Google Reader API?

I’m surprised in this day and age where iOS only apps have their own API that a longstanding service like Google Reader doesn’t have an API. Apparently an API has been coming soon since 2005.

This is probably because idiots think RSS is dead. Not friendly to the mainstream user? Sure. Dead? No, not when every blog comes with a RSS feed.

Google Reader Like function screenshot

It would be neat to play around with the Like function in an API. For example, a blogger may want to reach out to those who RSS subscribe & like their posts. It would be harder to find a more engaged power user (given that users have to 1.) Use Google Reader, 2.) Add your feed, 3.) Read your posts, and 4.) Click like).

Google Reader navigation screenshot

The current Google Reader navigation is a poor mish-mash of social function bolted onto a best of breed RSS reader.

Consider what each of the items in the navigation section do:

  1. Home – A
  2. All Items – B
  3. Starred Items – C
  4. Your Stuff – D
  5. Shared Items – D
  6. Notes – D
  7. Trends – E
  8. Browse for stuff – A
  9. People you follow – F
  10. Explore – A
  11. Subscriptions – B

This can be boiled down to:

  1. A – Find new feeds.
  2. B – View unread feeds. Note that All Items is the default google.com/reader view, which works out well.
  3. C – Star items for later.
  4. D – Your shared items by granularity.
  5. E – Pretty stats page.
  6. F – Shared content by friends.

I would revamp the navigation to:

  1. A – Find new feeds. However Google wants to introduce you to new feeds, it can’t possibly take more than one page.
  2. D – Shared Items. I don’t distinguish between Shared Items and Notes. The actual distinction is that the former is via Google Reader sharing and the latter is via a bookmarklet type function.
  3. C – Starred Items. Keep this one as is.
  4. B,F – All Subscriptions. The “Subscriptions” text should show all subscriptions. Currently, the Subscriptions text reloads your subscriptions. Reloading subscriptions should be a refresh icon that everyone is familiar with. Then, I would make a folder under Subscriptions for People you follow items.

I wouldn’t mind losing the Trends (or stats) page since it caps out at 300K read items and 30 day trending.

Remnants of an Alto Prix Fixe

Alto interior

Alto has closed, so here’s some postmortem food porn taken from a 4 course.

complimentary starter

After ordering the 4 course, this was presented as compliments of the chef. I assume it’s some sort of truffle appetizer.

Note: I’ve tried to correctly identify the dishes below with their menu names. The names may or may not be accurate.

Polpo alla Piastra con Baccala

seared octopus, salt cod, tomato agrodolce, culatura d’alici

Garganelli Bolognese

hand-made pasta quills, milk-fed veal ragu, parmigiano fonduta

Pappardelle con Agnello e Santoreggia

hand-made pasta ribbons, braised lamb, savory, pecorino

Tagliata di Manzo con Funghi e Midollo

creekstone farms sirloin, black trumpette mushrooms, parsnip puree, roasted fingerling potatoes, red wine-bone marrow sauce

Nodino di Vitello con I Cardi

roasted amish veal chop, cardoons, licorice, castelvetrano olives

aftermath of the sirloin

Torrone

piemontese nougat semifreddo, hazelnut cake, warm chocolate sauce

Bomboloni

apple cinnamon doughnuts, caramel sauce

Alto, given its location in Midtown East, is a prime venue for corporate dining. Formerly a Michael White / Chris Cannon joint (emphasis on the former), I expected to be blown away by the pasta dishes. Instead, I enjoyed their mushroom soup (the brown puddle of soup is not pictured above) and the Bomboloni the most.

The Nutropolitan Museum of Art

Billed as the World’s First PB&J Art Exhibit, The Nutropolitan Museum of Art is a worthwhile, fun event to check out while it lasts. It’s free to attend and the last day is Sunday, March 6th.

Note: The gallery exhibits below were conceived by Lee Zalben, photographed (so well) by Theresa Raffetto, and styled by Patty White.

201 Mulberry St

Exhibit Space

The only line is for the DIY peanut butter art room. They let you make a PB slice however you want and give you a free photo print afterwards.

DIY Sandwich Art Station

White on White

My non-contribution to society. White marshmallow creme with candy corn on white chocolate peanut butter spread onto white bread. And an Iron Man toothpick to top it off. Just keeping it classy.

Pizzelle Perfect exhibit

A pizzelle cookie based setup.

Starry Sandwich exhibit

Money Honey exhibit

Sandwich Artist exhibit

And we’re not talking about Subway here.

Peanut Buzzer Sandwich exhibit

Neat application of honeycomb. Honeycomb is photogenic.

All Hail the King exhibit

Shown above are just some of the great photographs at the peanut butter art open house. There are other great works, and while it’s not a huge exhibit, a free jar of peanut butter goes to both yourself and charity for attending.

iPad 2 Rumors: Don’t Hate The Player, Hate The Game

With the iPad 2 announced this week, the actual product is anticlimactic. If the first iPad had the iPad 2’s specifications, nobody would have been surprised. Don’t get me wrong, the iPad is an extremely strong offering that is dominating the market that it set off.

The tech industry covering Apple never ceases to amaze. Some companies have rumor sites, but Apple has a blog dedicated to sleuthing their patent filings. Apple rumors even lead to controlled leaks and allegations of leaks.

That said, Engadget needs to stop hating the player (Apple) and hate the game (internet as a pageview driven rumormill).

Here’s what a recent post says at the end:

… which in turns gives you no reason whatsoever to turn down the opportunity. Except for the lack of a USB port, SD card slot and a screen that touts the exact same resolution as the first model, of course.

Why would anyone have expected a USB port, SD card slot, or some sort of Retina display? Oh right, Engadget claimed these were coming in an exclusive scoop.

Rumors are just that, right? Well, they decided to double down on their source and blame Apple for removing the USB / SD / high res screen at the last minute.

 

Updated Amazon Product Image Zoom

While Mousing Over Product Image

While surfing Amazon via slickdeals today, I noticed this updated product image zoom technique on Amazon. Not sure if this technique is necessary, but on the surface it seems a net improvement in utility for Amazon’s customers.

Before Mouse Over of Image

Before mousing over the product image (seen on the left), this product page looks like any other product page on Amazon.

The Zoomed Selector Range

While you mouse over the product image, you see a blue dot texture indicating what part of the product image you are zooming into.

Mouse Over of Product Image

Mousing over the bottom left corner replaces the product description section with a corresponding bottom left product zoom.

Product Image Mouse Tracks to the Right

As you move your mouse to the right of the product image, you can see that the product zoom tracks accordingly.

Product Page without Mouse Over

Once your mouse leaves the product image on the left, the screen returns to normal. You can now see the product description again.

Regarding when this update was rolled out or what browsers this works in, I don’t have definitive answers. I noticed this product image zoom update today while using Chrome at the product page.

As for its conversion rate, I did not buy the product. Either their internal testing shows an increase in purchases with this rollout or I got put into a testing sample. I could see this product image zoom technique become useful for products with hard to read text (such as food ingredient labels).

Foursquare Hackathon

Badge Stickers

Just got back from a very fun Foursquare Hackathon. Contrary to some opinion, there was a lot of hacking done. 40 projects are on the wiki at the time of writing. Hail to the Mayor is particularly intriguing one since the idea is that when the mayor (or other specified person) checks in to a venue, their theme song would play.

2 Bros Pizza

Note: the piping hot 2 Bros Pizza was delicious (as is all free pizza). After 10 minutes, the pizza cooled down and was pretty stale/terrible.

This sign means good things are inside

There was nonstop networking/socializing, but this is a good, healthy thing for the NYC startup scene.

General Assembly hallway

One thing that I noticed was how most teams focused on the tech hacking (as they should at a hackathon). This typically resulted in awkward or less polished demos. The demos were limited to 60 seconds of presentation with immediate judge feedback afterwards. To me, this looked like teams were rewarded for slick UI while the backend (no matter how good or bad) didn’t count for as much.

Naveen speaking during the demo session

For those who couldn’t make it tonight, good news: Naveen mentioned he wants to expand 4sq hackathons internationally.

Real Life Facebook Button

A dedicated button for Facebook on your phone? With super awkward placement?

While this Fb x Real Life mashup is unnecessary, I wanted to look at other examples of company logos on real life buttons. Most companies that produce hardware are content with having their logo printed onto a surface instead of a pushable button.

Note: images are used only to illustrate hardware buttons. Each logo is property of their respective owner.

Blackberry has been doing this for some time. Note the natural location among the keys.

A natural category for buttons is remotes. Specifically TV remote controls.

TiVo has been doing this for a while with their quirky logo.

Netflix is rolling out their logo as more and more devices ship with an embedded Netflix app. Apparently, Yahoo got onto this remote as a bonus.

Another category with branded buttons is video game consoles. Their controllers have gained logo buttons with the current generation of hardware.

The original Xbox had a giant logo, but it wasn’t one you could press. The Xbox 360 has a pushable logo for Xbox’s dashboard.

Playstation 3 getting its logo on.

An easily overlooked category would be the keyboard. Countless keyboards have the Windows logo.

Here is an example of the ubiquitous Windows keyboards that exist. The Windows key is useful for certain shortcuts (Win + D for desktop), but a pain when you’re in the middle of a full screen game.

Some Mac keyboards have an Apple logo.

While the Facebook logo above is placed awkwardly for dramatic effect, most company logos are placed logically in a manner that consumers use every day.

Doughnut Plant Chelsea

Chelsea Menu

Went over to the Doughnut Plant grand opening at Chelsea Hotel. At this point, I have to confess I haven’t trekked over to their original LES location yet.

Donut plant is amazing since it shows what you can accomplish by doing one thing well. For a person like myself who is used to Krispy Kreme and generic mom & pop donut shops in CA, Doughnut Plant is an eye opener. The ingredients are premium and the price doesn’t shy away from NYC pricing (think $3 donuts).

Doughnut Pillow Wall

The Chelsea location is a decent size, especially for NYC. Seating exists as a real possibility here.

Carrot Cake Donut

The cream cheese filling made the carrot cake donut pack a much bigger punch. Cream cheese in desserts is akin to bacon in anything. Delicious.

Cinnamon Bun

Cinnamon bun was alright. More of a filler type food than the main attraction.

Oatmeal Cake

The oatmeal cake was my favorite donut from Chelsea. Flaked with oatmeal crusting, the texture is amazingly crispy. While not as healthy as a bowl of oatmeal, this donut is a great example of experimenting with nontraditional dessert toppings.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Donut

A remake of the traditional jelly donut. This guy got squared up and peanut butter topped. High in calories? You bet. Great as part of a routine diet? Yes, if it’s once a month or less.

Real Entrepreneurs Get it Done

Consider this post the TL;DR of this great Inc article by Leigh Buchanan. The article itself picks insights from a University of Virginia study by Saras Sarasvathy of 45 serial entrepreneurs.

There are two extremes of successful business people illustrated by the study:

“Sarasvathy likes to compare expert entrepreneurs to Iron Chefs: at their best when presented with an assortment of motley ingredients and challenged to whip up whatever dish expediency and imagination suggest. Corporate leaders, by contrast, decide they are going to make Swedish meatballs. They then proceed to shop, measure, mix, and cook Swedish meatballs in the most efficient, cost-effective manner possible.”

This illustrates the difference between successful entrepreneurs (think scrappy startups) and successful business people (think MBAs). Going with the flow VS sticking to a plan.

Entrepreneurs prefer lean start ups:

“Rather than meticulously segment customers according to potential return, they itch to get to market as quickly and cheaply as possible, a principle Sarasvathy calls affordable loss.”

As long as they iterate fast and bootstrap, the cost of failure is time lost. Even then, valuable lessons are learned.

Your first customers are much more valuable than investors:

“Sarasvathy says expert entrepreneurs have learned the hard way that ‘having even one real customer on board with you is better than knowing in a hands-off way 10 things about a thousand customers.'”

This makes sense when you think about it. A customer is someone who has a demand for your product. Investors can help you scale or network, but they can’t prove the market as well as a legitimate customer does.

Entrepreneurs don’t worry about competition since they don’t see themselves competing directly:

“Entrepreneurs fret less about competitors, Sarasvathy explains, because they see themselves not in the thick of a market but on the fringe of one, or as creating a new market entirely.”

As this relates to online startups, don’t worry about the existing competition since your product won’t be the same. Ask any entrepreneur and they will tell you why their product/service is different and will revolutionize the space.

The whole article is a great read as it takes advantage of many successful entrepreneurs. Sites like Mixergy profile one person at a time, whereas this article draws upon business leaders in aggregate.

iPad 3 Coverage

The tech industry and the press that covers it never ceases to amaze. The pace at which news breaks is breathtaking, and then immediately forgotten for the next big thing.

John Gruber singlehandedly set off the iPad 3 launching with a “September release schedule” rumor. This is amazing because the 2nd generation iPad has not been confirmed by Apple. Make no mistake, the 2nd gen iPad coming in 2011 is as sure as the sun rising tomorrow. As Gruber writes, Apple has set itself up for a predictable June iPhone and September iPod refresh. This makes sense as the iPod can capture the holiday season. According to Gruber, it’s worth it for Apple to cut the 2nd gen iPad lifecycle short so they can use the iPad to headline annual September announcements.

I would imagine Apple isn’t pleased about iPad 2 in March and iPad 3 in September rumors. For those following the tech industry, the original iPad has already grown long in the tooth. The 1st gen iPad is a do-not-buy since the iPad 2 is coming out any month now. With 2011 iPad 3 rumors, if there’s any credibility to it (besides pure hearsay at the moment), consumers would be wise to avoid the iPad 2 and wait for the iPad 3. This helps depress current iPad sales while allowing the competition (RIM’s PlayBook, HP’s TouchPad, Motorola’s Xoom, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab) to gain market share.

If it were any other company besides Apple, debating the next, next iteration of a product would not be front page news. This rumormongering is great for pageviews, as there is nothing better for pageviews than unsubstantiated claims. On the iPad 3, Gruber disclaims that “[he’s] really guessing” and not “being coy and actually releasing information.”

Nowadays, Apple makes the news as much for things it has not done as the things it has done. Before the iPhone and the iPad came out, they were perennial Apple keynote bait. Again, great for pageviews and filler blog posts. Apple has so much influence in the industry that its presence is everywhere even when it tries not to be. Looking at this year’s CES, tablets were out in full force (a year after the iPad came out and the competition took the tablet form factor seriously). Heck, the Verizon iPhone confirmations by mainstream media (wsj, nytimes, bloomberg, etc) dominated the end of CES coverage.

The tech press is ruthless in its turnover. Yesterday, burning oil platforms was big news. Today, it’s the iPad 3 and HP’s webOS. Tomorrow, it doesn’t even matter what it is, because it will be old news the second it is posted online. Unless of course it is something Apple has not announced. Then it will never go away.