Over on O Danny Boy, my friend and colleague Dan Saffer has a list of his favourite reads of the year. As usual it’s an eclectic mix of design and non-design alike, and worth looking into for inquiring minds. As much as I hate the whole ‘end of year’ businesses – both the Top 10 lists as well as the actual New Years Fabricated Holiday Madness, I still follow the practice, and in particular how we consume media and think about that consumption. Sometimes it feels like the cycle of production of media has gotten out of control – I can barely keep up with the media produced (books, games, movies, music, tv – let alone in real life items like food, restaurants or events). Even in my professional industry (tech), I can’t always keep track item in question is a piece of software, a programming language, a startup, or a recipe – as evidenced by the words ‘Scala’, “Gingerbread’, ‘Debian’ or any other terms that can confuse any person who can’t keep up in our accelerated times. On top of that, the ever burdensome task of keeping track of who produces – and owns – out choices of media. Then the end of the year lists come out, and great, another reminder of the 10 books I haven’t read yet that I should have… lovely!
It gets me thinking how it would be fantastic to be able to harness the power of others to help with this consumption, to get a bundle of these favourites in some way in a list form. Thinking out loud, I’d like to see these kinds of functions in how we consume and list items:
- Lists could bundle items for purchase, at the right time of purchase: have the ability to buy a list of items. Maybe a combination of Amazon’s Listmania feature with the trend of in-app purchasing. I was showing off SoundHound to family members, and the ability to buy a song right as you hear it is incredibly neat – and a nice example of context making a difference in consumerism. Contrast that with annoying out of context purchasing – such as music blaring in a non-music store when you’re trying to buy your groceries and not your music. (Yes, my sister and I joke that we’ve turned into our mother by complaining about the Loud Music in the Store when we shop). How we purchase or borrow what we consume also can affect our opinions on that item; the last good meal you’ve had in a restaurant that had bad service is proof of that. We can remember the bad experiences just as much as the good ones. The ability to elegantly purchase and consume something does depend on that the mechanism to purchase or consume not getting in the way.
- Lists should be able to save that list for later. Instapaper makes consuming articles easy and effortless, and social services like Tumblr and Tbuzz for Twitter make the ability to save and share part of the individual consumption life cycle. The logical extension of this is where things live for later. My personal favourite site for later is Listal since it allows me to save movies, music, books and other communications as someone makes a recommendation to me. Ideally one day they’ll make a mobile site so that when someone recommends something I can add it at the time rather than having to note it in a notebook, digital or analogue. The fact it’s linked up with the Amazon database is invaluable, too. Even better would be to take these list sites and make them truly powerful rather than the ‘somewhat powerful’ status it has. As QR codes and RFID tags and the scanners used to read and capture them become more popular, the ability to use that information about our consumables becomes just as valuable as the raw materials in them.
- Lists should have the ability to cross reference existing lists. The New York Times and the Globe and Mail are great resources for what’s happened at the end of the year and what’s the best of the best, and the authority of the list maker helps establish the quality of the list. There’s validity in the argument that the Western ‘Great Books’ canon misses a great deal of great writing – at the same time, people keep mentioning the classics like Shakespeare for a good reason. Is there a way to have Roger Ebert’s list of favourite movies for the year, and the Salon, Mother Jones, Esquire and other outlets list of best movies all in the same place too? Part of what makes a movie poster such a handy piece of information is that it visually (and textually) conveys so much information about that item – the artistic style behind it, who created it (be it director, actors, studio etc.), and what others who’ve seen it think of it. Having those reviews help influence our choices of what we consuming; companies like Yelp work because the power of the crowd helps us understand those choices as long as we can understand who those reviewers are. To be able to tie all of this together – the lists, the methods to purchase the content, and the ability to have the ‘meta’ discussion about that list – is what I’d love to see happen.
On that note about the future and what I’d love to happen, have a Happy New Year. May the year ahead be what you want it to be, and all your lists appear where you need them to.
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