The User Advocate

When I read about an interesting new movie in the newspaper, I want to be able to add it to my Netflix account – like “Why We Sing!“  – but because they are too new, they don’t show up.  Their movie suggestion page requests (requires?) that they be already released on DVD, which seems mostly reasonable.  Current movies will 99% be released on DVD sometime, so how to fix it?

Implement one of two new functions/features:

1. Allow people to request movies not yet released and simply put them in a different queued area [probably hard since you can't get 100% of the information for the movie/DVD and adds to staff time searching it out], or,
2. Allow people to save movie searches as reminders with a future date.  So a new movie coming out, like “Why we sing!”, could be saved as a search ‘why we sing’ that will run again in X months.  Then I could choose to have it remind me in three months to re-search and see if it is in the system yet, or postpone it again if appropriate.  That way the user doesn’t have to figure out a way to remind themselves to search and end up forgetting movies that could interest them.

I’ve already forgotten the title of the HBO Doc that Spike Lee made about New Orleans, and by the time it is on DVD I will have forgotten about it completely.  This feature would enhance user loyalty (since they would have to stay a member to have the system remind them) and would make users happy since they wouldn’t need to remember or track new movies separately.

Technorati Tags: movies, netflix, user+advocacy

News via CircleID – ICANN (the regulators who manage internet names) have proposed contracts that would allow pricing of domain names based on the perceived attractiveness of the name.  The article has a well-dissected example of how really popular names (the example always given is sex.com or sex.org) could be very expensive, but what it really means is that all names are at risk.  Any domain name that can be made popular (think of google.com or useradvocate.com ) could have their price raised to be painful, all so that the registrars’ monopolies can be more valuable.

This is bad for the average domain-name user (purchaser) but is really even worse for the average web browsing user.  What if you wanted to find that cute boutique you found online last year, only to discover that it is gone and someone else paid more money for the domain?  Would you realize it was another shop and not the same one with a web redesign?  Or would it only be after you paid for an item and found out the quality was nothing like it used to be?

This ‘trust us, they won’t do it’ is ridiculous and sounds like the Telco proposals where they promise not to overcharge us for internet access… I’m not so trusting.  In a scarce-supply, regulated, environment, the reason you have price caps and regulation is to protect the users. Maybe the regulators need a reminder.

Public comments can be sent using the addresses here.

Technorati Tags: domain+name, icann, tiered+pricing, user+advocacy

Paul Thurrott doesn’t think Vista is ready yet but believes it could be by the deadline. However, the really important question he highlights – how do software companies figure out what is important? How do they balance the business need to launch, bugs and all, with the usability, or as he puts it balancing “when those smiles outnumber the screams”…

It’s a good read.

Technorati Tags: vista, user+advocacy

In an NYT Op-Ed, Mr. Timothy B. Lee argues that historical regulation of monopolies have turned against consumers, and that Congress ought to just let new technology fight it out since consumers can ‘rebel’.

Except they can’t.

Users are held hostage to one or two providers right now, and if my experience is any indication, both will be as horrible as they can get away with.  If neither one is restricted, they both will “protect” users from those horrible bandwidth hogs who won’t write checks… and the users will have no real choice in the end.

Lee has a good point – regulatory capture is a real danger, but his hope for ’several promising new technologies’ is just pie in the sky right now.  So let’s focus on the real danger and improve the legislation to handle an automatic sunset… perhaps after a certain period of time, or a certain amount of new market penetration, or by allowing the ‘promising new technologies’ unregulated reign, so even the existing carriers might try to build new networks.

Technorati Tags: network+neutrality, regulatory+capture, user+advocacy, att

An interesting article about studies that show buildings can increase health, intelligence and productivity.  Light and views always seem to make people happier — look at how hard people fight for the window office or cube — so it doesn’t seem earthshaking that it actually would affect a person working.  The next step is to figure out how to press builders to create wonderful buildings for all, and to advocate businesses to factor that extra productivity into the rent.  I know it would improve my workplace!

Technorati Tags: green+building, productivity, user+advocacy

A great article on a network with gatekeepers: the cell phone internet.

The repercussions of not implementing Network Neutrality are terrifying to contemplate, coming soon to restrict computers near you unless you contact your senators to kill the current Telco bill.  Save the internet, save the users, save yourselves!

Technorati Tags: net+neutrality, cell+phone, SMS, user+advocacy

A malware-loaded ad was published through a 3rd-party advertising network and exploited MySpace users’ bad patching practices (or choice of vulnerable software, depending on your perspective) and was described in the Washington Post about a week ago.  So, from a user’s perspective, where does the responsibility lie?

I would argue that this failure is on the advertising network.  Some have written about the seeming ‘impossibility’ of monitoring all the different ads that they publish, but is that ever the argument given on television or in a newspaper if a racist, demeaning, or otherwise offensive advertisement is shown? 

Never.

Why should the web be any different?  If you are outsourcing editorial control (by using a 3rd party ad network) then the responsibility should be in that contract, and they should be held responsible.  The real issue is the user-unfriendly ads that are being published these days — javascript, cookies, flash, all kinds of uncontrolled coding that can be used for attacks like these.

If you can’t control or scan for the vulnerabilities, the ad network needs to dial it back to only serving images and links.  If you can’t validate the advanced advertisements, go back to the old style and don’t let the advertisers push you beyond the point of control.

Technorati Tags: malware, banner+ads, user+advocacy

Security as an afterthought is bad for users:

“The problem here is that a commercial organisation is being given the
task of collecting data on behalf of a foreign government, for which it
gets no financial reward, and which offers no business benefit in
return,” says Laurie. “Naturally, in such a case, they will seek to
minimise their costs, which they do by handing the problem off to the
passengers themselves. This has the neat side-effect of also handing
off liability for data errors.

Check out the full Identity-Theft-Ready horror story of a simple airline passenger. Users are being told data is for one thing and it is used for another, with no incentive for protection. We’re back to unintended consequences…

Technorati Tags: identity+theft, airline, security

News today from the SF Chronicle that the suit against AT&T for exposing customers’ records is going forward.  The judge denied the motion from the company and the government to prevent any discussion of the program, which allegedly exposes all customers to government oversight in the name of finding terrorism.  Good for the EFF for exposing this malarkey, and may you have great success in protecting all of us.

Schneier notes a funny but inherently scary blog entry about how software vendors could try to avoid product liability, were they ever held accountable for bugs in their software. As a software guy, I can’t possibly fathom how evil I would feel implementing any of these schemes, but I certainly can see the allure from a business-dodge-liability.

This would be a hopelessly horrible user experience but goes back to the danger of unintended consequences.

Technorati Tags: software, programming, liability, user+advocacy