Tag: browser

Youtube vs Vimeo [Usability Peeve]

There is one big usability peeve I have about launching and watching embedded videos. My typical embedded viewing experience is as below:

  1. Read the article on theoldreader.com (yes, I moved from greader -> feedly -> theoldreader – more on that in a different post).
  2. If I see a good video that I want to see, I typically click on the “youtube” icon or “vimeo” icon on the post, so that it opens up the video in youtube or vimeo respectively in a new tab.

vimeo   youtube

Now, when I do that, my reasonably average cognitive capabilities want me to think that the video link would open up in a new tab, and should wait for me to go to that tab and press play. Why? Because I had never pressed play on the embedded video. I had just said – open it for me in youtube or vimeo.

  • Youtube opens the video up in a new tab and begins playing it ! Whaa ??? I dont want to watch it now. I will watch it later.
  • Vimeo dutifully follows my thought process, opens up the video in a new tab and waits for me to go and press the play button.

In this duel, Vimeo wins. Sorry youtube.

PS: By the way, you should watch the planet six video. Hilariously done. Simple claymation with a message.

The CEO who did demos

Yeah, you know who I am talking about. Steve Jobs. I was reading the blog of Don Melton (who led the first Safari development team), where he describes the feeling of being in the audience of rehearsals of the ‘master presenter’.

Most of the time during those rehearsals, Ken and I had nothing to do except sit in the then empty audience and watch The Master Presenter at work — crafting his keynote. What a privilege to be a spectator during that process. At Apple, we were actually all students, not just spectators. When I see other companies clumsily announce products these days, I realize again how much the rest of the world lost now that Steve is gone.

And then there was also a link to the 2003 macworld keynote where Steve released Safari. I liked the way he demo’d Safari. It was typical Steve. Superlative adjectives. Practised fluency. But, what came next was what blew my mind. Steve also announces Keynote on the same presentation. My rough transcription:

The folks at apple created Keynote for me. I needed something that I can use to create these keynote presentations for you. Very graphic intensive. Powerful. Something that you want to use to create meaningful presentations. Now, <pause>, I want to share it with you. <applause>

This has been in the works for over a year now. For a year, we hired a very lowly paid beta tester, who tested it for a whole year. <screen shows Steve Job’s picture> <applause>. I have used Keynote for every keynote that I showed you in 2002.

I think that is just amazing. A CEO who not only demos, but also beta tested a product for a whole year. And not in his own private tasks, but for a very public demonstration. Amazing.

 

A new browser in the arena – Google Chrome

Google has just announced that, it will be releasing a beta of a new open source browser named Chrome tomorrow. By the looks of it, Google has been developing this thing for quite some time. It seems pretty advanced and very cool. It is based on the Mozilla and the Webkit libraries. Some nice things that can be said from what I have read:

  • super tabs – completely multi-threaded
  • sandboxing – for more security
  • a new virtual machine for javascript.

What is more, in true google style, Google has released this info in a very different way – in the way of a comic book ! Read the very cool comic here.

Read more about Chrome on Techcrunch and on the official google blog.

Update: If you have already downloaded chrome, go and type about:internets . LOL. It is an awesomely funny easter egg.