Denuology: The Observation and Observations of Denuo. » Random

Top Five iOS Apps You’ll Never Need

MMahowald — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:18:01 +0000

Apple is boasting 500,000 apps, which should really make you wonder — who’s buying all these apps and how helpful are they really? Of course, there are a bunch of great ones that make our lives all the more effortless and fun. My favorite is Flipboard, which clips together all of your social media updates plus relevant news and trends into an automatically personalized magazine for you to flip through. It’s great! But, there must be a fine line between handy and inane, or maybe that line isn’t so fine:

1. Hair Clinic for Man and Woman

What is that guy doing? Oh nothing unusual, just rubbing his iPhone on his bald head. Why, you might ask—well because, YES there’s an app that tells you to. The totally unscientific, untested app called Hair Clinic for Man and Woman supposedly generates undetectable pulses to your scalp which generate blood flow, and get this, grow hair! For $8.99 you can have long lush hair, or more realistically, submit yourself to the harsh judgment of others as they watch you draw circles all over your head with your new phone.

2. Marriage Proposal App

This app gives you the option to propose to that special someone via smartphone (for $0.99). Romantic? Just enter your loved one’s name, add some personalized text, and upload a picture to go with it. Just in case proposing on your iPhone didn’t ruin the moment, the lucky lady or man then responds by clicking the “yes” button at the bottom of the screen (hopefully). Mobile enhancement of the human experience is something for which techies everywhere are striving; mobile ruining of the human experience, not so much.

3. Man Poke

The Man Poke app is the epitome of a pointless game: no fun, and no goal. Via this ridiculous app, the man pictured here is the victim of continuous poking and prodding (with no visual effect) thanks to your touch screen. The app store blurb for Man Poke reads: “Ever wanted to just poke the daylights out of someone?” If you’re like most adults, you answered “NO.” And even if you answered yes, wouldn’t Facebook be a better and more cost-effective poking outlet? Poke your Facebook friends and leave this poor stranger in a suit alone.

4. The Enigma Clock

Clocks, pshhh, so mainstream right? Enter the hipster clock. This clock doesn’t even tell you the time; instead it forces you to decript a mathematical riddle—because we all love math so much! Spending ten to fifteen mintues decoding the clock completely obviates the desire to know the time, and if you finally do, well it’s no longer that time. Though you’ll probably never ever want to use this app because smartphones are equipped with time displays, you could have a revolving door of excuses for why you were late to that meeting or to pick up your kid. “Damn that engima, I’m late again!”

5. iPhone’s weather app

The wild inaccuracy of Apple’s built-in weather app is why it makes the list of the five worst apps. I understand that the weather is unpredictable, especially in Chicago, but how can this app always be wrong? It’s definitely unnerving when you check multiple weather sources and they don’t match up, but it seems that Apple’s app is the one that’s always off-base. More often than not, you’ll find yourself cursing its condescendingly inaccurate reports. (“I know it’s not sunny out, you spiteful little fraud!”) Go with Weatherbug, a free top-rate weather app, and never again be caught in flip-flops on that cold rainy day in May.

Smartphone users are consistently seeking ways to make their day-to-day activities more fun — a worthy goal. Apps save time and help those afflicted with chronic lack of patience. The problem arises when apps simply aren’t accurate or useful, or when the so-called “game” becomes destructive. (There’s actually an app, Hang Time, in which you throw your iPhone into the air, and it then reveals how high it went.)

A smartphone clogged with apps only complicates your search for the best way to seamlessly handle a situation. It’s time for consumers to take their iPhone off their heads and to start using some judgment. Just because the app has 5,600 reviews doesn’t mean it’s worthy of your money. Trust me, you probably won’t regret the missed chance to put your finger on the screen and have it display your mood.

I’m Still Hungry: A Rant to the Wonderfully Horrible World of Food Blogs

myoung — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:44:40 +0000

Food blogs, amirite? Those magical web portals that lure you in with their tempting photos and delicious titles, and then trap you amongst their pages for hours on end. Don’t pretend you don’t love them. If you can honestly say you don’t, you must only be looking at the worst ones, like Oat Bran Daily and Fun With Kale! (Turns out, 365 Days of Kale does exist, if you’re into that sort of thing.) The problem here is that it is impossible to remain hung up on one bad blog when there are so many good ones begging too be looked at. Far too many, actually.

The typical wasted hours spent food blog-hopping go a little something like this:

I would love to bake today.

It’s Fall, maybe I should make something with pumpkin.

I think I have a can of that in the pantry.

Google: “pumpkin recipes.”

Oh good, only 38,300,000 results.

Oh. Wow. Those brownies look so good!

What?!? 41 Yummy Pumpkin Recipes from The Gourmet Glutton? Don’t mind if I do! ….

Next thing I know I’m looking at fresh pumpkin stew recipes with some particular type of canned tomatoes and that omnipresent kale.

I don’t have the ingredients for that, or the desire to cook a stew.

Oh well. Looks good.

Bookmark that.

Email to self.

Somehow ensure that I can never find it again among all my other bookmarks of other things I don’t actually want to make.*

I end up spending all my potential cooking time just looking at pictures, variations, and related recipes. By the time I realize I still haven’t decided on a single recipe, five hours have gone by, I’ve finished the entire box of Oreos, and I’m too tired from clicking and reading to cook anything but a frozen pizza. Thanks for nothing, food blogs.

Even sites like Pinterest that offer recipes amidst everything else she-bloggers love (weddings, babies, fashion, quotes, bikes turned into sinks, etc.) don’t help. I see you, pins of “easy” workout routines. But I also see YOU, baked Alaska. Teach me how to create that in my kitchen, and I’ll totally go run a marathon later, right? If I can ever get off the computer. What happened to the days where you could sit down with Ladies Home Journal (my mom was really hip with it and kept good reading material like that on the coffee table at all times) and tear out the page with that delicious-sounding pumpkin bundt cake–the only one in the whole magazine–and stick it in a cookbook, making a real life bookmark instead of a virtual one? Even if you didn’t make the recipes right away, you could still discover them later, in one place, and decide if you wanted to make them or not. I wish there was a way to do that on my computer or my phone. Is there an app for that? A recipes-I-want-to-try aggregator? Can I virtually tear out the recipe page on my tablet? Is the recipe Amy Cooksalot adapted from that Ladies Home Journal recipe really going to be that much better than what I already have?

I do admire you, food bloggers. You mystical beings who seem to have their busy lives under control or else have been blessed with making a life out of simply cooking. And I appreciate that you want me to have the recipe for those to-die-for kale cookies, but it’s hard for me to (a) see your recipe, (b) trust that it is both simple and delicious, and (c) take it to the kitchen without doing a little investigating first. It’s easier for me to trust printed magazines. You know the editors selected this recipe because it’s the best around. Not just anyone can publish a recipe in a magazine, so I feel that it’s easier to trust them than Amy Cooksalot, just some lady who posted a recipe on a blog somewhere. I can’t count how many recipes I make regularly from old editions of Everyday Food. I can almost always find the recipes I remember ogling. And I don’t have to even know that 37,299,999 other pumpkin recipes exist.

The internet is supposed to be a place that makes everything easy and accessible. It also allows anyone to share their voice. But with all these voices, things get a little too cluttered and distracting for it to be easy. Is it so wrong to want to abandon the information superhighway in favor of the old-fashioned bundle of paper delivered to my door? Yet, hard as I try, those food blogs will never fail to lure me in for hours, until I feel like Amy Cooksalot and I are best friends and she’s cooking just for me. Only I never end up being able to eat any of her food. It’s a love/hate relationship. And I can’t tell if I really want to end it.

*Full disclosure: I definitely emailed myself those 41 pumpkin recipes. Odds that I will make any of them? Zero.

My Ideal Summer Vacation App

czhang — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 02:25:18 +0000

It’s summer, the time of the year when we book our trips, tweet our vacation plans, and set up our auto-replies. In two weeks, I will be traveling to Russia, starting in St. Petersburg and cruising down the Volga River until I reach Moscow. Before I give off the wrong message, I’m not one of those epic explorers you see on TV shows, or busy consultants who travel intensely with suits and briefcases. I’m just a regular vacationer. As a kid, my parents would take me somewhere new every few months, and now it’s become a custom to travel.

Recently, I realized that aside from my favorite destinations, some of the places I’ve been to have begun to blur together. I needed a better way to keep track of travel memories.

So I started reading reviews and blogs about the various vacation-related mobile apps. As expected, I found hundreds of travel apps, many of them designed with precision and creativity, covering everything from recommendations to reservations to language translations. They fit into five general categories:

1. Suggestions: A database of amazing travel destinations (i.e. Beautiful Planet HD)

2. Reviews: Recommendations on specific tourist sites, services, and restaurants (i.e. TripAdvisor)

3. Itinerary management: Flight schedules, hotel bookings (i.e. Blackberry Travel App)

4. Navigation: Maps, GPS systems, gas prices, parking areas (i.e. Garmin StreetPilot)

5. Other useful tools: Currency calculator, language translation (i.e. Language Translation Phrasebook)

Sure, it’s extremely convenient to have all those features, but there was something missing: the people I met, the decisions I made, the personal memories, where did they fit in? Years after a trip, I won’t look back and think about the GPS route or flight time. I want to look back at the small yet unforgettable details of my trip:

I want to remember the lady in Mongolia who had woken up at 5 am to pick berries, smiling at me as she washed them. When I asked what they were for, she replied, “I’m making jam for you, because you’re from the city and you’ve never had fresh jam.” And the man who had galloped bareback on a horse on the mountain trail, something I’d only seen in movies. And the children in the Philippines who imitated my English and then giggled cheerfully as they ran off.

This summer, my ideal mobile app would be able capture the life and energy of my travels. My ideal app would help me recreate the beautiful memories of travel. I would include features such as these:

1. Favorites: Favorite street, favorite mountain, favorite night out. A notepad where I can write down anything that I found absolutely fascinating, along with the date and location.

2. People: A collection of photos and names of people I met, and why they were awesome.

3. Quotes: Funny, embarrassing, or best of all, inspiring.

4. Photos: The ability to add effects to make the most memorable photos stand out.

5. Integration: This is the most important feature. The app should be able to combine all of the above into a collage-type piece of art, a true memory book featuring all my favorite details, events, and people.

6. Share: The option to share parts of my memories on social media, while keeping others private.

At the end of the day, when we go home and talk about our travels with our friends and family, we make recommendations based on whether there was something worth experiencing and remembering. That “something” is what a summer vacation app should capture.

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Parks & Denuo-creation?

Albert Kim — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:12:01 +0000

Two amazing things happened recently:

Friend and former Starcom Chicago office neighbor Graham created an awesome new meme: the Golden Girls Sitcom Archetype. It postulates that every sitcom has 4 cast members that can be tied back to the 4 Golden Girls: http://coolkidstable.tumblr.com/post/6049485405/

Newest addition to Denuo, designer Reed, posted on Facebook that he looks like Andy Dwyer from the NBC comedy hit, Parks & Recreation.

Using Graham’s template, you can judge for yourself:

#TRUTH

Which got me and fellow Denuologist Chris Blumberg thinking:

Does the cast of Parks and Recreation match up against the crew of Denuo?

Surprisingly, yes – let’s explore!

Ben Wyatt = Chris Blumberg

Looks Match: 2/5
Personality Match: 1/5
This one is a stretch, but as fellow contributor to this concept, I had to assign Chris someone. And I’m pretty sure this was Chris’s high school picture from Olan Mills:

Plus, I think he really likes calzones, even though they’re “like harder to eat pizzas.”

Jerry Gergich = Albert Kim

Looks Match: 2/5
Personality Match: 3/5
As Ron Swanson eloquently explains, “A schlemiel is the guy who spills soup at a fancy party. A schlimazel is the guy he spills it on. Jerry is both the schlemiel and the schlimazel of our office.” And I am the schlemiel and schlimazel of Denuo. (I regularly trip walking UP stairs.)

I’m also just as likely to flub up my words and have probably said the word “murinal” at least once. And how many times have I pitched a photo mosaic as a creative idea? Several.

Donna Meagle = Stephanie Huynh

Looks Match: 1/5
Personality Match: 4/5
So yes, they aren’t the same race nor the same physique. But personality-wise? Spot on. Both are sassy and don’t take sh*t from anyone. Both are skilled at two looks: the death glare (as shown above) and the silent “Oh no he didn’t!” walkaway, which comes in handy during the most awkward of times.

When Stephanie makes it big, I see her driving a Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV someday.

Jean-Ralphio Saperstein = Matt Story

Looks Match: 2/5 (inclusive of wardrobe)
Personality Match: 5/5
Again, I’m colorblind when I look for the perfect match. Both are equally cocky, love the clubs, and dress similarly. And like Jean-Ralphio’s new media conglomerate, Entertainment 720, Matt would be willing to go around the world twice to please his clients. (And literally say so with a smile.) I swear I’ve also seen Matt dance like this:

April Ludgate = Anisha Ahluwalia

Looks Match: 2/5
Personality Match: 4/5
Although Anisha probably doesn’t roll her eyes as much as April, you can tell that inside, she wants to sooo bad. Cynical, dry sense of humor, and equally subdued, both have those amazing one-liners that you’ll be remembering until next week’s episode…er… status meeting. Other points of note: April’s favorite color is “greenish-transparent” and Anisha’s is green. Like April, a genuine Anisha smile exists only for a fleeting moment:

And Anisha loves high fives.

Tom Haverford = Tim Harris

Looks Match: 3/5
Personality Match: 3/5
Of equal height and boyish charm, Tom & Tim practically have the same first name and same initials. Tom invests in a nightclub, Tim invests in a comic book store. One can only assume Tim has a DJ Roomba and likes camping with his Xbox.

I’m also secretly wishing that Tim buys Brooks Brothers boys suits, because according to Tom’s reasoning: “the cuts are slimmer and it’s cheaper: win, win!”

Leslie Knope = Courtney Acuff

Looks Match: 4/5
Personality Match: 4/5
Both are intelligent, driven, blonde and hilarious. And Courtney can take the heat without getting discouraged, like Leslie dealing with the crazies at her public forums:

But I don’t think Courtney has the same obsession over waffles, Condi Rice, or hoarding multiple unfinished birdhouses:

Chris Traeger = Dan Buczaczer

Looks Match: 4/5
Personality Match: 4/5
K, let’s not get ahead of ourselves… nobody can match the handsomeness of one of the original brat packers. But Dan comes pretty close. Always cheerful and smiling, Dan also likes to preface his constructive criticism with a nice pep talk about how you’re great. This is Dan and Anisha in a recent meeting:

And I believe he uses the word “literally” about 4.5x a day. LITRALLY.

Ann Perkins = Sarah Chiappetta

Looks Match: 5/5
Personality Match: 4/5
I mean, look at them. Clearly from the same womb. They both enjoy a good Lifetime movie once in a while. And Sarah’s friend is a nurse, just like Ann Perkins, so it must be a sign.

Ron Swanson = John Durbin

Looks Match: 5/5
Personality Match: 5/5
John Durbin should sue NBC because they stole his future self for this character. Physically, Durbin will be Ron Swanson by the age of 50. Both already have facial hair and like wearing button-down dress shirts under sweaters. Personality wise, they are both equally apathetic and will judge you with evil death glares:

Ron plays the sax at night for the ladies, and we can only assume Durbin does the same with his violin:

Plus, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him dance exactly like this:

So, there you have it, Denuo as the cast of Parks & Recreation.

I can’t wait for the next Denuo Harvest Festival. RIP Lil’ Sebastian…

Major props to parksandrecgifs.tumblr.com and fuckyeahparksandrec.tumblr.com for all of the amazing Parks & Rec pics here – check them out!

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Marketing Lesson from GDC11: PLAY!

btorres — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:20:30 +0000

Greetings, fellow marketers. It’s me. Benny. I come bearing a simple request from the Game Developers Conference. Play deliberately. In your daily life, realize when you are playing something. Then, pay attention to why and how you’re playing what you’re playing.

It can be anything. Texas Hold ‘em with your buddies. Monopoly with the family. Angry Birds on your phone. Call of Duty: Black Ops against your brother from Toadsuck, AR. Just play and pay attention to why and how you are playing. It’s really that simple. The why and how of this simple request are just a click away. If you’d love to read, mosey on down.

It seems that we as marketers have finally started to pay attention to games as something other than a place for digital out-of-home. There seems to have been a collective realization that our consumers are playing more and more games for longer and longer time periods. A realization that when people are playing games, they’re utterly engaged. Unable or unwilling to divide attention for those (oh so prevalent) marketing messages.

And so – obviously – we want a piece of that action. The result of this newfound attention has been something called “gamification.” It’s a very new, very amorphous term. But, for most marketers, it seems to represent a way to easily bring the mojo that makes games to engaging to our marketing programs.

And that’s awesome. There are a ton of companies out there already who are doing great work democratizing the lowest hanging fruits of gaming mojo: The points and the leaderboards and the achievements and the avatar customization and the like. Fantastic. I love ‘em. But I also recognize that they’re really superficial. Shallow. Only scratching the surface.

Gamers know this too. That’s why at GDC this year, game developers were screaming bloody murder about the term “gamification” and the future it seems to be leading the industry towards. It’s not that these low hanging fruits are BAD. It’s just that there’s so much more vibrancy underneath the hood of gaming. It feels like an amazing opportunity squandered.

A surefire way to begin to understand this is to pay attention to the power of games. Play deliberately from time to time. Make note of the mechanics, mojo, and special sauce the game designer is employing to entice engagement. Note your feelings and engagement – and how different mechanics subtly influence them. When you’re addicted to finding lost cows – think about WHY you’re addicted.

It sounds simple enough – but it can actually be quite hard. After all, games are fun and entertaining. It’s a similar situation to losing 10 minutes browsing Facebook when you’re trying to get something done for a Facebook project But – as difficult as it can be – we must play deliberately in order to better understand games and how they do what they do.

Maybe just log the time under “research.” I won’t tell!