37 signals, and nothing’s on
No wonder they disabled comments on 37signals’ blog Signal vs. Noise. For “a design and usability blog,” their content sure has been… uh… noisy, lately.
Some highlights:
- How to fix your gutter problem. You do have a gutter problem, right?
- Recommending fussiness as a design strategy. We’re not sure what you should be fussy about, but… y’know… be fussy.
- Ignoring their users. Tired of hearing about how your content is sub-par? Turn off the comments! If only there was as easy a solution for my damn gutters…
- Shampoo bottles. Cutting edge design and usability here.
- Nostalgic for “tightly cut” 80s action movies. Extended versions are wasteful.
- Bitching about their bank. Yup. Citibank, you’re on notice.
- Wishing they’d get more press. Because apparently they recently invented being a “small” business.
- Not understanding modern art. It’s like Jakob Neilsen in high school.
- Still kind of groggy from Thanksgiving. Next up: why do they call it Thanksgiving, anyway?
- Remaining oblivious to sweatshops. Wow! A logo mashup! Witty!
- Remaining firm on intellectual property rights. Unless they’re witty logo mashups, of course. Then brand dilution is fun!
- Not understanding programming. You can’t have a meaningful progress bar for an operation with no upper bound, or with an upper bound which is several orders of magnitude greater than the mean operation complexity. In other words, you should have used ReiserFS.
- Burning bridges when they get to them. Well, your abortive Basecamp upgrade sure seemed like it was a problem. Maybe some forethought would have been a good idea.
- Getting self-conscious. Yes. You have jumped the shark. I eagerly await their new CD, entitled “37signals Gets Real With Christmas.”
Maybe the transition from a consulting company to a branded services company is a rough one. I wouldn’t be surprised. Thanks for Rails, guys. Now go work on Getting Real, or Finding Where The Beef Is, or Establishing What Willis Is Talking About, or some other catchphrase which indicates not only your proprietary relationship with reality but also your affinity for incorporating elements from 80s slang into Edgy Business Lingo.
Hmm… maybe it’s time to start floating that business book treatment I’ve been working on–Partying On: Constructing Bodacious Brands With Gerundial Phrases.
Until the interns stop posting LiveJournal-worthy material, SvN gets the boot from the blogroll. Buhweeted!
November 28th, 2005 at 4:46pm
I’ll be sure to visit your site often so I can read about what we are posting at our site. Thanks!
November 28th, 2005 at 4:59pm
Oh snap!
That said, insinuating that the content here is derivative or simply descriptive isn’t really your strong suit. You’re the cutting-edge usability and design folks, and there’s pictures of shampoo bottles and small title tags for paintings there. You’re the one with the wunderkind reputation, and your content is judged accordingly.
Perhaps more importantly, you should be above leaving high-minded snarks on blogs while you’re representing your company. Is 37signals the kind of company which honestly feels the need to rebut some putz’s low opinion of them with a dismissive bon-mot?
I hold no high expectations for my own behavior, primarily because I am a nobody. You, on the other hand, are a Web 2.0 darling, and should play the part with a little dignity.
November 29th, 2005 at 4:36am
Hehehe, wow, that was unexpected.
I thought that the posts on shampoo bottles and gutters was meant to deal with the more global aspects of usability and design.
Will we ever know? Jason? You still there? :-)
December 1st, 2005 at 9:13pm
I’m here. I thought the shampoo bottles post was all about design (a creative use of less space), but everyone is free to think what they want.
December 1st, 2005 at 10:36pm
Asymmetric bottles have been around forever:
For example. (More info here.)
Bad idea for a post: “Wow, check out these shampoo bottles in my shower. They don’t fall over as easily.”
Good idea for a post: “Here’s how asymetric products save space in a variety of fields.”
Better idea for a post: Do the Good idea, but also reference Chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching–
“11. THE UTILITY OF NON-EXISTENCE
Though thirty spokes may form the wheel,
it is the hole within the hub
which gives the wheel utility.
It is not the clay the potter throws,
which gives the pot its usefulness,
but the space within the shape,
from which the pot is made.
Without a door, the room cannot be entered,
and without windows it is dark.
Such is the utility of non-existence.”
December 30th, 2005 at 9:39am
Hey, I think this is a great post. 37 Signals puts forth some really interesting ideas and some good products to boot. But their hype-machine, while impressive in terms of marketing and business development, is becoming almost too deafening and monotonous for some of us Web dev folks to take.
They’re certainly impressive at design, development and product development, and kudos to them for going with a different approach and succeeding. To me, though, they seem like the Thomas Kinkade of Web App vendors; to the general public, they’re geniuses at what they do, but to folks more in the inner circle of the field, most of their genius lies in their marketing, not in the products themselves.