Today I was logging into my bank account. I was so pleased when it auto-selected the username field. There are almost no occasions that I go to the site and don’t login to my account.

This reminded me of the first time I saw Google. It was somewhere in 1999. Paul DeStefano walked into the WITS Help Desk and showed it to me. He really liked the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. I remember being wowed by getting the United Airlines site when I typed in their name. That shows how bad search was in 1999.

What impressed me most was a very simple bit of Javascript. When the sparse page loaded, the search box was auto-selected. Duh!

It wasn’t new technology, but it also wasn’t being used much. Perhaps developers were worried about users disabling Javascript or worse getting Javascript errors. Google pushed forward anyway, probably understanding their techie early adopters. Paul, for example, used to try to save old data off of floppies for fun.

Google led the way by using this little Javascript snippet. Thankfully, my bank followed. Google has continued, leading the Ajax revolution, producing more responsive interfaces (think GMail, Google Maps). To me, it all goes back to 1999, when Paul convinced me to take a moment’s break from tech support.

I am so proud of Jenny’s Seven reasons why I hate MySpace. I especially like this one:

Becase it’s teaching the next generation to treat the web like a junk heap of useless repeating videos and not a useful tool

It’s a nice (and accidental) rebuttal to my recent acceptance of the real new Web.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it’s always nice to have some textual context. And it helps if the picture is something more than an endless animated GIF (I edited this one to only loop five times–not that it makes it any better).

But I think of ringtones and how my friend Jon once compared them to teenage scribblings on Pee Chee folders. MySpace profiles are even closer, except they’re trackable, yet easily changeable, a dynamic with both advantages and disadvantages.

I’m not sure there’s a solution to the junk heap problem. I’m not sure if we even need a solution, especially since the kids after the MySpace generation seem to be some enterprising ones.

(Still want to see that kid loop continuously? Click here).

Yes, sometimes things can be too simple. But why?

I’m reading Ready for Anything by Getting Things Done author David Allen. Allen has a good point about how too simple can go wrong:

To-do “lists haven’t worked because they were an attempt to compress very different and discrete functions into one event and context. If you try to make something too simple, it will make everything seem more complex and difficult. Yes, we’ve all been up against the wall of too many things screaming at us in our head, and we’ve gotten temporary relief by ‘making a list.’ But these Band-Aids don’t work as an ongoing strategy.”

Recently Noah Kagan inspired some good discussion about the return on time. A few of us posted tips in the comments. Stuff I try tends to be time compression tricks, such as the Power Hour and the four day week.

But those are tricks. And tricks tend not to work forever. Just like the to-do list provides only temporary relief.

So far, Ready for Anything seems a little more accessible than Getting Things Done, perhaps because it’s in list form (subtitle: “52 productivity principles for work & life”). Hopefully I’ll find not just useful tricks, but something lasting that helps me discover what is important to me and how to accomplish it.

See also: Elliot’s personal prioritizing formula.

Back in the old days of the Web, I said something like “everyone should have a Web page.” It was part of my senior thesis on making it easy to publish. At the same time, I was actively poo-pooing blogs. What can I say, I’m a hypocrite.

Because it was the early Web, I don’t even have proof that I was so far ahead of my time, because I never wrote it down. While I understood the Web was a forum for self-expression, I didn’t go far enough with it. I thought it was a place to put your silly photologues or carefully crafted open letters.

The real new Web is quick, off-the-cuff self-expresion. That’s where real people exist.

Checking in on At the End of the Day, I read this rant (may contain bad grammar and the occasional curse word) from a 15-year-old Live Journal user. It made me smile, because I might finally get it.

I have been eagerly awaiting one set of slides from Webvisions and now they’re available: Rashmi Sinha’s Designing for Social Sharing. Her talk was referenced in three other sessions that I attended, so this is thought-leader kind of stuff.

Unlike many sets of conference slides, these are easy to read (like last year’s How to make a zillion dollars and not lose your soul) without attending the talk. Her talk had so many wonderful things, it’s hard to digest them at once. I’ll probably have to revisit these slides several times.

Here’s a sneak peak of some of it…

Why is now the time for social sharing?
1. The Web has become a social sphere. There is over 50% broadband penetration in the U.S., and 65% of people use the Internet to maintain friendships.
2. Massively multi-player online games. You’re playing and interacting.
3. Rich interfaces enable richer interactions. Sites can provide a stream of real-time content, as opposed to a snapshot of some prior moment.

Some principles for social sharing
(including some of my social website rules)
1. Make system personally useful
2. Identify symbiotic relationship between personal and social
3. Create porous boundary between public and private
4. Allow for levels of participation
5. Let people feel the presence of others
6. But design for moments of independence

To find out details on any of these points, or see other great stuff I’ve left out, check out her slides.