Industry News

Last November, before Google and Twitter announced that they had a new partnership delivering a data stream of tweets to Google, to enable the search giant to include that real time social media data into its search results, we read about some of...

Jamie Hodari makes the point that the recent blowback against office spaces (and open office plans) might be slightly overblown. She asks, Is Working Remotely Sapping Your Creativity?

A creative work life requires social relationships and serendipitous interactions. It requires contending with ideas you don’t agree with. It requires getting up and moving around. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly clear that for many people, working at an office isn’t a relic of a pre-digital age,...

Christina Wodtke writes about the intersection of design and business in Why Design Needs Entrepreneurship (and Entrepreneurship Needs Design). This is a particularly nice summary of the three major startup handbooks in high circulation these days:

Steve Blank said you should talk to your customers as you develop your offering. He said there were no answers in the building, you must go out into the world if you want to make something people want.

Eric Reis said you should...

A lot of people are wondering if the Google Mobile Friendly Algorithm is fully rolled out yet, the answer to that is yes. Google's mobile friendly algorithm is fully rolled out according to Gary Illyes of Google.
Gary responded to my question if it was fully rolled out on Twitter this morning saying "the algo is rolled out."

Some interesting perspectives from Dharmesh Shah in Why Your Startup Should Ignore Your Onboarding Experience (For Now):

Great user onboarding makes users say, “WOW, this is awesome,” and recognize that your product is a must have experience. But these WOW moments don’t come easy. And the mechanics by which you onboard users is just a small part of whether or not they fall in love with your product.

The more substantial part of the equation is the value your product delivers...

David Travis has a good overview of collecting and analyzing usability testing data in How to record and analyze user research observations. This definition of an observation is particularly important:

Here’s the golden rule: an observation is a record of something you see or hear. Novice researchers often treat their opinions on what they like or dislike as observations. But your opinions aren’t observations — and neither are suggestions for new features or insights on how to fix...

Google is constantly testing different user interfaces, and as I covered yesterday at Search Engine Land based on a tip from Abramov in Almaty City, Kazakhstan - Google is testing a new mobile UI...

Google Now, Google’s predictive search tool, is continuing to grow. The company has announced that 70 additional apps have been added, including those from Zipcar, Spotify, ABC News and restaurant bill payment through OpenTable.

Google shared the news in a blog post today. Examples of how all the new cards, as well as old ones, can be found on the Google Now site here. Below, a few highlights of the new apps. Return Your Zipcar!

Here’s how a Zipcar reservation card might appear, to...

Good thoughts from Martin Eriksson on how the PM is not The Boss. From Product Management is a Team Sport:

The bottom line is that everyone in the company owns the product, and its success or failure lie in the hands of everyone who touches it. A product manager’s job is to lead the team to tackle the product challenges together, to get the best out of everyone on the team when building the product, and to provide a gentle hand to keep it all consistent and going in the right direction.