Had a few minutes to spare this morning, so I decided to fix the blog. There might still be a few bugs that I didn’t catch in the past ten minutes (I also can’t test IE7 from home), so if you see anything funny, let me know!

Well, as you can see, updating Wordpress to the new version (via the admin panel) completely annihilated my theme.

Great.

I’ll get this sorted soon.

Over the weekend, it was brought to my attention that one of Zoosk’s competitors copied our subscription page design. My CEO found it and emailed a screenshot to me and my coworkers, which I’ll share here:

As you can see, they didn’t just lift the basic layout. Rather, they took the images, body copy, CSS, etc. Not only that, but they even lifted the Javascript effect we use (or formerly used, since we turned it off to avoid accidentally deterring users running NoScript). It’s one of the most blatant forms of plagiarism I’ve encountered in my years as a designer. This is new territory for me. I don’t think anyone has even seen my work fit to be ripped off until now and, to be honest, I’m actually a little flattered. SpeedDate is one of the only competitors Zoosk has on the social networks (though not much of one: SpeedDate gets 240,000 uniques per month on Facebook, while Zoosk has over 7,000,000). And while I don’t know much about their application or product in general, it’s sort of validating to see such obvious concern with what I’m designing.

My real problem with the plagiarism is simple: my subscription page design isn’t perfect. Far from it, really. Certainly it’s better than the design we had before, but as with all design, there is a metric-ton of room for improvement. It’s a little saddening to me that the designer(s) at SpeedDate honestly couldn’t think of anything better than the subscription page on Zoosk. They could have at least pushed the design a little further by either rearranging the elements, writing more compelling messaging or something that would have progressed what was already made. It’s like a game of Layer Tennis where the other player sends back the image I’d just created. If you’re going to take my designs, take them and make them better. Don’t settle for what’s already out there.

I just checked, and it seems that they’ve changed the subscription page (though at this point, that may not be their own design, either). Again, I’m not angry that they stole the design. I’m just disappointed (and a little happy) that our competitors can’t keep up with what we’re accomplishing at Zoosk. For better or worse, we have no one left to beat but ourselves.

UPDATE: I was right, the new subscription page isn’t SpeedDate’s. They stole MyLife.com’s page now:

MyLife

SpeedDate

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced the new Zune HD. I’ve never owned a Zune (and only seen one in the wild), but the specs have me salivating. HD Radio that lets you buy the song you’re currently listening to on the fly? Awesome. Integration with my XB360? Sick. Not to mention I’ve always thought the $15 per month Zune Pass is pretty genius, especially now that you get $10 worth of tracks each month to keep forever (essentially making the all-you-can-eat subscription cost $5/month, which I’d gladly pay). Only one problem:

I’m on a Mac, and the Zune Software is PC-only Windows-only.

Now, first of all, I’m not going to buy (much less install) Windows on my Macbook Pro. Not that Windows is horrible. If I had a copy of Windows XP SP3, and a bit more disk space to partition (ensuring I could hold all that Zune music I’m buying) it would be more of a consideration. But even then, it’s unlikely I’d go through all the hassle just so I could plunk down more money to buy a Zune + Subscription.

Which makes me wonder: Why isn’t Microsoft trying to sell Windows on Apple computers? It’s the same thing I wonder when I see those curious Mac-vs-PC commercials that both companies are putting out. It would be so simple for Microsoft to end the conflict and basically make the Mac-vs-PC thing a non-issue:

To start, Microsoft needs to quit associating themselves with “PCs.” It made sense back when the Mac couldn’t run Windows, which made Apple and Microsoft competitors by default. But now, a lot of people I know are dual-booting their Mac using Boot Camp. They run both operating systems, not because one is better than the other, but because each is better suited for different tasks. Microsoft should embrace these dual-booters, not just as customers but as people creating an opening for Windows in a previously-closed market. Before, Microsoft couldn’t pay a Mac zealot to give up their Mac for a Windows-based computer. Now, though, those people don’t have to give up their Mac. Instead of marketing against Apple (or for non-Apple machines, depending on how you look at it), market for Windows. Who cares who’s buying? Windows can now run on any computer out there. How is that not an awesome selling point?

Next, Microsoft should (publicly, I’d say) try to cut a deal with Apple just like it has with Dell, HP, Compaq, etc. Offer to sell cheap copies of Windows to Apple to be pre-installed on Macs along with OS X (at the user’s request, of course). Quit swinging the bat and offer an olive branch. The best part, I think, is what the result will be:

Apple will refuse the offer. There is no way in hell a company like Apple would be willing to ship units with a competing operating system already installed. Sure, they give their users the option to install it themselves, but that takes a lot more time/dedication/know-how than just clicking a radio button on an order form. And even if you argued that adding a “Windows Too!” option could increase Apple’s profits/marketshare even further, it seems unlikely that they’d agree to add (what they probably consider to be) a sub-par operating system/user experience to their well-crafted, easy-to-use machines.

Then, after the rejection, all Microsoft needs to do is say, “Hey, we tried to give users more options, but Apple said no. Still want to run Windows, but also own a Mac? Show us your Apple Store receipt for your Mac purchase, and we’ll sell you a discounted copy of Windows.”

Done and done. Maybe, after all, Microsoft can’t kill Apple. But if they act like a software company (instead of peddling other people’s hardware) and try to get Windows on as many machines as possible (Mac or not), they may find the Mac-vs-PC debate becomes completely irrelevant.

The other day, I was talking to someone at a party about Zoosk. The person was asking plenty of questions about who we are, what we do, etc., when they finally asked what everyone asks:

“What makes you different from every other dating site?”

The question isn’t a surprising one. I asked the same thing when I started at the company. Yes, Zoosk is different from our competitors in some very significant ways (pricing, the fact that we’re layering more and more robust social networking tools on top of the dating app foundation, etc.). But our success at Zoosk (30 million users and growing) isn’t due to us browsing Match.com and wondering how we can differentiate ourselves from them. Indeed, I browse through every dating site I can find at least once a week, using their signup forms, search results and even trying to find a way to deactivate my account. This isn’t so I can say, “we should be different from all of these.” Instead it’s so I can add to the ever-growing list on my wall:

Why does online dating (as an idea) suck, and how are we improving it?

Looking at your competitors isn’t a bad thing. It’s your perspective when looking at them that makes all the difference (as Facebook v. Twitter has taught us). Sure, I could browse Match.com and design our features to go toe-to-toe with theirs, improving on what they’ve already done. But that doesn’t help advance our users’ goals. Instead, it turns us into a better-designed clone, making our experience no more appealing than any other site.

Browse as a user, not a competitor. Ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish?” “What makes achieving my goals difficult/dispiriting/etc.?” These are very basic questions that can only be answered by going out onto the Internet and taking the temperature of your industry as a whole. Here are a few things I came up with about online dating that, in general, make it suck:

1) It’s expensive. Monthly subscriptions can cost as much as $50/month just to be able to contact people. What’s worse, a lot of places won’t let that person contact you back if they aren’t paying as well. So even if you’re paying the exorbitant amount for a full membership, you’re still not guaranteed the ability to talk to whom you want. It’s asinine.

2) Online dating is lonely. Sure, you’re on a site with millions of faces, profiles, etc. But most of your time (especially initially) is spent alone, sending messages out into the ether and hoping you’ll get a reply.

2.1) You’re friendless. Unfortunately, there’s still a stigma that goes along with online dating. It’s a very private activity (unlike going to a bar, house party, etc.), which few people are willing to share. When you get rejected on a dating site, you can’t go back to your group of friends and get comforted. I get the impression that this sort of thing is changing (I have friends who are dating or have dated someone they met online, and aren’t worried about sharing that experience), but for most people it’s still an issue.

These are the real problems we should be (and are) trying to solve for our users. We pay close attention to our price-point, add event streams so that users can see that the site is alive and active, and launched forums so that users can have a safe place to vent about their online dating mishaps without worrying about what people think (because everyone on there is online dating too). These aren’t silver bullet solutions, obviously, and we’re expanding and revising them every day. But it’s important that we revisit these features from the users’ perspective, lest we get caught up in a fruitless race to parity.

Well, the dust seems to have finally settled over the @replies debacle on Twitter. In short, users were suddenly unable to see their friends @replies to people they weren’t following. This cut out a part of Twitter that is part of its appeal: random discovery. I don’t use Twitter Search that much to find new people, and I have yet to take the Suggested Users feature seriously (it’s currently offering me Dell Outlet and Jimmy Fallon). Instead, I watch the conversations my friends are having with other people, and click through what appears to be an interesting topic to see the entire thread. I don’t always wind up following the people I find with this method, but it’s never failed to unearth interesting links/information/etc. that reminded me why I use Twitter in the first place.

What Went Wrong

The interesting thing? The uproar over Twitter removing the @reply settings options is not about people feeling like they’re missing out on great discoveries. A lot of the people who are upset already had Twitter set the way Twitter decided to set it permanently. The reason everyone (including myself) is so upset is that Twitter removed a bit of users’ control over their streams. I was reading through 37signals’ “Getting Real” a few weeks ago, and in one of the essays they describe their process for deciding which features to develop (hint: they always say “no” first). They’re extraordinarily picky about which features they release, because once something gets released, good luck taking it away from your users. Twitter removed a feature (confusing and un-scalable though it was) and users understandably got upset.

Another problem was the way they announced the feature’s removal. Instead of explaining (as they finally did later) that those settings were simply not scalable, Twitter blogged that the feature was “undesirable” and that the decision to remove it was based on usage statistics. This may partially be the case, but twenty-four hours (and a lot of backlash later), Twitter’s blog now says that, “Folks loved this feature,” and that “the problem with the setting was that it didn’t scale.” Certainly users (especially Twitter users) could respect that a feature wasn’t originally architected to scale. Why not just come out with that in the beginning, instead of claiming that users don’t like the feature?

The last problem here is largely a usability issue. One of the original reasons cited for removing the @reply settings was that it was confusing to users. I couldn’t agree more with this assessment. However the answer isn’t to remove the feature. Rather, it’s to make it clearer. It’s way easier to simply rip out a piece of code than to actually think about making it more usable. I’m not saying that the people at Twitter didn’t think about improving the usability (obviously there were other issues at play here). But based off the original post, Twitter was removing the feature because their users didn’t get it. Essentially Twitter was saying to users, “we’re going to take away this (powerful) setting and decide for you because you’re obviously not competent enough to understand it.” If comprehension is the problem, rewrite your copy until it’s comprehensible.

What Twitter Did Right

Despite all of the missteps, Twitter did, unsurprisingly, respond with great speed to the criticisms. Though I suppose they better have, considering their product is basically an awesomely-intricate Internet thermometer. They probably knew within an hour of removing the setting that something was wrong. On Twitter Search (yes, I used it today), there were twenty new entries for #fixreplies in the first ten seconds after the results loaded.

Was the response satisfying? Sort of. They’re restoring the ability to read @replies to people you don’t follow again, which is great. Again, though, users aren’t being given a choice (at least for the moment). Twitter is working on a new feature to replace the old one (though it’s a little vague about what’s going to replace the “blunt” @reply settings). So for now, enjoy seeing @replies again… Unless you were blocking all of them this whole time. If so, maybe #breakreplies will gain enough traction to get the entire setting back until they release a better one.

For a few weeks now, I’ve been using Taxi Magic – an iPhone application that promotes itself as “The Fastest and Safest way to take Taxis.”  It currently only works with one cab company in San Francisco – Luxor Cabs – with the promise of more to come.  The application allows users to reserve a cab ride from their phone without having to call the taxi dispatcher.  The other nice thing about the application is that you can pay directly through the app, with the payment appearing on the driver’s monitor after a few seconds.

Up until now, I’ve been using the pay feature with very hit-or-miss results.  Some Luxor drivers have no idea what RideCharge is, and I’ve waited for 15+ minutes while they contact dispatch to confirm what I tried explaning to them.  When it works and the driver knows about it (or is at least open to the possibility of such technology existing), it’s a pretty fantastic application.  Unfortunately, after an altercation last evening, I’ve since deleted the application from my phone.

My girlfriend Josie and I, along with our terrier Carver, booked a cab through Taxi Magic to go to our friend Cameron’s barbecue.  When we arrived at our destination I paid with Taxi Magic ($12 on a $9 cab).  After waiting for the information to appear on the driver’s screen (along with a pleasant beeping sound), we started to depart the cab.  At this point, the driver stepped out of his cab and angrily asked if that meant we weren’t paying him.  Calmly, my girlfriend explained that we paid with Taxi Magic, and that the information was on his screen (she pointed to his screen and said, “See?  It says ‘Paid, $12.00′”).  Without even looking at his screen, the driver again accused us of trying to not pay him.  I tried again to explain that we’d paid him, to check his screen, and to call dispatch if he needed to confirm.

He sat down, again without even glancing at his monitor, and picked up his radio.  After a minute or so of no response from his dispatcher, I’d had it, and said again, “We paid you,” and started to walk away with Josie and Carver.  Once again, the driver stepped out of his cab, this time walking after me cursing at me and asking if I was leaving and not paying, yelling, “I know where you live.”  He got close enough to me that I honestly thought he was going to try to grab me.  Luckily he didn’t, and we just kept walking until we got to Cameron’s apartment.

Inside, we relayed the story to Cameron and a couple others, at the end of which I figured it was a good idea to call Luxor and let them know what had happened.  I walked out front with Cameron, where we found the cab and driver sitting outside his apartment idling.  I immediately dialed the cab company and quickly got a dispatcher.  I explained what was happening, and that the driver was sitting outside the apartment (and was now yelling at Cameron).

“Oh, don’t worry, I got him squared away, it’s fine,” the dispatcher said.

“It’s obviously not fine, he’s still sitting outside the apartment yelling at us,” I said.

“Just don’t worry about it, it’s taken care of,” was the reply, after which the dispatcher promptly hung up on me.

In the end, Cameron had to threaten to call the police if the driver wouldn’t leave, to which he flipped Cameron off, yelled “Fuck you,” one more time, and then blared his horn all the way down the block.

And this guy knows where I live.

I’ve since Twittered at RideCharge (and will be sending them an email today), and am going to call Luxor again this morning and try to get someone above a dispatcher to listen to me.  At the end of the day, it’s not just the driver’s fault.  It’s his fault for being aggressive/confrontational over $9, but it’s not totally his fault for being unaware of the technology he’s working with.  Like I said, it isn’t uncommon for drivers not to know anything about RideCharge in the first place.  Essentially, this means that either RideCharge created and released an application (Taxi Magic) without doing due diligence to ensure that cab drivers were notified/educated about it, or that Luxor simply chose to not talk to their employees about the new software.  Either way, it’s encounters like these that ultimately hurt both RideCharge and Luxor Cabs, as I’ve now deleted the application and Luxor’s phone number from my phone.

Update: RideCharge responded very quickly and admirably:

This is Matt with RideCharge Support. Thank you for the input and being a valued customer. I am sorry that you and you’re girlfriend had this bad experience. We can contact the appropriate management personnel at Luxor on your behalf, if you have not already done so.

Regrettably, this is one of the hurdles that might only be overcome with time. There are many taxi drivers in our national provider network that have not been exposed to RideCharge technology yet. We have dedicated a lot of resources toward training drivers and making training materials available, but it’s just impossible (with the high rate of turnover, etc.) to get them all familiar with RideCharge until it is widely used. It is surprising that this is happening in San Francisco. Over 5,600 individuals have used Taxi Magic/RideCharge with Luxor Cabs to take almost 14,000 taxi rides so far this year.

In any event, this issue needs to be resolved. We are actively working on strategies to resolve this every week.

I can totally understand their position, and I agree that time will eventually solve the problem. I guess I would just suggest working more closely with Luxor and other cab companies to make sure that RideCharge is part of the required literature before a cab is allowed to be operated (especially here in San Francisco where, as Matt says, RideCharge is extremely popular).

I get antsy when things stay the same for too long… in this case, “too long” meant three months

Hope you enjoy it!

Over the weekend, I designed and launched a personal web site for my good friend, Maya Baratz. It wasn’t a paid job (jobs I do for friends are mainly for the goodwill and word-of-mouth), but I still took away an important lesson from the project:

When working with friends, keep it personal. Take advantage of the fact that, in essence, you both already know how to work together. The reason Maya’s site design & launch went so smoothly was because we already know how to communicate with each other. She understood (as any good friend you’re doing a side project for should) that my time was precious to me, but also that I’d do my very best to help her out. And as her friend, I knew that the site design/launch couldn’t be dragged out forever, so I set a couple of hard dates for myself and had the work finished by then. Afterward, we went back and forth a little, tweaking and adjusting for a day or two until the site was ready to go. And even though there are still a few more tweaks to be made (from her perspective and mine), I feel we struck a good balance and launched a quality site that, had we been strangers, may have taken much more time to put together.

Working with friends can be disaster if it turns out one of you doesn’t respect the other’s time/work. But it can also be one of the best experiences you’ll ever have if you can strike a great balance and demonstrate a mutual respect.

Stumbled upon this article by John C. Dvorak today about how Microsoft’s products aren’t necessarily bad, but rather good products that have bad branding behind them. He goes on to say that if you put a Microsoft product under a Web 2.0 company or under the Apple banner, the product is suddenly ground-breaking and heralded as the future of the tech industry. Also, as an exercise, he claims that the iPhone under the Microsoft banner would be a failure (at least by comparison to the massive success it’s currently enjoying).

Don’t blame the branding.

Sure, there’s a point to be made about a company’s reputation affecting their reception in the marketplace. But chalking up branding as Microsoft’s big problem is a flawed argument in that it allows Microsoft to defend bad products. Heck, it allows Microsoft apologists to defend bad products. In the article, Dvorak points to Songsmith as his example of a potentially ground-breaking product that suffers from Microsoft’s poor branding. For those unfamiliar, here’s the Songsmith commercial.

After watching the commercial again, I still can’t quite figure out what’s particularly incredible about Songsmith in the first place. At best it’s the successor to Auto Tune (/shudder), and at worst it’s a piece of throwaway software that would be installed by default on any cheap HP, Dell, etc. To be totally fair, I feel like Apple includes the same type of HDD-eating software that I should at least have the option of not installing in the first place (I’m looking at you, Garage Band). That still doesn’t change the fact that I (and many people I know) would delete that software on first boot.

Let’s play pretend and imagine that some other, well-known web company released Songsmith:

Are you sold? I’m not. Watch the commercial again and insert “Pandora” everywhere it says “Microsoft.” Does Songsmith suddenly become a breakout product? Would Pandora win awards/kudos for this product?

I hope not. Just like I said I’d be quickly moving Songsmith to my Trash folder if it came pre-installed on my Mac, so too would I try and get rid of it if it came packed with a Pandora Desktop Client. Overall it’s a silly product, and I’m not sure how anyone can argue otherwise. Sure, my little sisters would LOVE it for twenty minutes. But I’m not convinced that branding it with Apple, Pandora or Last.FM changes that.

You could technically chalk up Songsmith’s reputation to poor marketing. I’ve never played with the software personally, but have been informed entirely by a childish video on YouTube. I also suppose that one could argue that Apple or Pandora or Last.FM would market Songsmith differently, thus making it, at least in part, a branding problem.

But the problem is far more systemic than that, I think. I get the impression (not just from Songsmith, but from their other products as well) that Microsoft has some serious blinders on when it comes to the true nature of their products. They seem unwilling to believe that Songsmith could really be just a toy, convinced that it is the breakthrough technology that Dvorak alludes to. I mean, come on, the software is hosted on research.microsoft.com.

You know what else is hosted on research.microsoft.com? A programming language for composable DNA circuits. Now that’s what I call research. Projects like that don’t need to be sold, or marketed, or have crummy commercials made about them. And unlike Songsmith, suddenly it does matter to me that Microsoft are the ones exploring these sorts of things. It’s not their branding that hurts or helps their products’ reputations. It’s the products that make or break their branding. It wouldn’t matter how great an advertisement I create for Zoosk is. If the application is poorly designed, programmed, etc. our bounce rate goes through the roof and our branding is negatively affected.

Branding is not the problem. It’s the result.