Jared Newman:

…some high-profile sites, such as TechCrunch, have switched over the new [comment] system, which is run entirely by [Facebook]. This requires commenters to write under their real names, provided they aren’t using an alias on Facebook, and by default displays the comment on the user’s wall and friends’ news feeds.

Not surprisingly, the switch had a chilling effect on TechCrunch, according to MG Siegler. Although the venomous remarks that once dominated the site’s peanut gallery are gone, in their place are “comments that gush about the subject of the article in an overly sycophantic way,” Siegler writes. There are also fewer comments overall.

It’s hard to care about the people who post some of the most vitriol, hateful, homophobic, racist and downright disgusting comments anonymously on the Internet. I don’t doubt that for some people it makes life difficult. The guy who works at a crappy job but has to stay there for some reason and can’t even make thoughtful posts on a website, for instance.

But, the utilitarian response here is difficult to ignore: more manageable and thoughtful comments. We can all use a bit more thoughtfulness these days.

Because I’m impressed by Apple’s uncanny ability to take songs and incorporate them so beautifully into their commercials and videos, I always try to identify the songs. I seldom like the songs enough outside the video to listen to them over and over, but I figured out what they were.

From the new iPad 2 video with interviews of  Jony Ive, Michael Tchao, Scott Forstall and Bob Mansfield:  ”Dog Days are Over” by Florence and the Machine.

The iPad 2 Smart Cover video features  an instrumental version of “Extraordinary Machine” by Fiona Apple. It’s also very heavily and cleverly edited together.

This question comes up a lot. It was asked of me recently:

I’m currently in high school and interested in possibly becoming a web designer in the future. I’ve already taken a web development class and recently won an award for a website I made, which made me more confident about getting into this field. I have two questions. What kind of degree is best? IT? Computer Technology? Art?

Two things:

First, because you get a web design ‘award’ doesn’t mean squat. In fact, those get handed out like candy. Unless you win a Webby, don’t bother caring about it.

Second, the Bachelor’s Degree is the most overrated product in America. Seriously. If you want to work in a corporate environment, fine, go piddle away your money at a degree that won’t teach you anything you couldn’t already Google. And it won’t teach you what you need to know, either. Like how to run a meeting or deal with lousy clients.

If you want to work on your own, skip the degree and just do some work on your own. No client ever asked a freelancer or a web agency, “Great, you’re hired! But can I see your degree first?” In fact, most web agencies would rather hire someone with talent over a degree. If it came down to two people and one had a degree and the other had a great portfolio in comparison with no degree, I’d take the guy with the better portfolio.

As a bonus, any web class you took in high school or a community college probably wasn’t that great. At least here in Indiana, the quality of most programs isn’t up to par because of inadequate technology, software, hardware and time for the teacher to keep up with the latest standards.

Jason Grose:

A luxury car may have the same number of wheels, seats, windows and doors as a traditional vehicle, but what sets it apart from the competition is the time spent on the details. Heated leather seats, a push-to-start engine, keyless entry, automated parking and extensive digital consoles add value to an expensive, new car. …the same goes for web design.

For years, Ford struggled to produce a car that could compete with Toyota’s Corolla and Camry models because they couldn’t make as much money on each car sold compared to Toyota. (Ford claimed it was because they had higher union-labor costs than Toyota). Toyota’s higher profit margins allowed them to re-invest back into their cars.

For instance, Toyota’s have long had a higher-fiber seat fabric. It lasts longer, is more stain resistant and improves the resale value later since it doesn’t look as crummy years later. Ford couldn’t do that.

Standards. They’re important.

I picked up a copy of Guy Kawaski’s “Reality Check” the other day. I was surprised by how big it was at nearly 500 pages. It reads almost like a bible for small businesses, entrepreneurs, salesmen and anyone that needs to benefit from marketing.

I expected it to take forever to get through, but I actually got through it in about a week. The line height in the text is pretty high, so the number of words per page was pretty small.

I’m glad it was, too, because it allowed for easy skimming in parts. I don’t sell tangible products, so I wasn’t so interested in messing with that. Nor do I hire employees or have to fire them and other administrative stuff, so I skipped a few of those chapters.

The text was remarkably well written and it read almost like a blog post. It was easy to pickup, read a little and come back to later to read some more. I can’t say I picked up a lot from the book that I didn’t already know from reading other books, which is why I call it something of a bible. Take this advice:

If you’ve never read another marketing / sales / startup book before, don’t bother. Just read Reality Check and it’ll cover and say everything every other book has said (or tried to say).

One part that did stick out to me that I bookmarked was chapter 82, “Ten or so things to learn at school”. The advice was spot on and it stuck out to me because no school teaches this stuff:

1. How to talk to your boss
2. How to survive a meeting
3. How to run a meeting
4. How to figure out anything on your own
5. How to negotiate
6. How to make small talk
7. How to explain something in 30 seconds
8. How to write a one page report
9. How to write a five sentence email
10. How to get along with co-workers
11. How to use PowerPoint (or Keynote)
12. How to leave a voicemail

Personally, I think the more people knew about numbers 9 and 11, the better off the world would be. I’ve designed PowerPoint presentations for people before, I actually kinda like doing it, too. You get to frame someone else’s talk and ensure they don’t bore people with a bunch of bullets in dozens and dozens of slides.

A great book, well worth the time to read it either by skimming or from cover to cover. It has interviews, experiences and a directness that’s well worth it. Plus, it’s only $10 for Kindles.

I’ve made a breakthrough in determining what the best kind of client is: it’s those getting a website redesign.

I’ve had two clients recently fall off the face of the earth because they were starting a business fresh and needed a website. I had another person call me from Muncie, Indiana the other day claiming he had invented a new detachable sound-proof wall. He sounded almost desperate in his plea for a website and only offered 40% of his profits. Sorry, but I can’t pay my light bill with hopes and dreams.

I’m sympathetic to that, sure, but people looking to start a business often have two problems:

1. They’re really tied up in a lot of nitty details and everything is extremely important to them.
2. They have no money, so if the site doesn’t magically make a million dollars overnight, it’s (somehow) my fault.

For some reason, people know that when they start a business, like a restaurant, they’ll have staff costs, they have to buy plates, food, glasses, silverware, tables, etc. Just because your business is going to operate mostly or completely online doesn’t mean you won’t have costs. Don’t think that because a business is online that it’ll be free or super cheap.

The best clients are those looking for a website redesign. They already have an established website that, while not good or just outdated, they’re not happy with it for some reason. So, now I know what not to do. Generally, it’s because the prior developer flew the coop and they’re sitting ducks.

Redesigning a website for a business usually means they have some cash flow, they can afford it and won’t be haggling over how to get a website for $200 and they have an understanding of their market – something new businesses and startups don’t have.

Redesigning a website is also easier because we can use the existing content as a guide and can tweak it accordingly since we’ll have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t. The most satisfied and best clients I’ve worked with are usually people redesigning a site. If only I could find a way to work solely as a “website flipper”, I’d leap at the opportunity.

Google:

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

Translation: “We see you people trying to game our system by doing a bunch of bogus link crap. Stop it.”

Let’s face it, sometimes, in some professions, it’s easier to just lie than it is to try and explain something. If lawyers faced even a handful of the questions web designers faced, they’d be asked to explain the law and how their clients can represent themselves all the time.

It’s frustrating, because for example, you’d never hire a painter to paint your house, then ask him to show you how to do it yourself.

That’s why web designers have to bend reality sometimes because it’s almost necessary. If you asked a web designer to make your website have fireworks go off in the background, they’re likely to lie and say, “Oh, that isn’t really possible anymore. Future browsers don’t support that.” It’s a complete lie, but a good one because for some reason, in this business, trying to explain why it’s a bad idea to have fireworks flashing all over your web pages’ background just doesn’t register with a lot of people.

The point here is simple: if you’ve hired a true professional, listen to their advice. Don’t shrug it off and claim you know better because you don’t. Why else would you have hired the professional?

I don’t have a clock in my office.

Or at least, not one I look at. I turned the clock off on my menu bar some time ago, so my computer doesn’t show the time. I don’t look at my phone unless it rings. I don’t wear a watch at my desk either. But, I’ve learned to identify what time it is, vaguely, by other means.

At 8 am, the kids get on the school bus.
At 10:15 am, the guy down the street walks to the bus stop.
At 11:30 the mailman arrives.
At 3:30 the elementary kids get off the school bus.
At 4:45 the high school kids off the school bus.

The upside here is that I just work until I’m hungry or I’m done. Works well in tandem with no Growl notifications or IMs or email notifications every 10 seconds.