David Emery Online

Friday Links XIV

19 May 2007

As mentioned last Friday, I’ve been in New York this week which is why posting has been light – I hope to get back into it properly on Monday (jet lag permitting) but for now here’s your weekly dose of Friday links…

Amazon announces long-rumored DRM-free music store – I think everyone has know about this for quite a while, but it’s good to see it finally out in the open. This is going to be the first serious challenger to iTunes, depending on what their pricing model is – it’s a shame they haven’t got more of the majors on board (yet).

Sometimes, a phone is just a phone – having experienced the US’ mobile coverage first-hand this week I can understand why they seem to place a lot more emphasis on things like reception and call quality. We’ve moved well past the point where “just a phone” was really what most people want, as you can get there here with relative ease. It’s doubly interesting then, that the phone-backward US is bringing out one of the most interesting phones in ages next month.

The psychology of banner ads – I guess the thing to remember is that positive recollections of a brand do not equal anything other then that; it does not mean people will run out and buy what you are advertising, or change their opinion of your brand. I’m not a fan of banner ads, if you haven’t figured out – big waste of money if you ask me…

Launch: The 37signals product blog – even if you don’t use 37signals’ products (I don’t use any at the moment) it’s always worth paying attention to what they’re doing.

Jane Siberry’s “you decide what feels right” pricing – fascinating, really, although I’m sure it would only work for certain types of products selling to particular demographics.

About The Redesign – Part 1: Content and IA – always interesting seeing how someone else goes about the design process.

Google Reader Theme 0.9 – for the first time ever I’m tempted in switching away from Bloglines. Still haven’t, but soooo tempted…

No Ideas But In Things – wonderful, if slightly design geek-ey.

The Online Photographer – great photography blog.

Textpattern Blog: Directionless? – a fairly defensive response to last week’s Textpattern talk. I’m pretty sure a lot of the (perceived) problems with Textpattern mostly revolve around poor communication from the developers to the users. This is by no means unique to Textpattern – in fact, one of the primary problems with open source projects (in my opinion, at least) is poor communication by developers on multiple levels, between them and users and them and other developers.