A few more thoughts on simplicity from Founders at Work.

Evan Williams, talking about Blogger, but he could just as well be talking about his latest project:

“What we built wasn’t that amazing. It was the idea of putting a couple of things together and being able to establish a lead by doing something really, really simple. How far you can get on a simple idea is amazing. I have a tendency to add more and more–the ideas always get too big to implement before they even get off the ground. Simplicity is powerful.”

Joshua Schachter on del.icio.us, a social bookmarking tool I like:

“Reduce. Do as little as possible to get what you have to get done. Do less of it; get it done. If you’ve got two things that you want to put together, take away until they go together. Don’t add another thing. Because you can understand it better, you can analyze it more cleanly.”

The book also features Blake Ross, who had similar thoughts about Firefox’s success.

If ever there was a time to not talk about the Internet, this is it. The tragedy at Virginia Tech on Monday has brought the nation together. More importantly, it brought a campus of 30,000 students together.

That’s why I think this might be the best time to talk about the Internet. And social design. And emulating real life.

These aren’t silly college students. The real life here is not frat parties and keg stands. Maybe that’s what Facebook is to us non-college students most of the time, but not now for Virginia Tech (FB account required).

Students are finding solidarity online. In this case, it’s Facebook, because the site has made it easy. They’re communicating, connecting, and mourning, just like they should after a tragedy.

This makes me proud of the Internet.

Have you recently ventured into your browser settings and disabled Javascript? It can be an enlightening experience, especially if your sites make heavy use of client-side interactions. About 18 months ago, I suggested degradable Javascript. It wasn’t a new idea, but it really seemed like the great divide between anti-JS and pro-JS camps was growing.

I was surprised to see that Google Maps, the supreme example of required Javascript, has a no-frills version. It’s very Web 1.0, but it works.

Google Maps without Javascript is not innovative, but it is still very usable. Impressive. Respectable. Respectful.

I doubt degradable Javascript like this will become the norm. Heck, in the last year I have written a lot of Javascript, but haven’t worried much about the disablers. Yet I still completely agree with what I wrote.

It turns out that it’s a lot of work to do it right. You first have to build a boring version of your app (which as my friend Sean explains, is inherently less than). Then you add frills. And now whenever you want to fix a bug or change a feature, you have to make sure everything still works in both versions.

That sounds not simple for the developer. Yet, this is a time to ask, simpler for whom? Because when done right, like the GMaps team has, the solution is very elegant for all users.

What’s the best way to get something done? Set a deadline. How about getting something done faster? Set an earlier deadline.

Time compression is the concept behind Andrew Chen’s Seven Day Product.

Building products in a very short period of time makes you really boil down what the core mechanic is. What do I mean by core mechanic? I mean the thing that you’re doing 90% of the time. On YouTube that’s watching a video. On MySpace, that’s browsing from one profile to another, or possibly commenting/writing to other people.

A short deadline encourages you to trim to the barest essentials. You probably won’t launch after seven days, but you have a really good prototype. After that, you let some people bang on it, round the corners, add in necessary-but-not-core-features. The more obvious the better.

Andrew has been creating a seven day product the past week. He has some lessons learned about what it takes. Some projects just can’t make it, he says. I’d say that’s because the core mechanic, as he’s calling it, is too complex. It hasn’t been boiled down far enough.

Time compression can do wonders for productivity, creativity, and innovation. It’s easy to get trapped into not believing the arbitrary deadline. It’s important to remember that you only need to accomplish a very little bit during your seven days. All you need is a proof of concept, the important nugget at the center, the core mechanic.

For more ideas on time compression, see the POWER HOUR and the Four Day Work Week.

I’ve said the real new web is about off-the-cuff self-expression. If that’s so, then Twitter is the test case.

It’s public text messaging. Just type some thoughts out on your keypad, and send it off to your friends… and the world.

Check me out on Twitter.

Like away messages in instant messaging, and status on Facebook, Twitter lets you communicate off-the-cuff. Unlike other services before it, it isn’t tied to one location. You can be anywhere that your phone is.

For similar freedom, albeit with different motives, Jott yourself a note.