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The word is about, there’s something evolving
Whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here
That the revolution’s near
But to me it seems quite clear
That it’s all just a little bit
of history repeating
- History Repeating, Shirley Bassey

I love this song for two reasons: First, it’s Shirley Bassey. How could you possibly go wrong with that? Second, it’s because this song itself was the subject of the very topic we talk about a lot: remixing.

Sound familiar? It should — we’re doing the same thing online every day.

Continue reading ‘2008 Predictions: History Repeating’

Yesterday, we posted a new part to Rolex.com: the ability to find a local Authorised Rolex Dealer. This on its own is hardly breaking any new ground — it’s a fairly routine piece of functionality. To help you find your local dealer, we provided a map — a Google Map.

Those of you who know the two technologies are probably now scratching your heads. Google Maps. Flash. Aren’t they incompatible?

Not any more.

Continue reading ‘Google Maps in (a) Flash!’

Admittedly, this is more of a question than a statement, but make no mistake — I’m not merely asking if this is true.

For the last several years, Google has been a juggernaut, able to release whatever they felt like and it was received with open (and anxious, often with reckless abandon) arms. We’ve all enjoyed such wonders as Google Search, Google AdWords, Google Maps, Google Translate, Google Earth, Blogger, Gmail, Google Groups, Google Analytics, Google Desktop, and the Google Search Appliance.

But I wonder if Google’s run out of cool stuff to freely hand out, and are beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

Continue reading ‘Google starting to slip’ at Experience Matters

A few months ago, we scooped David Armano. At the time, I’d never heard of the guy. Since having had the pleasure of working with him on Experience Matters, I’m come to truly admire the level of insight he has on even the most seemingly mundane things. (Not that he is mundane, but he makes the obviously boring suddenly unique and misunderstood.)

Take his most recent post: Office Influentials. You might not think about it, but I’ll lay bets you’ve got these sorts of people in your office right now. You just don’t know it. Look around. Heck, one of these might even be you…

We keep a clean shop here, making sure that client-sensitive information remains secret and safe. But not every meeting is solely about client work, and sometimes you find something interesting sitting in a meeting room.

In this particular case, I happened to glance up at an easel sitting in the corner of the Ancho Room (the second floor in Calgary has meeting rooms named after peppers), and witnessed a wonderful diagram created by Chrissie, Senior IA in our I&P group.

Read the rest at Experience Matters!

We’ve been talking a lot about ideas. But ideas don’t always translate well without examples. Thankfully, the internet is replete with experiences great and poor.

The single most often-used benefit of the internet is information. Wikipedia, online newspapers, blogs, and all their associated links and RSS feeds. People tend to be more tolerant with information experiences (hey, you read my entries, don’t you?), but when money gets involved — people listen. And more importantly, they’ll turn away if they don’t like what they experience.

Two specific (and very different) examples to consider: Victoria’s Secret, and the International Standards Organization. Comparing apples to oranges? Only in product. When it comes to online shopping, it doesn’t matter if it’s underwear or a whitepaper — if you don’t get what you need, you’re not likely to happy about it.

Read more about online shopping at Experience Matters…

Microsoft was a little late to the internet game, that much isn’t new. In 1993, Bill Gates said “we’re not interested in the internet”. (Mind you, he also said that 640K of memory should be enough for anybody.) Microsoft has certainly done a lot to reverse that initial stumble (witness the internet services they’ve acquired and/or sold — Hotmail and Expedia; and services developed, such as Microsoft Live), and Popfly is another sign of Microsoft truly understanding the new wave.

Back in May of this year, Microsoft launched their first product to the masses before it was officially “ready”. Popfly was the first to actually carry the label “Alpha”. It’s now in beta. But is it ready for prime time?

Late to the game, Microsoft waded right into the Web 2.0 pond wearing a pair of mashup Speedos. And like in real life, you don’t really want to look too closely at it.

Read more about Microsoft Popfly at Experience Matters…