Arrrgh.

I just bought a Kindle book for the trip home, but the Home button in the iPad/Kindle software is gone. There's nothing on the screen that looks like it leads to the home page of the Kindle, the page where you navigate between books.

Here's a screen shot of the Kindle app on the iPad.

I'm constantly amazed how software designers pull the rugs out from under their users. Learning how to use this software took a lot of time because it was so frustratingly designed. It's not something I want to repeat over and over. Why!

So fucked up. When I figure it out I'll let you know.

In the meantime, by fumbling around looking for it, I managed to lose my place in the book I'm reading now.

Seriously if you're in a meeting where someone proposes completely redesigning your app such that an existing user will have no idea how to use it, fire that person. This is someone whose salary you can pass on to your shareholders as a dividend. Or whatever. Have a big sushi party with their salary. People should have serious fear about undermining the users, especially for a real product that they pay real money to use, like Kindle.

Thanks for listening.

9/27/2013; 8:11:27 PM

I've been friends with Marc Canter for many many years, through lots of ups and downs. I have tons of Marc Canter stories. As I'm sure do many other people who have been in tech as long as Marc and I have.

Brief background: He started a company called MacroMind, which became MacroMedia, which created a great animation tool called Director, followed by another called Flash. Marc didn't do Flash, that was created by Charlie Jackson, another friend from the early Internet. When MacroMedia went public Marc was rich, and became an intellectual and creative leader of the industry in the days of CD-ROM, but Marc always said that it wasn't about the actual medium used for distribution, and when the web started booming Marc got on board really quickly.

Marc has a roadmap of tech in his head that's as good as any I've seen. When we talk about where things are going, he might see something I don't see, so that's why I love talking with him. He's one of the few people who I think has a deep understanding of how all the media fit together. I get good ideas when I listen to Marc, so that's why I do it. He's also a lot of fun to hang out with.

He's been offline for a few years, raising his second family (two wonderful girls) with his wife Lisa, in suburban Cleveland. But now he wants back in the game. I also want him back in.

So he got a place up in Mill Valley, and was hanging out there, surfing the web and I said Hey Marc you're never going to get plugged in that way. Go downtown and sit in a coffee shop and hold office hours. It took a few pitches finally he got off his butt and he's hanging out in the Creamery on the corner of 4th and Townsend across from the Caltrain station. I went down there to see him yesterday, and in the time he was sitting there, a bunch of people showed up, including Andrew Keen and David Rose.

Here's the idea. He's going there every day. He'll be there if you want to talk with him about what you're doing. He's got a new blog, marc.canter.com, he's going to use it to write about who he sees and what he learns. So if you don't want him to write about you, make sure to say that very carefully.

He's got a great mind, and is hugely creative, and has decades of experience in tech. He wants to load up his mind with all he can about what's going on now. And in return he'll give you ideas, tell you stories, and help you gain a little visibility. It may turn into a lot of visibility, because it's the same pitch I gave Mike Arrington when he was doing something similar in 2005, which became an empire called TechCrunch. That's what happens when you interact with great minds like Marc and Mike.

He'll be there later today, and Monday, Tuesday and so on. I'll be reading his blog, as I'm sure many others will and will pass on links I find interesting. So go downtown and check it out!

9/27/2013; 12:03:44 PM