After getting stuck in vegas because of the delays associated with these storms, I realized that USair could have alleviated this problem by just creating a mobile version of their flight status page.
I could have logged on with my blackberry and been less frustrated. Now I get home, and see the following screen on usair.com. This is a perfect example of contingency design, or defensive design as the boys at 37signals would call it. This is what happens when the design team isn’t expecting delays at EVERY airport the company services.
I would probably have made the div scrollable or once the number exceeds 4 cities, make the user click through. as is, that list is unusable.
So for those of you wondering where I’ve been the last 7 days, I was in Palo Alto for what amounted to 36 hours after getting stuck in Phoenix for 5 hours (thanks United! you rock…[insert sarcasm tag here]). then after spending a few seemingly profitable days in vegas (if you leave with what you came in with, and spent 3 days here, i consider that profit, I find out my flight is cancelled. no problem, I’ll just get on the next flight, hmmmm. seems like the next flight is cancelled too! so here I am a full 28 hours after my first flight home still in vegas. Hopefully by noon I’ll be sitting in first class (they had to upgrade me after the 2+ bumps) and on my way back home.
Anyway, community next rocked, vegas was great (except for the not being able to go home…), now back to work.
Hey Everyone,
Just a quick update. New posts will resume this weekend. I’ve been on a mini vacation for the last week, and still a bit overwhelmed by what a kick ass of a conference my buddy Noah threw last weekend. My only wish is that it was 2 days, and not just one. But overall truly kick-ass event.
I am currently in Las Vegas having had my flights cancelled 2 days in a row by US Airways (not to mention being stuck in phoenix for 5 hours on the way over!). anyway, a number of posts, and new ideas shall be forthcoming, and not to mention Barcamp is next week!
I’ll be liveblogging this event for the next few hours. If your’re interested you can watch live right here.
1:46PM - Scott Rafer, of MyBlogLog; Chris Ahearn, of Reuters; Chris Versace, of Agile Equity; Brian O’Malley, of Battery Ventures; and Jeff Taylor, Monster and Eons.
The topic discussed first was the relationship between big and small media. MyBloglog started out talking about the difference between big media and little media. Scott covered a number of interesting points on ads in relationship to this market. The rest of the panel shared their opinions on the differences between the two.
Jeff Taylor talked for a bit about the fact his first huge company (I think first) monster.com helped people get jobs over the last ten years, and how now those same people are starting to retire (didn’t realize the lifecycle was that short, but who am I to say). So his new company Eons, which is essentially a social network for baby boomers. I’ll opine on this later, not enough time to keep up right now.
Next up they covered the costs associated with venture capital.
Hey everyone, I’d like to announce Tasty, the first project to come out of the web+ labs. Its a super simple, super straightforward little app written in pure Ajax. Tasty (tastytag.com) is a graphical visualizer for delicious. Type in any url and see the top 10 tags people have used to tag that URL on delicious.
This is useful for those of you who were wondering what people were thinking about your product/site. Brand managers will hopefully love this as it gives you a quick snapshot of how people perceive your site.
All you have to do is type in a url, wait 2 seconds, and bam its off and running.
Hope you like it. The idea was spawned from this blog post at weBreakStuff
And we are still working out some of the bugs, so please be patient 
thanks,
Brian
Hey everyone,
There won’t be any updates today as we’re busy working on some new exciting changes to the site. We’ve got a neat little project for you that should be ready tonight or tomorrow. I’ll give you a hint, its muy “sabroso.”
We are also trying to improve the workflow of this site, so some things you might keep your eye out for over the next few days:
- Better comment formatting and tools
- More content
- Improved event info
- More community oriented stuff as well
So stay tuned, and please leave us some suggestions and ideas.
thanks,
Brian
so for those of you looking for good blogs to read (c’mon isn’t mine enough???!?). you should check out technorati.
see my profile on technorati Technorati Profile. and don’t forget to add me as a favorite.
So while surfing collegehumor today (so what if I’m not technically in college…) I saw this “super cool, edgy, extreme, 2.0″ ad (at least thats how I assume the agency that made it pitched it). I thought to myself, wow, wonder what this could be for? Is it for some awesome new contest? hmmm sadly it was for health insurance. Apparently the fine folks at blue cross and blue shield think 18-24 year olds aren’t smart enough to understand or pay attention to normal health insurance stuff. So are they going to start advertising life insurance and investment funds this way too???
So Alex and I were discussing the nature of how fast Web+ has been growing lately, and how its almost gained on his personal blog as far as Technorati rank is concerned. As of writing this here are the stats:
So here is my challenge to you loyal readers of this site: help me catch Alex. Is this shameless? Of COURSE! Why am I doing it? Curiosity primarily and the desire to bring more exposure to Miami on the web. This also gives me an excuse to keep tabs of technorati every 2-3 days. So I can come back in 1 week and update you all on the progress.
More importantly though, the nature of this blog is to help spread awareness of the scene down here in Miami and the South East, and to do that the best way is to ask those who read to share with their friends. Now this was blatantly ripped from inspired by Noah’s competition last fall, so I am going to offer some prizes.
Now we do a fair amount of traffic analysis here, so basically the site that drives the most traffic will win. Maybe we’ll do 2 prizes. I dunno, we’ll see. Anyway here are the things I am offering:
- Web+ Tshirt (having some printed soon)
- Permanent Link in the blogroll
- If you are a miami company, then free banner ad space (this was already free, but hey, i said this was shameless)
- 1 hour worth of me looking at your company product,design, or personal blog and giving you good honest feedback.
- Some stickers. Not sure of what, maybe barcamp miami stickers. or refresh, or something.
- I will write about you, your company, or any person or group you ask (assuming its appropriate).
- I’ll buy you a drink at the next web+ bar meetup.
So thats it. If you’re up for it, post a comment, if you think its stupid, post one too. And by no means am I trying to make you think this is a real competition, this is just for fun.
