Back in November, I left my position at MySpace to move to San Francisco and work for a teeny weeny startup. I definitely missed the startup world, and really enjoyed working in a 6 person company. After Yahoo!, AOL, and MySpace, it was like getting back to my roots.

But, things change, I am no longer working on Operation Turtle, and find myself in one of those funny “wow, I could almost do anything” situations. I wish the best for the folks left at OT and hope that they do get to show the world how incredible the product truly is. I’m moving on, though.

What do I do next. I’ve been emailing various folks, applied for a few positions online, but have saved most of the applying for jobs until I’m back from BlogHer in chicago next week (there’s nothing worse than applying for a job and then being unavailable). I’m a product person, so obviously, that’s what I’m looking at, but this is one of those moments where, theoretically, anything can happen.

In what is a sick twist of, I guess it’d be irony, I had been thinking for months now how much I missed writing, and how cool it would be to take a year and do nothing but write. Write the ‘great american novel,’ so to speak. Now, while it’s safe to say that whatever I write will most likely not be publishable in any form, it is still good for me and my own sanity to get something down on paper. I feel better when I write. And, well, let’s face it, it takes a little while to find a new job. While I hope I find something great and wonderful soon, I’m still gonna have some free time on my hands.

So I’m, slightly unexpectedly, back on the job market. Who knows what I’m going to do. But as always with me, it’s sure to be an adventure.

A couple of weeks ago, I started ranting a little over Twitter about followers and how people see them as friends. The rant began because someone I followed had posted a few messages about only wanting “quality followers” and asking everyone else to please stop following her. So I stopped following her.

To me, that’s a crazy obnoxious egotistical statement. I mean, come on, who do you think you are? Do you really think Matt Lauer tells the Today Show audience that he only wants “quality viewers?”

Either this person didn’t understand what followers really were, or was being a snot. Either way, I didn’t care to see a whole slew of messages about it. I follow enough people that I have a fairly low tolerance before I unfollow people. It doesn’t keep my follow count down like I wish it would, since I keep finding new people to follow, but I do try.

Anyway! Back to followers.

If someone has a public Twitter page, their data is available – to anyone – a number of ways. You can visit the website, you can subscribe to their RSS feed, or you can follow them. Their tweets also appear in the public feed (although there’s a setting to turn that off), and are available through search.

What all of this means, is that you really don’t know who’s reading what you say. The only way to control this is by making your twitter feed private. Once you’re private, you have approval over every person who can read.

I think most of the whining about “don’t follow me” is over spammers more than real people, but that really makes no sense to me. Spammers rarely talk to you. I’ve gotten a number of @ messages from spammers, but they’re not from people following me. In fact, I think the spammers unsubscribe once I don’t follow back. It also seems like the same people who complain about spammers are those who try to get tons of followers. Spammers artificially inflate follower numbers – shouldn’t they like that? If some person hawking viagra really wants to subscribe to my feed…have at it, I’m not interested anyway.

Most of the follow/unfollow behavior is automated. Mention one thing and suddenly a flood of people are following you. It’s not like an actual dude who sells viagra is sitting at his computer staring at your tweets. But really, if you’re uncomfortable with that idea, you should not have a public twitter feed.

I used the TV comparison above, but Twitter – to me – is best comparable to a blog. Some people read a blog by going to the webpage, others subscribe through RSS readers. Some blogs even end up syndicated to other places, on other blogs, to Facebook, all across the Internet. I don’t know everyone who reads what I write, and there’s no way I ever could. And that’s ok.

I’ve talked before about how the tone of my blog changed when I went public, there’s no denying that it did, significantly. It had to, for exactly the reasons stated here. I don’t know who’s reading what I’m writing. I’m the same with Twitter. No question that there are things I will not say on there.

But even I’ve said some things on there I shouldn’t have. For example, I discovered a guy I follow (and who follows me) on twitter lives above me in my building. He seems to be cool and I’m not concerned, but it is spooky. I should never have said enough so he could figure out where I lived.

Facebook, on the other hand, grew as large as it did specifically because it was locked down to your friends. You did only have “quality” readers (if you’re really going to be as obnoxious as to describe people as “quality”), since nobody could see what you wrote unless they were your friend. That, of course, is changing now, with Facebook making status messages more open. More and more people will now see what you say on Facebook, and you’re going to have less control over that.

So the Internet’s trending…again. We were all open, then we went all private, now we’re all opening up again. It’s easier to go from open to closed than from closed to open. People will be much more likely to make mistakes. Hell, I did, and I thought I was smarter than that.

I’m not sure how this is going to play out, but it will be fun to watch.

We’ve lost a lot of celebrities in the recent weeks, and a death is like an emergency – you don’t really know how you’re going to react until it happens.

My reaction to two of the celebrities who died – Michael Jackson and Billy Mays – surprised me.

Billy Mays passed away right in the middle of the Michael fever (same with Farrah Faucett, who died the same day as Michael). I don’t think I realized what a connection I had in my head to him until he died. I read about Billy dying on Twitter, turned on the TV, and there he was selling Kaboom.

We all let Billy, more than anyone, into our houses every single day. It’s near impossible to watch anything without seeing him. I don’t watch commercials, I’ve never bought something from an ad on tv (I do own a snuggie, but I bought it at Walgreens), I DVR everything, either on the TiVo or the DirectTV thingy, and yet…I still know Billy Mays.

I’ve also been watching, and loving, Pitchmen, which anyone interested in consumer marketing really should watch. Invaluable stuff. People have heard me rant many times about “knowing your market” and not making a product for YOU, but for your users. Billy (and his partner on the show, Anthony Sullivan) knew better than anyone else I’ve ever seen how to make sure you were selling products to your market. It was really fascinating to me to see them turn down (what I thought were) really neat products because they weren’t appropriate for their market, and select really strange stuff, because their market would like it…even if they personally did not.

Billy came off as a really nice, sweet guy. A guy who you truly would trust to tell you “hey, buy this thing.” Who you want to sit down and have a beer with. And I discovered that I really expected to see him on tv every day, and that seeing him was somewhat comforting. Some psychologist could tell me what that means.

The idea that I won’t see him anymore, ever again, is unsettling. It’s not true, of course, they’re still running his commercials, and I understand a new season of Pitchmen has been ordered. But still. He’s gone, just like Michael Jackson, at 50.

Michael Jackson was the first VHS I ever saw (Thriller), and the first CD I ever bought (Dangerous). His music is associated with my life. I don’t know how to say it better than that. I hear his music, I remember the time in my life where it came out. It’s just always been there. And suddenly, it won’t be. I’m still a little stunned at that.

Two people who were always there suddenly are not. RIP Michael Jackson and Billy Mays, you both meant more to me than I ever knew.

…as the whole world fights for their URLs. Actually, Facebook’s holding up pretty damn well. So’s Twitter. It’s impressive.

It turned out Facebook.com/Stephanie was taken by a Facebook employee (just after I had checked yesterday). Not surprised – and no problem – I’m http://facebook.com/stephaniebergman.

I know, I’m a dork for caring. But I’m sure not the only one…

Tonight at 9pm PST (midnight EST), Facebook is going to open up vanity URL’s to everyone. Ya know, those pretty URL’s after your name, like that other social network has (ahem, myspace.com/StephaniePBergman or  myspace.com/stephaniebambam).  Despite everyone’s joking, this really is a big deal.  Facebook has fought against this for a long time, really not wanting people to be identified as a URL, but rather, forcing them to use their real name everywhere.

I see this as something that kinda had to happen. No matter what Facebook wishes, I can’t tell someone my name and hope that they’ll find me. It just doesn’t work. They would need to go to Google, or wherever and search for me. Facebook has no guarantees that they’d be the first entry there. In fact, for me, they’re not. If I can tell someone facebook.com/stephaniebambam, there’s no question  where they go to find me. But right now I’d never tell them to look on Facebook, not when I have pretty URL’s to hand out.

All that said, yes, the simplest solution is to buy a domain, which obviously, I have. A domain is the easiest way to go, and as many people have said, with domains being as cheap as they are, there really is no reason not to buy one. Buy a domain, redirect it to Facebook, and you’re done. Takes 10 minutes. Most people aren’t going to do that though. No matter HOW easy it is, “buy a domain” sounds very ominous to some people. They think they need technical knowledge, that it’s hard, and the domain companies out there don’t make it any easier. Look at GoDaddy.com, the UI’s a wreck, and definitely will make anyone think it’s really hard to do. It’s NOT.

Back to my original point. I will be online tonight to grab a URL from Facebook. I haven’t quite decided what I want yet, though. facebook.com/stephanie IS available, and I’d kinda like that for the novelty factor. However, that doesn’t help me with SEO, and unfortunately, I’m gonna have an SEO battle soon – there’s a tv reporter with my exact name out there. If she goes national, I’m out of google. So there’s facebook.com/stephaniebambam, or /stephaniebergman, but those are no fun .

I have no idea what I’m gonna do and I probably won’t until the exact moment I type the name in. But regardless, this will be a funny night. See you all on Facebook in a few hours!!

A Roomba is a little robot vacuum cleaner. Being a robot, it can go out, navigate your house/apartment to clean, and return to the charger base all on its own. I got one for a few reasons:

1) I needed a vacuum cleaner.

2) I didn’t need a crazy powerful vacuum cleaner.

3) I own a dust buster for the bad spots (like the litter box).

4) I hate cleaning.

5) It would be funny for the cats.

6) It was on sale ($68 during a woot-off)
7) It’s just cool.

I’ve had the roomba for a couple of months now, and absolutely adore it. One of my cats loves it as well – I have to hide it from him or else he’d have it running 24/7. He thinks Robbie’s his buddy, and I suppose in a way, it is. The other cat is scared of it. But Harry will happily chase it across the room, try to ride it, and get very upset when it stops running.

The roomba cleans fairly well. I use what they call a “lightbox” to help the roomba navigate from one room to the other, in my case, cleaning the main room, my bedroom, and the bathroom. It kinda works. When the roomba’s really working well, it cleans for about 1 1/2 hrs, goes around my entire apartment, and returns itself to base. Most of the time, though, I find it stopped somewhere in the middle of my apartment, either because it needs to be cleaned or thinks it’s stuck because it’s hit an immovable cat. If it misses a spot there is a “spot mode” I can put it in to have it clean a particular area, but that’s rarely necessary since it cleans so often.

But even when Robbie ‘doesn’t work,’ or gets lost, or Harry stops it in its tracks – my apartment still gets vacuumed. How could I possibly complain about that??

If someone is considering buying a roomba, they need to be aware of, and consider these potential issues:

- It IS a vacuum cleaner, which some folks somehow forget. That means that it is not exactly silent when it runs. To me, the sound is fine. It does not wake me up at night unless it comes into my room, and I can easily watch television while it is running around me (which I never have been able to do with a “normal” vacuum). That said, it is much louder on wood than on carpet, so keep that in mind.

- It is not the greatest vacuum cleaner on earth. This is no Dyson. I think a dust buster (or some other thing for small areas) is pretty necessary if you’re gonna rely on this as your main vacuum.

- It needs to be cleaned often. It will stop running and tell you when it needs to be cleaned, but I tend to clean it every other day without prompting (and remember, I have two cats, so there is hair/litter/stray food to clean up) It’s easy to do and takes all of 5 minutes.

- It bumps into everything. This is by design, of course, a robot does not have eyes and relies on bumping things to tell it where to go. It doesn’t bump into things very hard, but can pick up speed when it moves, so it has its moments where it flies across my room into a wall. There is padding to prevent damage, and people do sometimes add extra stuff there, but I’m a little loathe to add anything else to the roomba since Harry would just rip it off anyway. I have yet to see it hit something hard enough to cause any damage, cats included. But, people who are obsessive about having perfect furniture may not like this.

- It is always out and visible. This is a big deal to some folks. You don’t want to store your roomba in a closet, that defeats the purpose. It needs to be docked somewhere that allows it to easily roam around the entire house, which means it’s going to be pretty visible wherever it is. I do hide mine at night sometimes (just stick it in a closet), but that’s because Harry will turn it on and I don’t want the noise.

- I already mentioned that mine rarely returns to its dock, I think that’s a fairly common problem. So be prepared to come home and discover your roomba is sitting in the middle of the room somewhere.

- Rooms absolutely have to be “pre-cleaned” before the roomba can go. Which, if you’re like me with cats that will set the roomba off at any time, means you need to be very careful about what’s on your floor. Just this morning I woke up to find my roomba stuck on a cat toy in the middle of my living room. The roomba can get over cords with no problem, but stringy things will get caught, and can cause damage.

- Performance may vary, depending on surface. The wood floor in the kitchen and tile in the bathroom clean easily. The carpet in the rest of my apartment cleans ok, but not perfectly. The roomba does detect what it thinks is a dirty area and will go over that spot more than usual, which helps. However, when the roomba goes off multiple times in a day (which the cats will do), the carpet looks AWESOME after its done. A lot of people use a roomba as a “between cleaning” thing, and still vacuum their place once a week.

- It won’t do stairs. It supposedly can detect a ledge and won’t fall down, but I dunno if I’d risk it.

I love my little Robbie. It is fantastic, ultimately does all its supposed to (which is clean), and provides hours of entertainment for my cats. It is very much not for everyone, for the reasons mentioned above. Anyone considering getting one should take all of those issues into account, and really think through if this is for them. But for me, it’s perfect.

As some folks who read this know, my mom is superintendent of a school and hospital in Westchester County, NY. This economy is hitting everyone hard, and the schools are some of the hardest hit.

This Wednesday, May 10, 15% of all sales at B&N made using this coupon will go directly to her school. This coupon can be printed and brought into stores, or the code can be used online.

So if you have some book or DVD you’ve been thinking about buying and putting off, go get it Wednesday! I think there’s a new James Patterson I haven’t read, a David Baldacci…I think I shall find enough stuff to get.

This is your excuse to spend money. “Yes, I’m buying stuff, but I’m helping make kids lives better!!” Take advantage of it, the kids of Blythedale will thank you. Forward this on to anyone you know, the more people who use it, the better!! My mother and I thank you.

The coupon is below, click through for the full size version.

A quick entry to say that yes, I know you’re getting an error when you leave a comment. The comment IS going through and will be posted, there’s just a problem with this theme returning you to the correct page after. So please, feel free to talk

I need to spend some time tinkering with the design of this blog and fix things up, please just bear with me in the process.

Not so long ago, I wrote a blog entry listing my favorite iPhone apps, one of which was called White Noise. I specifically mentioned that part of the reason I loved the app was because of how simple it was. Well, it’s not so simple anymore, and I can’t fathom why.

Original White Noise iPhone application

The White Noise application’s functionality – only functionality – is to play one track, looped, for a certain period of time.

The original design of the WhiteNoise application seemed to understand that, and made the app as easy as possible to use. As you can see in the screenshot, everything you need from the app is right on the main screen. You select a sound there, set the volume, set the timer, and off you go. The application also remembered previous settings and allowed me to select which sounds went on my main screen, which I liked. I opened the app and it would be good to go. It was, very literally, the perfect application. All it did was what it was supposed to.

New White Noise iPhone Application

This is the new White Noise application. For some reason, all functionality has been yanked off of the main screen and put behind various buttons. It’s not clear which button should be clicked for what (there’s no such thing as hover help on an iphone), nor is there any good reason to have such a blank, empty main screen. It’s a waste of valuable real estate.

Want to choose a noise? Go to the “catalog” button at the bottom of the screen to choose one. The app no longer remembers my settings, so I need to do this every night or else I’ll be listening to “Amazon Jungle.” Dunno about you, but that’s not relaxing to me. One click went to at least four.

Want to set a timer? It’s under the “Timer” screen, but the lack of a “save” button on that screen messed me up more than once. One click is now at least three, more if you’re as confused as I am.

What’s under the “Controls” button? It’s an app that plays a sound on a timer. What kind of controls does it need?? Oh, do I want to exit the app when the timer’s done. Well, hopefully I’m asleep, so I truly don’t care.

So unfortunately, here we have one of the best examples I have ever seen of overdesign. There is no reason all the functionality for this app can’t still be on the main screen, other than it’s not pretty. But who cares about pretty when all the app does is play a sound?

K.I.S.S. is a rule of product development that will never get old. Keep It Simple, Stupid. You don’t turn something that could be done in one click into three unless you’re adding something damn important to the process. The app doesn’t do anything more than it did the day I downloaded it: play a sound on a timer.

Developers, product managers, UX/AI folks – I recommend you all check out the application. There’s a huge lesson to be learned from it. Never detract from your core functionality. Hunting around menus just pisses off users. If you can keep everything on one screen, do it!!

Normal folks who just want a sound – I recommend you stay away from this one. It’s simply not usable anymore.

If anyone has another white noise app to recommend, I’d love to hear it. I’m definitely in the market for a new one now.

One of my coworkers wrote this, and it’s too funny (and well-written) not to share. Anyone can propose pretty much anything in California, so here’s one for the next ballot.

It is basically a Proposition to redo the Proposition process, and creates the “Office of the Initiative Editor,” who will be responsible for proofreading Propositions, among other, very necessary things.

The underlined text below is what’s new, the rest is already in effect.

It’s not a short read, but it is fun. Thanks to Daniel for sharing this!!

Be it ordained by the people of the City and County of San Francisco:

Section 1. The Charter of the City and County of San Francisco is hereby amended by amending Section 14.101 and adding Section 14.105 to read as follows:

SEC. 14.101. INITIATIVES.

An initiative may be proposed by presenting to the Director of Elections a petition containing the initiative and signed by voters in a number equal to at least five percent of the votes cast for all candidates for mayor in the last preceding general municipal election for Mayor. Such initiative shall be submitted to the voters by the Director of Elections upon certification of the sufficiency of the petition’s signatures and approval by the Initiative Editor as specified by Section 14.105.

A vote on such initiative shall occur at the next general municipal or statewide election occurring at any time after 90 days from the date of the certificate of sufficiency executed by the Director of Elections and the date of certification of approval by the Initiative Editor (whichever is later), unless the Board of Supervisors directs that the initiative be voted upon at a special municipal election.

If the petition containing the initiative is signed by voters in a number equal to at least ten percent of the votes cast for all candidates for Mayor in the last preceding general municipal election for Mayor, is approved by the Initiative Editor, and contains a request that the initiative be submitted forthwith to voters at a special municipal election, the Director of Elections shall promptly call such a special municipal election on the initiative. Such election shall be held not less than 105 nor more than 120 days from the date of its calling unless it is within 105 days of a general municipal or statewide election, in which event the initiative shall be submitted at such general municipal or statewide election.

No initiative or declaration of policy approved by the voters shall be subject to veto, or to amendment or repeal except by the voters, unless such initiative or declaration of policy shall otherwise provide.

SEC 14.105. OFFICE OF THE INITIATIVE EDITOR.

(a) The Office of the Initiative Editor shall ensure that all initiatives submitted to voters by the people adhere to the following criteria:

1. The initiative is free of errors in spelling and grammar.

2. All provisions intended to be non-binding are clearly indicated as such, and all provisions not so indicated are enforceable by a court.

3. No provision clearly contradicts the law of the State of California or the law of the United States of America, nor does any provision clearly contradict the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco unless ordaining an amendment to the same.

(b) The Mayor shall appoint or reappoint an Initiative Editor, subject to confirmation by the Board of Supervisors, who shall perform and manage the functions of the Office of the Initiative Editor. The appointee shall be a member in good standing of the California Bar Association. The Initiative Editor shall have a term of office of two years, and may be removed by the Mayor subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors.

(c) Upon submission of an initiative to the Director of Elections, the Office of the Initiative Editor shall determine whether the initiative adheres to the criteria laid out in subsection (a) of this section, and, in consultation with the proponent, make the minimum set of changes to the language of the initative reasonably necessary to bring it into adherence. Upon determination that an initiative complies with the criteria of subsection (a), the Initiative Editor shall certify his or her approval of the initiative. The Initiative Editor shall not refuse to approve an initiative on any grounds other than those laid out in subsection (a), narrowly construed.

(d) The Office of the Initiative Editor shall consult with the proponent on matters of style, clarity, and good legislative practice, but the Initiative Editor shall not refuse to approve an initiative on such grounds.

(e) If after 60 days from an initiative’s submission to the Director of Elections the proponent and the Office of the Initiative Editor cannot reach an agreement on the language of the initiative, and the proponent petitions the Municipal Court for a writ of mandamus ordering that the Initiative Editor certify his or her approval of the initiative, then the court shall presume in the petitioner’s favor, and shall find otherwise only upon a standard of summary judgment.

(f) The Department of Elections shall provide sufficient staff and resources for the Office of the Initiative Editor to perform the functions defined in this Section.

(g) In the event that the position of Initiative Editor remains vacant for 30 days or more while an initiative is pending approval or certification thereof, approval shall be deemed certified.

Section 2. The Municipal Elections Code of the City and County of San Francisco is hereby amended by amending Section 820 and 840 to read as follows:

SEC. 820. INITIATIVE PETITION FEES.

At the time a proponent files a notice of intention to circulate an initiative petition, the proponent shall pay a petition filing fee of $200.00 $750.00 pursuant to Section 320 of this Code.

SEC. 840. SIGNATURES IN LIEU OF FEES.

Each signature submitted in lieu of a fee that is specified in this Article shall reduce the amount of the fee by $0.50, but in no case shall the petition filing fee specified by Section 820 be reduced to less than $250.00.

Section 3. Sections 820 and 840 of the Municipal Elections Code, as amended by Section 2 of this initiative, may be repealed or amended by the Board of Supervisors without a vote of the people.

If you managed to read through this whole thing, I’m totally impressed. Now, tell me, what do you think the chances are of us getting this onto the ballot?