clearly Google has plans for this to be a major component of Android and a mobile experience. One other short note: The UI needs some assistance. Bit.ly's one click copy, bookmarklet, dynamic refresh, etc make usage so simple. These are small enhancements that Google can / should clearly implement in short order.

See announcement by Google and coverage at TechCrunch

Gilt City's Cleverly Designed iPhone App

Gilt Group has rolled out their new group-buying / coupon site Gilt City to six cities (New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Chicago). With it comes the Gilt City iPhone app. There isn't much to write about about the couponing model as it is very much like others in the space (see Groupon, LivingSocial, Yelp, etc). Over time, we will tell if Gilt Group is able to win share through unique offerings, integration with Gilt Group, etc.

I did want to quickly touch on the application's design... which as you would expect with Gilt Group, is glossy and very visual. The background of each city page is themed respectively. Below, for instance, is Gilt City San Francisco - which has a vivid picture of San Francisco scenery. Big, splashy images are becoming very popular (see my post on About.me) - and, with a relatively straight-forward product offering, it is one way to stand out, localize the experience and stay on Gilt's brand.

And with the emergence of big screen devices like the iPad, it is again a reminder that design and color are play an important role in the experience:

The Social Network: Two Conflicting Reviews

Last night I saw a screening of The Social Network and it lived up to the hype / great reviews (100% on RottenTomatoes.com). The movie was well done, well acted, fun, and actually very inspiring (I think - and hope - that young, potential entrepreneurs will find the journey and teams' drive motivating).

But Newsweek's critique of the movie was different... and more of a critique of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. Using Facebook, Zynga, and Twitter as examples, the article "The sad truth about Facebook" comments on the valley's culture, the chase of wealth ("giant paydays"), and and avoidance of "serious technology challenges":

"The risk is that by focusing an entire generation of bright young entrepreneurs on such silly things, we’ll fall behind in creating the fundamental building blocks of our economy. The transistor and the integrated circuit gave rise to the last half century of prosperity. But what comes next?"

and

“The old Silicon Valley was about solving really hard problems, making technical bets. But there’s no real technical bet being made with Facebook or Zynga,” says Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft who now runs an invention lab in Seattle. “Today almost everyone in the Valley will tell you there is too much ‘me-tooism,’ too much looking for a gold rush and not enough people who are looking to solve really hard problems.”

As an investor, I am obviously looking for big thinkers and big ideas. I am looking for businesses rather than features... and ask questions specifically about 'scale' and 'size'. But it is outrageous to discount Facebook, Twitter and others because they are social products and not obviously unique / challenging technologies.

Because the article uses Facebook and Twitter as examples, I will do the same.

Would you label Google or The New York Times as "silly"? Of course not. But in addition to being a hub for online presence / networking, Facebook is make search and advertising social (and potentially more effective)... and Twitter has become a modern news channel for millions of users. These are big ideas with big impacts. And to do either at unrivaled scale is a technical challenge. And both Facebook and Twitter are platforms that enable innovation and business growth (some of which will be small and others big and impactful).

Those familiar with Facebook - or those who watched the movie - know that Facebook was not driven revenues: "Now the Valley has become a casino, a place where smart kids arrive hoping to make an easy fortune building companies that seem, if not pointless, at least not as serious as, say, old-guard companies like HP, Intel, Cisco, and Apple."

Using Facebook and Zuckerberg as representives of a wealth-driven culture is inaccurate and unfair. Similarly it is unfair to say that it - or other software companies - are not as meaningful as big hardware companies is also inaccurate and unfair by any measure. For example, Facebook's traded valuation is roughly 1/3rd of HP's market cap and 1/4th of Intel's and Cisco's. And Facebook is prominently featured in HP and Apple advertisements... and Facebook accounts for over 50% of iPhone app usage.

Again, let's encourage entrepreneurs to think big. But let's not label the software - particularly consumer and social web - "silly". And let's not classify all entrepreneurs as motivated by wealth... nor fault those who are (because that extends beyond the valley and beyond 2010).

Congratulations to Thing Labs, Brizzly

A big congratulations to Thing Labs, the makers of Brizzly, who were acquired by AOL today. Brizzly will continue to exist and be a part of AOL. (Thing Labs is a Polaris company and Dogpatch Labs graduate)

And equally importantly, the Thing Labs team will play a major role at AOL - which I could not be more excited about. Jason Shellen and Christopher Wetherell of Thing Labs, two terrificly talented leaders and product thinkers, will lead AOLs AIM and Lifestream products. From AOL's release:

"The Brizzly team will play a key role in helping AOL provide consumers with the best possible venues to discover and share content with each other. Over time, AOL expects to integrate aspects of the Brizzly service into its popular Lifestream product, its social aggregator and publisher, and AIM, AOL’s flagship messaging platform. The Brizzly team will join AOL’s Consumer Applications Group, where Thing Labs Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jason Shellen and Christopher Wetherell, Vice President of Product and Engineering, will lead the AIM product suite, including Lifestream."

A big congratulations and we are all excited to see what happens with AOL's social products... which now have a killer team at the helm.

More on TechCrunch and ThingLabs.

Quora's Elegant Notification 'Panel'

I have written about the design of promotion and notification units several times - pointing at examples from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Here is an example from Quora... and while it is similar in its boldness, its very different in its style.

Quora notifies users of updates to questions that they are following. The notifications start on your homescreen and sit above the feed (somewhat similar to Facebook in that sense... but they are expanded by default). When you visit a particular question page, the notifications all sit above the question / answer content.

As you scroll down the page, the notifications sit persistently atop the page. It is a design style that is being used more and more... though in different shapes, sizes and formats.

We are seeing more and more persistent units at a page's header and footer. And as pages become busier and busier, persistent 'bars' (for lack of a better term) are good ways of capturing attention. Quora is interesting though because their pages are so clean and simple. But Quora's notification unit is clean and simple itself - and itself an elegant navigational panel and personal newsfeed:

Here are the notifications on the question page:

And here are the notifications sitting atop teh page as you scroll down:

Designing Your Facebook Page's Profile Image

Facebook's news feed is crowded (and more crowded with each passing day). Consequently, visuals play a big role is drawing attention and driving clicks / conversions. This includes feed pictures, profile pictures, thumbnails, etc. With Facebook's new Page Browser, you can quickly get a sense for the imagery that brands and page-owners use.

Some are simple and represent the brand directly (see FootJoy). Some take advantage of the alloted vertical space and are colorful (see HBO's Eastbound and Down)

Obviously the best advice is to test and measure which imagery works best for your brand and your audience.

While their thumbnail is quite different, Facebook's Data page is gorgeous. By cleverly blending the logo into the Facebook page, it looks very natural and clean. While page-owners do not have a ton of room for creativity, this is well done: