rare pattern

The more the merrier (or at least more accurate). Take a few moments to fill out the A List Apart Survey. This isn't just for designers.

It's a simple question, really. What is your phone for? Making calls, or checking email/browsing the web/using apps/playing games/updating Facebook/posting to Twitter...? Of course, your smartphone should do it all, right?

But what if you had to choose?

I am ready to retire my iPhone. I love it to death. I check my email. I have apps that sync with my desktop. I have games that lull me to sleep. (Because that's what games are good for, right?) I check the weather. Read headlines. Set an alarm to wake up. Find out where the heck I am on a map.

But let's face it: The iPhone is pretty crappy as a phone.

I don't blame Apple, except to the extent that they made their initial deal with AT&T. I don't get much of any signal at my house. My calls are dropped so frequently – that is, if I can actually connect at call at all – that I have given up trying.

So I'm looking at that greener grass over the fence, over in Verizon land. I once lived in Verizon land. It wasn't so bad. I could make calls just about anywhere, even up in the mountains where nobody else could get a signal.

But in 2007, their phones sucked. I had a Palm 700p, which was my worst technology purchase ever (too). But I could make calls. I could receive calls. I could hear people in my phone conversations. They could hear me. Small miracles.

But now they have the Droid, and I am tempted, bleeding edge or no.

Barbara Barnett:

I admit it. I’m a middle-aged geek. I love my gadgets and toys. I was the first on my block to get a Blackberry Storm (big mistake). I got my Amazon Kindle the day after it was released (much wiser decision). And now I have my Droid. Actually, I’ve had my Droid for a month now, having purchased it on its release date. And a month later, I still love it. What’s a Droid? Thanks for asking.

The Droid is Motorola’s entry into the “Android” phone market. Sold exclusively through Verizon, it’s a (not too) distant cousin of the iPhone. Android phones are Google-connected communication devices. They do email, texting, Twitter, and Internet browsing; music, videos, and the usual calendar/contact PDA stuff.

I’ve been a Blackberry devotee for five years, and it was a difficult choice for me to jump ship. But after testing out the Droid in my Verizon store — comparing it to the Storm 2 and several other touch screen smartphones, I decided unequivocally to cast my lot with the Droid.

Oh, and she can make phone calls too. "Call quality is good," she says, and "the speaker phone is excellent"!

But Kara Swisher points out some possibly misogynistic aspects to the Droid ads.

“Should a phone be pretty?” it begins, using an odd series of images that is packed full of random misogyny. “Should it be a tiara-wearing, digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?”

Then comes all the manly imagery–a racehorse, a powerfully pointed Scud missile, bananas and buzzsaws to represent the Droid. A surging missile, as well as several creamy explosions too. Get it?

And let’s not forget the bunch of fey, effeminately-dressed mannequins, with one getting bashed with an ink-filled ball thrown by some tough masked thug with the line, “Is it a precious porcelain figurine of a phone?”

Then back to anti-women name-calling, saying an iPhone is a “princess,” unlike the Droid, “a phone that trades hair-do for can-do.”

Ugh.

Kristin Marshall offers some advertising analysis.

I’ll be blunt: Verizon is really overselling the Droid. I’m glad I don’t watch television, because the ads get on my nerves as it is. Storming the phone through brick walls and calling it a robot just looks like they’re trying too hard. You don’t want to overdo it with inflammatory ads that may alienate buyers.

It’s also not a good thing when advertising per unit is $100. And that’s if they reach the coveted 1 million units sold. With $100 million put into advertising this year alone, factoring in current sales figures, advertising cost per unit is sitting at around $145. That’s just short of the full price of the phone!

I understand that it’s an investment to gain momentum through advertising, but it needs to stick to succeed. Only time will tell, the Android platform has a lot going for it…

Hmmmmm.

Well, I don't like offensive ads — who does? — but I'm needing a phone-and-smartphone, not a phone-and-smartphone-with-admirable-advertising. There's just not much good out there when it comes to product. I can't shop according to ad ethics. And the Droid is running Open Source Android.

But wait — Is buying a Droid premature? What about these rumors that Google is coming out with its own phone?

Writes Sara Zucker:

Finally, Google is about to give the world an actual Google phone, running on the HTC G1 cellphone. The device will include a branded handset and includes free phone service. Though the G1 has already been (mis)identified as the "first Google phone," this new phone will be emblazoned with Google's company logo. It will feature Google Voice, the company's phone service, which recently overcame its FCC troubles, and connect users to that ominous (to some) Google Cloud. A touchscreen display and an extremely fast processing system, “far exceeding that of the iPhone 3G S” are also included.

The mobile dance for positioning has made for some interesting bedfellows, or maybe better, bed-frenemies. Motorola, Verizon and Google have partnered on the Droid. (Google has a lot of catching up to do after spending a reported $100M in marketing the collaboration). But with its free phone service, and patch-in to the full range of Google services, Google's offering could easily damage efforts by its Droid partners. Meanwhile, Apple's beefed-up iPhone, touted as a possible Droid-killer, will reportedly be available with Verizon service, putting Verizon on the possible outs with Motorola as well as with Google.

Motorola, the big winner of the Droid battle, may have the most to lose, since its 2010 plans include the release of at least 12 Android-based smartphones. These efforts are seemingly threatened both by the rumored new iPhone and by Google's go-it-alone launch.

MegC's post entices:

The Google phone, aka “Nexus One” is expected to be a big hit for Google. The Google phone will be sold by the Web site directly, instead of through cell phone providers. How the Google phone business model works out will be interesting, as many times phone manufacturers strike deals with specific providers who then use the phones to lure customers to their plans.

Take for instance the Apple iPhone. The iPhone has had the biggest hype up until the Droid was announced. The iPhone is available only through AT&T, and many people switched providers just to be able to have the exclusive phone.

On the other hand, the Google Phone Nexus One will be available to purchase and then customers have the flexibility to purchase whatever plan they desire. This is great for Google and great for consumers, as they will have the freedom to keep their phone and make their own choices.

What type of features will be on the new Google phone? So far, all that is known is that the Google Phone will feature a high resolution OLED display, snapdragon CPU, and microphone. It is rumored that it will run on the Google Android operating system.

Maybe I'll get the Droid, then when the Google phone comes out I'll weigh my options then.

One thing for sure: No phone is going to compel me to stick with AT&T. (Sorry.)

I also posted this on BlogHer.

One of the wisdoms in web application development is "Release early and often."

Google and Twitter have both released software "tests" to select hundreds of thousands of users, both with the idea that there will be problems, but let people try them out, and then improve the software iteratively, based upon real-life user experience.

This is my first blush impression of these previews I've been privileged to explore this week.

Get on my Wave!

I've been trying Google Wave for this past week now. It's been a bit hard, since hardly anybody I know is on Google Wave, and of all the people I invited, only two have received invites so far. (I got 8 "invitations" that turned out actually to be "nominations" once sent. Sorry, Google, but invitations and nominations are different things.) So I've had only limited exposure to what Wave might offer. One on one, it's pretty much a glorified instant messenger.

Then I was tipped to searching for "with:public" ... which brings in results every wave that has been posted for the public. There I found all kinds of waves on all kinds of topics.

Popping into random, seemingly interesting waves reminds me of the early CompuServe days, wandering around chatrooms, communicating with random people. Wave does afford the opportunity to get more in these wave connections than you might in a text-only IRC-style chatroom, but it takes time to engage. Do you have an abundance of time? I don't.

The biggest user experience change in what people might be used to is that you can see other people typing their messages in real time, as they type. You learn quickly can type and who bumbles around, who can do stream-of-consciousness and who is constantly editing every few words.

Shira Abel (whom I met on Wave) likes this real-time aspect:

And while some people would hate seeing what someone is writing while they are typing I’ve actually liked it from the few conversations I’ve had on there. It allows you to see the thought process – how fast or slow someone is typing shows how strongly they feel about something. Whether they take something out before pressing enter shows even more. Seeing the typing while it’s happening is the tone of the message. However, I would recommend that Google make the option to not see the typing for the Robert Scoble’s of the world – but please keep it for me. Living in Israel so far away from many of the people I collaborate with, having that little extra bit of psychological insight is actually very helpful in my opinion.

One of the biggest problems with Wave is getting drowned in wave after wave of threads (or "waves"). You have to create folders to organize them or you'll just get lost.

And call them waves all you want, it's pretty hard to surf them. Linking to other waves involves finding the other wave and drag-and-drop.

Google's help docs are their typical weak, uninformative obviousnesses that don't really illuminate much of anything. Embedding waves outside of the wave system is, so far, an arcane procedure I have not yet discovered yet. I'm still wondering how to install a robot. Maybe I'm not enough of a geek for this preview?

Bonnie Sandy seems to have made more headway:

Extending the functionality…

Apparently there are bots and robots to extend the functionality of Waves… that feature has to be simplified before the release to a wider audience.

Robots (To use robots, add them as a contact, then add the robot-contact to a wave)- that did not always work. Robots add functionality Chatbots Conversion Games Groups Integration Language Polling Search / Aggregation Utilities Wave Management figuring out if they are functioning is a bit confusing.

I NEED To Figure out how to use the Drop.io Robot. I aced the Posterous robot, which post a wave to Posterous , but I have no idea if the others are working, in process or done. So I spent a great deal of time just steering at the screen.

Gadgets directions- To use gadgets, once editing a blip, just click on the green puzzle piece, and enter the url into the bottom text box.

This was simpler not all worked but enough to truly give an appreciation of the scope of wave. Html and Iframes allow for widgets and pages to be added. From that point each wave became a stage on which I could present ANYTHING. Wave will be to designers and multimedia communicators what twitter was to those that write!

I don't know about that last part. As a designer, Wave is very hierarchical and serially threaded — not much of a canvas for visual thinking. But maybe someone will bring that in via extension or robot?

Shira concludes:

[A]t the moment Google Wave has little to no use for me. Other than the “Geek Street Cred” I get for having it, I don’t work with anyone else who is on there. It’s not open for the masses. So yes, I’m on Google Wave and I’ve checked it out a few times. But as my time is scarce, I don’t see myself using it regularly at all. In fact – the first person who invited me on Google Wave hasn’t used it. And that says it all.

If you don't quite get what Google Wave is, here's the developer's preview. It's over an hour long, but if you are sincerely curious, this is something to see.

List me!

Twitter rolled out a new feature to a subset of users: Lists. Here you can define lists and then add people you are following to the lists you create.

If you have the feature enabled on your account, you also see how many lists other people have put you on.

What becomes immediately obvious is that this will become a major recommendation engine — a reputation system. What better way to find interesting people than through the recommendations (or at least categorization) by others?

I've discovered many new people to follow just by surfing around the lists. It's neat to know at least something about what people tweet about — art, music, politics, tech, etc.

We'll see how the list usage starts to happen once everyone gets the feature. I'm sure it will start to become spammy — what easier way to spam people than to add them to a list they cannot block? But this could become a new way for people to find connections.

I'm sure Twitter Lists are going to be great fodder for the "Top X" fetishists who just love the "who's is bigger" competitions.

Rebecca Leaman offers Twitter Lists 101 that covers the basics.

Jade Craven has 8 things you should consider before creating your Twitter lists:

1. People may be offended by not being included on a list.

Some of my friends created lists like ‘awesome friends’ and ‘top bloggers.’ They used these terms as generalist lists but some people took offense at not being included on a list.

This is very similar to the follow/unfollow situations that happened before people started to embrace groups on other clients.

So, what can you do to avoid offending?

• Have a disclaimer on your twitter landing page

• Make your list private

• Organize lists by geographic region – ie, Melbourne bloggers.

Neicole Crepeau sees this as a good move for Twitter, business-wise:

Twitter’s growth rate has recently slowed down. According to Hitwise, its phenomenal growth rate slowed to .17%. In part, this appears to be due to an inability to retain new users (60% leaving in the first month of use, by some reports).

Lists represent an opportunity for Twitter to reignite its growth. Lists can help Twitter grow by providing three important improvements:

* A better UI that makes the stream easier for users to digest.
* A positive first experience for new users, where they immediately see the value of Twitter
* A way to spread the word to more non-users and broadly entice them, through List links on blogs, business sites, and through sharing.

She goes on to elaborate on each point.

In the second of a multipart series of posts on Twitter Lists, Adele McAlear looks at the impact of this feature roll-out on the greater Twitter development community:

In the September 30th blog announcement. Nick Kallen, the project lead on Lists stated on the Twitter blog that there will be a Lists API. “This will allow developers to add support for Lists into your favorite Twitter apps.”

It seems that developers were an afterthought on this Twitter Feature. Normally, developers are notified of major feature roll outs such as this well in advance and are afforded the opportunity to work with the API in before the launch. However, the development community weren’t even informed that Twitter Lists was on the development roadmap until September 30th, likely well after Twitter would have started working on it.

When the feature was released yesterday, the vast majority of developers (but interestingly, not all) didn’t even have access to the Lists API documentation until last night. When users like Robert Scoble started building lists and tweeting about them, the dev community cried foul and a draft of the API documentation was quickly made available, sending developers scrambling to integrate Lists into their offerings throughout the wee hours of last night.

Have you been trying out Google Wave or Twitter Lists? What's been your experience?

[This post also appears on BlogHer.com.]

I blogged about it on BlogHer.