Infographics are everywhere these days, not just in the pages of USA Today. Visual.ly, recently launched publicly as a place to share, view, and post infographics. They even have a Labs section that lets you make your own:
When I heard that the intro video for the HP Slate was out, I had to watch it. Then, just like the video said, I went to hp.com/slate to check it out. Then, when I woke up from the coma their boring ass site put me into, I started writing this post.
Seriously though people, look at the site. SO BORING.
Yes, that giant graphic is clickable, but does anything make you WANT to click it? Nope.
The boring text tells you the boring details about how you can get more info about the HP Slate. Email submission? Really?
Now, I’m not one to get all over a company for design aesthetics, but this page just made me thoroughly not excited about this product. If this is their idea of a page that is meant to drum up excitement about what quite honestly looks like it might be a great product, I think it fails.
Something like this lends itself perfectly to a great social media campaign prior to launch with videos (which they actually have, but they show up in a pop-up player only after you figure out the riddle of where to click) and great content/interaction. Instead, HP has a boring link to their general HP Twitter feed – no icon, nothing that makes you want to click.
I never try to criticize without offering suggestions and assistance, so here it goes:
If HP wants to know more, they can contact me. I’m always willing to help out, but for now I see a potentially great product getting off to a lackluster start.
I’ve been going back and forth over whether buying an iPad is worth it or not – eventually my gadget-fiend portion of my brain took over an I just whipped out my credit card and bought one (due to ship on April 12, which is also Mariner’s opening day).
When I thought about it, I realized that the iPad could cut down on a lot of things I’ve been accumulating over the past couple years: remotes, media players, crappy netbooks from Dell, etc. I look at the iPad not as the world’s shiniest eReader, but as a device (no, Jony, not a magical one) that will allow for consolidation in the average household.
Now, granted the iPad doesn’t have a ton of out-of-the-box capabilities, but the app world is wide open for development of time/space/effort saving applications ranging from home security management to apps as simple as a remote control for your home theater PC.
I don’t see myself whipping out a PPT using Keynote on a flight from Seattle to SFO, but I do like the idea of watching a movie on that flight and having the ability to see the screen at a good angle because I’m not worried about the weirdness of a keyboard + screen on my tray table.
I think you’ll see the success or failure of the iPad in the next 5-8 months as devs scramble to get their apps on the iPad’s larger, and more easily manipulated screen. The only question is: if a developer builds a great app and no one hears about it, does it exist?
I know we’ve all seen the iPad videos/commercials, but have you ever really listened to them? I’m guessing most people really haven’t since Jony Ive is still out roaming the streets and not locked up in some rubber room somewhere.
Magical? It’s a giant iPhone, you limey bastard, not the freaking Rosetta stone. You know what would’ve been magical? You could have listened to the millions of fanboys running around ready to shell out thousands of dollars (those are like your pounds, but less pretentious) for this thing and given it the full functionality it needs (cameras, USB, SD, etc.) instead of thinking how you were going to eff everyone in the A when you release iPad 2.0 in a year and make everyone buy a new one.
Also, am I the only one that thinks he looks stoned out of his gourd in this video?
jetcitydigital.com 