You’re Thinking Like A Marketer, Not A Customer

If you’re running a site to promote something (a product, an event, a way-of-life), and you’re doing so not simply out of the goodness of your heart,* but for financial gain, chances are you’re doing it totally wrong.

And if you are doing it wrong (and you probably are, trust me), then you’re losing money, losing audience, and losing sight of what makes your product/event/philosophy remarkable.

Nine times out of ten, the big problem is that you’re thinking from the point of view of a Marketer rather than as a customer. It’s nothing new to say this, of course, but I wonder if you could recognize it when you see it.

This is one of the biggest signs, and it turns people away before they’ve even had time to figure out where they are:

A homepage that screams “Buy This Now!,” instead of posing a polite, quiet, “How can I help you find what you’re looking for?” or even, “Hi! How are you today? Please feel free to take a look around and let me know if you have any questions.”

There’s a reason that brick-and-mortar salespeople** and cashiers and waitstaff and receptionists and pretty much everyone else use polite language like that above. They are there to serve you and assist you in paying for what you want to buy, not shove the Bison Burger Special down your throat.

Consider this bit of analogy:

It is raining. Hard. You don’t have an umbrella, but need to walk another twenty blocks down Fifth Avenue to get to your job interview. Crossing 36th Street, you glimpse a rack of umbrellas inside a store you’ve never shopped in before, a place called Jerry’s Stuff On Fifth. Sweet. Salvation. You open the door. *Ringaling!* You step inside, casually scanning the room from side to side to locate the rack of umbrellas you had noticed through the window, as you shake off a little of the rainwater and try to calm your breath. Without warning, you are ambushed by sales associates on either side, yelling and arm-waving and shoving Plastic Thermoses in front of your face.

“$9.95! Two for $15!!! Tell A Friend!!! Buy Now! Buy Now! $9.95! Two for $15! Only today! Special Special!”

You try to speak: “But...but...I just want an um—”

“Thermos Special! Buy Today! $9.95! Two for $15!”

If you don’t go running back out into the thunderstorm after enduring that, then I’ll eat my shorts. (Oh wait, I already did that.)

Make sense yet?

Here’s a translation of my little allegory:

Rain = Google

Umbrella = Search Query

Jerry’s Stuff On Fifth = Your Website

Plastic Thermoses Salespeople Of Doom = Bullshit Links and Flashing Banners and Fancy Rollovers and Embedded Commercials and BUY NOW MOTHERFUCKER Buttons that have absolutely, positively, NOTHING to do with what your customers want because you haven’t even bothered to ask them.

Any questions?

----
*Of course, even people doing stuff out of the goodness of their hearts routinely make the same mistakes. But the stakes are frequently higher when money gets involved, and for some reason, folks working for-profit tend to approach things with a much higher dose of ego, self-deception, and propensity for outright lying and other unethical behaviors that basically define “Marketers.” (Sub-note: marketers are not intrinsically evil. Marketers (capital M) are.) Go Back Up

**I am aware that a lot of salespeople are assholes. These are not the ones I am referring to. Have you stopped to think that your site acts like the very worst of the worst Timeshare salespeople? Go Back Up

8 Ways To Drive A Graphic Designer Mad

Amazingly funny (and tragically true) list that I wish I wrote.

A highlight:

When you have to send a graphic designer a document, make sure it's made with a program from Microsoft Office. PC version if possible. If you have to send pictures, you'll have more success in driving them mad if, instead of just sending a jpeg or a raw camera file, you embed the pictures inside a Microsoft Office document like Word or Powerpoint. Don't forget to lower the resolution to 72 dpi so that they'll have to contact you again for a higher quality version. When you send them the "higher" version, make sure the size is at least 50% smaller.

Check out the whole list. And behave yourself!

Related video. (Inasmuch as it is about torture.)

“Arial: Shameless Impostor” Desktop Wallpaper

Are you masochistic? Do you have negative feelings toward someone this holiday season? Well, look no further than this totally free “Arial: Shameless Impostor” desktop wallpaper. Set in one of history’s lamest typefaces and in eye-bleeding black and hot pink, this 1920x1200 pixel work of Bad Art is the perfect cure to your suicidal/homicidal tendencies.

But seriously, though, if you’re on the edge, setting this on your computer’s desktop could push you over. Use with caution (just like the typeface).

(Click to download full size)

Some Helvetica wallpaper available here, if you don’t feel like inflicting pain on yourself and your loved ones.

Verizon Gets A Fail For The Day

Our internet connection in the office was down for over 5 hours today.

And even though I had positive things to say about the Verizon tech support phone line back in April, I have take it all back after my dealings with them this morning.

And this afternoon.

Just awful.

And besides, what the heck is Verizon up to that they’re reporting outages all over Massachusets?

Quotation Mark Overload

IMG_0242.JPG
Originally uploaded by frivmo

This huge sign on the front of recently-opened Pret a Manger on 6th Avenue and 47th Street, is nothing short of a typographical travesty. It also fails miserably from both a marketing and a linguistic standpoint.

But a sign doesn’t a restaurant make, right? How is the food?

‘Good.’

BREAKING: Microsoft Rips Off Companies Other Than Apple!

This was the easiest Photoshop job ever.

Microsoft’s slogan for the new Zune 2 is “You Make It You.” The second part of that, which was removed at some point in the committee-run design process, was “We Make It Like Somebody Else.”

This time around, the fabled Redmond Photocopiers (great video by David Pogue here, by the way) turned their lasers on South Korean wireless handset-maker LG Electronics and its popular(?) “Chocolate” mobile phone. If we’re being generous (really generous), we’ll say that Microsoft did this on purpose so that fashion-forward (that term seems so inappropriate here) gadgeteers can purchase a music player that matches their cellphone (that, uh, already plays music). I guess it was too hard for Microsoft to copy the curves of iPhone, even though pretty much everyone else is doing it (check Gizmodo or Engadget for frequent cases of this phenomenon).

Gosh, can no one design their own gadget these days?

Just one more reason not to buy a Zune this Christmas (or EVER).

Special thanks to my one true human love for pointing this out to me last week, and to Microsoft for being exceedingly easy to mock.

BlogRush Sends Evil Emails

UPDATE: After a comment from Andy Beard, I have changed the title of this post, because accusing (even hyperbolically and in the heat of the moment) John Reese of spamming me is wrong, and potentially harmful to his reputation and business. The email is clearly not spam, and I am, after all, on a list that I (apparently) opted into when signing up to try out BlogRush.

I’ve pretty much ignored other emails I’ve received from BlogRush in the past couple weeks (about one a week), but this one caught my eye, because I was genuinely surprised by the subject line. I read it, and, as I mention in my response to Andy’s comment below, I was insulted and offended by the assertion that if you aren’t a totally hardcore member of the BlogRush network, then they have no desire for your business and will delete your blog automatically. This is, in my view, an unfortunate move for such a new service, and raises some real concerns about the strength of the network, which, by all accounts will only work well if made up of power users. To me, this is a shift from the initial promise of the network, and now sounds like another “fat get fatter” kind of thing. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’d love the hear that I am, because BlogRush did seem interesting at first.

All that said, my main point - which is that the email is horrifying - still stands. From a buzz standpoint, it has certainly worked, but the long, rambling, finger-pointing, and LOUD message isn’t something that works for me when it comes to selling your service. If I were to write a tutorial on how not to do business email newsletters, this would be a prime example.

Anyway, my apologies to John, who I’m sure is a really great guy. Here’s the rest of my original post:

One day late for Halloween, I received a horrifying email in my Inbox from BlogRush, a traffic-building widget service I got wind of from Andy Beard’s Niche Marketing blog and tried out for a couple weeks back in September. At the time, I was making some layout tweaks to my blog, and ultimately decided against keeping the widget on my site, and I haven’t paid much attention to how BlogRush has been doing since then.

Until now. Or rather, ten minutes ago, when I received this most terrifying message with a subject line so spammy I’m surprised it made it past Google’s Spam Filter (“42% Increase In Free Traffic”), and I am now reposting it below with comments in brackets, emphasis (though not capitalization) entirely mine:

THIS MESSAGE CONTAINS *CRITICAL*
INFORMATION. PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT
TO READ IT RIGHT NOW. [Holy God, Save Me]

In This Message:

- TrafficJam.com Is Coming [Woo!]
- 42% Increase In Free Traffic [Double Woo!]
- Widget Performance Monitoring [Blah...]
- All Members Must Be Displaying The Widget [WTF?]
- Closing In On ONE BILLION Blog Headlines [Nice work, BlogRush]

We’ve received TONS of positive feedback on the
release of “Phase 2″ for BlogRush! [And boy is it heavy! Whew!]

Members are really happy with the new Dashboard
stats and reporting as well as all the new
features — including the new “thin widget” option
and “BUZZ” meter. And many are especially excited
about the important news we released about our
upcoming “TrafficJam” sister site.

If you haven't yet experienced the new
"Phase 2" of BlogRush (and viewed the
new VIDEO inside) make sure to login
to your account to check it out:
http://www.blogrush.com

*********************************************
TrafficJam.com Is Coming [Dun dun dun...]

*********************************************

TrafficJam (which will be located at
TrafficJam.com) will take the hottest posts from
across the BlogRush network and rank them by
category based on our “BUZZ” meter technology.
This site will be another way for our users to
drive more free traffic to their blogs.
We expect many Internet users will start using
TrafficJam to keep up with the latest news about
the niche they are interested in, as well as a
great resource for bloggers to find important
blog posts from other bloggers so they can then
write about them (and link to them!) on their own
blogs.

*********************************************

42% Increase In Free Traffic

*********************************************
42% Increase In Free Traffic Sent To BlogRush
Members In Last 48 Hours

Since releasing Phase 2 we’ve seen a 42% increase
in click-rates (i.e. the free traffic members
receive) across the entire network. This is
mostly due to the release of the thin widget
option.

Many of our users had blogs that could
not accommodate the standard widget size and
were forced to place the widget at the very bottom
of their pages — this was contributing to lower
click-rates across the network.

And we’re about to make additional changes to
dramatically improve the click-through rates
which is what will send every member even more
traffic…

*********************************************
Widget Performance Monitoring

*********************************************

The #1 reason BlogRush isn’t sending the maximum
free traffic to all of its members is simple…
many users are placing the widget very low on
their blogs where most people won’t even see it.

Did you know that over 1,500 BlogRush users
(across nearly all network categories) are
receiving average daily click-through rates
between 1% and 2% on the BlogRush widget on their
blog? [OMG, Really?]

And it should also be no surprise that these
users are getting a higher rate of referral
activity than everyone else — more bloggers click
their “Add Your Blog Posts” widget link and sign
up for BlogRush. (Because more people SEE their
widget.)

ALL of those users have ONE THING in common…
they have the BlogRush widget positioned high up on
their blog where a lot of people will see it! [Wow, insightful]

So right now you could be receiving 10 TIMES (or
more) traffic from BlogRush, but the reason why
you don’t is because so many of our users are
placing the widget very low on their blogs where
it’s not being seen — and those poor performing
widgets are hurting the overall network
click-rates.

YOUR BLOG POSTS are only appearing inside those
1%-2% click-rate widgets on rare occasion (which
is what will send you the most traffic). The rest
of the time your posts are appearing inside
widgets that no one can even see! (Which is why
you aren’t getting more traffic.)

Here’s What We’re Doing About It

[Here’s where things start to get really scary...]
We’ll soon be adding “widget performance
monitoring” to our network. Any users that have
low-performing widgets will be automatically
notified that they need to improve the
positioning for the widget on their blogs.
Failure to improve their widget performance (which can be done by giving the widget higher placement) will remove that user from the network. THIS IS THE ONLY *FAIR* WAY TO DO IT.

“WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, I KNOW, I KNOW…”

Since we originally launched BlogRush about 6
weeks ago, we encountered some problems that we
had to deal with… we had to increase our security
measures to stop people from abusing the network,
which we did… then we had an issue with
low-quality blogs in the network… and we worked
very hard to manually review ALL blogs, we had to
make some tough decisions to remove over 10,000
from the network, and now we have a fantastic,
high-quality network of member blogs, BUT…

Before we fixed all of these problems, the
quality and performance of the network was poor
and it didn’t send as much traffic to our members
— which we were very unhappy about, and the sole
reason we’ve worked so hard to fix things. SOO…
it has been a “Catch-22″ for many of our
members…

“Why should I give the BlogRush widget higher
placement when I’m not getting much traffic from
it!”

And for those that have this reaction, it’s
PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE...

*I* would, personally, feel the exact same way.

But we now have the data that PROVES that
BlogRush, as a system for driving valuable,
targeted blog readers to other blogs, 100% WORKS.
It just requires that our members give the widget
high enough placement so visitors will see it and
can use it.

[SCARIER!!!!!]

So here’s what I’m asking all of our members that
currently don’t have the widget placed very high
up on their blogs… PLEASE immediately move the widget higher up on your blog. (Thank You.)

Just give it a chance as we encourage everyone to
give the widget higher placement and at least see
what happens. If you aren’t happy later, then by
all means, remove the widget from your blog. It’s
that easy.

BlogRush was created as a truly COOPERATIVE
system to drive tons of valuable targeted traffic
to blogs. It only works for those willing to be
fair to the other members.

BY THE WAY, if you’re one of our valued members
that DOES have the widget placed high on your
blog, “Thank You!” You’re doing your fair
contribution to the network and we sincerely
appreciate it. (And you’ll be rewarded for it.)

[EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!]

Do we require that the widget be placed at the
absolute very top of your blog? NO. But if you
place the widget so that it is immediately in
view when someone loads your blog, or at the very
least is seen shortly after someone starts to
scroll, you can pretty much guarantee that you
won’t be receiving a “widget performance WARNING”
from our system asking you to improve the
placement.

If you will be unable to give the widget good placement on your blog (similar to what is mentioned above) then please go ahead and remove the BlogRush widget from your blog, because I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet our new widget performance requirements. It’s just not fair for our other users to be giving YOUR BLOG POSTS great exposure on their blogs if you aren’t willing to do the same for theirs.

[Absolute terror.]

*********************************************
All Members Must Be Displaying The Widget

*********************************************

This is something that we’ve let slide a bit as
we’ve been fixing all the major issues we
encountered. We understand that many users took
the widget off their blog so they could take a
“wait and see” approach before putting it back.

But now the time has come to enforce a new rule
for the network… if you’re not displaying the
widget on your blog you cannot earn or use
syndication credits for your account. [No way?!] For any
time that the widget is not active on your
blog(s) that you have set up in your account,
none of your posts will be syndicated and your
account will not accumulate any additional
credits.

Your referral network and activity will remain
intact, as will any existing credit balance, but
you will not be earning any new credits (or using
any) during the time the widget is not being
actively displayed.

This is the only FAIR WAY for the network to
work. Many of our members that have been making a
solid effort to contribute to the network have
complained that they click on links inside their
widget only to find a blog that’s not showing the
widget.

So we’re putting an end to this as it just isn’t
fair.

And any members that have an inactive widget for
an extended period of time (30+ days) may be
terminated from the network and have their
accounts permanently closed.

Please know that we are working VERY HARD to help
drive tons of traffic to your blog. We’ve got
lots of new services and plans in the works! Our
success with BlogRush is based solely on YOUR
SUCCESS of getting lots of traffic from our
network. So please know that all of these “rules”
and moves that we are making are with that sole
focus in mind.

We are quickly heading towards our ONE BILLIONTH
blog headline served!

Maybe we’ll throw a little party when that
happens? :)

And a big “Thank You” to everyone for their
patience, understanding, and also valued
constructive criticism!

Best Regards,

John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

I mistakenly left this most important part out at first:

If you want to cancel your BlogRush account and no longer receive
emails from our system, please click here:xxxxxxxxx

This is just terrible. Horrible. Unimaginable. What kind of response is Reese expecting? Does he think that there will be cheers of “Oh yes, Johnny, we looooove BlogRush. We want to have a party with you, so we’ll put the ugly-looking no-good non-high-quality wannabe-traffic-bringing widget right next to our logo and hold hands with other scammy pathetic blogging losers and sing ‘Perfect Harmony’ all day long.” God.

Now, I’m sure John Reese knows something I don’t about sending spam marketing emails - after all, he made nearly a million on a domain name sale years ago - but if anyone ever sends me an email like this, you can rest assured that the absolute nicest thing I will do with it is swiftly move it to my spam folder.

A Blog About Nothing has some issues with BlogRush worth checking out, too. Gosh people...

Worst Movie In Years

Across The Universe.

Not much else to say about that right now. I’d like to, but it would take more energy than this egregious insult to cinema and audiences and The Beatles deserves.

Maybe later.

Big Ugly Fonts: Papyrus

If you’ve ever stabbed yourself in the face, chances are you understand the pain a designer feels when she is asked to set some type using Papyrus. If you’ve shot off the tips of your fingers with a machine gun, you can begin to appreciate the torture experienced by a designer realizing that the request is not just to set some headings in Papyrus, but body type. Paragraphs of doom.

No hyperbole here. Hell isn’t just other people. It’s other people who like this font.

Papyrus, a typeface designed in 1982 by a man named Chris Costello, is an abomination that graces the pages of far, far too many resort brochures and Microsoft Word-designed “fliers” (ed. note: using the word “designed” very loosely, here). “Costello described his goal as a font that would represent what English vernacular would have looked like if written on papyrus 2000 years ago.” Noble. Or idiotic. Only second-rate brands like AriZona tea and Crocodile Hunter could even pretend not to be ashamed for using this typeface that even its designer is tired of seeing.

Here’s what ITC, the current owner of Papyrus, has to say about it:

[Papyrus is an] unusual roman typeface [that] effectively merges the elegance of a traditional roman letterform with the hand-crafted look of highly skilled calligraphy.

And here’s how I would rewrite that sentence:

[Papyrus is an] unusually awful roman typeface [that] merges the inelegance and repugnance of a traditional roman latrine with the hand-crafted-by-a-four-year-old look of highly abhorrent melted-from-the-sun Crayola® crayon doodling.

And now, without further ado, I present to you the latest Big Ugly Font. Papyrus, in all her glory. Click the letters below to view the “carefully-designed” forms in horrifically huge image sizes.

And if you feel like being a total asshole, set one of your favorites as the wallpaper on your roommate’s computer.




























Gag me with a spoon. Slit my eyelids with sandpaper.

Previous Big Ugly Font: Arial

New NYC Taxi Logo Design Sucks

The New York Times City Room blog has invited eight designers to critique the new look for NYC Taxis (and offer alternatives). The overwhelming opinion is that the logo chosen for the cabs totally sucks, and there are dozens of comments on each post to this effect. I strongly agree with the majority.

While the logo may (or may not) be an improvement over the original look (more of a non-look, I suppose), it still sucks from a lot of different perspectives.

Among the valid criticisms:

• The T inside a circle is confusing and stupid. It is extremely similar to the T symbol used by Massachusetts’ transportation agency. It will also conflict with the symbol used for the Second Avenue subway line (which will be the T) when that finally gets built.


• The new NYC logo (introduced semi-recently) looks bad on its own, and even worse on the side of a taxi. Designing the rest of the taxi logo to match this is unfortunate. There’s no compelling reason that it must be on the cars - I think we know this is New York - and it just makes the whole thing look rather clunky and unwieldy.


• It’s impossible to read this when the cab is moving. I refuse to believe that a single person in the process ever asked the question, “What is the reason for this logo?” Had they done that, I think we would’ve seen something more legible, or at the very least - if they decided that the point wasn’t to make it legible, but rather simply for branding - far bolder and more risk-taking. Besides, when people look for cabs in traffic, they’re usually looking for a) the light box on the roof of the car or b) a yellow car. No one I know is standing at an intersection waiting for cars to stop so they can read whatever sign might be on the side. I won’t get into the inanity of including super-small-type fares on the doors, but that’s stupid, too.
  


• The letter-spacing is just atrocious. It’s easy to mistakenly read the logo as “NYC T AXI,” or even miss the T altogether.
  

Clearly, this is a design that suffered (as all are wont to do) from the involvement of a committee (in this case, probably several). City Room takes a nice look at the various “Bumps” in the life of the design. To me, the concept was flawed from the beginning, but each iteration brought more issues, until what was at last decided-upon is just awful, has no personality, and is a gratuitous addition to the already-iconic NYC Yellow Taxis that will likely end up having a short shelf-life. If there is a God, that is.

Some pictures for comparison:

The Old

The New

Oooh. So awesome. Love the checkers! Not.

via the inestimable Kottke, by the way.

Reasons Not To Buy A Zune This Christmas: 2007

To commemorate last night’s official announcement of the next generation of Microsoft’s Zune music player (not available until mid-November!), here is an updated version of my popular post from last year, “Reasons Not To Get A Zune This Christmas.” Changes are in red, and replacements have been stricken.

First, a little primer: This week Microsoft released generation 2 of their Zune music player in order to directly compete with Apple’s commanding lead in the personal audio market. They still want some of that big, big pie that Apple made not too many years ago, and has, for the most part, kept all to itself. The Zune is the most recent in the long list of supposed failed “iPod Killers”, and honestly, if any company could kill the iPod, it would probably be Microsoft Apple itself. But never fear Apple faithful - I simply do not see that happening anytime soon. But we haven’t reached the commentary phase yet. I am still being objective. So back to the point - what is the Zune? Simply put, it is a portable music player that comes with an 80GB hard drive (and a 4 and 8GB iPod Nano-like version). It has a three (point two!)-inch color screen, plays video, shows your photos, and allows Wi-Fi transferring of songs to other Zune players nearby (and synching with your computer). The Zune comes in three four colors - white, black, green, pink, and brown red, and is controlled by what looks like an iPod clickwheel a feminine hygiene product but is actually just four directional buttons on a circular disc a touch-sensitive directional hygiene product. Microsoft has created updated the Zune Marketplace - like the iTunes Store - for purchasing your music (and later, movies). There is also jukebox/syncing software that lets you manage playlists and listen to music on your PC (it is not currently still not Mac-compatible). Oh, and FM radio, I guess. Woo.

Okay, enough of the unbiased description. Now is where the review part of the review happens. Disclosure: I do not have a Zune. I have not seen or touched one in person. I touched one. It was traumatic. If you want to send me one to do a more proper “review” please go right ahead. I can be contacted at kevin at frivolousmotion dot com. What this means is I am speaking nothing but the truth. Buy a Zune at your own risk, but not after reading this review all the way through. If you don’t, you will regret it. And, even if you do read it, and decide “Hey, it doesn’t sound that bad,” you’ll probably regret it. You will most certainly still regret it.

So here goes. I am now going to abandon paragraphs and things for the super-popular list format.

1. Brown? What?!! What kind of retro-hipster freaks are you targeting Brown to? Are you planning on making Zune the “Official Media Player of the UPS” for crying out loud?! Eww.
   They killed Brown. No more poop jokes. Now, just Maxi Pad jokes (see above).
2. It is bigger than the current iPod (even compared to the 80GB 160GB version).
3. It is heavier than the current iPod (even compared to the 80GB 160GB version).
4. It has a shorter battery life than the current iPod (which doesn’t even begin to approach the 24-hour life of the new iPod Nano). I haven’t heard any battery life claims yet.
   
5. Crippled Wi-Fi sharing that restricts shared music to three plays or three days before deactivating and prompting you to purchase it. This applies even if you are the artist who recorded the song and want to share it with your Zune-carrying friends, and even though the Zune Marketplace will be filled with DRM-free music. Someone else said, “Microsoft puts the DRM in DRM-free.”
   

   Corollary to 5: Where are you going to find someone else with a Zune so that you can share? Are you seriously going to approach a stranger and try to send them the newest Timberlake tune? Do you want that random guy/girl on the subway to punch you in the face? (Worst pickup line of the new millenium: Is that a Zune in your pocket...) But seriously, for Microsoft to make the main feature of the device (the file sharing) something that relies completely on the device becoming ubiquitous is a major gamble. Without it, the Zune is basically a bigger, less pretty, and more socially irresponsible iPod.

6. What looks like a clickwheel ain’t a clickwheel. It is a multidirectional click pad (four poles, plus center) that works in a context-sensitive way context- and touch- sensitive panty liner. What does that mean? It means that you won’t always know what to push to do what you want. Sometimes left will go back a song, sometimes it might changes menus, sometimes it might vote for Al Gore. Not cool. And because you have to flip the player on its side to watch video, that means the directions switch by 90 degrees. Confused yet?
7. Wait, you have to turn it to watch videos? Whatever, I do this on iPhone and it’s not a big deal.
   
8. Installing the Zune sucks.
   
9. You can’t use real money in the Zune Marketplace. You have to buy blocks of points (79 points equals 99 cents - easy conversion, right?) in increments of $10 (starting at $5 for 400 points). How much music do you have to buy to totally use up all your points? I won’t do the math, but the answer is: A lot.
10. The application crashes all the time. Hopefully not anymore!
    
11. If you buy a subscription plan (something like $15 a month lets you listen to unlimited tracks - though you can’t burn them to disc or keep them if you stop your subscription), certain tracks from what sounds like a lot of albums aren’t available. Meaning, you need to plop down at least five bucks to purchase the popular tunes individually. That is not cool. EDIT: I have no gripe about the subscription model - lots of places do it like that. But disabling certain songs unless you purchase them individually is not cool.
    
12. None of the songs you bought in the iTunes store are playable on the Zune.
13. None of the songs you bought for other players via Microsoft’s OWN PlayForSure format are playable on the Zune. This is absolutely insane.
14. It doesn’t have calendars, contacts, podcasts, notes, games, etc. Not that I use those, but for some people those things are big. Sound the sirens! Zune supports podcasts!
    
15. Lots of the album art is too small for the screen, and it looks bad when scaled.
16. No Mac support. I suppose it could work if you have a new one and can boot XP from it. But I’m not sure about that. This is an oversight that goes way beyond competition, and way beyond PC marketshare. There’s a lot of potential users (Zunies? Zunesters? Zuners? Zunesketeers?) who happen to use Macs at home, and may have older-gen iPods and looking for a replacement. And what about all the people who have recently switched to Mac after trying and loving an iPod? Doesn’t MS want to win them back? Guess not.
17. No small version. The iPod Nano is the biggest selling mp3 player, and the iPod didn’t really start to take off until the Mini was released. Why couldn’t Microsoft have developed a cute little device for the kiddies?
    
18. EDIT: No true smart playlists. Way to give power users the boot. I guess these are just ultra-hidden.

EDIT - I just read this on O’Reilly:

Feel uncomfortable with Microsoft's watching your every move in Zune? Opt out. Say "No." Stand up for your rights.

Unless you make the affirmative choice to keep Microsoft out, you are by default enrolled in Microsoft's "Zune Customer Experience Improvement Program." This program assumes you want to improve Microsoft's bottom line (and nosiness) by allowing it to monitor your Zune software usage.

There’s more, but for now I think that will suffice. Maybe if I actually try one out I’ll post some more thoughts. Ultimately, I think this is a case of too little - too late (again). Microsoft has introduced another line of less-functional, less powerful versions of a mega-popular product, and included basically no innovations only one innovation that is seriously crippled to begin with! If they had truly wanted to compete with Apple for a share of the market, we should have seen a cool-looking device (the new ones look much better than the first generation, but that’s only because they look a lot more like iPods now) that offered more disk space with a slimmer profile, better syncing, more options and features, even cheaper music(!) and eliminated some of the crazy DRM that pisses me off about Apple from time to time. Instead MS has agreed to pay Universal a dollar for every Zune sold. Clearly they aren’t bending over backwards for the consumers (as Apple appears to do by fighting to keep prices stable) - it looks like the opposite, in fact, and anything that doesn’t immediately suggest that Microsoft is a full year or more behind Apple and playing a ridiculously flawed game of catch-up.

Please don’t get anyone a Zune for Christmas. If they ask for one (which they might, poor souls), say it is too much money (which it is) and buy them something else cool. Then, sneak a fabulous iPod Shuffle in their stocking (only $79 and awesome! I’ve touched it, so I know.) Really. Don’t make this a bad Christmas for anyone.

Buying a Zune = Coal in your stocking next year and Baby Jesus Crying.

Still true. Don’t be tempted.

New Zunes Tomorrow? Wednesday?

Apple better look out!

Wait, except they’re just being announced on Wednesday. The probably won’t be available until sometime in 2011. Or 2012. Or the release of Vista SP1. Whichever comes later.

Big Ugly Fonts: Arial

This is the first post in a new series here on Frivolous Motion called Big Ugly Fonts.

The first on the chopping block is our old friend Arial.

Arial, designed in 1982 for Monotype Typography, is widely used on modern computers, and is quite commonly found on web pages, due to it being “bundled” with both Windows and Mac operating systems.

Letting the typeface speak for itself, this is what’s embedded in the OpenType file:

Contemporary sans serif design, Arial contains more humanist characteristics than many of its predecessors and as such is more in tune with the mood of the last decades of the twentieth century. The overall treatment of curves is softer and fuller than in most industrial style sans serif faces. Terminal strokes are cut on the diagonal which helps to give the face a less mechanical appearance. Arial is an extremely versatile family of typefaces which can be used with equal success for text setting in reports, presentations, magazines etc, and for display use in newspapers, advertising and promotions.

Much controversy surrounds this ubiquitous typeface, with the bulk of it stemming from Microsoft deciding not to license the much higher-quality Helvetica (with whom it shares nearly identical glyph width, weight, and proportion) for use in its Windows operating system. Arial is a poor knock-off, a double-copy, in fact, as it was originally designed as a slightly modified (to be more screen-readable) version of Monotype Grotesque.

One look at Arial’s uppercase R confirms suspicions that this typeface was vomited up by Helvetica’s quadriplegic, ADHD, paranormal schizophrenic little sister.

Check out this horrific font in giganticized glory below. Just try not to vomit on your keyboard.




In conclusion: Millions of Helvetica characters have been eradicated by this abomination.

Don’t be a Helveticaust denier.

Stop using Arial!

Congress “Strongly Condemns” Free Speech

I can’t believe my tax dollars are used for such vapid, waste-of-time pieces of symbolic legislation as the one that was passed in the Senate earlier today.

The statement of purpose:

To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.

Have we so lost our way in this country that our lawmakers see fit to enact legislation with the sole purpose to “express the sense” of something? Oh right, it’s also to “strongly condemn,” which, last I checked, means it means nothing. All this is is a big, happy can’t-we-all-get-along happyhappyjoyjoy kumbaya my lord moment in Congress, where Republicans and Democrats alike hug and laugh and bump chests, congratulating each other on the collective brilliance behind this political posturing. “Just in case our constituents were wondering,” they seem to be saying, “we are not such poorly polished politicians that we know no better than to stand behind something that could be potentially divisive, even implicitly, whether or not we happen to agree with the sentiments expressed.”

Hello, but I think that there’s something at least slightly problematic with the government coming out to condemn the speech of a private group. Or maybe I’m misreading something...

Look, the fact of the matter is that this ad isn’t even that clever. Nor is it really that controversial of a message. It’s not hateful, it’s not obscene, it wouldn’t reasonably incite violence. It certainly, one-hundred-percent, without-a-doubt qualifies as protected speech under the First Amendment, and even though 75 or so elected officials voted to support legislation condemning it as unacceptable, it doesn’t change the fact that there are likely thousands - millions, even - of people in this country who strongly support the message it conveys.

Me, I think it’s lame. Especially the part about how I live in a country where an ad like this even has a reason to exist.

My Morning Commute From Hell

What it says (courtesy Gothamist, who has a great up-to-date writeup of the whole ordeal):

Due to severe flooding throughout the subway system, there are extensive delays on all subway lines. Although buses are running with delays, customers are advised when at all possible to use bus service. The detours are as follows:

1 trains are suspended in both directions between the South Ferry Station and the 34th Street Station.

2 trains are suspended in in both directions between the Penn Station-34th Street Station and the Atlantic Avenue Station.

3 trains are suspended in both directions between the New Lots Avenue Station and the Harlem-148th Street Station.

4 trains are suspended in both directions between the 125th Street and the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station.

5 trains are running shuttle train service in both directions between the East 180th Street Station and the Dyre Avenue Station.

6 trains are suspended in both directions between the 86th Street Station and the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station.

7 trains are running with delays.

A trains are running local.

B trains are suspended in both directions between the Brighton Beach Station and the Bedford Park Boulevard Station.

C trains are suspended in both directions between the Euclid Avenue Station and the 168th Street Station.

D trains are suspended in both directions between the 145th Street Station and the Norwood-205th Street Station.

E trains are suspended in both directions between the 23rd Street-Ely Avenue Station and the Forest Hills-71st Avenue Station.

F trains are suspended in both directions between the Queens Plaza Station and the Jamaica-179th Street Station.

G trains are suspended in both directions between the Long Island City-Court Square Station and the 4th Avenue-9th Street Station.

V trains are suspended in both directions between the 2nd Avenue Station and the Forest Hills-71st Avenue Station.

S Franklin Avenue Shuttle trains are suspended in both directions between the Prospect Park Station and the Franklin Avenue Station.

S 42nd Street Shuttle trains are suspended in both directions between the Times Square-42nd Street Station and the Grand Central-42nd Street Station.

J trains are running with residual delays.

L trains are running with residual delays.

N trains are running with residual delays.

M trains are suspended in both directions between the Broad Street Station and the Bay Parkway Station.

Q trains are suspended in both directions between the Kings Highway Station and the 57th Street-7th Avenue Station.

R trains are suspended in both directions between the 57th Street-7th Avenue Station and the Forest Hills-71st Avenue Station.

W trains are suspended in both directions between the Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard Station and the Whitehall Street Station.

In addition, due to a police investigation at the Sterling Street Station, there is no service on Wakefield-bound 2 trains between the Brooklyn College-Flatbush Avenue Station and the Atlantic Avenue Station. Also, Brooklyn College-Flatbush Avenue-bound 2 are trains running on the 4 line from the Franklin Avenue Station to the Crown Heights-Utica Avenue Station.

Windorphins: Like Endorphins, Except They CAUSE Pain

Kevin Kelleher from GigaOM perfectly sums up my feelings about eBay’s insanely awful “windorphins” marketing blitz.

And yet it was more nausea than euphoria that I felt going to windorphins.com (a domain that eBay actually had to strongarm a journalist into giving up). It’s peppered with video ads that all made me cringe and colorful blobs with blinking eyes, which I guess windorphins are supposed look like. You can even design your own windorph avatar. (Caution: If you try this, do not click on the “jazz hands” tab. It may induce thoughts of suicide.)

Read the rest of the post here. And then buy something on Amazon.com.

The Plague Of The Theatre

Why does theatre suck?

Why is it still hanging on for dear life despite predictions about its demise since the advent of the moving picture?

Why are old plays performed more frequently than new plays (and given much more funding)?

Why do people get paid to call themselves “Prop Mistresses”?

Why do actors rarely use their actual props and costumes prior to the week the show opens?

Why are theatre-people afraid to hear the name Macbeth uttered before the curtain goes up?

Why does it take three people to press a button to run a lighting cue, and why can’t the one who physically touches the button see the stage?

Why do people continue to practice the art of bullshittery by calling themselves dramaturgs?

The answer to these questions, and the reason theatre is so out of touch, fighting for money, and typically not worth attending:

Tradition

tra·di·tion [truh-dish-uhn] -noun

1. the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, esp. by word of mouth or by practice, and followed faithfully for no good reason - often to the absolute detriment of civilized society and the natural order.

Even so-called “experimental theatre” falls into the tradition crap trap. It’s just so disappointing.

By the way, if you’re thinking, “Well, the reason they do things like they always did is because certain things just work,” you are wrong. They don’t. Theatre is still dying a slow, painful death. And whether it finally passes in my lifetime or the next doesn’t remove the fact that it is this way of doing things “as they’ve always been done” that is killing it. Just because it worked before doesn’t mean it works now. If a musician insisted on selling his albums only on 8-track cassettes, he would be laughed at. If a filmmaker used equipment that was introduced at the dawn of the 20th century, his work would fail to meet the standards of a contemporary film business, and an audience accustomed to high-definition digital content with brilliant surround sound, color, contrast, and fidelity. If a poet wrote sonnets...okay, she would probably be extremely successful, but poetry is pretty awful (and not especially financially lucrative), one must admit.

Tradition is an evil killer - a plague of the world of art-making. Masterpieces are deadly illusions - we worship them in a vain attempt to pretend to be smarter and more cultured than the rest of our friends and family. I really, really, really, really don’t want to see another version of Hamlet, or Antigone, or The Glass Menagerie ever again. There is nothing important or particularly special about these works except that they are old and “were popular in their day,” which is not enough to make me care about them over the work of someone who is still living. And it is certainly not enough to make them the least bit relevant.

If a monkey with a word processor and enough paid overtime could eventually come up with the exact words of Shakespeare (yes, this is mathematically possible), you kinda sorta have to take things just a little bit less seriously.

I mean, think of it: There is a huge, ongoing controversy about who actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays. What if he was actually an overweight female cyber-elf with three arms, seven microchips to replace heart and brain, and no eyes or mouth, who just so happened to get dropped in Stratford-upon-Avon by a rabid alligator stork from Outer Space as part of an ingenious plot to destroy Earth?

Which absolutely begs the question:

Was Hamlet mad, or did he just feign madness?

I’ve Been Banned By Hartford Independent Media!

Hartford Independent Media Center’s Undercurrent blog has apparently banned me from posting on the site, after member Kevin Lamkins decided he should have the last word on the HartBeat Ensemble waste-of-time semi-pseudo-flame-war that went down yesterday.

He wrote:

I think we’ve done Frivolous Motion a public service here because this is probably the most hits it’s ever gotten. This is what independent media is all about. Good work, team!

Really? Is “independent media” all about swarming websites of those whose views you disagree with, attacking the writer with insults about his psychological state, Photoshop abilities, and (imagined lack of) blog traffic? Is “independent media” about attacking the messenger rather than the message? Is “independent media” about censoring an apology and attempt to clarify the situation by refusing to approve a comment? Is “independent media” about making baseless claims that an author is a “community killer” because he’s not part of your community? Is “independent media” really this petty and lame? Or is this not really “independent media” at all, and just a band of HartBeat groupies masquerading as countercultural gods in order to protect some artists who would rather confront a friend of mine about my review (yes, HartBeat did that) rather than email me directly? Hard to tell.

For the record, I’m not angry. I’m disappointed.

Even the Hartford Courant will actually print my letters.

Stop The HartBeat Ensemble!

So I saw a production of The Pueblo by the HartBeat Ensemble on Saturday evening in Hartford, CT. Though it carried a ticket fee, The Pueblo is a work-in-progress, to be premiered in its final form in February. I can not in good conscience allow this to happen. It is a work that must be stopped at all costs!

Quite simply, frankly, and soberly, The Pueblo is perhaps the worst atrocity to hit the stage since, well, I can’t think of anything that compares to it in terms of sheer bad-ness.

Blurb:

The Pueblo, a dual language, multi-cultural play that explores the changing politics of Latin America and how that affects people in North America. Known for such socialist leaders as Chile’s Salvador Allende and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Latin America now has a new wave of such socialist leaders as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Michelle Bachelet of Chile, and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua., who see themselves as “leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution.”

United States officials have called them “dictators who abuse power and manipulate their citizens.” The Latin American leaders have called the Bush administration, “the devil” and “imperialist.” Set in a fictional South American country, The Pueblo incorporates these themes at its core.

At once insulting, spine-tingling, vomit-inducing, and suicide-provoking, The Pueblo mixes together what HartBeat calls “experimental” elements such as puppetry, movement, text, and music. If text in the theatre qualifies as an experiment, then this just might be kindergarten science class, in which students do experiments to learn what floats and what sinks (guess which this show does). As experiments go, having puppets on stage is on par with sticking drosophila in a jar with no holes for air and starting a stopwatch.

Lest HartBeat be chastised merely for failing to understand what constitutes experimentation, it should be said that these elements add absolutely nothing positive - indeed, they contributed quite a bit to the total, irreparable heap-of-scrap-masquerading-as-play that was presented. Yes, I am including the text in this claim. The entirety of the play was multilingual - a mix of English and Spanish that can not, respectfully, be called Spanglish. When each sentence is a 50/50 mix of both languages (as in “I want to comer el pollo y el arroz”), with certain phrases repeated in both languages (“I am your president. Soy tu présidente.”) might more aptly be called Manglish. I am fairly well-versed in both languages, but the absolute inanity with which the dialogue was constructed rendered much of it completely incomprehensible (particularly that which was speedily, tone-lessly, and far too often rhyme-ish-ly, talk-sung by the guitar-strumming Narrator).

One extreme moment of translation left me with my mouth agape, wishing I could have the last 45 minutes of my life back so I might sit outside staring at a tree and enjoy what was a glorious northeastern summer evening. Read this translated line from a familiar play and tell me if you see anything wrong:

O Romeo, Romeo. Dónde está mi Romeo?

In case you don’t know a spot of Spanish, “Dónde está” is asking where. Hmm, okay, except Shakespeare would shoot you in the face for misinterpreting “wherefore” so grossly. Wherefore means Why.

Regarding