Humo(u)rless Americans

There is something of a stereotype to the effect that Americans have no sense of humour, or at best, only a somehow "childish" or unsophisticated one.

But the other day, I saw concrete evidence of a cultural divide in this area that I had not expected.

I was looking for a gift for someone who was going to be convalescing for a few weeks, and I decided to get them a couple of humourous books. I don't like buying from Amazon because of their behaviour over the "one click ordering" patent, but on this occasion I really wanted a wide choice of books and quick/reliable delivery. So I decided ignore my reservations and see what they had on offer.

Since I wanted something to cheer up a convalescent, I headed straight for the "Humour" section... and couldn't find it! Which was really surprising, because I was sure that I'd seen it in the past. But although Amazon were offering 35 different categories of books, Humour was not one of them.

Upon investigation, it transpired that I had somehow managed to start the books on the amazon.com site instead of amazon.co.uk, and it turns out that the American site does not have "Humo(u)r" as one of its top-level categories.

Now, I'm confident this isn't a mistake. I assume that Amazon has determined the categories on each site on the basis of market research, or studying logs, or organising focus groups or some such. And so the differences reflect difference between (Amazon's customer groups in) the two societies.

So, for instance, while British and Americans both have "Religion and Spirituality" as a top level category, the Americans also have "Christian Books". And I'm guessing that this reflects the greater importance of Christianity in the US.

Similarly, a stereotype is no doubt confirmed by the fact that the UK has "Poetry, Drama and Criticism" and both "Languages" and "Foreign Languages", while the US does none of these, and by the US having Arts and Photography while the UK has Art, Architecture and Photography.

And maybe the fact that the US has "Outdoors and Nature" when the UK does not is a sign Americans are somehow closer to nature, and more concerned with (being in) their natural environment.

But what does the lack of "Humour" tell us? It seems to me to be an obvious top level category: there are a lot of books that are written to make the reader laugh, and "a book to make someone laugh" is clearly a natural thing for people in Britain to look for.

But that's not the case in America. There, "Humor" is a sub-category of Entertainment, alongside "Movies", "TV" and "Puzzles and Games".

So what does that tell us about the Americans see the world? Or books? Or humour?

Hmmm...

I've gone and got an iPhone!

As you may have inferred, from my previous "Windows Mobile Woes" postings, I was never entirely happy with my Windows Mobile Smartphone. But finally, the need to upgrade all kinds of everything just at the time O2 announced the availability of the new 3G model prompted me to take the plunge, and in February I got a shiny new 3G iPhone.

It's really a very nice device in many ways. It looks good --- it was literally a shiny new iPhone --- and it feels good: very solid, just weighty enough to feel important. And to go with the polished appearance and solid feel of the hardware, the software is equally polished and solid.

Polished, in that it has interface features that are not only effective and intuitive, but are also actually fun to use: the way you flick your finger across the screen to scroll things (and then watch them slow to a halt), the pinch/stretch gestures to zoom in and out, and so on. And solid, in the sense that I still don't know how to reset it --- something which sets it apart from my Windows Mobile phone, which I had to reset within a week, and more often than I could count thereafter.

But a thing about the iPhone is that it is much more than a phone, or even a phone with all the "extras" we now expect --- storing our calendar and address book, sending texts, playing music and taking photographs.

The iPhone is really is a highly portable location-aware computer that is designed to be continuously connected to the Internet. As such, it is a platform to provide users with instant access to information, entertainment and services, and the email client and highly capable web browser are the most obvious and useful manifestations of this. But in fact the stock price and weather forecast displays and the YouTube player are more revealing of the essence of the iPhone. These are nothing more than programs (applications) that the user can run to do a specific thing. They very probably use the Web to fetch the information they need, and just display it way that is more iPhone-compatible than a normal web page.

A key feature of the iPhone is that it makes it really very easy to install these little programs --- these "apps" --- to provide extra functionality over and above the basic features provided by the software on the phone itself. Indeed, the iPhone embodies an "App Store", which is widely touted as a stroke of business genius on Apple's part.

The App Store is an application that allows iPhone owners to browse, select and install new apps. Many apps are free, but, as "Apps Store" suggests, many others cost -- not a lot (60p is typical), but enough to encourage developers to contribute apps to the store, so that there is a huge range, and continually expanding, range of apps that iPhone users can download, and indeed DO download, in enormous numbers.

Apple charge a proportion of the sale price, and this has made them a great deal of money, But the real effect of the App store is far more significant: it has helped the iPhone become the centre of a culture, with a substantial community of software developers providing new apps that allow owners to add new functionality to their iPhones quickly and easily, and for just pennies. And by spending a few pounds on Apps, users are buying in to their phone, too: whenever two or more iPhone owners are gathered together, they will show each other their favourite new apps. This not only stimulates more sales for the apps themselves, but also keeps owners engaged with personalising, and singing the praises of, their iPhones.

A marketing man's dream.

Another really strong point of the phone is that it is able to determine its own location. Like many phones, the iPhone has a GPS, and, like many phones, this takes a long time to determine its location, and does not work well in cities, or at all indoors. But, uniquely, the iPhone augments its GPS with two other ways to determine for determining its location: it can ask the telephone network, which always knows the rough position of every phone; and it can use Skyhook's system for determining location based on the relative strengths of the Wi-fi networks that can be detected. The iPhone does a superb job of using all three of these mechanisms in combination, and this allows it to display its approximate location on a map within fifteen seconds, even in a city, or even indoors --- performance far better than any GPS alone can manage.

But although the iPhone has many great features, it also has some noticeable limitations. A particilarly annoying one is probably the result of contractual wrangling with the phone networks. Although the iPhone is a reasonable tool for things like handling mail and reading the web, it cannot compete with a computer with a full-size keyboard and display. But Apple's software will not allow the phone to be used to connect another computer (a laptop, for instance) to the Internet. Similarly, the need to balance battery size against the plethora of radio systems has meant that the iPhone has decidedly mediocre battery life --- barely last two days, so it really needs to be charged daily.

But although these limitations are the result of necessary compromises, others are omissions affecting eatures I would have taken for granted on any kind of iPhone-like device.

Perhaps most surprising is the lack of any kind of cut-and-paste mechanism, so that, for instance, the only way to get a phone number from the address book to a text message would be to write it down and key it in again. Nor is there any kind of "undo" for anything.

Another surprising system-wide omission is searching. It is possible to search for contacts by name, but not on words in the notes or address. Nor any way to search within a web page, or to search the diary --- you may know you have something in your diary, but you can only find what date it is by looking through all future events until you come across it.

There are also a number of other omissions: iPhones cannot send MMS messages, record movies, or allow the user to supply the sounds used for many purposes. Finger-flick scrolling is intuitive and fun, but it is ineffective for long documents and the interface provides no alternative. There are scroll bars to show the portion of the document currently visible, but they disappear the moment the text stops moving, which often means that there is no sign at all that there is more of a page or document that cannot currently be seen. Users just have to get in the habit of trying to scroll each page, just in case tehre is more to be seen. And while this may be a good way to hide secrets in an adventure game, for serious interfaces it is just plain annoying.

Reminders for events can only be set for a handful of fixed times in advance, and are signalled once, and once only, by a feeble little noise that last less than two seconds. This means that not taking your phone to the toilet with you risks making you late for your dentists appointment.

The web browser, despite supporting a wide range of features, has a seriously cut-down user interface, and among other shortcomings doesn't let you disable image downloading --- is a surprising omission from a device which is expected to frequently be used with only a slow internet connection. Nor does it allow you to save web pages, or images, or anything else you have accessed on the Internet. And although Apple provide an app for writing notes on the iPhone, that is where they are likely to stay, because (with the exception of email, calendar and address books, which will synchronise using Microsoft Exchange protocols), the iPhone provides no way to synchronise files, or indeed any other data, with another computer. As a result, various apps are being programmed to provide some kind of (perhaps manually-initiated) synchronisation of their own data. But although this is better than nothing, piecemeal manually-initiated data sharing seems inaequate in terms of both reliability and convenience.

These are not minor imperfections: they are omissions which seriously interfere with common activities. Yet despite this, the iPhone is still a terrific device that literally feels good and is actually a pleasure to use. It has taken me a while to get used to the idea of being seen to posess an icon of style, but now I'm likely to start an iPhone "show and tell" at the drop of a hat.

Who'd have thought it?

Blog? What blog?

OK, so I might have forgotten about this blog.

I thought of it today when I found myself skirmishing with Facebook, and realised a "Notes" button had appeared on my Profile page.

I hadn't ever noticed anybody using "Notes", so I could only guess that it would be something like the "Wall" feature, where you type short comments to appear on your (or someone else's) "profile" page. But how would it differ? Hmmm...

So I clicked the "Notes" button, and got a page that said

No recently added notes to display.
Use the Publisher above to add your own.

"OK", I thought, typed a test note into the type-in box above the message (the "Publisher"?), hit "Share"... and thus updated the main "Status" message on my Profile page to say that I was experimenting with the "Notes" facility. Which, while true, was not the thing I most wanted to tell the world about myself.

After a few minutes guddling about, I discovered that the button I had clicked is for controlling whether notes (anybody's notes, I think) appear on my Profile page, and so, despite the message above, the "Publisher" was nothing at all to do with Notes. And, eventually, that creating a note involved clicking a button to add a new tab to my Profile, going to that tab, and then clicking the "Write a new note" button that appears on that page.

By this point I felt I had a pretty good idea about why I'd not noticed anybody using the "Notes" facility! Without being big-headed, I think I'm smarter than the average bear, especially when it comes to understanding the world about me and figuring out how things work. And I've been using computers for a good few years. But it had taken me over ten minutes to figure out how to create a note.

The obvious question is "what is the point of providing a feature without providing any instructions or pointers to help you use it?"

Part of the answer, of course, is that there is no point in taking care and time to write instructions, because nobody will read them anyway. The typical attention span appears to be such that everything has to be immediate and obvious, or it's too difficult. Which is why, of course, so many stand-up commedians have their share of jokes about the impossibility of programming a video recorder without the aid of a ten-year-old.

And yet, video recorders still had the plethora of features that nobody could use.

So Facebook's notes are are just continuing a fine tradition of potentially useful features that nobody ever actually uses...

Is this a hint?

So, a few Christmases ago, my cousin gave various people, including me, star sign mugs. I'm sure you can imagine the kind of thing: an image of their star sign, and a list of the attributes that the start sign is said to confer. Having read my mug, I got the feeling that it wasn't manufactured by native speakers of English. My cousin swears she wan't trying to make a point -- that she hadn't actually read the actual attributes associated with Saggitarians. Honest. Optimistic. Enthusiastic. Good humoured. Intellectual. Jovial. And tactless.

Hmmm....

Gmail's "Intelligent" advert suggestions...

I'm sure many of us have heard, or heard concerns, about Google scanning mail in order to target adverts.

Over the last few days, I've seen evidence that something about this mechanism is getting weirder / wilder / whackier.

This morning, alongside an email about travel arrangements for a croquet tournament in Glasgow, it offered me an advert for kittens for sale. Maybe it perceived a potential to build on an interest in chasing balls around.

A couple of days before that, at the top of my "in box" listing, it offered me a curious cardboard tube that allows women to wee standing up. Now, I can see this is the sort of thing that any woman might be interested in. But why tell me? Was I being prompted to consider it as an unusual Christmas present? Or given that one cannot engage with a health-conscious, independent modern woman by whipping out a cigarette lighter or offering a handkerchief, is this the kind of accessory every well-prepared gentleman about town ought to carry? Or is it just that Google doesn't think email content analysis is up to discerning the recipient's sex?

Weirdest of all, though, was when it showed me an advert for Toop Exhumation Services, along side emails about an HCI conference. Not once, but twice. Now, OK, the second one was an email acknowledging by attempt to unsubscribe from their mailing list, which I suppose has a vague sense of "ending" about it. But basically, I thought, if that's the state of the art of intelligent advert selection based on scanning my email...

But then I went on to think about appropriate cues for presenting an advert like that, I began to see the incident as a symptom of what is deeply wrong with our modern "e-mediated" lives.

You see, I don't believe there is a sensible answer to the question "what kind of email content would suggest an interest in an exhumation company?"

And because of that, I don't understand is why an exhumation company is advertising on Google at all.

OK, I confess I have only a rough idea what an "exhumation company" does, and I'm sure there are lots of subtle details that could distinguish one company from another. But why do they advertise to the public?

I can see that from time to time the Police, or the Coroner's office, will need companies to do exhumations. But surely there can't be more than maybe 100 people in the whole of Britain who are actively involved in arranging them. Can there? So exhumations is a market dominated by specialist buyers. And it is probably not a market that is hugely price sensitive --- I suspect that official bodies will pay "whatever it costs" to get the job done properly and sensitvely.

But I also guess they have some kind of tendering process and approved supplier lists and what not.

So why are these people spending money on advertising to the general public?

They are surely not expecting impulse buyers: "Your mail mentioning Aunt Agnes makes me realise how much I've missed her. It's a shame we haven't got more photos of her. Oh! Here! I know..."

I assume this does not happen.

Exhumation service is not obviously a business that has much scope for increasing its overall market size: it doesn't rank high on many people's list of "discretionary expenditure".

So are they just building general "brand awareness"? When the police come to you and say "new evidence suggests your father was murdered, and we're going to have to examine his body", you won't just settle for any exhumation company! Oh no! You know who you want...

So are they really trying to ensure that "everyone in Britain" knows their name, just in case they are ever involved in an exhumation? Or are they trying to reach a few dozen professional commissioners-of-exhumations by advertising to "everyone in Britain".

Neither of these would be a sensible basis for a conventional advertising campaign: the costs involved would render it completely un-economic. But on-line, it seems, the costs are so low that there is no obstacle. Anyone can afford to clamour for our attention, no matter how in-efficiently. And we're left to live our lives amid the resulting cacophony.

The culture that put adverts on the back of bus tickets is now scribbling in the margins of our mail.

It's enough to make you want to buy a cat! Oh... what's that written on its collar?

The trains we deserve 2

Last week, I took the train through to Glasgow for the evening.

I arrived at Haymarket station at just after 10 past six, and went to buy a ticket.

"Do you want to travel on the 6:18" asks the woman in the ticket office "or wait for the 6:33, when you'll be able to use a cheap day return, which is £7 cheaper".

I had time in hand, and getting paid nearly £30/hour to sit and read at Haymarket, rather than in Glasgow, seemed a good deal. So I bought the cheap ticket and set out for the cafe...

Only to be stopped by the ticket barrier: because my cheap ticket wasn't valid on the 6:18, I wasn't even allowed onto the platform until after it had left! So I couldn't sit in the station cafe to read. In fact, I couldn't sit anywhere: there are no facilities of any kind outside the ticket barriers - not even a bench to sit on. So I had to just stand in the ticket office for 8 minutes until the guy manning the barrier realised that the earlier train had gone, and let me onto the platform.

Since Margaret Thatcher has left us a railway system dedicated to maximising ticket revenue, having to pay more to travel on certain trains is what I have come to expect. But preventing access to seats and the waiting area seems to be taking things too far. Presumably they are doing this to stop people sneaking onto the wrong trains. Which would not, of course, be a problem if they were going to check the passengers tickets.

So rather than have enough staff to enforce the complicated ticket restrictions that they have chosen to impose, they force passengers (i.e. their customers) to literally stand around in doorways until they can be trusted to go near the trains.

Customer Service, Scotrail 2008 style...

Robert.

XDA / Windows Mobiles Woes 5

I had to do (yet) another re-boot on my XDA Orbit the other day.

Because I couldn't turn the radio off. The software application for
the radio became unresponsive. But even when I killed it, the
radio continued playing!

Really impressive.

Robert.