I was a heavy Delicious user and proponent at first, but quickly fed into its over-watered, over-polluted system of links that I couldn’t think to re-mine through solely because even my own link list had become a dump- my definition of information overload.

Normal search, a-la-Google has taught a generation of users that it’s okay not to horde the internet, but to instead rely on search for both discovery and recovery.

The new Delicious with Stacks seems to be a different approach. A cross pollination of Wikipedia, traditional Delicious, search and a bit of Squidoo. But, finally a tool that understands the power of curation.

Stacks allows the individual to tailor a particular niche topic from tried/tested resources across the web. So where traditional Delicious was about archiving, new Delicious is about discovery.

Looking to understand a new topic, interest or passion? Delicious it. Rather than simple search which provides a nominal list of page-ranked links, you get someone’s personal view on a topic. Follow fulfilling web-curators. Learn. Share. Reciprocate.

Further reading:

• AVOS - A New Flavor…Still Delicious

• Jason Kottke - The new Delicious

Emotionally curated content culled from any source to share with anyone regardless of reciprocity.

That seems to be the goal of Facebook’s announcement today. A lofty one, but clearly feasible. Facebook is continuing on its quest of becoming the everything system.

The few problems I’ve had and continue to have are the lack of actual curated friendships on Facebook. There’s a ton of pollution and I worry with a Timeline and Ticker, it will only continue to become polluted. Less and less do I rely on Facebook for discovery, and instead rely more heavily on Twitter.

It’s in rare cases that I’d like to share something personal, photo album, event, etc, that I turn to Facebook. I’m curious how many others feel the same, and whether or not there’s a better opportunity for a mobile app or service to provide these tools. Who knows maybe it’s something Color or MobileMe come iCloud will solve.

That said, it’s a huge draw for me having a centralized repository inclusive of my most frequent social visitors. Really brilliant when it comes to the number of services I use, discover, and share with, that others may not be using.

At least one question is answered, whether to post this to Facebook or Twitter. Doesn’t matter now, it’ll autopost to Facebook for me.

Further reading:

• MG Siegler - Share Buttons? Ha. Facebook Just Schooled The Internet. Again.

• ‘Timeline’ Ad

• ‘A New Class of Social Apps on Facebook’ Ad

With the first announcement of BankSimple curiosity has had the best of me. And while I consider myself an early adopter if only to understand what emerging technology is sticky, notions like BankSimple tend to permeate well beyond simple tech enthusiasts.

It’s interesting when a necessary idea meets a strong need. And what I realize more often is how willing people are to adopt change, if only to gain better services. Technology seems to lead this progress, but ultimately it’s not technology that creates these solutions or revolutionizes products, instead it’s the thinking and design spent behind it.

Steve Jobs in his interview with Wired said,

What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.

More often then not this is the approach of companies without a clue. They come to understand that technology is changing so fast, that without following suite, they’ll simply fall behind. Unfortunately though, no amount of social media, or technology advancements will make your product better if it’s already crap.

It’s better to start fresh and think deeply about the problem you’re trying to solve. While SimpleBank is reveling in this notion of new and thoughtful design, I hope others are just as courageous. Not just companies either, education and politics included.

Further reading:

• Joshua Reich - A First Look at BankSimple

• Gary Wolf - Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing

• TED - Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

Metro is a change, but it’s a new layer atop an old one. And for companies like Apple, willingness to adapt and not adopt has become a guiding principle.

Reverse scrolling is a simple but precise example of this. In terms of usability it makes sense, but to a number of users it’s disconcerting having to rethink something that’s been engrained in muscle memory for decades.

Yes, it makes sense to have the screen shift in the direction your finger pulls with iOS devices, but why carry it to legacy devices where tradition clearly states the opposite?

Because it made sense to someone, and so they pulled the trigger on it. Ultimately their willingness to make such a decision is telling. It’s almost less a matter of usability, and more a sign of clear decision making.

Most companies have a wishy-washy process of leading design changes from intern to product manager to oversight committee to department head to etc. It requires clear focus and someone willing to take responsibility for their actions.

So when you ask why natural scrolling, instead think why other companies have been so complacent as not to try it.

Further reading:

• Michael Agger - It’s Only Natural via Dave Winer

Spoiler: This analysis of the film ‘Drive’ discusses specific plot details and is dependent on you having already seen the film.

Some heroes are real. (Byline from the film poster.)

‘Drive’ is a look into the very soul or nature of what we commonly consider archetype heroes and throws it back in our face. If you want to be as confident as 007, or as cool as James Dean, then this is what you need to be capable of: complete mayhem.

That’s real. And so is ‘Drive’s delineation away from traditional story telling.

Like a good audience we quickly fall for our nameless lead’s charms. Based off the audience reaction itself, frankly no one expected the dark path the film runs down. I wouldn’t be surprised if others came in expecting an edgier version of ‘The Transporter’, maybe even a more true-to-life version. Little did we realize that’s exactly what we got.

Brooding over this film has highlighted several points. One, true life characters seldom change. Two, dreams don’t always become reality. Three, even the good die.

Truth

Falling for this lead character is a bad idea. In truth, we’re led to for the first half of the film. We’re drawn to him and his quiet nature, only to realize what it might actually take for a person like this to exist.

The scorpion stings the frog, it’s in its nature. Shannon will always be unlucky, Nino is always inclined to revenge, and Irene will always fall for the wrong guy. It’s why Shannon dies, Nino goes after the driver, and why Irene knocks on his door at the end of the film edging forgiveness.

Dreams

$300,000 for a Nascar seems like a dream come true. You have the driver, you have the car, next we should expect something from out of ‘Days of Thunder’. Instead we barely touch the car. There is no escaping the character’s true reality. They’re in too deep, with lessening chance of escape. Or in our leads case, if you do, it’s just barely, and with surprise.

Standard dreams of escaping his debt, living the rest of his life in peace with his family, with his son. That’s a dream quickly crushed. Shannon dreams of escaping his ill fortune by finally finding an honest way out. Unfortunately it’s with the wrong people. Irene meets someone she shares a deep connection with. He turns out to be pretty twisted.

In this film, dreams die just as readily as characters.

Death

In an arguably noble film Standard and Blanche (girl from Mad Men) wouldn’t have died. In some last ditch dashing effort our driver would have pulled them to safety, maybe harmed slightly but not dead.

Truth, again, cycles. There is no hero strong enough to defy reality.

We come to lack surprise even in the lead characters possible death. The final scenes are still a visceral shock to our systems, but the equality of it fits. We’ve become desensitized from the film, and seemingly find release in even the driver’s death.

Towards the final scene with his leg slumped out of the car, and eyes fixed as if testing the audience to blink first, we still linger on the hope of his survival, but come to understand even otherwise, it’s still a final moment, an end to a completely chaotic situation.

Peaceful even.

Further reading:

• Christopher Orr - A High-Octane ‘Drive’

• IMDB

Where is Microsoft’s presence in Metro? If they’re banking so heavily on this being the future of computing, where are their apps?

I see no Microsoft Office Metro edition, no Visual Studio Metro edition. Hell, even a Task Manager Metro edition might be fun. Instead we’re left with a suite of intern developed applications to tweet and share photos. Certainly beautiful applications to match an even more beautiful UI, but again where is the true buy-in from Microsoft themselves?

Apple with the launch of the original iPad in 2010 included iWork, its first set of professionally inspired applications to be used with large screen iOS devices. Then with the iPad 2, developers were introduced to iLife for iOS, showcasing features like measuring force with the accelerometer. Clear examples of just how powerful the software and hardware are.

Really it begs the question: is Metro purely an aesthetic play for Microsoft, or is it designed to help professional developers build better apps? Until we find out, we won’t know just how powerful Metro and Win 8 really are.

Further reading:

• Jensen Harris - 8 traits of great Metro style apps [via John Gruber]

• getwired.com - The landscape tablet landscape [via John Gruber]