Simplicity Rules

Adam DuVander on keeping it simple

Immutable Laws of Marketing

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I realized that I referenced this book in talking about Nintendo in third place, but didn’t write about it. The Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout isn’t just a flashy business book. It explains the world around us, much like Darwin’s Origin of Species did years ago.

It’s a short little thing and it’s spot-on if you can forgive that it was written in 1994 (it praises Lotus Notes as a market leader). A couple years ago, Eric Sink wrote a Cliff’s Notes version aimed at small software companies.

I could read from beginning to end, then return to the beginning and still get something new out of it. The Laws have helped me understand why decisions get made and, at times, why a decision doesn’t work.

Why Nintendo Likes “Third Place”

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Reemer points me to a New Yorker piece on Nintendo, In Praise of Third Place.

The XBox and Playstation are going head-to-head to own the living room. Nintendo decided to focus on simple, fun gaming systems. The handheld DS (a next generation Gameboy) is popular with kids and commuters. Recently they released a small console with innovative controls with motion sensors, letting users interface with games in already familiar ways.

Nintendo knew that it could not compete with Microsoft and Sony in the quest to build the ultimate home-entertainment device. So it decided, with the Wii, to play a different game entirely. Some pundits are now speculating, ironically, that the simplicity of the Wii may make it a huge hit.

The Immutable Laws of Marketing wouldn’t say Nintendo is in third place. Instead, the company created a new category where they could be number one.

Cory Doctorow on Copyright

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Last night I went to Portland State University to hear Cory Doctorow talk about copyright. He has released several books under the Creative Commons license and considers himself a “copyright practitioner.”

Doctorow traced changes in technology over the years and how they affected copyright. He obviously has a grasp on where things are headed. The podcast of his talk (72 MB, 1:18) is worth a listen if you are a publisher, an aggregator, a re-mixer, or even a simple consumer of copyrighted material.

ASCii art is back

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I received a piece of spam today that reminded me of my past.

ah  us    ty    mm      al  td  ep  vh    ag
su  ga   zeee   ok      yk  ch  eq  jrg  ymp
fd  vj  tg  yc  jv      yo  vp  km  zgdadmrv
dh  kr  lclyea  fp      wv  ja  au  ln bh bn
 gmdu   nw  vs  he  kb  ay  nq  ak  fa    ko
  lt    er  pu  kqvyfs  pz   ovsc   dn    oj


ri  lh  yp    jc     fvzw   zogle     kq
an  tq  wj   egpk   kz  se  fv  vp   hblm
cr  ju  ls  zr  ji  uj      jj  ko  nc  ji
wd  rf  sw  cwwrqj  ui ecx  mvhue   lexkdx
 evnu   fz  ha  ei  gc  ef  og  py  lc  dk
  mf    fl  qd  bp   puom   ot  vk  si  po


 fypp   xi    ze    ki      qz   lwgy
in  pt  xq   gevp   bq      ke  at  zj
hp      ym  mh  pq  pe      ur  kik
tc      lj  ptecon  lt      iq     iui
nr  qq  nm  it  lo  cw  bt  bo  ly  qt
 rlpn   is  ii  pk  nteynd  fa   wpti


rv   lg    pa    dn  gt    jj    hu   wu
 vf ju    gfmp   xlj bh   bifl    fp ly
  bfr    wq  ij  xgnbzk  xo  kp    aqx
  tiu    ffrdpe  btzppp  cbisjv    lus
 os pa   fq  re  vq zdh  zq  lq   au ac
ov   db  oh  el  od  nj  qa  qs  ll   mb

Back in the 90s, I ran a Bulletin Board System. People would dial up with their computer and connect to my computer. There were discussion groups, games, and file sharing. It was like an arcane Web site, but it only had one phone line.

Drawings made of standard letters and symbols, ASCII art, was a mainstay of the BBS culture. Even though it’s in a spam message peddling prescription drugs, there’s a tiny bit of me that’s proud to see Old School Art representing.

Multi-goal search box

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Is it possible to have one search box accomplish multiple goals? The obvious answer is yes, because that’s the way we’ve been using Google and Yahoo! for years.

I’m not so sure the multi-goal search box translates so well to normal sites. Heck, even the search engines divided their menu to search different things years go.

Google search form
Yahoo! search form

I’m skeptical about whether that would work on normal sites, too. Take my ol’ Wi-Fi in Portland site, WifiPDX. For the first couple years there was one way to search: by address. Recently I added a name search, because many people (myself included) were blindly typing non-addresses into the form.

Should I have split up the form? Included two forms?

I decided to use one form, assuming an address and only going to a name if I couldn’t geocode what the user entered. It’s a dead simple approach that returns unfriendly errors like this:
WifiPDX search error

Worse, the solution doesn’t scale well. Say I wanted to add the ability to search for your nearest coffee shop, or bar. Or, what if I wanted to find a nearby hair salon with Wi-Fi that is open on a Sunday morning and has plentiful outlets?

Far-fetched? Sure. This is just a modest Wi-Fi site. Problems of this sort are real. Somebody is facing them and I’m not certain a single search box can fix them.