Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -George Santayana

The pop-up was the single worst idea EVER, and it quickly became a stigma online.  It was the surest way to get people to not trust your site and leave.  Hell they built countless “pop-up blockers” to keep people happy.  Explain to me how a pop-over is any different?  I realize it doesn’t open a whole new window like a pop-up does, but that is the only difference I can find, and suffice it to say, that’s not a game changer.

It’s the same freakin thing people!  Don’t kid yourselves.  I can maybe deal with it on your home page, but when it opens on every page I visit, done.  I will stop visiting your site, even if there is great content. ESPECIALLY if I’ve already signed up for your newsletter!  That’s like a spam mailer asking you if you’d like to get another email from him after you’ve already deleted his countless wonder drug and promise of late night sex emails.

Let’s think of the user experience here, not your subscription numbers so you can be a more profitable affiliate.  If your content is the meat of your site, why would you want to detract the visitor from seeing it?  It just makes zero sense to me.

There is one good use for a pop-over, and that’s to display images or video.  This makes total sense.  You are allowing the user to isolate a specific piece of content at their discretion.  The majority of pop-overs will darken the main screen a tad, which enhances the visual appeal of multimedia, keyword being enhances.  The basic Lightbox element works in this way.

But the second you start to use that same experience to ask someone to sign up for your newsletter you are pulling them away from consuming your content, which is most likely the reason they were there in the first place.  As with any fancy smancy code that some geek in a dark dorm room comes up with, please use it judiciously.  There is likely a time and place for these new solutions, otherwise someone wouldn’t have developed them.  But don’t use fancy code for the sake of using fancy code.

Last year during Tiger Woods’s return to golf at the Masters I wrote about how much I enjoyed the online experience of that tournament.  As I get a bit older I’m enjoying more and more gold, and today I jumped on the PGA website to check the leaderboard.  What I came up on was Shot Tracker, a shot by shot tracking interface that provides a WEALTH of information.  Users can find a lot of information about individual players, compare those to the rest of the field and even averages throughout the week.

This experience interests me for several reasons.  One, I can follow golf tournaments like never before.  Watching tournaments live on TV is great, but you generally see the same players (Tiger, Phil, the old player that is somehow playing well, and the leaders).  I want to watch other players.  This online experience allows me to do that and then some.

The second reason it interests me is because I expect this kind of extra interaction to be built into TV viewing sooner rather than later.  With the introduction of new TV consumption models such as Apple TV & Google TV consumers should expect to see technologies that allow viewers greater interaction with information than ever before.  And you won’t need two different machines to do it (watching TV while a computer is on your lap).

To me this is the beginning of a new information collection method.  I want to watch Tiger make his putt on hole 4 while still seeing what Rickie Fowler is doing on the back 9.  These models exist, it’s just a matter of time before they work together.  And I’m looking forward to it.

That might be a bit harsh, but for all the anticipation, I was left wanting more.  A lot more.  It was like softcore porn.

But the intentions were good, they really were.  So before bashing the downfalls and shortcomings, let’s look at the positives, shall we?

So, Google Wave did try to fix the issues modern homosapiens have with multiple communication channels.  Let’s face it, with all the different ways to communicate, the message is quickly getting lost in the ether (or the proverbial cloud).  I could text, email, IM, call, Tweet, Facebook and more.  But each of those operations had a unique platform.  And sometimes a unique device, although those barriers are quickly being decimated by mobile everything devices.

We’ve seen this kind of bundled success before.  It’s likely that you’re using it right now to view this, your computer desktop.  Microsoft’s Windows platform and the Apple OS’s among others (including the Google desktop OS) are early versions of Google Wave.  They combined the functionality of multiple applications into one central access point.  Hell all mobile OS’s do the same thing.  But we want everything to sit in the cloud, be universally accessible from anywhere.  That was Google Wave, with a concentration on communication.

I believe was a valiant effort, a good first try if you will.  There are really only a few platforms that are in a position to try something like this right now, something that really requires a single sign on.  Facebook has it’s Connect program, allowing you to log into other platforms with your Facebook credentials and participate.  Google uses the same thing with it’s multitude of platforms including Google itself, gmail, calendar, Youtube and more. Then there are HUGE user bases like Yahoo, MSN and AOL that could potentially have the scale needed to successfully execute a single sign program.

But despite Google’s large number of accounts, the usage just never reached that critical tipping point.  And that, in my opinion, is the one major fault that led to the demise of Google Wave.  There just wasn’t enough adopters to make the channel viable as a central point of communication.  Now, why didn’t more people adopt.  I’ve got one reason.

Numero Uno.  Exhibit A.

No integration with other platforms. Period. In order for a mass communication portal to work, you have to be able to aggregate mass.  AOL’s instant messenger has got to be one of the most popular IM tools available, it didn’t show up, Google instead opting for it’s Chat program (and rightfully so, it’s theirs).  Hotmail, Outlook, nothing.  So no email integration other than gmail.  And come on, no Twitter or Facebook?  Oh wait, we did get Google Buzz!  (Sure hope you caught the sarcasm).

That shortcoming led you to only connect with other Wave users.  Well, you know what.  I already have an AOL account, and I”ve been using it for years (since I was 12, ahh-thank you), I’ve got all my buddy lists built and organized, and my emoticons are cool, and the preferences are exactly how I like them.  So… I’ll stick with that.  And I believe that kind of thinking was rampant. I mean, I’m already following Snookie on Twitter, I don’t want to have to find her again through Wave.  The less contact I have with her the lower my chance of collecting and STD (to my knowledge that’s not possible through Cyber-Space yet, but if anyone could do it I think it would have to be someone from Jersey Shore).

And let’s talk about the first edition of Wave.  It was buggy, and clumsy, and the UI was a mess.  Overall, it just wasn’t a very good experience.  I know plenty of other Google products have been through similar stages, with other more viable and established  options and come out on top.  But Wave never reached the critical tipping point.

Perhaps Wave is just too ahead of its time.  We’ve seen examples of this kind of technology introduction for a long time (Friendster anyone?).  Maybe we just need to wait for the youngsters of today to develop into the centralized all digital communicators that a product like Google Wave needs.  Or perhaps we’ll just wait for Google Me to come out (the highly-anticipated rival to Facebook, Twitter & Linkedin).  I’ll be sure to try anything that comes my way.

Oh, you need examples?  Just a few months ago I wrote about how great the online coverage of the Masters was.  Interactive scoreboards, live streaming feeds from “Amen Corner”, and of course non-stop coverage of Tiger Woods’s return to the golf world (I refuse to say “after his off the course scandals” as every other outlet has.  Um, yeah, we flipping know!).

How about the World Cup?  The planet’s biggest sporting event.  Just take your pick.  Live scoreboards from every media outlet worth a damn.  Free streaming coverage of every single game on ESPN3.com, plus Telemundo, and 68 other non-English speaking websites, which actually made for an interesting viewing experience.  I would rather listen to some short French guy talk than Alexi Lalas.  I mean come on, the guy made Pauly Shore look good.

I digress, but seriously.  Look at the guy.  Sorry.  Oh, and the World Cup coverage made the leap to a third screen, the mobile phone.  World Cup apps were selling like hotcakes.  Assuming you’re in a pancake house with thousands of hungry professional pancake eaters.  Hell, everyone I know that had an iPhone actually bought some version of the vuvuzela application.  This particular app might take the cake for the most annoying download EVER.  Of course, there are still those fart soundboards.  Wow, I digressed twice in one paragraph.

Oh, you need more proof.  Did anyone else watch the first two rounds of the US Open on their computer at work, all day long?  I have a feeling I’m not the only one.  Once again, there was an interactive scoreboard that allowed me to follow my favorite players, extensive player bios, and of course live streaming video.  I watched Phil Mickelson struggle around the course in the morning, and Tiger Woods struggle in the afternoon.  Every single hole they played, every single shot they took.  That’s a very expensive ticket to get, and I was comfortably sitting at my computer, wishing I was playing golf.

And even local news sources are getting in on the awesome sports coverage.  The Chicago Blackhawks celebrated their first Stanley Cup since 1961 (no Cubs streak, but a solid winless tally nonetheless), and boy was it a party.  Of course, I couldn’t attend.  BUT, I did have a seat on the bus courtesy of the local news stations.  I watched the rally on the computer while looking out over the crowd on Michigan and Wacker, in the air conditioning.  Which turned out to be a pretty solid decision actually.  But I didn’t miss a second.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, Wimbledon, the Tour de France, the LeBron James ego party.  The list goes on and on.  Sports fans now can follow their favorite players on Twitter.  Hell half the NBA was fined for tweeting during a game.  And if you wanted court side seats, follow the Kardashian sister on Twitter.  You know, the dumb one, er, the one that’s had all the plastic surgery, um, wait, the tall one married to Lamar Odom.  There you go.

I have confirmed that I am an official information junkie.  And that’s mostly because it’s so friggin easy to be one these days.  Carlos Zambrano punched a hot dog vendor?  Patrick Kane cross-checked a little old lady crossing the street. Rex Grossman was seen beating on empty paint cans outside of Niketown on Michigan.  Awesome! Keep it all coming.

And to be honest, I think all of this information has led to more rabid fans as well.  We are more entrenched in the lives of our favorite athletes than ever before.  We have a look into their lives that gives these heroes (and I use this term loosely) a more personal side. They are no longer nine feet tall.  They’re having trouble lighting their grill too! Hell yeah, I couldn’t get my Weber going either!!! See Kobe and I have the same issues, he’s alright.  So now, as a fan, I have more invested in individual players.  I no longer have to wait til midnight to see Magic and the boys play my Celtics, and I even know what Ray Allen had for his pre-game meal.

I understand the argument that in the past, people waited an entire week to see Bo Jackson on the field again.  And that built up my anxiety and team spirit.  But I argue that I can now know what Bo Knows.  And I like it a lot!

The first  and really the most notable update is the addition of Facebook Connect (which I must have stumbled upon a beta page because I’m not seeing it on every video).  Although, the experience I had was a little different from the Connect experience I’ve had elsewhere.   On other sites I can login into their system using my Facebook account information.  On YouTube I logged in with my Google/YouTube account and it passed the information to my Facebook account.  Apparently this gives me access to my friends’ shared information and vice versa.

This is an important distinction because it opens up our social graph to a much wider array of shared information, but Google is not bowing to Facebook like so many other sites have using Connect.  Google is retaining their account structure (which of course gives you access to gmail, docs, calendars, etc.).

The other update is the player skin itself.  Newer videos, or HD videos, not sure, but some random videos have this new skin.

Although it’s not a huge change, it does clean up the viewing area a bit.  Updates include a translucent video timeline, less distraction from menu options appearing over the viewing area, and of course the Facebook integration.  Channel options have expanded as well for those of us that have dedicated YouTube channels, allowing for a bit more custom control over the layout, colors and themes.

Google and the YouTube folks have been consistently making updates to the advertising opportunities on the site, messing with pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, overlays and all the other generally accepted video ad placements.

So, now that my life is spent almost entirely in the digital world I follow a lot of sports online, particularly the Masters this time of year.  Although the sports experience has improved dramatically in the last few years (think March Madness live coverage by CBS), there still seems to be pieces missing here and there.

Enter the Masters coverage.  I jumped on their website this morning to watch Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus kick off the tourney with their ceremonial tee shots and then opened up the scoreboard.  I was pleasantly surprised on many levels.

First, the scores are live, they update automatically without me having to refresh, or setting up some kind of 30-second refresh.  I can scroll through the scoreboard to find players, click on their name to get their live scorecard, and even click on certain holes from their scorecard to see a video highlight of a big putt or great approach.

Second, the video interaction. I already touched on one method of getting video clips, but they also have several live feeds of “Amen Corner”, a featured group, and some other extras.  The video quality is good and the stream runs with few hitches as well.

Lastly, I’ll circle back to the scoreboard again for possibly my favorite feature.  As you find the player you’re looking for through the field of 96 players, you can actually “favorite” certain players.  This feature moves the players to the top of the list regardless of their score, what hole they’re playing, etc. so I don’t have to dig through the players again to find certain scores.  Tom Watson in another major over 50 years old, hmmm,  I’ll add him to the top.  My favorite lefty from Canada, he’s there.  Boom Boom Freddy Couples, my all time favorite.  And of course Tiger, all at the top of my list.

All in all it’s a strong and complete coverage from the online perspective.  The only thing it’s missing is live coverage from ESPN, but I’m sure there are a million legal issues why they can’t add that.  Regardless, two thumbs up to the group the developed and executed this platform as it is very easy to use, provides a TON of information in one spot without having to send me to different pages and links, and works flawlessly.  Everyone that works as a developer, take note, this is how it’s done!  The Masters Online Golf Coverage

So here is my third straight post talking about how I wish I had a good camera. I’m in San Diego for a conference and the hotel I’m staying at looks over a beautiful marina. My balcony faces dead west which gives a cool opportunity to see the sun set over the ocean. And of course I don’t have a quality camera with me, unbelievable.

I do have a timelapse application on my G1 mobile phone which I’ll try to test out at some point while I’m here for a few days. Makes me jealous of guys like Philip Bloom who have all sorts of equipment and here I am with none. I’ll get there sooner rather than later hopefully and the whole story will be here along with some useful content hopefully. Check back.

Earth Hour - Make a Difference

Hopefully the concept of Earth Hour is something that anyone reading this is aware of.  If your not, here’s a quick synopsis.  Earth Hour is a movement to help save our planet, and it’s incredibly simple.  On March 27th, 8:30 PM local time, whatever you’re doing just shut off your lights.  Like I said it’s simple.

This movement has been going on for a few years now and has been gaining an incredible amount of momentum and participation ever since.  In 2009 over 1 billion (yeah, that’s billion with a “b”) people participated.  Even more impressive, 4,100 countries on all seven continents did their part.  Entire cities have turned off power including Las Vegas, Paris, Giza, London and even Vatican  City.  2010 is poised to be the most active year yet.

For those of you like me (meaning politically challenged), this is a completely non-partisan movement that aims to do nothing but raise awareness about global warming while making a very strong statement about the power of general collaboration.  Every little bit counts. So go to a local coffee house for an acoustic music set, or play board games by candle light with your family.  Just don’t be afraid to get involved with an action as simple as turning off your lights for an hour.