I’m really digging the new minimalist icon for the SoundCloud app.

The irony is I was filling out a form to download comScore’s “2012 Mobile Future in Focus” report.

How not to design a form for the mobile web

How is this acceptable in 2012?

Not (yet) supported on mobile

Serendipity in change logs

1. Art & Copy. This 2009 PBS documentary about advertising popped up in my Netflix recommendations. An oddly out-of-place parallel story about a man who hangs billboards, peppered with the type of statistics and classic ad examples (Daisy, 1984, Lemon) you’d expect to be bombarded with in a Mass Comm 101 class, this honestly isn’t the most exciting 88 minutes you could spend in front of a screen. But the main feature — the one-on-ones with a handful of ad legends — is worth the time if you’re into that sort of thing.
2. Shit That Siri Says has officially jumped the shark, like a month ago. Most single-serving Tumblr’s seem to fade away after only a few days, but I’ve actually had to take the unusual step of clicking unfollow on this one to save myself from the waterfall of unfunny screenshots. And does the superfluous that in the site title piss off anyone else?
3. Stamped is a very simple iPhone app that lets you give recommendations on just about anything. No five-stars or bullshit 50-100 Robert Parker scale, just an easy pick-your-own-color stamp of approval. It’s a similar concept but different execution to Oink. I’m not sure where these apps go from here, but I’ve been surprised to actually see a handful of Twitter friends sign up for Stamped in the past week.
4. TechCrunch takes a weirdly academic (or is it pseudoscientific?) look at Pinterest’s rapid growth and predicts the service will inspire hundreds of copycats and be a great success. Fine, but where is Pinterest for Men?
5. iMeme is a handy OS X app for making memes without opening Photoshop. Pick from 50+ built-in templates such as the Pickup Line Panda or import your own image. There’s even a button to send your creation to Reddit. (I guess 4chan integration is forthcoming?)

Five things, 11/27/2011

If hints of cassis, subtle earthiness, and jammy notes don’t interest you, you are not a lesser person. Wine is not art. There’s no reason to believe that aligning your tastes with those of a self-appointed elite will enrich your life, or make you more insightful or sensitive. If wine critics want to spend lavishly on the wine they like, that’s great. Leave them to their fun. Be grateful that you can gain just as much pleasure, if not more, without bankrupting yourself.

Cheap wine

Over the next few weeks, the default search behavior for users logged into Google will be to use a secure HTTP connection (https://) instead of a standard HTTP (http:// sans S) connection.

That’s all good and fine except one side effect is that analytics software on websites receiving the traffic won’t be able to see which search queries resulted in each visit. This has big implications on the ability to optimize site content.

The caveat, however, is what makes Google look bad: non-organic search referrals (that is, clicks from AdWords ads that advertisers have paid Google to display) will still include the search query. This has some people crying foul:

If Google really cared, the keyword data that site owners now no longer receive from organic queries would no longer be available for advertisers either. But that would hit their bottom line, because it makes it harder to show ROI from AdWords, so they won’t do that.

This issue didn’t seem to get much attention today, but I doubt we’ve heard the end of it.

Google cuts search queries from web analytics in the name of privacy

But, what I found most interesting was this graphic of the pantheon of start-ups eating Craigslist’s lunch.

We tend to think of Craigslist as the disrupter, not the disruptee, but boy does this illustrate a dog-eat-dog world.

Disrupting Craigslist

Apple employees jeered their boss’s scheme for a corporate outfit. So he had to settle for a personal uniform, modeled on shirts he saw noted designer Issey Miyake wearing

“That’s what I wear. I have enough to last for the rest of my life.”

A 22-year-old Madison man […] didn’t get what he paid for from an “escort,” called police for help, and ended up getting a $681 ticket for soliciting a prostitute.

Always something strange happening in Wisconsin.

(link via some jerk who thought I’d enjoy it)

Doing it wrong