Partial Fix: Myspace Friends Categorizing

Myspace is now letting its users place their friends into categories that they create. That's a big improvement. I lamented last year (see post) about Myspace only allowing its users to place themselves in one category (Musician, Comic, Regular Person), and disallowing any labeling of a user's friends.

My suggestion was:
1. let users label their personal profile(s), and to also label their external profiles (friends) WITH MANY keywords.
2. Allow users to Sort their Friends based on the Labels.
3. Allow users to make Lists/Groups, a feature presently available in YouTube.

Myspace's recent change is an improvement. But, it still limits a user to categorize himself into a single, pre-defined Category. And it only allows you to place a friend into a single category.

The Myspace system apparently has trouble with such cutting-edge database structures as "many-many" relationships.

Even as it now is, though, it could greatly help a user navigate his list of profiles. At the least, she could have a Category: "Added for Quantity" and "Added for Quality (actual friend)."

New users will find this feature handy. But will legacy users, with thousands of friends, categorize all the existing friends? Only if it was Easy to do, or the user was aware of an Incentive.... Alas, and this comes as no surprise if you know Myspace, it is TEDIOUS AND TIME-CONSUMING to categorize existing friends... The user has to do it ONE AT A TIME!

Myspace's failure to recognize the value of multiplicity has failed it again.

Jott Reminders: A Failure of Translation at a Higher Level

The service Jott is a terrific way to send yourself notes via the phone. It uses software and human ears to transcribe your notes aka Jotts. You can also ask it to send you a Reminder. This is where Jott gets a little full of itself: it refuses to follow your instructions. It always sends your reminder 15 minutes earlier than you request it. I looked into it, and discovered the reason: Jott assumes that when you ask it for a Reminder, you are really telling it about an Event. Based on that assumption, it assumes that your Event requires a 15 minute 'warning.' (And no, you can not adjust this default lead time in Settings).

As is, Jott cannot handle the fact that you simply want it to DO something at a particular time. It translates your request into a NOUN (event).. rather than leave the Nouns to you. What is worse, when Jott prompts you for a Reminder it Seems to be asking for a time to be reminded.. and does not mention that it views your request as a statement of an Event. Here is the Demo from the Jott web site:



Note the last (circled line): Jott's summary of just what happened and what Jott will do. Jott is not a Calendar or Event service, and yet in regards to Reminders, it assumes your Jotts are events.

Say you wanted a text reminder to move your car in 15 minutes. If you asked Jott for the reminder, it would immediately send you the word. Jott provides for a 15 minute "Snooze" -- which wouldn't be necessary if it simply sent the reminder on time. And it will require 2 phone texts (to and fro Jott).

For this to be fixed, Jott needs a "higher level" of translation. It's not enough that it can transcribe your words--it needs to UNDERSTAND what you mean by REMINDER. But unless Jott changes this Reminder System, you will have to get around it by requesting a reminder 15 minutes LATER THAN when you want it. Then, when Jott does its 15 minutes early-Big Brother-Father Knows Best translation, it will come out at the right time.

Here are 2 screens: one of me setting a Reminder for 5:30pm, and of me receiving the reminder at 5:15pm

Fix: YouTube Full Screen

In an August 2007 post I criticized YouTube's full-screen mode because it restarted your video rather than continuing to play as Windows Media does.

YouTube now plays continuously when toggling to full-screen.

Invalid Login: Don't Explain Why

Most web sites that require a login of username and password return an ambiguous error message when login is invalid.

The common message is: "Invalid username / OR password."

Well, which was it?

It's very easy for the program to give you more specific information. Here's what happens when you login:

The program searches the database for a record containing that username AND password. If no record is found, then login is invalid. Most programs just spit out that message "Invalid username OR password" because one of those 2 was the culprit. (Actually, both inputs could have been wrong)

To clarify the matter, the program only needs to do an additional call to the database, looking for a record of the username.

If it finds a record with that username, then it knows that the password was wrong.

If it does not find a record with that username, then both the name and password were wrong.

Then the system could return a specific response.

For examples of LAZY programming / ambiguous response, see Yahoo and Hotmail. (Hotmail screen is atop this post, here is Yahoo)


Google does a better job on this, by giving the message "Username and password do not match. (and then it displays what name you entered)"

But it's easy to offer 2 specific responses when login is invalid.
1. If both the name and password is wrong: "There is no record of a xxxxxxx"
2. If there is a user of that name: "The password you entered does not match..."

The only reason to withhold those details is as a privacy measure. Since most usernames are now equal to an email address, if any person in the world wanted to know if a given email address was a member of a given site, he could enter it and a random password, and then receive a yes or no.

In that light, the Google method is tops.

But anyway, here are 2 screens from a system I made:

Facebook Ad System: Go Clippers

Facebook displays advertisements within its News Feed, listing an ad as if it was something personal, like your friends' quiz scores.

Facebook says that it collects "rich" user info, and thus can target ads. Sounds fun, but there is a glitch. The system gives greater weight to user attributes than to the advertisement object, producing irrelevant ads. Here is today's News post--with an ad to see the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. It is true that I live in LA, and enjoy basketball. But the most important fact regarding the Clippers is that the NBA is in playoff season, and the Clippers did not make it to the post-season (by far).


Oh, and by the way, I have no interest in the Clippers.

Bank Checks Hieroglyphics

Bank checks have very hard to read digits to represent the Routing Number and Account Number. There is a character that resembles a digit that is used as a divider, but it is not clear what starts and stops on either end. The check number sometimes appears as the second item, and sometimes as the third item.

When you must provide a routing number and account number, the requesting institution (or phisher) provides a picture to inform you of how to find the info on a check. It is very condescending and ineffective. We know where the info should be. The instructions should be about Translation, not location.

It's best to keep handy this info (Routing # and Check #), extracted from a statement, welcome letter. Otherwise, you could be frustrated in an attempt to decipher the strange arrangement as printed by your Check Provider.

Pandora Could Sell Me Something

I respect how the online music service Pandora is hands-off regarding pushing music sales. It offers links to buy each song in your stations. But it doesn't offer package deals.

Pandora collects a lot of information. Its user interface does not reflect the degree to which it could display the song information or your history with the song. You can view your Bookmarked Songs. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Pandora (wrongly) allows you to "re-bookmark" a song, rather than notifying you of the encore. It could not only alert you of the repeated bookmark, but suggest you buy it -- "You've bookmarked that song twice already. You must really dig it! We can offer to you along with these 8 other tracks for just $5.89." The other tracks could be related/suggested based on the song attributes, or could be from your list of favorites.

Pandora could generate packages and deals programatically and display on your homepage. "Click here to Purchase ALL your Bookmarked Songs for 70% off!"

Come on, Pandora. We're all rooting for you to succeed. Get smart with your marketing. You're doing a great job tying songs together; now sell them to us.

Facebooks Puts Enemies in Your Face

** Updated 6/6/2008 ***
~~~ Facebook has added the functionality called for in this post. ~~~~~~

Facebook puts a panel in your Home page "People You May Know." It randomly displays 3 of the multitudes who share a connection with you, and links to a page that shows all such friends of friends.

For each of these people, there are action buttons such as "Add to Friends", "Send Message." But there is no button "Make Disappear." Some of these friends of friends can be Enemies: or at least, major dope bags. I'm not asking that they be smited from the face of the Earth, only that their face be wiped out from the face of my Facebook. There should be a button: "Don't Show this Person Again" or "Remove From List (Always)."

Facebook has shown a commitment to allow users to customize their experience. But for every feature and connection-promoter, there are more implications regarding privacy and peace of mind. To make this right, Facebook should allow for Hiding Content/Function Segments from the Home Page just as it allows you to Remove/Collapse boxes from your profile. Secondly, it should always allow the ability to Block an Individual: not just to prevent that person from viewing your profile, but to avoid any chance of you having to see their face.

eVite: terrible UI

I had to send an eVite for a friend yesterday. Oh gosh, it is a terrible user experience. My next report will spell out the troubles.

Craig's List: No Reason to get account

I just learned that even by creating an account with Craigslist, the site provides no means to Save listings (for later viewing). The only tool the site offers is the Email to a Friend, which 'savvy' users know can mean 'oneself.' Of course, one can also copy and paste into Word or a note pad. (See earlier post).

At Craigslist, an account is for people who POST, not look.

Not convenient at all... I reckon Craigslist doesn't have programmers building new functions. All the more reason they should at least pay to make the listings XML friendly. This would pave the way for easier Exporting of listings.

YouTube Profile Upload Picture Does Not Work

(* Feb 5th: this issue appears to be resolved as of Feb 2 *)

YouTube gives mention on its users' homepage to new features, among them, the ability to upload a Photo to the profile page.

However, the system does not accept any images. Regardless of which file you input, you will receive the message: "File not provided for upload image operation."

Here are screen shots step by step:

Link to new feature:


Option of what to Upload

Input field to browse computer
Quick load... show preview (generic preview?), prompts to click "Update"The error message after clicking "Update"

Google Earth major diff from Google Maps Satellite

In Google Earth, the very fine desktop program from Google, your mouse's third button/wheel works this way re. view: zoom out = wheel forward; zoom in = wheel back.

In Google Local / Maps (I believe the service uses both names interchangeably), the mouse's third button/wheel works this way: zoom out = wheel backwards; zoom in = wheel forward.

I prefer the Map technique. It is natural.

A new version of Google Earth was recently released. They should have adjusted it so that the mouse wheel works the same as in Google Maps / Local.