Category: web

Welcome to User Centric!

U-S-E-R(This is the post I wrote introducing UserCentric on the official blog at blog.u-s-e-r.com)

Hey all! Welcome to the first official post on the UserCentric blog! So… what’s UserCentric all about??? Glad you asked!

You know those little complaints or ideas we toss out on social networks like Twitter or Facebook about the stuff we use—only to watch them vanish into thin air? Yep, we’ve all been there! UserCentric is the spot where you can share those micro-reviews, and unlike regular social media, your user experience feedback gets neatly sorted with #Tags.

So, how’s it different from traditional product review sites? Three words: Ease of use! Most of us don’t have time to write long-winded reviews about the things we use. But we’re all posting quick takes on social media anyway—griping about product flaws or throwing out ideas for features we’d love to see. Why not gather all those micro-reviews in one place where others can actually benefit from our tips? That’s exactly why I created UserCentric.

We needed something that makes reviewing products fun and painless! That’s why I built UserCentric the way it is. Just start your review with the product name as a #tag—that’s it.

Review anything you use, one point at a time… Becoming a semi-pro product reviewer has never been this easy! 😀

Check out my reviews page on UserCentric at http://u-s-e-r.com/seejay to see how tidy UX reviews can look.

We’re in private beta right now, so if you want to snag your favorite username early, use the beta code “KyXnrTz“ on the signup page. Just keep it hush-hush! 😉

~SeeJay

How Dropbox Won

A couple of days ago, I stumbled across something really cool that Dave Winer shared on Twitter. It was a link to the application Drew Houston, Dropbox’s founder, submitted to Y Combinator for their Summer 2007 cycle. I clicked it out of curiosity and found it super interesting and thought-provoking. Here’s the answer from the app to the question: “What is your company going to make?”

“Dropbox synchronizes files across your/your team’s computers. It’s much better than uploading or email, because it’s automatic, integrated into Windows, and fits into the way you already work. There’s also a web interface, and the files are securely backed up to Amazon S3. Dropbox is kind of like taking the best elements of subversion, trac and rsync and making them ‘just work’ for the average individual or team. Hackers have access to these tools, but normal people don’t…”

Right when I read this, it hit me how clearly Drew saw his product’s future before anyone else even had a clue. He knew exactly what Dropbox was and how it’d solve the problem he was targeting. Looking at Dropbox’s success today, it’s obvious he nailed his plan. That’s a winning combo right there. I’d be shocked if a product flopped when its founder had this kind of vision. I bet Paul Graham was grinning ear to ear when he saw this one. Here’s what ran through his head when he reviewed Dropbox’s Y Combinator app that summer…

125 points by pg 452 days ago | link

What happens when I read this:

File syncing. Superset of backups, which people will pay for. Good. Single founder. Bad. But at least he’s looking for more people. Went to MIT, 1600 SAT. Probably fairly smart. Wrote a poker bot. Now I’m starting to get interested; has the right attitude. Description of the software sounds plausible but generic. Maybe it’s good, but who can tell. But little sister uses it; that’s impressive. Scroll down to what he understands that competitors don’t get. Wow: very concise and unequivocal. I’m now basically sold. Scroll through the rest. No red flags. Did not make the usual joke single founders make when asked how long the founders have known one another. Good answer to what might go wrong. A-. (Would be an A with a cofounder.)

Pretty fascinating stuff. PG definitely knows a killer idea, and a sharp mind, when he sees one.
The application’s packed with great questions like “What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don’t get?” and killer answers from Drew. It’s a must-read if you’re into startups, and I’d totally recommend answering these questions yourself for any project you’re working on.
Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t tried Dropbox yet, trust me, you’re missing out big time.
~SeeJay

The Reader

Wow! It’s been ages since I last typed anything here… 🙂 This is hands-down a record gap, and nah, I’m not gonna ramble about how Twitter killed blogging for me or whatever. Truth is, I haven’t even tweeted that much, just a bit here and there, definitely not enough for anyone to call me a Twitter junkie. A couple of days ago, I actually tweaked my Twitter bio from “microBlogging addict” to “Information addict” 🙂 Yep, an info addict? you might ask… That’s totally me.

I finally figured out what I spend most of my time doing… I read! :-S I read like crazy, pretty much all the time. I even eat dinner in front of my laptop, flipping through an ebook or scrolling HN, Reddit, Slashdot, or some random nerdy site with cool stuff you’ve probably never stumbled across.

So yeah, that’s my thing… I read, and I know things! 😉

~SeeJay

Playing with pligg

So I had this idea for a small (I guess) project that uses a Digg-like voting system. I started with the Pligg CMS and messed around with it for a bit, but after two days, I decided to switch to its well-known Drupal-based rival, Drigg. Don’t get me wrong, Pligg’s a solid CMS, and I’m not saying folks should steer clear of it. But for me, it felt a bit too cluttered. 😐

What bugged me about Pligg? The code’s not super clean, you’ve got to tweak a dozen spots just to do something basic like swap a theme. The development’s not as lively as Drupal’s, which has a huge, active dev community. The karma calculation isn’t very transparent, which could be a real pain later. And the user support? It’s “known” for not really listening to feedback 😛 (though I didn’t run into that myself).
So, I jumped to Drigg, and I’m happy I did 🙂 It’s built on Drupal, and you can feel how tidy the code is. Sure, if you go for a manual install, it takes a bit to set up the modules and get Drigg running. You’ll need some Drupal basics too, but it’s honestly kinda fun to figure out, even if you’re totally new to Drupal, it’s not that tough to pick up.

Right now, I’m tinkering with the site, and I might write a post about setting up Drupal+Drigg if I find the time. Oh, and yeah, I’ll spill the beans on this project I’m working on 😛 If you’re into Free Software, you might actually dig it, heehee. But we’ll see how it goes… 😉

~SeeJay