#these are crummy quality. but you see the vision

[awsok]

vex'ahlia de rolo / imogen temult — defying the raven queen

[translightyagami]

for the character ask: misora naomi, thank u!

character ask meme

do I like them: yeah! i like naomi. i don’t think I like her as much as a lot of the fandom, but that’s just bc i have tunnel vision when it comes to characters and she, unfortunately, is not in the tunnel.

5 good qualities: good instincts; dedicated; loyal; sensible; considerate

3 bad qualities: romantic to a fault; traditional; judgmental favourite episode/etc: well, she’s only in a few, isn’t she? i guess i like her best in the another note novel, where you get to see a little younger and ruder Naomi.  otp: eh. naomi/wedy. that’d be cool. brotp: no idea. naomi strikes me as a girl who hasn’t ever been in the market for friends post-school days. she sees adulthood as a solitary affair that you spend with your matrimonial partner. ot3: nah. notp: naomi/L. snooze. snore. wake me when something else is on. best quote: i don’t rmbr her quotes exactly, but i liked when she said that Light reminded her of L, because you can read it as her intimdating him by implying she directly knows L, despite the fact that she really had very little contact with L in the long run. She knows him only as a voice that gave her orders on the phone, but Light doesn’t know that and could be thrown off thinking that she is more important to L than she perhaps is. head canon: she’s a trans woman who, after her transition, found that the FBI sucked as a workplace and was looking forward to leaving when she married Raye, that way she could work on other projects in a less crummy environment.

[arcanalogue]

After over a year of depression due to a broken heart, I'm finally pulling myself out of the pit I was in. Who/what are my allies as I regain my strength once more?

Sometimes the cards are so on the nose, I’m afraid people will accuse me of rigging the reading. I actually did draw these cards, after much meditative shuffling!

The Three of Swords in the central position says you need to remain patient with yourself as you continue to heal. For a while, this horrible thing that’s happened to you is still going to loom unduly large in your sense of who you are and how you got here. It will be hard to untangle fresh motivations and ideas from those formed in response to these events -- and that’s fine! All part of the process.

It can seem like adding insult to injury: not only did you have to live through all of it, but now it’s a whole chapter in your story. Unforgivable! While we can’t surgically remove the past (history-ectomy?) our own view of it does completely change over time. We discover new landmarks that force us to redraw the whole map, formulas that produce new data from old figures.

Pain and loss can be so monumental that it’s often much easier to hang on to them than it is to move on; your depression easing is a sign that you’re actually slowly escaping this terrible gravitational pull, whether you hoped to or not.

So first of all: Time is your ally, if you’ll let it be. That’s signified by the Ace of Swords on the left. Time is a wave that will carry you pretty far, all you have to do is ride it. As your focus broadens and your mind sharpens, you can count on new horizons opening up, new truths revealing themselves, all directing you meaningfully AWAY from these events. So far, the perspective you’ve gained hasn’t been useful for much except further harming yourself. With just a little more time and distance, this will prove to become your most productive tool. You’ll be shocked at what a difference it makes.

Imagination is another ally, even if throughout your depression you’ve begun to wonder if it’s working for the enemy. The Ace of Cups on the right indicates the budding of a new vision of love. You may never again crave the same things or qualities you once did, Querent, or even be attracted to the same kind of person. But there is so much more to love than whatever you’ve known or even fantasized about to date. The open waters ahead are a place where no judgment exists save for the ones we bring. You’re still allowed to feel all your feelings, but these will diminish in intensity compared to one you haven’t been able to afford for a while: fantasy’s cousin, curiosity.

Anyhow, on either side we see an encouragement to surrender to the healing process, allowing your awareness to expand as you go, with the assurance of having the wind at your back as you do so. One Ace in a reading is a very special thing, TWO is more than one ever ought to hope for. I hope you will feel gusts of energy coming from these and blowing into your life, Querent. Your current center point may still be tethered, symbolically or otherwise, to these past trials, but they are not your future. Or rather: they don’t have to be.

These cards don’t necessarily refer to specific people (literal allies) per se, but both Aces likely herald the emergence of new important figures in your life. These are people who don’t necessarily know your story -- crummy, because it means they’ll never really understand the significance of these past events as well as those who’ve been here the whole time, but also GREAT because they’ll be much more focused on who you are right now, who you’re becoming. That’s far more useful in terms of allyship than anything you may be getting now from those who’ve been there for the blow-by-blow.

Don’t focus too much on the grim tableau at the center of this reading: the flow of the spread disperses your cares on various winds, pointing outward, upward, away. 

Have a tarot reading request or tarot-related question for Arcanalogue? Ask here. Tips accepted (but not required) via Venmo, @arcanalogue. Or support my Patreon? I’d love that.

[spider-man-stan]

i asked for prompts and @omfgshefuckingdead came through in the clutch with this beautiful concept i’ve had an interesting take on but never actually wrote, so huge thank you for getting me off my ass and sending a quality prompt bc tbh who could ever have enough fics about peter w/ crazy fevers and bad nightmares?? not me!!! enjoy!!!

Peter felt it long before people started disappearing.

At first, he thought Thanos was coming back. He could feel his hairs standing up straight, the faint tingling at his fingertips and the shiver up his spine that always made itself known before danger struck, but looking around the barren planet, he saw no danger.

But he could feel it, and it hurt.

“Something’s happening.” One of the Guardians warned. I know, I can feel it too! Is what Peter wanted to say, but he couldn’t get his mouth to move. He was beginning to feel hot, like maybe wearing two suits was finally starting to catch up to him, and he could feel his whole body start to tremble. He squeezed his eyes shut at a pulsing sensation against his skull.

He opened them just in time to see the first of them disappear.

The petit alien was looking around frantically, as if staring at some kind of massive tragedy, as her body turned to dust and vanished into the wind.

The pulsing in his head got stronger.

The largest Guardian was next. He stared at his friend and panted out a scared sounding “Quill?” Before he too got swept up into the wind. Peter began feeling uncomfortably hot, like he was boiling in his own skin, and the pulsing in his head only grew stronger.

The third Guardian, Quill, looked over at Mr. Stark worriedly. Mr. Stark stepped forward, like he wanted to offer some kind of help but was unsure of what to do.

“Steady, Quill.” He cautioned.

“Aw man.” Quill whispered in response, his body too turning to ash. Peter’s whole body felt like it was on fire, and he was beginning to feel really spacey. He swayed slightly as Mr. Stark turned away from him to spare Dr. Strange a glance, but Peter could already feel the wizard’s fate. Mr. Stark probably did, too.

“There was no other way..” Dr. Strange grieved, almost like he was apologizing to Mr. Stark. They both watched as he, along with the others, dissipated into the wind. The pain was becoming too much for Peter’s body to handle, and before he could stop himself he was calling out to his mentor.

“Mr. Stark?” He watched as Mr. Stark turned to face him, a look of downright terror on his face. Peter lifted his trembling hands up, because it felt like he didn’t have them anymore. “I don’t feel so good.” He finally voiced, sensation in his limbs fading in and out. He stumbled again, finding it harder and harder to stand.

“You’re alright.” Mr. Stark reassured in an unusually timid voice, but Peter felt like his insides were made of magma and he couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes anymore. He looked up at the older man, and suddenly craved touch, something he could anchor himself onto.

“I don’t, I-I don’t understand what’s happening.” Peter rambled, as he lost all feeling in his left leg. He started limping towards Mr. Stark frantically. “I don’t understand!” Peter grunted as he crashing into Mr. Stark’s embrace, hugging him tightly in an attempt to bring feeling back to his arms. Mr. Stark hugged him back, holding on tightly, and Peter tried to hold onto the sensation of having Mr. Stark’s hands on his back.

He was dying.

He couldn’t deny it anymore, he knew it was coming. He was going to vanish, just like everybody else did. And it was scaring the living shit out of him.

The feeling in his right leg started to go, too, and he was now almost hanging off of Mr. Stark, desperately trying to keep his footing even though he wasn’t even sure he had feet anymore.

And then he started to cry.

He couldn’t help it. Peter was scared. His heart was hammering against his chest, his whole body on fire, his head pounding and he was scared.

“I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go, sir, please.” Peter begged, all feeling in his legs now gone. The two of them began to lose their balance, Peter no longer able to support himself.  He kept readjusting his grip around his mentor’s neck, trying frantically not to slip away. “Please, I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go!” Peter whimpered as the burning sensation entered his lungs and squeezed at his windpipe. He felt his throat begin to close as Mr. Stark not so gracefully maneuvered the two of them to the ground. Thought Peter heard the sound of them crashing down to the dirt, he didn’t feel a thing.

His whole body was numb, the only feeling remaining in his face. He tilted his head to look into Mr. Stark’s terrified eyes, was overcome with guilt. The older man’s own words echoing through his mind. And if you had died, I feel like that’s on me. And I don’t need that on my conscious. Peter’s vision blurred for a moment, and as the numbness began to take over his face he could’ve sworn he had felt a tear slide down his cheek.

“I’m sorry.” Peter whispered, his voice sounding much weaker than he intended it to. His vision began to scatter as the heat he felt only moments ago was replaced with a cold nothingness that enveloped Peter’s mind and swallowed him whole.

And if you had died, I feel like that’s on me. And I don’t need that on my conscious.

I don’t need that on my conscious.

I feel like that’s on me.

That’s on me.

That’s

On

Me.

I’m sorry.

I’m so, so sorry.

I don’t wanna go!

I’m sorry!

Please, Mr. Stark, I’m sorry!

When Peter woke up, he was screaming.

The kind of screaming that scraped through his throat, leaving it feeling sore and raw. Peter wrapped his arms around himself, feeling for his body, thrashing his legs around under his covers just to make sure they were still there. He kept screaming, despite how much it hurt, because the relief that came from feeling anything at all assured him that he wasn’t back there.

Peter’s voice gave out, and he broke into fearful sobs as he shakily stood himself up from his bed. He stumbled once his bare feet hit the soft rug on his floor, and Peter’s blood ran cold at the thought that it was happening again. His body went on autopilot, his mind transporting him back to that dusty planet. The smell and taste of ash and dust began to fill his lungs.

Peter began to cough harshly as he stumbled into the bathroom, his brain mistaking the feeling of the cool bathroom tiles on his feet as numbness in its haze. Frantically, Peter reached for the first thing he saw, a roll of toilet paper, and without a second thought did the first thing that came to mind

He dropped to the bathroom floor and with shaking hands reached for his feet, knowing it would be a matter of seconds before they started to vanish once again. He began wrapping the toilet paper around his legs in an attempt to keep them from disintegrating into dust. He was sobbing, still, but kept going, until the entire roll was around his legs.

That’s how Tony found him.

He’d been down in his lab when Friday informed him that Peter was running a nasty fever and was in distress. He’d dropped what he was doing and bolted up to his floor, the sound of his crying and coughing getting louder as he approached. When he opened Peter’s bedroom door, he saw all his covers thrown onto the floor, and heard crying from the illuminated bathroom.

“Woah, woah, Peter, hey!” Tony called out when he saw the crying teen on the bathroom floor. His eyebrows knit together in confusion when he saw that Peter had wrapped his lower half in toilet paper, and it took Tony’s mind a second before he came up with a reason why he’d done that.

He’d probably had a dream about Titan. Again.

Well, more like a nightmare.

Tony carefully dropped to his knees and started inching towards the younger boy, taking in the angry fever blush settling across his cheeks. He had his eyes closed and seemingly hadn’t noticed Tony yet.

“Peter? Kid, it’s me, it’s Tony.” Tony tried again, and this time Peter opened his eyes to look at him. Relief washed over Peter’s trembling body and he frantically reached out for Tony with both hands. Without hesitation, Tony pulled the kid up to a sitting position, and Peter leaned in quickly for a hug.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked, his voice hoard and almost non existent. Tony nodded, gingerly rubbing Peter’s back.

“What happened here, kid?” Tony asked the sobbing child. Peter held onto Tony tighter.

“I.. I thought I was… I was back, and I.. I…” Peter tried, but sentence forming was not his strong suit at the moment. “My legs—?”

“Your legs are still attached to your body. All ten toes included.” Tony reassured. Peter sniffled wetly against Tony’s chest, congestion evident in the action. “How about we clean this up and get you back to bed, kiddo?” Tony suggested. “You’re running one hell of a fever.”

“I’m.. I’m scared.” Peter rasped, coughing a few times for good measure. “Don’t leave me here alone, Mr. Stark… Please.” Tony’s heart clenched at how desperate and scared his kid sounded. He rubbed Peter’s back understandingly.

“Would you rather we go to the living room and watch a movie?” Tony offered instead, knowing how hard it would be for Peter to fall asleep again. “I’m not gonna leave you, kid, don’t worry. You’re stuck with me.” Tony felt Peter nod. “Okay, let’s get this cleaned up, yeah?”

Tony reluctantly pulled away from Peter, wiping the tears from his fever flushed face with his thumb. He could feel just how bad the 103 degree fever Friday had alerted him to earlier really was as he did so.

“You’re really feeling crummy, aren’t you kid?” Tony frowned. Peter sniffed again in response, and Tony could hear how clogged up his nose was. He moved the slowly tear the toilet paper away from around Peter’s legs, disposing of it in the trash can once he got it all off. “You want me to carry you?” Tony asked. Peter nodded, reaching out to the older man.

Peter wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck and Tony pulled both of them up, Peter wrapping his legs around Tony’s torso. Tony hoisted the kid up in his arms and they made their way to the living room, Peter resting his chin comfortably on Tony’s shoulder.

Tony was thankful that the closest living room to Peter’s bedroom was the main common room, with the joined kitchen right next to it. Tony made his way into the open concept kitchen, placing Peter down gently on a kitchen counter.

“How about some hot chocolate?” Tony offered. “I know you’re not big on leaf water, are you?” Tony beamed when Peter offered him a small smile and a shake of his head. He comfortingly placed his hand on Peter’s knee when he then broke into a small coughing fit, harsh and wet but not very productive.

Once the coughing had tapered off, Tony set to work boiling some milk quickly on the stove and mixing in a little more of the hot chocolate mix than recommended by the box. Before handing one of the warm mugs to Peter, he went through a cupboard to retrieve a bottle of NyQuill, pouring one dose into the provided cup.

“You can chase it with the hot chocolate.” He explained as he handed it to Peter. He rolled his eyes when Peter made a face. “I know it sucks but you’ll thank me for it later, kid. Drink up.” Tony chuckled when Peter pinched his nose to knock the medicine back, scrunching his face up in disgust once the slimy liquid slid down his throat. Tony handed Peter the mug of hot chocolate, which he’d made sure wasn’t too hot for him, and Peter took a big sip to get rid of the bitter taste of the medicine.

Now a little more awake and able, Peter slid himself off the counter and followed Tony to the couch, where Tony let him pick out a movie to watch. Tony wasn’t surprised when Peter picked out the newest Star Wars movie, even though Peter had already seen it twice. But hey, whatever the kid wants.

Tony brought over a knitted blanket for Peter, and helped drape it over his legs as Peter sipped more of his drink, and they started the movie. Peter managed to finish half the mug of hot chocolate before he set it down, and repositioned himself so he was laying down on the couch using Tony’s thigh as a pillow. Tony welcomed the contact by absentmindedly playing with Peter’s sweaty hair, the action comforting to the ladder.

About forty five minutes into the movie, Peter was asleep.

Tony had abandoned his own mug of hot chocolate on an end table next to the couch, his hand still combing through Peter’s hair. Thankfully, the fever wasn’t going up, but Tony assumed that was probably due more to Peter’s body fighting it off on its own and less due to the medicine he’d forced the kid to take.

Tony smiled when he heard a snore from Peter, the sound solidifying how congested the poor kid really was, but also affirming that he was asleep deeply. He made a note to call Bruce in the morning so he could give Peter a once over and make sure this was no more than a head cold. He would call Stephen, but seeing as how Peter’s been dreaming of Titan a lot lately, Stephen might bring back some memories Tony didn’t really want Peter to have to face while he’s ill.

But for the time being, Tony just relaxed into the large couch, enjoying Peter’s presence at his side. He wasn’t sure if Peter would sleep through the rest of the night, but if he woke up screaming again, Tony would be right here to help him. Because he was never going to let Peter go through this shit on his own.

[therainypizzacollector]

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[artdjgblog]

Innerview: M.L. / ​University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA

April 2008

Image: MO Fine Arts Academy Name Badge / Logo: Roman Duszek

Note: ​Interview for a design student’s art history lecture​.​

Introduction:​

I wanted to know if you would be willing to answer a few questions for me. I really like your work, because I really appreciate the super hand-done and collage quality of it. I think it’s a way of working that’s often forgotten and overlooked, but personally I really like it, and your work really appeals to me. I’m especially interested in your work with show posters, so if you would be amenable to a short interview I would really appreciate it. You can just shoot me back an e-mail, or if you prefer a phone interview that would be fine too. Thanks! ​0​1) Did you go to school for art, or are you self taught? I was fortunate to attend one of the best kept secrets in design schools at Southwest Missouri State University (SMSU) in Springfield, MO. Shortly after I left, the name was simplified to Missouri State University. (Rewind A Bit to 1996) The year before my ​F​reshm​a​n fall semester, I was selected for the first annual Missouri Fine Arts Academy, which was held on the campus of SMSU. Before my senior year of high school (back in 1996) I thought about pursuing a career in architecture design, in particular, the area of sports stadium design. Though, after several years of lying to myself that I would eventually kick my math deficiency, I got a kick in the gut that this might not be my best choice. I loved to shut myself in my room for hours at a time drawing everything from comics to sports logos to buildings and such. I loved the creative aspect of this and felt that not only might I lose some of that personal one-on-one with architecture (though, nothing short of creative, but it’s a relatively computer and technical group effort), I would be held responsible to make the designs actually “work”. Being that I was terrible at math I didn’t want to be held accountable for future building flops. So, at the Fine Arts Academy I did a little bit of re-discovering of my own wheels, as I realized that I had more to offer from my fingertips. Raised from the dirt of a farm in the middle of the mid-west, I was pretty naive to most all things having to do with graphic design, I just knew that I should head in that direction, yet not limit myself only there. And I had shown signs of graphic design earlier on by way of winning a small town logo competition for a skating rink / bowling alley in the fifth grade. I just had a hunch while in creation of the identity (they kept the original, but i still have the newspaper clipping copy depicting my original entry) that I would be chosen out of the dozen other area schools and get my creation up on that big sign. Well, come time for the grand opening of The Fun Factory, my school principal forgot to notify me or my parents that I was the celebrated one to christen the new establishment. The next week she apologized, but i didn’t really give a care as I don’t like such sanctions of attention, and I still don’t. Most kids would have been struck with disappointment by the loss of a free chance to be the first to scuff the freshly waxed lanes with boulders and the new floor with skates, but the deep gut spoilage came to me by way of finally getting to see my logo up on that sign. I was devastated. My design had been butchered. This was my earliest memory of design sabotage. How could somebody take my vision and just ruin it? I look at all things in my life to have lead me up to this point in the writing, and so I feel that early little burnt spark in my gut that day told me something important…pour yourself into your work and protect that. (Fast Forward To 1996) To shorten the story, I came back from those three weeks of Fine Arts Academy in a born-again sense within my own talents, though still unsure of how to officially tap into it like I once had before body hair and outside influences and distractions pushed “play”. Being inspired by a couple of graffiti artists that I observed at the Fine Arts Academy, I began studying the art of typography (though, I had no idea what that word meant then) by way of this whole new world of urban language. And being that I tried to keep my nose clean and lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere, I just practiced my own graffitied typography twists and turns by way of perfecting one-of-a-kind personalized locker names and special birthday certificates for my classmates and friends on cheap Wal-Mart sketchbook paper. I was never so thankful to be attached to my small school in such a way as I only had two dozen classmate name plates to hand draw and color and diecut. If I did that now, my hands would surely buckle. I didn’t need to do it then, but I saw it as an investment towards the future growth of my work, or some way to start my last year of schooling fresh. My senior year was mostly spent in my bedroom making things. All of my friends had girlfriends and I had my work to sit next to on weekend nights. I also was inspired by a new art teacher at the school named Allen Heck. He was a real artist and not just some fluke or painter who couldn’t sell work so in-turn dropped on the totem pole to teach a crummy low-budget art program. Allen had a business head and an artistic head and he meant business in a classroom that spilled creativity. Even though there were a couple of art teachers before Allen that I admired, most art classes before his were mostly afterthoughts or throwaways. Places where the jerk-off kids could goof and ruin the atmosphere for the ones who wanted to be there to learn and develop, just like at most any school, i suppose. Anyway, I found an excuse to be in Allen’s classroom as much as I could and he sorta guided me on some design paths. I also helped him teach several of the elementary classes (we had K-12 grades all under one roof) that year. At this same time I was getting really involved in devouring music and an early mining idea of combining art and music started to strike, though it wouldn’t cement until several years later. Outside of Allen’s classes I landed a logo for the local Future Farmers of America chapter, along with other little so-called “best artist in the class” projects. A title that I didn’t really think I deserved as a friend of mine was ten times the draftsman that I was. Anyway, for my not-so troubles with the Future Farmers (I wasn’t a member and I didn’t want to follow my blood line), I got a giant canvas carrying case for artwork big enough that a beefy baby calf corpse could take a nap in it (I use it now to stuff my dirty clothes in for the laundromat trips). In early 1997, my guidance counselor set-up a special solo trip for me to visit an area company that specialized in yearbook designs. I went and wasn’t completely enthused about this place that seemed to put a lock on creativity in a darkened room with eyes staring at computer screens, shuffling around items given to them, though, I lied to myself that as I would grow older, this is what I might want. It just didn’t really say “Happiness” to me though, more-so (to quote The Beatles), “Happiness is a warm gun”. Still, I decided to go on ahead with going to a college that had graphic design courses. As graduation loomed on the purple and white horizon, I began to think a bit more seriously about applying for schools to further my education. Being that I had some solid fortune at the Fine Arts Academy at Southwest Missouri State University, and being that Springfield, MO was four hours south down the black top road (far enough from everything, but not too far for a weekend visit), I registered with no time to spare. Thoughts of the Kansas City Art Institute loomed, but they were more expensive, and i felt some sort of strange magnetism to SMSU. I ended up getting in by a scrape to the only college I applied for. I had the lowest common denominator for test scores and was in the top half of my graduating class as I was 12 out of 24. That was all the requirements I needed, the deal was set. The transition from high school to college art class (like most I assume) was a little challenging for me as I soon realized that the mold I was in previously had to be broken as I wasn’t comparable to skill with my new classmates. Though, the drawing classes frustrated, yet intrigued me, I did do fairly decent in my fundamentals design classroom. And this is where I learned more about making like-minded, potential life-long friends, a skill I hadn’t perfected much since my first day of Meadville first grade. All of my friends in foundations course were annoyed with working in cutting blades and paper and such…whereas, I flourished a good reputation in those departments and at times neglected all other areas of my studies to perfect my art skills. On break one early spring morning my friends spoke of much better things to come in the coming semester. Their minds were on the computer. They couldn’t wait as they had backgrounds in computer-related image creating in their high school yearbook classes. My school had one computer until I was a senior, and then we got a baker’s dozen or so. Other than that few hour visit to the local yearbook factory, I was naive to the idea of a computer as the essential tool for the modern day graphic designer. Exhausted by their comments, anxieties swelled in me and out finally popped my ignorance to the subject, “I plan to take the direction in graphic design that is done without the computer. I’m going to take the courses that are all hands-on.” And instant mockery, was I. My friends ripped me a new one and basically said I better learn pretty quick because graphic design wasn’t conquered without the computer. This is all really quite humorous to me know (possibly to them too) as I’ve somehow managed some mild success with my hands-on design approach and most of them are staring at computers all day in jobs they dislike or not even doing graphic design at all. Later that year I found out where the design kids were stuffed as I climbed aboard a twenty minute bus ride to the small downtown area of Springfield and up an elevator zooming past vacant floors housing archives of university products and collections to the top of a five story building where the world of graphic design officially opened up to me. Did it open wide at first? That answer is a giant NO as I was still so naive to what the heck I was getting into that when my friends early-on claimed, “I can’t wait until next semester for typography class”. I said, “Cool! We get to design maps?” ​0​2) Were your areas of interest in school (artistically) the same as they are now? My artistic whatevers were put on hold the first few semester of design school. Not only that, but they were run thru the emotional and physical gambits over and over. Being thrown on a computer was very troubling for me and there was a time that I almost quit design all together because I didn’t feel a connection to the work anymore thru the screen barrier. So, I struggled to find myself again for about a year and a half. Though, at the same time the design instructors at SMSU were (and still are) old-fashioned in a sense with their training and we still did many hands-on projects. I shined more in these areas, though my work still seemed more like decorating than me trying to say something. True, design is pretty much decorating and saying something, but, I couldn’t really find myself and it felt more like doing my chores than anything else. I think it can be dangerous when the designer is hogging the avenue and only speaking for their ego or style and not client intentions. Sometimes a healthy dose of both works, sometimes not. Anyway, I just didn’t “get” what I was doing and basically was doing an incredibly OK job at fulfilling my instructor’s projects. Which is fine, but it took me a while to really enjoy design. All of the instructor’s at SMSU were (mostly still are) from Eastern Europe and Russia. This was a great experience for me as it opened me up to not only a unique education in design, but also one in culture. I felt a strange connection to this as I was somewhat foreign being an artistically-challenged kid from a farm in The Sticks, Missouri. There is an exciting mix of design and passion going on down there on the fifth floor of that building. New wheels in me started to get greased around this same time and my eyes started to open a pinch. And they really thumped when I went on a limb to attach illustration classes to my already full plate during my junior year. I was starting to get hungry and / or full…full in a sense to where I needed to get the work out of my system. It was time for me to find my voice. ​0​3) How did you get started working as a​n​ illustrator? Growing up and drawing a lot, I thought I was pretty decent at it, but nothing more special or ordinary than creating strange, graphic WWII battles and mimicking comic book characters. I even had an epic, life-sized drawing of Batman I worked on at my grandma’s almost every week after school. Sadly, I think it was thrown away recently when she moved. However, on the back burner to the drawing, there was a side of me that always did a lot of cut-outs and saving and archiving of things. I think most every kid at some point cuts things of interest from magazines and tacks them to their wall or jumbles words cut to make “cool” sayings glued on paper. My older brother and I did this a lot. Mostly, we were just never bored and always doing something and always being inspired by anything and everything. We even created our own little magazine (I still have a few issues) at my grandma’s. My grandmother was a good influence on my creative side too as we were always making homemade things there. My siblings and I recreated any event we went to or anything we watched on television / movies in our sandbox, tree house(s), forts and bedroom. I was fortunate to have a large intake of popular culture and mix that with the experience of farm life and a lot of room to play. All of this fueled my creative side to where at a younger age I had a lot of options to choose from and I enjoyed and loved them all. Though, it took me a while to re-discover this within myself in design school. I was getting deeper into school and the ever present “What do I wish to do with my life” question(s) (among other personal mind trappings and inner wrangling). This especially was asked after I signed up with other design students on several professional studio visits. Every time I would come home with an empty heart from these “creative” places that felt more like controlled meat markets than anything remotely creative. Some people thrive in certain areas and not everybody wants the same thing, but the typical trappings of community computer screen shuffling didn’t offer me much hope at all. I have always enjoyed being alone making things. I’ve also been very protective of my creations and I didn’t want to be thrown into a factory-like design setting unless it was my own to where I could do what I wanted, when I wanted and have parental rights and control. Coming back to school from these studio visits was very discouraging to me. I felt confused and as if my career path was in a box already. Around this time I toyed with the idea of taking illustration classes to help push myself a little more as I wanted to keep what little fire I had in me from burning out. However, I wasn’t confident in my illustration skills as I thought I wasn’t solid enough at regular drawing. This is a terrible mistake that I feel many students make. I sorta had to shovel deep and realize the way I created when I was younger and that really helped cultivate a new side of me as I learned how to pour myself into and out of my work again and it was fun and special. Looking back, I think mustering up the courage to find confidence in illustration helped me in the long run. Though, at times I still struggle with thinking that I’m still not good enough at particular things. The only competition I have is with myself. ​0​4) Did it take you a long time to find a working style that you are satisfied with? For the most part I advise for makers of things to stay away from the trap of a “working style”. And it’s mighty easy to stumble or choose something and milk it, which is the feeling I get from the majority of artists and designer’s portfolios. It’s easy to stick with turning over the same old tires on the same old asphalt. I realize I have a certain feel to my body of work, but each day my head’s approach to life is so different (heck each minute sometimes) that I try to trust my gut instincts. I just try to speak from my heart, which ends up in my gut sometimes. A lot of times I trust good ol’ intuition. Of course, some projects require a bit more fine tuning than others as something like a logo has more life than say, a concert poster. Even though the logo might have more of a lasting impression, I’d rather put my butter to the blank paper bread of the poster. I love to try new things and just reach and grab at whatever I have around me and in my head, marriaging that with the band and the music in some strange brew. At times it can be quite intoxicating and when you do it enough and for a long while, you end up not even thinking, rather just doing and it’s fluid and non-calculating. This is when it becomes pure, this is when design becomes true language. I’ve had some projects where I’ll be told about it from a client and I’ll immediately have a vision in my head of how it should look, and then go home and start teaching it how to walk. Items like CD packages are very similar to logos because you’ve got to really give out something that you don’t mind sticking around a while in the lock-down of identity for a product or persona. There have been a few CDs that have happened out in a matter of a couple hours. The majority though, I like to have enough time to tackle and build in three separate sessions. But, I really don’t like sitting on projects for a long time. And usually the client has more of a personal care for a CD than a poster, so it might take a three act play or teeter tottering until all sides are fixed to fancy. I’ve had a few CDs that have stretched to almost a year. Being that my work is recognizable to a hands-on aesthetic, I’m sure most think that I don’t touch a computer. This is true and not true. I try to build as much as I can by hand as I love that connection I get. The screen barrier between me getting dirty with my work has bothered me and created anxieties with my work since day one in formal design class when I was thrown on a computer to mash buttons. I do what I can by hand and then use the computer as a layout and printing tool and I use it to correct or help put the finish on some items. Most designers forget that the computer is only a tool. If I could have it my complete way, I wouldn’t use a computer at all. I have made several projects in this way, but it’s hard to do it all in this fashion anymore and I have a wide format ink jet printer to print a lot of my more complex poster works with. The computer has ruined and helped designers. But, overall I feel that if it’s treated with respect and not used as substitute brains, then a designer will truly show his or her meat and potatoes. For the most part, I get a little disappointed in the output from a vast majority of designers as it all feels far away like an afterthought that doesn’t count, or simply as a decorating kit or pre-fabricated template you buy at a craft store. But, I try to keep my disgruntled burly bears close to my own heels. As long as I am creating what needs to be created from my own little corner of the basement, then I am a pretty happy camper. Though, the computer has broken many a bulb, not only with designers, but also with attitudes toward treating the designer with respect. Maybe it’s always been this way, but it’s easy for me to think that I can throw an iPhone and hit somebody who thinks they know graphic design because they can change the colors on their myspace or blog (and I’d have to borrow their iPhone to do so). It’s great that creativity is being fused with daily interaction, in a sense, but it can get a little confusing for people. I don’t think it should be reserved for a certain few, but I feel that everybody thinks they are a graphic designer now. It’s like trying to keep the raccoons out of the patch of sweet corn. You’ve just got to find the right gauge of wire to shock the perimeter with so they will find other food to steal and nibble. And there are still those who are hungry enough to go find and get the good stuff on their own. I suppose I’ve found myself to be more in tune to old folk artists and with the mindset of the old school designers and illustrators. Folk art is as pure in art and language as cave painting and daily ancient living. I like the idea of somebody just up and making something out of the blue because they’ve got to get their story out for themselves. Last summer I went from The Museum of Modern Art to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City in an afternoon and found a more pure-incentive to making things from the folk artists than the artists and designers across the street. It was refreshing. I had been enjoying my personal study of folk art history the past four or five years, but seeing it out of the pages of a book or web site really gave it a new light. And to see that most folk art has pushed into some avenues of the mainstream is really interesting, though chokes the purity from it original conceptual intention. I find that a lot of artists and designers are just as much about making themselves as important as the work they are producing. I just have never understood this idea. So, what individuals are my art and design in kin with? There are many, and it goes beyond just one field, but here is the short list: Grandma Gibson / Jim Henson / Stanley Donwood / Lester Beall / Saul Bass / Seymour Chwast & Pushpin Studio / Paul Klee / Ivan Chermayeff / Henryk Tomaszewski / Art Chantry / Vaughn Oliver / Edward Gorey / Saul Steinberg / Bill Traylor / Ray Johnson / Eric Carle / Cy Twombly / Robert Rauschenberg / Henry Darger / Hans Schleger…to name a few. There are a few items I’ve created that I can tell don’t speak right in retrospect (and they are probably obvious to others as well). These were the ones that caught me in a bad mood, exhaustion or in a lack of time. It’s so hard not to let the daily life and emotions influence the work. And in my case I’ve never been able to just chase my dreams, as I’ve had to work full-time day jobs and at times part-time jobs on top of those, and then slide my work into late nights and weekends (and I always had a girlfriend on top of that…now, a wife). It can be a hard struggle for a healthy balance. I just try to approach it with the idea that I am a man and a man who happens to make things. I am doing what I need to be doing and working hard towards the goal of some day having all of the clocks wound on my time. I have been fortunate in my choices of day jobs. I admire those who wish to live in near-poverty designing for bands and independent projects, but there is no money in it at all and it’s easy for people to take advantage of you. I tried it for a few short stints, but got tired quickly of scraping by and relying on musician’s responsibility of paying me and I ran out of belongings to sell to pay the rent. Throwing out the few bad apple clients, I must say I can’t complain too much as I’ve been blessed with some great people to not only work with, but also to have relationships with beyond the art. Janitorial and groundskeeping had me for 5 years and I loved it. The pay isn’t great, but I was alone and within my thoughts and had time to write and actually make a few things while on the clock. Also, I was able to bring home whatever stuff I could dig out of the dumpster. I’m still chipping at a 15,000 page stack of bricked paper that I found in a dumpster 6 years ago. Currently, I am in the second year of being trapped in a cubicle as a data entryman. It’s a great job, it’s not too difficult, I work with people I know, I walk to work, I’m able to get my teeth fixed and am setting aside some money now for my future, but I don’t plan to marry it as it’s not what I need to be doing with my talents. Many days I can’t sit still because all I can think about is going home and making things. Design is a way of life for me. It’s easy for it to start to take over at times, but I’ve been working on a better balance of it by getting up at 5:00 in the morning, before the “junk” pollution of the day. I love getting up before the crickets and getting to work. Even if I’m filling up on books and movies, it’s still work for me. But, it’s not really work, it’s just what I enjoy and I kinda need it to aid survival. If a designer only puts their design mind onto paper / screen into a 9 to 5 crack, then they might want to think about looking into other lines of life work to chew on. ​0​5) Do you do a lot of self promotion, and how? I’ve been in an interesting position to where my work has been trickling word of mouth for the most part. I’ve been surrounded in positions where I’ve been around musicians a lot and in general, people have been attracted to my creations to where they too want me to make them something. With age, I don’t get out as much to shows, nor do I live with musicians anymore (thankfully). Those days were great, but that kind of lifestyle can’t be taken seriously forever. But, it helped shape me in some way. And I’ve established myself, somewhat. It still amazes me that my work is speaking in the volume that it has. It’s certainly nothing of major impact, but it means a lot to me. For many years I’ve also been at a constant with submitting large quantities of my work to yearly design magazine annuals. This breaks my bank for sure, but it’s the best way of promotion as the work gets spread around the world quickly. I have contacts in many countries who found me this way and thus, offer me entry into their books, magazines, contests or give me a shot to make something for them. The internet is a great source too, of course. Recently I’ve somehow caught a breathe of fresh air from the web currents and realize the easy importance of putting myself out there on it. It’s a strange world though, and I’m still a bit ignorant of it, but I’m becoming more comfortable. I used to not be into self-promotion much. Not only that, I just didn’t have much time with it, being weighed down by day jobs and life stuff. And I’m a believer of the work speaking for itself and letting it take time to mature and incubate. Right now I’m looking at how much weight my portfolio has gained and am seeing what alternate routes I can walk with it. I’ve always planned to be doing my best work, for me, but I’ve never really pushed it as hard until now, as the big No. 30 looms. True, I am making what I want to make, but I don’t wish to be working a full-time job much longer. I have alot more to say and in different varieties of value packs and I just need more second hands to say it in. 0​6) Lastly, because I’m interested in doing show posters, do you have any advice on positioning oneself into that market?

I tell a lot of people a similar thing that I’ve heard Quentin Tarantino say to aspiring filmmakers, (to paraphrase here) “Just go and make what you need to make and do it at whatever cost.” Just get out there and make things and get those things out, even if you go broke or worn out doing it. Catch fire and start a paper trail. I was fortunate to not only love devouring music since the day my ears could, but ended up in positions to where I was surround by musicians and / or individuals with like-minded inner ear infestations. Most importantly, I found that I could merge the things I loved into a cohesive music and art stomping ground. My last couple of college​ ​years I befriended several bands and musicians and had my own little business on the side from class, making show posters and CD packages. After four and a half years of college and exhausting all my design class options…AND ability to fail Algebra four times and even an art history course…I had a higher calling to quit spinning my own wheels and dropped college from the daily schedule, among many other things weighing me down at the time. It was gutsy, but one of the most crucially sound decisions I’ve ever made. I moved from the Bible Belt Buckle comforts of Springfield and into a big, orange, dilapidated house in the middle of a shady section of Kansas City, Missouri with a band that had become my best friends. I almost didn’t do it as my pants pockets were turned inside-out and thoughts of sticking around the family farm to save up money kept me down. I think a lot of people were very disappointed in me too for quitting school. But, my decision was made and I believe in following the heart instead of stopping up the artery. I would have been miserable to stay at home and I had bigger fields to plow and sew. And I didn’t need a piece of paper saying what I was supposed to be doing. Most importantly, only I can tell myself what I should do with me. -djg

[scientificdeliriummadness]

My partners and I are doing our own DnD campaign. Two of us will be playing two characters each while the other DMs. We’ve already played one session and got to know our characters a little better. Meet Snaggletooth, the Half-orc barbarian pirate who takes things way too literally, Pleiades the sarcastic brooding high elf, Saxon the human soldier WHO CAN SMELL WITCHES, and Legretta, the sexy gnome cleric who loves a good innuendo. Here are the backstories. (Long)

(by Belinda, DM) Welcome to Evermore. Our adventure begins in the country of Opas, possibly one of the largest landmasses on Evermore as well as the most diverse.  It is ruled by a King and Queen who make their home in the capital, Everrock, in the northeastern corner of the continent.  It is a bustling metropolis, well established as the trading capital of the world as ships come and go regularly from the city ports.  The kingdom has known peace for many decades following the Great Revolt where the underground-dwelling grey dwarves and dark elves both fought for the domination of the surface world and its many races.  After a sound defeat, both races fled into seclusion as their numbers were greatly reduced, and the surface was once again at peace.  Evermore breathed a collective sigh of relief after so many years of turmoil.  Militaries relaxed, dropping their numbers in favor of expanding trade and commerce. It is from this city that a great call to arms has been issued.  The monarchy seeks only the bravest fighters and adventurers to step within their castle walls and answer the call they have set forth.  Strange happenings have been reported from within the kingdom, and a great reward is offered to those who would join beneath the banner of Opas and fight to vanquish any darkness which threatens their peaceful existence. by Connie (Pleiades and Legretta)(I’M NOT A WRITER PLEASE DON’T JUDGE ME) The elf's copper blood filled her cheeks as she watched the gnome modeling her crummy, handmade accessory in the reflection of the water. Luckily, as often and easily as it happens, her embarrassment is masked beneath the faint burn permanently imprinted over her otherwise saturated azure skin. Despite spending so much time as a child outdoors in a typically bright, yet cool climate, her skin suffered no other naturally occurring blemishes other than the soft gradient of light to dark along the regularly exposed portions of her body. It still maintained the same pristine quality you would find from the icy terrain of her hometown, Geminight. Until relatively recently, she tended to dabble in a variety of activities her society had to offer. This was in a futile attempt to live up to all the possibile legacies of her seven preceeding sisters could have achieved had they survived a full gestation period in their mother's womb. No one but herself had expected this of her, but encouraged her to partake in something nonetheless. It seemed to give her some pupose and fulfillment. Although she was not particularly good at anything she picked up, she gained a fondness for it all and it helped her feel a closeness to the sisters she had never met. At the very least, she embodied the spirit of their assemblage and when she came of age, chose to engrain this into her identity with her choice in name: Pleiades. Traditionally, her society embraces the permanence of self-idenity with something a little more literal: a self-inked tattoo. Unfortunately, like with many of her interests, Pleiades lacked the finesse to create something other than a few dots around her left eye that had semblace of what was now her most symbolic constellation.Pleiades watched the gnome put the necklace she had given her around over her little head."There's a little bit of craftsman in everyone....manI love homemade things! They have so much character and love and there's always, like, some kind of special meaning behind it. Even if it's subconscious! I feel so special you let me have it even though you've only known me for literally, like two seconds!" The gnome gleefully giggled while stroking the pieces of the pendant now hanging from her neck.Pleiades appreciated the compliment, but uncharacterstically, she hadn't put too much thought into this particular task. Boredom had overtaken her and she swiped a long spiral shell off the beach and in its opening, stuck a thick rounded piece of weathered glass she found lying near the tavern that opened, in her opinion, way too early in the morning. The gnome had curiously approached her just as she was finishing wrapping the pieces together with some abandoned strip of twine. She was so enthralled by the little trinket that Peiades told her that it was hers if she liked it. Perhaps the gnome wasn't too far off; the blue tint of the glass did remind her of home..A pang of sadness stung her heart as it passed with the fleeting thought. She missed home, or what was left of it. Geminight had experienced a major ecological shift. It was no longer an icy haven, glistening in the sun that hung in theclear blue sky. The temperatures began creeping upward, weather fronts came more frequently and more varied. Vines, weeds, and other foliage broke free from the snow, the gems, and the ice; slowly domineering the region. While the changes weren't detrimental to the survival of the city or its people, the new environment felt entirely unsettling. On top of being unexpected and undesired, it felt dark and sentient. Pleiades did not want to stand by and watch her chilhood be tainted with this feeling. She decided to hold on to the nostalgia and venture out to new things. She had exhausted the petty hobbies her society had offered her and wanted toexperience something grander; a single legacy worthy of her and her sisters. When some vague propaganda from the Everrock government started to appear on bulletins near her, she decided it was time to leave. Her parents willingly stayed behind.The gnome watched Pleiades' expressions as they passed over her face one by one. She noticed a lot negativity and she supposes that's what attracted her to Pleiades in the first place. Gnomes were known tricksters, but she herself liked to focus on the lighthearted nature of her heritage and tends to get tunnel vision when she sees someone in distress. When she noticed the elf sitting alone listlessly on a crate of bait, she recited her motto of "When things look grim, find your grin!" and pranced up to her with a mission for fishin! For compliments. To give the elf." Y'know, I'm glad I saw you making this. It's so unique and I really appreciate that about things. I originally come over to you thinking of a mililon compliments to give you based on just your looks but I had no idea what to say since I'm sure you get complimented all the time...Just look at you! but yeah, you're pretty unique looking too now that I've had a good look..But I dunno, I just appreciate me a good trinket, y'know how us gnomes are."Pleides would probably not be considered epitome of the elvish ethereality that made them so intimidating. In fact, for an elf, she appeared quite neutral and approachable. Double takes were not uncommon when passersby took note her androgynous physique. The sun bleached blonde streaks in her dark blue hair gave it a green appearance if looked at in the right light and angle. And men and women alike also thought that her soft almond eyes suggested more than just the politeness of eye contact. And although her hands struggled with its intricacies, her hair always fell into place perfectly after she finished braiding it."I just appreciate you taking the time to go out of your way to say something nice to me. What's your name?The gnome grinned somewhat amused. She extended her furry hand and said proudly proclaimed "Ranandal Legretta Aaa Thawa Teffata Wata Gah! "There was a pause. "But you can call me Leggy! That's what the humans do anyway, but I grudgingly embrace it. The name “Leggy” works when I..." Legretta stopped for a moment and looked over Pleiades shoulder distractedly. Without a beat, she purposefully walked toward a tall, well built half-orc that just exited the tavern across the sidewalk. "EEeeeeeeyyyy! DAMN boooooooi. You're lookin FOOOOINE. I bet that grog gotchu all loosened up. You know what Leggy could do with a body that limber?" She asked as she flung one of her furry copper legs from her patchwork cloak and around his shin."Auuuughgh" The half-orc responded burping through his words, " nah, goway lil one, Yer so lil y'can't even reach. nainterested" He stumbled away until he reached the corner of the alleyway."Well, fine. I’m having more fun over here anyway" she scoffed over the muffled sounds of distant vomiting. Pleiades didn't even acknowledge the bizarre exchange she just witnessed and carried on "Well, I think the name Leggy might be reserved for someone a little more, um, promiscuous than I. So I'll just practice your nicknames and in the meantime, just stick with Legretta. My name is Pleiades Luaer. I couldn't help but notice, Legretta. You have a unique trait as well..." She said as she eyed Legretta's limbs. "They're really well....tamed" She struggled with the compliment. Legretta's eyes lit up as she stuck out a limb at a time, admiring her own handiwork. "Yeah! Y'know! boy gnomes have big thick beards that they can do whatever with! I even saw an old-ass gnome with a beard so long, he was able to shape it into a flying snake dragon! It's not fair! It' was so cool and I can't! Gnomes don't tend to keep their hair well kept and I wanna stick to the traditions of my heritage! I can't grow a beard..only some wispy tendrils... So I found a loophole.."Legretta had bright platinum blonde body hair contrasting her warm copper skin. It was quite thick and she had trimmed hairs on the legs into little hearts and the hairs on the arms into little diamond shapes. Pleiades grinned bittersweetly, "You remind me of my father. Elves can't grow beards either and he's always resented that fact. So he spent much of his life growing out his hair so long that he could be able to tie it under his chin into a ponytail. He was also quite a open about his sexuality with my mom and they’re always going out of their way to put me in the spotlight, so you also remind me of that. They really were quite embarrassing at times, but I suppose it's different coming from you." She lightly blushed and glanced at the poster that had beckoned her here. Legretta cocked her head to view the poster a bit more easily. "Ahh! Yeah! There's been some spooooky things have been happening here lately." she said as she tucked her face behind her wiggling fingers. "I've been kinda grumpy about the call to arms 'cause I think the strangities have kept this places more fun an interesting, but if you're going, I wanna go! I think it'd be fun. Maybe if we find out what it is, we can be part of it...It'll be fun to prank the traveling merchants, right?...I mean, I guess we can stop it, too. But now that I'm really thinking about it, the mystery is killing me. Can I come?!" Pleiades nodded. "YASSS. Be right back. I live under those sand dunes over there. Lemme go tell my mom." Legretta ran off for only a few minutes and returned with a small basket of sandwiches and her cloak's pockets overflowing with trinkets. She offered Pleiades some food, which she promptly accepted. The gnome walked a couple of feet ahead, looked back and up at Pleiades and said. "Castle's that way. Let's party." by Marty (Saxon and Snaggletooth) Saxon Bloodwulf- Human Fighter From the city of Nightmoor, in the kingdom of Ravenholde comes Saxon Bloodwulf. Once a member of the 13th Legion -the battalion that served as the King of Ravenholde's personal guard, this Captain had it all in his life, until the 13th Legion once arrested a witch who plotted to kill the King. The witch was sentenced to life imprisonment in the dungeons of Nightmoor, where she cried to the city that she swore revenge on Captain Bloodwulf as she was locked away. A fortnight later, Saxon Bloodwulf was seen creeping into the King's castle, and attempted to take the King's life. The King managed to avoid the attempted deathblow that came in the form of a knife and raised the alarm. Saxon was seen by the King's guard on duty that night fleeing the castle and retreating into Nightmoor forest.

The following week, Saxon was found in a village some 50 miles away and was arrested by the very 13th Legion that he was in command of. He claimed his innocence, swearing he had simply taken a holiday the day before he was seen attempting to murder the king, but mysteriously, no record was kept of his absence. Saxon was brought back to Nightmoor, where he was sentenced to death. He spent a single night in the dungeons, the night before his execution, where the witch hinted that she had something to do with Saxon's situation. Shacked and imprisoned in another cell, Saxon was unable to do anything other than vow revenge on the witch and others like her.

The following day, Saxon was to be hung in the city square. By chance, a few moments before he was to be hung, a gang of bandits stormed the city square. In the confusion, Saxon managed to free himself from his rope bonds and he fled Nightmoor, making all speed for the coast. It was at a harbour town that he met a group of pirates who were spending the night in the town, and agreed to take Saxon aboard their ship for a fee of 50 gold coins that Saxon had managed to retrieve from his old house before fleeing Nightmoor. This is how he met...

Snaggletooth- Half Orc Barbarian. Snaggletooth, a 32 year old Half Orc had been part of a crew of pirates known as the Jolly Robbers. This gang of pirates made the ship known as the Fearsome Scabbard their home. They sailed from port to port, taking what they could and giving nothing in return. The Jolly Robbers were actually number one on the navy's most wanted list, but the Jolly Robbers were able to escape the navy's clutches each time it seemed that they were able to be arrested for their crimes. One night, they met a member of the royal army, Saxon Bloodwulf. While suspicious of Saxon, they agreed to take him to the neighbouring continent in return for 50 gold pieces.

They set sail the next day, with Saxon aboard. It was during their voyage on this day that they encountered a freak storm. The storm, which hadn't been foreseen, due to the clear skies that day, tore the Fearsome Scabbard to pieces. Most of the crew died during the storm, but only Saxon Bloodwulf and Snaggletooth survived, thanks in no small part to Saxon's actions. The pair survived on a piece of the Fearsome Scabbard, and they drifted for days, until finding themselves washing up on the shore of the land they find themselves on now.

Snaggletooth, while a pirate, is grateful to Saxon for saving his life during that terrible day of the storm, and for now has decided to accompany Saxon, who has tasked himself with the burden of somehow clearing his name and has become a self appointed Witchfinder General as he is determined to ensure no person be victim to a witch or witchcraft ever again.

[appinsta]

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right.

Instagram

See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta.

Web DMs – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about people’s photos, but it’s stuck on mobile. For all the college kids and entry-level office workers out there, this would make being stuck on laptops all day much more fun. Plus, youth culture truthsayer Taylor Lorenz wants Instagram web DMs too.

Upload Quality Indicator – Try to post a Story video or Boomerang from a crummy internet connection and they turn out a blurry mess. Instagram should warn us if our signal strength is low compared to what we usually have (since some places it’s always mediocre) and either recommend we wait for Wi-Fi, or post a low-res copy that’s replaced by the high-res version when possible.

Oh, and if new VP of product Vishal Shah is listening, I’d also like Bitmoji-style avatars and a better way to discover accounts that shows a selection of their recent posts plus their bio, instead of just one post and no context in Explore which is better for discovering content.

Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button

Twitter

DM Search – Ummm, this is pretty straightforward. It’s absurd that you can’t even search DMs by person, let alone keyword. Twitter knows messaging is a big thing on mobile right? And DMs are one of the most powerful ways to get in contact with mid-level public figures and journalists. PS: My DMs are open if you’ve got a news tip — @JoshConstine.

Unfollow Suggestions – Social networks are obsessed with getting us to follow more people, but do a terrible job of helping us clean up our feeds. With Twitter bringing back the option to see a chronological feed, we need unfollow suggestions more than ever. It should analyze who I follow but never click, fave, reply to, retweet, or even slow down to read and ask if I want to nix them. I asked for this 5 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse. Since people feel like their feeds are already overflowing, they’re stingy with following new people. That’s partly why you see accounts get only a handful of new followers when their tweets go viral and are seen by millions. I recently had a tweet with 1.7 million impressions and 18,000 Likes that drove just 11 follows. Yes I know that’s a self-own.

Analytics Benchmarks – If Twitter wants to improve conversation quality, it should teach us what works. Twitter offers analytics about each of your tweets, but not in context of your other posts. Did this drive more or fewer link clicks or follows than my typical tweet? That kind of info could guide users to create more compelling content.

Twitter Quitters And The Unfiltered Feed Problem

Facebook

(Obviously we could get into Facebook’s myriad problems here. A less sensationalized feed that doesn’t reward exaggerated claims would top my list. Hopefully its plan to downrank “borderline content” that almost violates its policies will help when it rolls out.)

Batched Notifications – Facebook sends way too many notifications. Some are downright useless and should be eliminated. “14 friends responded to events happening tomorrow”? “Someone’s fundraiser is half way to its goal?” Get that shit out of here. But there are other notifications I want to see but that aren’t urgent nor crucial to know about individually. Facebook should let us decide to batch notifications so we’d only get one of a certain type every 12 or 24 hours, or only when a certain number of similar ones are triggered. I’d love a digest of posts to my Groups or Events from the past day rather than every time someone opens their mouth.

I so don’t care

Notifications In The “Time Well Spent” Feature – Facebook tells you how many minutes you spent on it each day over the past week and on average, but my total time on Facebook matters less to me than how often it interrupts my life with push notifications. The “Your Time On Facebook” feature should show how many notifications of each type I’ve received, which ones I actually opened, and let me turn off or batch the ones I want fewer of.

Facebook is finally rolling out its ‘how long do I spend on Facebook’ dashboard

Oh, and for Will Cathcart, Facebook’s VP of apps, can I also get proper syncing so I don’t rewatch the same Stories on Instagram and Facebook, the ability to invite people to Events on mobile based on past invite lists of those I’ve hosted or attended, and the See More Like This feature I recommended for Instagram?

Uber/Lyft/Ridesharing

“Quiet Ride” Button – Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for small talk. Had a rough day, need to get work done, or want to just zone out? Ridesharing apps should offer a request for a quiet ride that if the driver accepts, you pay them an extra dollar (or get it free as a loyalty perk), and you get ferried to your destination without unnecessary conversation. I get that it’s a bit dehumanizing for the driver, but I’d bet some would happily take a little extra cash for their compliance.

“I Need More Time” Button – Sometimes you overestimate the ETA and suddenly your car is arriving before you’re ready to leave. Instead of cancelling and rebooking a few minutes later, frantically rushing so you don’t miss your window and get smacked with a no-show fee, or making the driver wait while they and the company aren’t getting paid, Uber, Lyft, and the rest should offer the “I Need More Time” button that simply rebooks you a car that’s a little further away.

Spotify/Music Streaming Apps

Scan My Collection – I wish I could just take photos of the album covers, spines, or even discs of my CD or record collection and have them instantly added to a playlist or folder. It’s kind of sad that after lifetimes of collecting physical music, most of it now sits on a shelf and we forget to play what we used to love. Music apps want more data on what we like, and it’s just sitting there gathering dust. There’s obviously some fun viral potential here too. Let me share what’s my most embarrassing CD. For me, it’s my dual copies of Limp Bizkit’s “Significant Other” because I played the first one so much it got scratched.

Friends Weekly – Spotify ditched its in-app messaging, third-party app platform, and other ways to discover music so its playlists would decide what becomes a hit in order to exert leverage over the record labels to negotiate better deals. But music discovery is inherently social and the desktop little ticker of what friends are playing on doesn’t cut it. Spotify should let me choose to recommend my new favorite song or agree to let it share what I’ve recently played most, and put those into a Discover Weekly-style social playlist of what friends are listening to.

How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels

Snapchat

Growth – I’m sorry, I had to.

Bulk Export Memories – But seriously, Snapchat is shrinking. That’s worrisome because some users’ photos and videos are trapped on its Memories cloud hosting feature that’s supposed to help free up space on your phone. But there’s no bulk export option, meaning it could take hours of saving shots one at a time to your camera roll if you needed to get off of Snapchat, if for example it was shutting down, or got acquired, or you’re just bored of it.

Add-On Cameras – Snapchat’s Spectacles are actually pretty neat for recording first-person or underwater shots in a circular format. But otherwise they don’t do much more, and in some ways do much less, than your phone’s camera and are a long way from being a Magic Leap competitor. That’s why if Snapchat really wants to become a “Camera Company”, it should build sleek add-on cameras that augment our phone’s hardware. Snap previously explored selling a 360-camera but never launched one. A little Giroptic iO-style 360 lens that attaches to your phone’s charging port could let you capture a new kind of content that really makes people feel like they’re there with you. An Aukey Aura-style zoom lens attachment that easily fits in your pocket unlike a DSLR could also be a hit

Snap explored selling a 360 camera

iOS

Switch Wi-Fi/Bluetooth From Control Center – I thought the whole point of Control Center was one touch access, but I can only turn on or off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s silly having to dig into the Settings menu to switch to a different Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device, especially as we interact with more and more of them. Control Center should unfurl a menu of networks or devices you can choose from.

Shoot GIFs – Live Photos are a clumsy proprietary format. Instagram’s Boomerang nailed what we want out of live action GIFs and we should be able to shoot them straight from the iOS camera and export them as actual GIFs that can be used across the web. Give us some extra GIF settings and iPhones could have a new reason for teens to choose them over Androids.

Gradual Alarms – Anyone else have a heart attack whenever they hear their phone’s Alarm Clock ringtone? I know I do because I leave my alarms on so loud that I’ll never miss them, but end up being rudely shocked awake. A setting that gradually increases the volume of the iOS Alarm Clock every 15 seconds or minute so I can be gently arisen unless I refuse to get up.

Maybe some of these apply to Android, but I wouldn’t know because I’m a filthy casual iPhoner. Send me your Android suggestions, as well as what else you want to see added to your favorite apps.

[Image Credit: Hanson Inc]

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2ELMwDV via App Marketing from Blogger http://bit.ly/2Q1tH1w https://tcrn.ch/2BADuGO

[localbizlift]

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right.

Instagram

See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta.

Web DMs – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about people’s photos, but it’s stuck on mobile. For all the college kids and entry-level office workers out there, this would make being stuck on laptops all day much more fun. Plus, youth culture truthsayer Taylor Lorenz wants Instagram web DMs too.

Upload Quality Indicator – Try to post a Story video or Boomerang from a crummy internet connection and they turn out a blurry mess. Instagram should warn us if our signal strength is low compared to what we usually have (since some places it’s always mediocre) and either recommend we wait for Wi-Fi, or post a low-res copy that’s replaced by the high-res version when possible.

Oh, and if new VP of product Vishal Shah is listening, I’d also like Bitmoji-style avatars and a better way to discover accounts that shows a selection of their recent posts plus their bio, instead of just one post and no context in Explore which is better for discovering content.

Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button

Twitter

DM Search – Ummm, this is pretty straightforward. It’s absurd that you can’t even search DMs by person, let alone keyword. Twitter knows messaging is a big thing on mobile right? And DMs are one of the most powerful ways to get in contact with mid-level public figures and journalists. PS: My DMs are open if you’ve got a news tip — @JoshConstine.

Unfollow Suggestions – Social networks are obsessed with getting us to follow more people, but do a terrible job of helping us clean up our feeds. With Twitter bringing back the option to see a chronological feed, we need unfollow suggestions more than ever. It should analyze who I follow but never click, fave, reply to, retweet, or even slow down to read and ask if I want to nix them. I asked for this 5 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse. Since people feel like their feeds are already overflowing, they’re stingy with following new people. That’s partly why you see accounts get only a handful of new followers when their tweets go viral and are seen by millions. I recently had a tweet with 1.7 million impressions and 18,000 Likes that drove just 11 follows. Yes I know that’s a self-own.

Analytics Benchmarks – If Twitter wants to improve conversation quality, it should teach us what works. Twitter offers analytics about each of your tweets, but not in context of your other posts. Did this drive more or fewer link clicks or follows than my typical tweet? That kind of info could guide users to create more compelling content.

Twitter Quitters And The Unfiltered Feed Problem

Facebook

(Obviously we could get into Facebook’s myriad problems here. A less sensationalized feed that doesn’t reward exaggerated claims would top my list. Hopefully its plan to downrank “borderline content” that almost violates its policies will help when it rolls out.)

Batched Notifications – Facebook sends way too many notifications. Some are downright useless and should be eliminated. “14 friends responded to events happening tomorrow”? “Someone’s fundraiser is half way to its goal?” Get that shit out of here. But there are other notifications I want to see but that aren’t urgent nor crucial to know about individually. Facebook should let us decide to batch notifications so we’d only get one of a certain type every 12 or 24 hours, or only when a certain number of similar ones are triggered. I’d love a digest of posts to my Groups or Events from the past day rather than every time someone opens their mouth.

I so don’t care

Notifications In The “Time Well Spent” Feature – Facebook tells you how many minutes you spent on it each day over the past week and on average, but my total time on Facebook matters less to me than how often it interrupts my life with push notifications. The “Your Time On Facebook” feature should show how many notifications of each type I’ve received, which ones I actually opened, and let me turn off or batch the ones I want fewer of.

Facebook is finally rolling out its ‘how long do I spend on Facebook’ dashboard

Oh, and for Will Cathcart, Facebook’s VP of apps, can I also get proper syncing so I don’t rewatch the same Stories on Instagram and Facebook, the ability to invite people to Events on mobile based on past invite lists of those I’ve hosted or attended, and the See More Like This feature I recommended for Instagram?

Uber/Lyft/Ridesharing

“Quiet Ride” Button – Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for small talk. Had a rough day, need to get work done, or want to just zone out? Ridesharing apps should offer a request for a quiet ride that if the driver accepts, you pay them an extra dollar (or get it free as a loyalty perk), and you get ferried to your destination without unnecessary conversation. I get that it’s a bit dehumanizing for the driver, but I’d bet some would happily take a little extra cash for their compliance.

“I Need More Time” Button – Sometimes you overestimate the ETA and suddenly your car is arriving before you’re ready to leave. Instead of cancelling and rebooking a few minutes later, frantically rushing so you don’t miss your window and get smacked with a no-show fee, or making the driver wait while they and the company aren’t getting paid, Uber, Lyft, and the rest should offer the “I Need More Time” button that simply rebooks you a car that’s a little further away.

Spotify/Music Streaming Apps

Scan My Collection – I wish I could just take photos of the album covers, spines, or even discs of my CD or record collection and have them instantly added to a playlist or folder. It’s kind of sad that after lifetimes of collecting physical music, most of it now sits on a shelf and we forget to play what we used to love. Music apps want more data on what we like, and it’s just sitting there gathering dust. There’s obviously some fun viral potential here too. Let me share what’s my most embarrassing CD. For me, it’s my dual copies of Limp Bizkit’s “Significant Other” because I played the first one so much it got scratched.

Friends Weekly��– Spotify ditched its in-app messaging, third-party app platform, and other ways to discover music so its playlists would decide what becomes a hit in order to exert leverage over the record labels to negotiate better deals. But music discovery is inherently social and the desktop little ticker of what friends are playing on doesn’t cut it. Spotify should let me choose to recommend my new favorite song or agree to let it share what I’ve recently played most, and put those into a Discover Weekly-style social playlist of what friends are listening to.

How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels

Snapchat

Growth – I’m sorry, I had to.

Bulk Export Memories – But seriously, Snapchat is shrinking. That’s worrisome because some users’ photos and videos are trapped on its Memories cloud hosting feature that’s supposed to help free up space on your phone. But there’s no bulk export option, meaning it could take hours of saving shots one at a time to your camera roll if you needed to get off of Snapchat, if for example it was shutting down, or got acquired, or you’re just bored of it.

Add-On Cameras – Snapchat’s Spectacles are actually pretty neat for recording first-person or underwater shots in a circular format. But otherwise they don’t do much more, and in some ways do much less, than your phone’s camera and are a long way from being a Magic Leap competitor. That’s why if Snapchat really wants to become a “Camera Company”, it should build sleek add-on cameras that augment our phone’s hardware. Snap previously explored selling a 360-camera but never launched one. A little Giroptic iO-style 360 lens that attaches to your phone’s charging port could let you capture a new kind of content that really makes people feel like they’re there with you. An Aukey Aura-style zoom lens attachment that easily fits in your pocket unlike a DSLR could also be a hit

Snap explored selling a 360 camera

iOS

Switch Wi-Fi/Bluetooth From Control Center – I thought the whole point of Control Center was one touch access, but I can only turn on or off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s silly having to dig into the Settings menu to switch to a different Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device, especially as we interact with more and more of them. Control Center should unfurl a menu of networks or devices you can choose from.

Shoot GIFs – Live Photos are a clumsy proprietary format. Instagram’s Boomerang nailed what we want out of live action GIFs and we should be able to shoot them straight from the iOS camera and export them as actual GIFs that can be used across the web. Give us some extra GIF settings and iPhones could have a new reason for teens to choose them over Androids.

Gradual Alarms – Anyone else have a heart attack whenever they hear their phone’s Alarm Clock ringtone? I know I do because I leave my alarms on so loud that I’ll never miss them, but end up being rudely shocked awake. A setting that gradually increases the volume of the iOS Alarm Clock every 15 seconds or minute so I can be gently arisen unless I refuse to get up.

Maybe some of these apply to Android, but I wouldn’t know because I’m a filthy casual iPhoner. Send me your Android suggestions, as well as what else you want to see added to your favorite apps.

[Image Credit: Hanson Inc]

[pmsocialmedia]

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right.

Instagram

See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta.

Web DMs – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about people’s photos, but it’s stuck on mobile. For all the college kids and entry-level office workers out there, this would make being stuck on laptops all day much more fun. Plus, youth culture truthsayer Taylor Lorenz wants Instagram web DMs too.

Upload Quality Indicator – Try to post a Story video or Boomerang from a crummy internet connection and they turn out a blurry mess. Instagram should warn us if our signal strength is low compared to what we usually have (since some places it’s always mediocre) and either recommend we wait for Wi-Fi, or post a low-res copy that’s replaced by the high-res version when possible.

Oh, and if new VP of product Vishal Shah is listening, I’d also like Bitmoji-style avatars and a better way to discover accounts that shows a selection of their recent posts plus their bio, instead of just one post and no context in Explore which is better for discovering content.

Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button

Twitter

DM Search – Ummm, this is pretty straightforward. It’s absurd that you can’t even search DMs by person, let alone keyword. Twitter knows messaging is a big thing on mobile right? And DMs are one of the most powerful ways to get in contact with mid-level public figures and journalists. PS: My DMs are open if you’ve got a news tip — @JoshConstine.

Unfollow Suggestions – Social networks are obsessed with getting us to follow more people, but do a terrible job of helping us clean up our feeds. With Twitter bringing back the option to see a chronological feed, we need unfollow suggestions more than ever. It should analyze who I follow but never click, fave, reply to, retweet, or even slow down to read and ask if I want to nix them. I asked for this 5 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse. Since people feel like their feeds are already overflowing, they’re stingy with following new people. That’s partly why you see accounts get only a handful of new followers when their tweets go viral and are seen by millions. I recently had a tweet with 1.7 million impressions and 18,000 Likes that drove just 11 follows. Yes I know that’s a self-own.

Analytics Benchmarks – If Twitter wants to improve conversation quality, it should teach us what works. Twitter offers analytics about each of your tweets, but not in context of your other posts. Did this drive more or fewer link clicks or follows than my typical tweet? That kind of info could guide users to create more compelling content.

Twitter Quitters And The Unfiltered Feed Problem

Facebook

(Obviously we could get into Facebook’s myriad problems here. A less sensationalized feed that doesn’t reward exaggerated claims would top my list. Hopefully its plan to downrank “borderline content” that almost violates its policies will help when it rolls out.)

Batched Notifications – Facebook sends way too many notifications. Some are downright useless and should be eliminated. “14 friends responded to events happening tomorrow”? “Someone’s fundraiser is half way to its goal?” Get that shit out of here. But there are other notifications I want to see but that aren’t urgent nor crucial to know about individually. Facebook should let us decide to batch notifications so we’d only get one of a certain type every 12 or 24 hours, or only when a certain number of similar ones are triggered. I’d love a digest of posts to my Groups or Events from the past day rather than every time someone opens their mouth.

I so don’t care

Notifications In The “Time Well Spent” Feature – Facebook tells you how many minutes you spent on it each day over the past week and on average, but my total time on Facebook matters less to me than how often it interrupts my life with push notifications. The “Your Time On Facebook” feature should show how many notifications of each type I’ve received, which ones I actually opened, and let me turn off or batch the ones I want fewer of.

Facebook is finally rolling out its ‘how long do I spend on Facebook’ dashboard

Oh, and for Will Cathcart, Facebook’s VP of apps, can I also get proper syncing so I don’t rewatch the same Stories on Instagram and Facebook, the ability to invite people to Events on mobile based on past invite lists of those I’ve hosted or attended, and the See More Like This feature I recommended for Instagram?

Uber/Lyft/Ridesharing

“Quiet Ride” Button – Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for small talk. Had a rough day, need to get work done, or want to just zone out? Ridesharing apps should offer a request for a quiet ride that if the driver accepts, you pay them an extra dollar (or get it free as a loyalty perk), and you get ferried to your destination without unnecessary conversation. I get that it’s a bit dehumanizing for the driver, but I’d bet some would happily take a little extra cash for their compliance.

“I Need More Time” Button – Sometimes you overestimate the ETA and suddenly your car is arriving before you’re ready to leave. Instead of cancelling and rebooking a few minutes later, frantically rushing so you don’t miss your window and get smacked with a no-show fee, or making the driver wait while they and the company aren’t getting paid, Uber, Lyft, and the rest should offer the “I Need More Time” button that simply rebooks you a car that’s a little further away.

Spotify/Music Streaming Apps

Scan My Collection – I wish I could just take photos of the album covers, spines, or even discs of my CD or record collection and have them instantly added to a playlist or folder. It’s kind of sad that after lifetimes of collecting physical music, most of it now sits on a shelf and we forget to play what we used to love. Music apps want more data on what we like, and it’s just sitting there gathering dust. There’s obviously some fun viral potential here too. Let me share what’s my most embarrassing CD. For me, it’s my dual copies of Limp Bizkit’s “Significant Other” because I played the first one so much it got scratched.

Friends Weekly – Spotify ditched its in-app messaging, third-party app platform, and other ways to discover music so its playlists would decide what becomes a hit in order to exert leverage over the record labels to negotiate better deals. But music discovery is inherently social and the desktop little ticker of what friends are playing on doesn’t cut it. Spotify should let me choose to recommend my new favorite song or agree to let it share what I’ve recently played most, and put those into a Discover Weekly-style social playlist of what friends are listening to.

How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels

Snapchat

Growth – I’m sorry, I had to.

Bulk Export Memories – But seriously, Snapchat is shrinking. That’s worrisome because some users’ photos and videos are trapped on its Memories cloud hosting feature that’s supposed to help free up space on your phone. But there’s no bulk export option, meaning it could take hours of saving shots one at a time to your camera roll if you needed to get off of Snapchat, if for example it was shutting down, or got acquired, or you’re just bored of it.

Add-On Cameras – Snapchat’s Spectacles are actually pretty neat for recording first-person or underwater shots in a circular format. But otherwise they don’t do much more, and in some ways do much less, than your phone’s camera and are a long way from being a Magic Leap competitor. That’s why if Snapchat really wants to become a “Camera Company”, it should build sleek add-on cameras that augment our phone’s hardware. Snap previously explored selling a 360-camera but never launched one. A little Giroptic iO-style 360 lens that attaches to your phone’s charging port could let you capture a new kind of content that really makes people feel like they’re there with you. An Aukey Aura-style zoom lens attachment that easily fits in your pocket unlike a DSLR could also be a hit

Snap explored selling a 360 camera

iOS

Switch Wi-Fi/Bluetooth From Control Center – I thought the whole point of Control Center was one touch access, but I can only turn on or off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s silly having to dig into the Settings menu to switch to a different Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device, especially as we interact with more and more of them. Control Center should unfurl a menu of networks or devices you can choose from.

Shoot GIFs – Live Photos are a clumsy proprietary format. Instagram’s Boomerang nailed what we want out of live action GIFs and we should be able to shoot them straight from the iOS camera and export them as actual GIFs that can be used across the web. Give us some extra GIF settings and iPhones could have a new reason for teens to choose them over Androids.

Gradual Alarms – Anyone else have a heart attack whenever they hear their phone’s Alarm Clock ringtone? I know I do because I leave my alarms on so loud that I’ll never miss them, but end up being rudely shocked awake. A setting that gradually increases the volume of the iOS Alarm Clock every 15 seconds or minute so I can be gently arisen unless I refuse to get up.

Maybe some of these apply to Android, but I wouldn’t know because I’m a filthy casual iPhoner. Send me your Android suggestions, as well as what else you want to see added to your favorite apps.

[Image Credit: Hanson Inc]

via Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2ELMwDV

[un-enfant-immature]

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right.

Instagram

See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta.

Web DMs – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about people’s photos, but it’s stuck on mobile. For all the college kids and entry-level office workers out there, this would make being stuck on laptops all day much more fun. Plus, youth culture truthsayer Taylor Lorenz wants Instagram web DMs too.

Upload Quality Indicator – Try to post a Story video or Boomerang from a crummy internet connection and they turn out a blurry mess. Instagram should warn us if our signal strength is low compared to what we usually have (since some places it’s always mediocre) and either recommend we wait for Wi-Fi, or post a low-res copy that’s replaced by the high-res version when possible.

Oh, and if new VP of product Vishal Shah is listening, I’d also like Bitmoji-style avatars and a better way to discover accounts that shows a selection of their recent posts plus their bio, instead of just one post and no context in Explore which is better for discovering content.

Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button

Twitter

DM Search – Ummm, this is pretty straightforward. It’s absurd that you can’t even search DMs by person, let alone keyword. Twitter knows messaging is a big thing on mobile right? And DMs are one of the most powerful ways to get in contact with mid-level public figures and journalists. PS: My DMs are open if you’ve got a news tip — @JoshConstine.

Unfollow Suggestions – Social networks are obsessed with getting us to follow more people, but do a terrible job of helping us clean up our feeds. With Twitter bringing back the option to see a chronological feed, we need unfollow suggestions more than ever. It should analyze who I follow but never click, fave, reply to, retweet, or even slow down to read and ask if I want to nix them. I asked for this 5 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse. Since people feel like their feeds are already overflowing, they’re stingy with following new people. That’s partly why you see accounts get only a handful of new followers when their tweets go viral and are seen by millions. I recently had a tweet with 1.7 million impressions and 18,000 Likes that drove just 11 follows. Yes I know that’s a self-own.

Analytics Benchmarks – If Twitter wants to improve conversation quality, it should teach us what works. Twitter offers analytics about each of your tweets, but not in context of your other posts. Did this drive more or fewer link clicks or follows than my typical tweet? That kind of info could guide users to create more compelling content.

Twitter Quitters And The Unfiltered Feed Problem

Facebook

(Obviously we could get into Facebook’s myriad problems here. A less sensationalized feed that doesn’t reward exaggerated claims would top my list. Hopefully its plan to downrank “borderline content” that almost violates its policies will help when it rolls out.)

Batched Notifications – Facebook sends way too many notifications. Some are downright useless and should be eliminated. “14 friends responded to events happening tomorrow”? “Someone’s fundraiser is half way to its goal?” Get that shit out of here. But there are other notifications I want to see but that aren’t urgent nor crucial to know about individually. Facebook should let us decide to batch notifications so we’d only get one of a certain type every 12 or 24 hours, or only when a certain number of similar ones are triggered. I’d love a digest of posts to my Groups or Events from the past day rather than every time someone opens their mouth.

I so don’t care

Notifications In The “Time Well Spent” Feature – Facebook tells you how many minutes you spent on it each day over the past week and on average, but my total time on Facebook matters less to me than how often it interrupts my life with push notifications. The “Your Time On Facebook” feature should show how many notifications of each type I’ve received, which ones I actually opened, and let me turn off or batch the ones I want fewer of.

Facebook is finally rolling out its ‘how long do I spend on Facebook’ dashboard

Oh, and for Will Cathcart, Facebook’s VP of apps, can I also get proper syncing so I don’t rewatch the same Stories on Instagram and Facebook, the ability to invite people to Events on mobile based on past invite lists of those I’ve hosted or attended, and the See More Like This feature I recommended for Instagram?

Uber/Lyft/Ridesharing

“Quiet Ride” Button – Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for small talk. Had a rough day, need to get work done, or want to just zone out? Ridesharing apps should offer a request for a quiet ride that if the driver accepts, you pay them an extra dollar (or get it free as a loyalty perk), and you get ferried to your destination without unnecessary conversation. I get that it’s a bit dehumanizing for the driver, but I’d bet some would happily take a little extra cash for their compliance.

“I Need More Time” Button – Sometimes you overestimate the ETA and suddenly your car is arriving before you’re ready to leave. Instead of cancelling and rebooking a few minutes later, frantically rushing so you don’t miss your window and get smacked with a no-show fee, or making the driver wait while they and the company aren’t getting paid, Uber, Lyft, and the rest should offer the “I Need More Time” button that simply rebooks you a car that’s a little further away.

Spotify/Music Streaming Apps

Scan My Collection – I wish I could just take photos of the album covers, spines, or even discs of my CD or record collection and have them instantly added to a playlist or folder. It’s kind of sad that after lifetimes of collecting physical music, most of it now sits on a shelf and we forget to play what we used to love. Music apps want more data on what we like, and it’s just sitting there gathering dust. There’s obviously some fun viral potential here too. Let me share what’s my most embarrassing CD. For me, it’s my dual copies of Limp Bizkit’s “Significant Other” because I played the first one so much it got scratched.

Friends Weekly – Spotify ditched its in-app messaging, third-party app platform, and other ways to discover music so its playlists would decide what becomes a hit in order to exert leverage over the record labels to negotiate better deals. But music discovery is inherently social and the desktop little ticker of what friends are playing on doesn’t cut it. Spotify should let me choose to recommend my new favorite song or agree to let it share what I’ve recently played most, and put those into a Discover Weekly-style social playlist of what friends are listening to.

How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels

Snapchat

Growth – I’m sorry, I had to.

Bulk Export Memories – But seriously, Snapchat is shrinking. That’s worrisome because some users’ photos and videos are trapped on its Memories cloud hosting feature that’s supposed to help free up space on your phone. But there’s no bulk export option, meaning it could take hours of saving shots one at a time to your camera roll if you needed to get off of Snapchat, if for example it was shutting down, or got acquired, or you’re just bored of it.

Add-On Cameras – Snapchat’s Spectacles are actually pretty neat for recording first-person or underwater shots in a circular format. But otherwise they don’t do much more, and in some ways do much less, than your phone’s camera and are a long way from being a Magic Leap competitor. That’s why if Snapchat really wants to become a “Camera Company”, it should build sleek add-on cameras that augment our phone’s hardware. Snap previously explored selling a 360-camera but never launched one. A little Giroptic iO-style 360 lens that attaches to your phone’s charging port could let you capture a new kind of content that really makes people feel like they’re there with you. An Aukey Aura-style zoom lens attachment that easily fits in your pocket unlike a DSLR could also be a hit

Snap explored selling a 360 camera

iOS

Switch Wi-Fi/Bluetooth From Control Center – I thought the whole point of Control Center was one touch access, but I can only turn on or off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s silly having to dig into the Settings menu to switch to a different Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device, especially as we interact with more and more of them. Control Center should unfurl a menu of networks or devices you can choose from.

Shoot GIFs – Live Photos are a clumsy proprietary format. Instagram’s Boomerang nailed what we want out of live action GIFs and we should be able to shoot them straight from the iOS camera and export them as actual GIFs that can be used across the web. Give us some extra GIF settings and iPhones could have a new reason for teens to choose them over Androids.

Gradual Alarms – Anyone else have a heart attack whenever they hear their phone’s Alarm Clock ringtone? I know I do because I leave my alarms on so loud that I’ll never miss them, but end up being rudely shocked awake. A setting that gradually increases the volume of the iOS Alarm Clock every 15 seconds or minute so I can be gently arisen unless I refuse to get up.

Maybe some of these apply to Android, but I wouldn’t know because I’m a filthy casual iPhoner. Send me your Android suggestions, as well as what else you want to see added to your favorite apps.

[Image Credit: Hanson Inc]

[becausegoodbye]

Sometimes a song acts as a spigot on my heart. All this built-up gunk just comes pouring out, and I’m left mopping it up. 

I don’t often see it coming. Like, I love Steven Universe, but I didn’t expect to watch that one clip over and over, day after day, like an obsessive ritual of catharsis and expurgation, until I had no more tears left to give to it. Likewise, when I went and saw Moana last week, I didn’t know that this would happen. I didn’t know that I would go see it twice, listen to the soundtrack on repeat, and heave silent tears on trams, on planes, in hospital beds. 

This song – “Where You Are” – is a marvel. It’s a delicate Swiss watch and a freely bounding boar. It communicates so much (so many nuanced feelings about home and journeying and space and self) with such economy and grace that it takes your breath away, like watching an Olympic gymnast at the height of her physical impossibility. Watching this crummy-quality YouTube video is a poor way to first experience it – if you haven’t already: go see Moana in a cinema immediately – but I just need to talk about it, so we’ll roll with it.

It’s not just a hearty affirmation of home. Like, it is certainly that, but it’s set in tension with the stifling constriction of familial expectations. Which is then tempered by learning, and appreciation, and genuine love, and growing up. Which is then unplucked by yearning: the deep gnawing kind that you don’t know where came from, and don’t know what to do with. Which is then refitted and reimagined by Gramma Tala, who sings into existence a hybridity between “where you are” and “who you are”, allowing the latter to influence the former (rather than the former just dictating the latter), creating the space for a wider and wiser form of ‘place’ that includes all the territory of the self, setting up virtually all of the film’s most important themes.  

It does all this in 2 minutes and 35 seconds. 

(Like I said: a goddamn Swiss watch of a song.)

Crucially, it’s not just “I hate this place and want to leave.” It’s “I love this place but I need to leave anyway,” which is a hundred times more interesting and difficult. It’s about the tension and interplay between entirely different senses of ‘place’ – about all the varied meanings of 'home’.

I could talk about its virtues abstractly forever, but here’s the more burning question on my island: why is this affecting me so much right now? Why do I keep sneaking moments to listen to it, sob quietly, and then get back on with whatever I was doing? 

The smart money is on: because my life feels stagnant and stuck. Because I am at a particularly vulnerable moment for visions of wanting to make home as well as for visions of wanting to leave and go far away, and this incredible combination of songs (“Where You Are” and ”How Far I’ll Go”) sings the truth of both feelings so clearly, so ringingly, that it makes something alchemically new in their combination. By showing how those feelings can coexist, they make me realise how desperately I’ve been feeling both lately.

I want to leave here, but I have nowhere to go. I want to make a home, but I’m still reeling from the ones I’ve lost. I’m a sad balloon, left over from the party, half-inflated and still bobbing aimlessly around. I’m a sook – is the tl;dr version – and this song is unbelievable. 

It’s funny: I used to say that I didn’t “get” musicals. I used to say that, with the one exception of Singin’ in the Rain (which got grandfathered in by nostalgia and good humour and Donald O’Connor), I didn’t understand the point of them. With Hamilton and now Moana, Lin-Manuel Miranda has pretty much single-handedly spun me around and set me walking in the opposite direction. It seems so obvious now: people in musicals burst into songs because their feelings are big enough to deserve orchestration. It’s like applying a treatment to film that makes the colours brighter and the contrasts starker. If we could, we’d seize the chance to sing our struggles into clarity too. 

I don’t yet fully know why this song has become a spigot on my heart. I’m part of the way there, but I need to explore it more. Something needs to change. Whatever this is telling me, it’s telling me that. 

[anthonybialy]

Hating Figures

I wish the pinko revolutionaries coasting on the work of free market success stories hated Iran's lunatic atomic-minded mullahs as much as they do successful Americans. Evil billionaire is redundant, according to those whose politics are based in selflessness. Just ask them. Everyone with a lot accumulated it at the expense of those with a little if those who don't seem to work at anything but cultivating rage are to be believed.

The wholly rational rationale for despising the wealthy is based in the targets somehow plundering what they acquired. Sure, there's nothing backing up charges of quite grand larceny like evidence. But a few people have a lot more than others, which means they stole. The case is closed. You may as well be sure that jet fuel never melted steel.

Presuming that each dollar someone rich possesses was taken out of an entry-level employee's check is the key to prosperity and happiness. The conspiracy-focused never notice companies making more help everyone involved, from hiring people to make stuff to pleasing customers who are happy to hand over cash in exchange for having it. But improvements in life quality are apparently meaningless by comparison to those with bigger gains.

A return for providing value is just too easy. There must be a catch. In some cases, the compensation quantity is just too much for those self-appointed to set limits. Decisions that affect a company are expensive for a reason. Walmart doesn't attract shoppers like they're selling meth without a plan. To them, paying executives a fortune is worth the price, just like their customers feel about affordable Doritos.

Note who thinks there's no voluntary help. Those concerned about charities being at the whims of the wealthy tacitly admit they would never imagine putting a dollar in the Salvation Army kettle. The hateful militaristic purported charity teems with awful homophobes, anyway, what with their Christian beliefs and assisting without question.

It's uncanny what monocled monsters do to prevent poverty in the first place. We could let people earn as much as they can, which you'd think would mean buying things from or hiring each other. But that seems unequal and like lots of work, so just yell at anyone with a lot for not sharing enough.

The perpetually jealous reveal their own mentality. Sure, seething contempt for the wealthy reflects resentment that's surely part of a healthy lifestyle. More importantly, demands for confiscating private property reflect an utter lack of vision. It's hard to think of making wealth while consumed by contempt for those who do.

Contemporary Malthusians who see life's main feature as its limited amount of resources are as cheery as expected. You'd be a crab as well if you were so consistently wrong about predicting apocalyptic conditions. The only way to be happy is if doom comes into being, which sure explains the eternally pleasant disposition of the envious left.

There's always a chance to make more money, and not just by having the Treasury print a couple extra sheets. Resourceful humans continually find ways to get paid for addressing the problems and desires of others. Ingenuity fuels the chance to make more, and not by ensuring someone else makes less. It's surprising that people who don't reside in the real world are so lacking in imagination. What are they developing all day?

Guillotine-sharpeners act like their targets take from a finite supply of currency. Wealth can be created, which mystifies those who create nothing. That's true as long as the jealous don’t get to be in charge, so we're an election or two away.

Skimming the reward for someone else's ingenuity is always easier. Act like those who sold what brings comfort actually stole from you. Someone else’s property belongs to all of us, according to convenient theories about financial acquisition. A rich fiend used roads to drive his carriage over orphans, which means profits belong to all.

The worst criminals justify stealing by noting theft targets would still be able to afford rent if most of their wealth was pilfered. Those top hat-clad bastards have enough to live on even with a 99 percent Fairness Tax. You calculate your bills and have zero left; who needs more? They wonder why they feel insecure.

We can generate more. Well, some of us can. A small but noisy sliver can only manufacture enmity toward CEOs. There's not a finite cash pile any more than the government will save money by making a product a right. Those who deplete until zero perceive life the same way for both their bank accounts and the entire economy. Then they angrily wonder why they never get rich, too.

Economic success is just a matter of finding enough to pay for the latest scheme until there's nothing again. From tapas for dinner again to crummy federal insurance, there's no need to worry about where money comes from tomorrow if there's a dollar to spend today. Those who see life as a series of one-time lumps are not going to generate more. They only try their hardest to cut down those who do.

[sheminecrafts]

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right.

Instagram

See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta.

Web DMs – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about people’s photos, but it’s stuck on mobile. For all the college kids and entry-level office workers out there, this would make being stuck on laptops all day much more fun. Plus, youth culture truthsayer Taylor Lorenz wants Instagram web DMs too.

Upload Quality Indicator – Try to post a Story video or Boomerang from a crummy internet connection and they turn out a blurry mess. Instagram should warn us if our signal strength is low compared to what we usually have (since some places it’s always mediocre) and either recommend we wait for Wi-Fi, or post a low-res copy that’s replaced by the high-res version when possible.

Oh, and if new VP of product Vishal Shah is listening, I’d also like Bitmoji-style avatars and a better way to discover accounts that shows a selection of their recent posts plus their bio, instead of just one post and no context in Explore which is better for discovering content.

Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button

Twitter

DM Search – Ummm, this is pretty straightforward. It’s absurd that you can’t even search DMs by person, let alone keyword. Twitter knows messaging is a big thing on mobile right? And DMs are one of the most powerful ways to get in contact with mid-level public figures and journalists. PS: My DMs are open if you’ve got a news tip — @JoshConstine.

Unfollow Suggestions – Social networks are obsessed with getting us to follow more people, but do a terrible job of helping us clean up our feeds. With Twitter bringing back the option to see a chronological feed, we need unfollow suggestions more than ever. It should analyze who I follow but never click, fave, reply to, retweet, or even slow down to read and ask if I want to nix them. I asked for this 5 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse. Since people feel like their feeds are already overflowing, they’re stingy with following new people. That’s partly why you see accounts get only a handful of new followers when their tweets go viral and are seen by millions. I recently had a tweet with 1.7 million impressions and 18,000 Likes that drove just 11 follows. Yes I know that’s a self-own.

Analytics Benchmarks – If Twitter wants to improve conversation quality, it should teach us what works. Twitter offers analytics about each of your tweets, but not in context of your other posts. Did this drive more or fewer link clicks or follows than my typical tweet? That kind of info could guide users to create more compelling content.

Twitter Quitters And The Unfiltered Feed Problem

Facebook

(Obviously we could get into Facebook’s myriad problems here. A less sensationalized feed that doesn’t reward exaggerated claims would top my list. Hopefully its plan to downrank “borderline content” that almost violates its policies will help when it rolls out.)

Batched Notifications – Facebook sends way too many notifications. Some are downright useless and should be eliminated. “14 friends responded to events happening tomorrow”? “Someone’s fundraiser is half way to its goal?” Get that shit out of here. But there are other notifications I want to see but that aren’t urgent nor crucial to know about individually. Facebook should let us decide to batch notifications so we’d only get one of a certain type every 12 or 24 hours, or only when a certain number of similar ones are triggered. I’d love a digest of posts to my Groups or Events from the past day rather than every time someone opens their mouth.

I so don’t care

Notifications In The “Time Well Spent” Feature – Facebook tells you how many minutes you spent on it each day over the past week and on average, but my total time on Facebook matters less to me than how often it interrupts my life with push notifications. The “Your Time On Facebook” feature should show how many notifications of each type I’ve received, which ones I actually opened, and let me turn off or batch the ones I want fewer of.

Facebook is finally rolling out its ‘how long do I spend on Facebook’ dashboard

Oh, and for Will Cathcart, Facebook’s VP of apps, can I also get proper syncing so I don’t rewatch the same Stories on Instagram and Facebook, the ability to invite people to Events on mobile based on past invite lists of those I’ve hosted or attended, and the See More Like This feature I recommended for Instagram?

Uber/Lyft/Ridesharing

“Quiet Ride” Button – Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for small talk. Had a rough day, need to get work done, or want to just zone out? Ridesharing apps should offer a request for a quiet ride that if the driver accepts, you pay them an extra dollar (or get it free as a loyalty perk), and you get ferried to your destination without unnecessary conversation. I get that it’s a bit dehumanizing for the driver, but I’d bet some would happily take a little extra cash for their compliance.

“I Need More Time” Button – Sometimes you overestimate the ETA and suddenly your car is arriving before you’re ready to leave. Instead of cancelling and rebooking a few minutes later, frantically rushing so you don’t miss your window and get smacked with a no-show fee, or making the driver wait while they and the company aren’t getting paid, Uber, Lyft, and the rest should offer the “I Need More Time” button that simply rebooks you a car that’s a little further away.

Spotify/Music Streaming Apps

Scan My Collection – I wish I could just take photos of the album covers, spines, or even discs of my CD or record collection and have them instantly added to a playlist or folder. It’s kind of sad that after lifetimes of collecting physical music, most of it now sits on a shelf and we forget to play what we used to love. Music apps want more data on what we like, and it’s just sitting there gathering dust. There’s obviously some fun viral potential here too. Let me share what’s my most embarrassing CD. For me, it’s my dual copies of Limp Bizkit’s “Significant Other” because I played the first one so much it got scratched.

Friends Weekly – Spotify ditched its in-app messaging, third-party app platform, and other ways to discover music so its playlists would decide what becomes a hit in order to exert leverage over the record labels to negotiate better deals. But music discovery is inherently social and the desktop little ticker of what friends are playing on doesn’t cut it. Spotify should let me choose to recommend my new favorite song or agree to let it share what I’ve recently played most, and put those into a Discover Weekly-style social playlist of what friends are listening to.

How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels

Snapchat

Growth – I’m sorry, I had to.

Bulk Export Memories – But seriously, Snapchat is shrinking. That’s worrisome because some users’ photos and videos are trapped on its Memories cloud hosting feature that’s supposed to help free up space on your phone. But there’s no bulk export option, meaning it could take hours of saving shots one at a time to your camera roll if you needed to get off of Snapchat, if for example it was shutting down, or got acquired, or you’re just bored of it.

Add-On Cameras – Snapchat’s Spectacles are actually pretty neat for recording first-person or underwater shots in a circular format. But otherwise they don’t do much more, and in some ways do much less, than your phone’s camera and are a long way from being a Magic Leap competitor. That’s why if Snapchat really wants to become a “Camera Company”, it should build sleek add-on cameras that augment our phone’s hardware. Snap previously explored selling a 360-camera but never launched one. A little Giroptic iO-style 360 lens that attaches to your phone’s charging port could let you capture a new kind of content that really makes people feel like they’re there with you. An Aukey Aura-style zoom lens attachment that easily fits in your pocket unlike a DSLR could also be a hit

Snap explored selling a 360 camera

iOS

Switch Wi-Fi/Bluetooth From Control Center – I thought the whole point of Control Center was one touch access, but I can only turn on or off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s silly having to dig into the Settings menu to switch to a different Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device, especially as we interact with more and more of them. Control Center should unfurl a menu of networks or devices you can choose from.

Shoot GIFs – Live Photos are a clumsy proprietary format. Instagram’s Boomerang nailed what we want out of live action GIFs and we should be able to shoot them straight from the iOS camera and export them as actual GIFs that can be used across the web. Give us some extra GIF settings and iPhones could have a new reason for teens to choose them over Androids.

Gradual Alarms – Anyone else have a heart attack whenever they hear their phone’s Alarm Clock ringtone? I know I do because I leave my alarms on so loud that I’ll never miss them, but end up being rudely shocked awake. A setting that gradually increases the volume of the iOS Alarm Clock every 15 seconds or minute so I can be gently arisen unless I refuse to get up.

Maybe some of these apply to Android, but I wouldn’t know because I’m a filthy casual iPhoner. Send me your Android suggestions, as well as what else you want to see added to your favorite apps.

[Image Credit: Hanson Inc]

from iraidajzsmmwtv http://bit.ly/2AcFp4w via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right.

Instagram

See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta.

Web DMs – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about people’s photos, but it’s stuck on mobile. For all the college kids and entry-level office workers out there, this would make being stuck on laptops all day much more fun. Plus, youth culture truthsayer Taylor Lorenz wants Instagram web DMs too.

Upload Quality Indicator – Try to post a Story video or Boomerang from a crummy internet connection and they turn out a blurry mess. Instagram should warn us if our signal strength is low compared to what we usually have (since some places it’s always mediocre) and either recommend we wait for Wi-Fi, or post a low-res copy that’s replaced by the high-res version when possible.

Oh, and if new VP of product Vishal Shah is listening, I’d also like Bitmoji-style avatars and a better way to discover accounts that shows a selection of their recent posts plus their bio, instead of just one post and no context in Explore which is better for discovering content.

Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button

Twitter

DM Search – Ummm, this is pretty straightforward. It’s absurd that you can’t even search DMs by person, let alone keyword. Twitter knows messaging is a big thing on mobile right? And DMs are one of the most powerful ways to get in contact with mid-level public figures and journalists. PS: My DMs are open if you’ve got a news tip — @JoshConstine.

Unfollow Suggestions – Social networks are obsessed with getting us to follow more people, but do a terrible job of helping us clean up our feeds. With Twitter bringing back the option to see a chronological feed, we need unfollow suggestions more than ever. It should analyze who I follow but never click, fave, reply to, retweet, or even slow down to read and ask if I want to nix them. I asked for this 5 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse. Since people feel like their feeds are already overflowing, they’re stingy with following new people. That’s partly why you see accounts get only a handful of new followers when their tweets go viral and are seen by millions. I recently had a tweet with 1.7 million impressions and 18,000 Likes that drove just 11 follows. Yes I know that’s a self-own.

Analytics Benchmarks – If Twitter wants to improve conversation quality, it should teach us what works. Twitter offers analytics about each of your tweets, but not in context of your other posts. Did this drive more or fewer link clicks or follows than my typical tweet? That kind of info could guide users to create more compelling content.

Twitter Quitters And The Unfiltered Feed Problem

Facebook

(Obviously we could get into Facebook’s myriad problems here. A less sensationalized feed that doesn’t reward exaggerated claims would top my list. Hopefully its plan to downrank “borderline content” that almost violates its policies will help when it rolls out.)

Batched Notifications – Facebook sends way too many notifications. Some are downright useless and should be eliminated. “14 friends responded to events happening tomorrow”? “Someone’s fundraiser is half way to its goal?” Get that shit out of here. But there are other notifications I want to see but that aren’t urgent nor crucial to know about individually. Facebook should let us decide to batch notifications so we’d only get one of a certain type every 12 or 24 hours, or only when a certain number of similar ones are triggered. I’d love a digest of posts to my Groups or Events from the past day rather than every time someone opens their mouth.

I so don’t care

Notifications In The “Time Well Spent” Feature – Facebook tells you how many minutes you spent on it each day over the past week and on average, but my total time on Facebook matters less to me than how often it interrupts my life with push notifications. The “Your Time On Facebook” feature should show how many notifications of each type I’ve received, which ones I actually opened, and let me turn off or batch the ones I want fewer of.

Facebook is finally rolling out its ‘how long do I spend on Facebook’ dashboard

Oh, and for Will Cathcart, Facebook’s VP of apps, can I also get proper syncing so I don’t rewatch the same Stories on Instagram and Facebook, the ability to invite people to Events on mobile based on past invite lists of those I’ve hosted or attended, and the See More Like This feature I recommended for Instagram?

Uber/Lyft/Ridesharing

“Quiet Ride” Button – Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for small talk. Had a rough day, need to get work done, or want to just zone out? Ridesharing apps should offer a request for a quiet ride that if the driver accepts, you pay them an extra dollar (or get it free as a loyalty perk), and you get ferried to your destination without unnecessary conversation. I get that it’s a bit dehumanizing for the driver, but I’d bet some would happily take a little extra cash for their compliance.

“I Need More Time” Button – Sometimes you overestimate the ETA and suddenly your car is arriving before you’re ready to leave. Instead of cancelling and rebooking a few minutes later, frantically rushing so you don’t miss your window and get smacked with a no-show fee, or making the driver wait while they and the company aren’t getting paid, Uber, Lyft, and the rest should offer the “I Need More Time” button that simply rebooks you a car that’s a little further away.

Spotify/Music Streaming Apps

Scan My Collection – I wish I could just take photos of the album covers, spines, or even discs of my CD or record collection and have them instantly added to a playlist or folder. It’s kind of sad that after lifetimes of collecting physical music, most of it now sits on a shelf and we forget to play what we used to love. Music apps want more data on what we like, and it’s just sitting there gathering dust. There’s obviously some fun viral potential here too. Let me share what’s my most embarrassing CD. For me, it’s my dual copies of Limp Bizkit’s “Significant Other” because I played the first one so much it got scratched.

Friends Weekly – Spotify ditched its in-app messaging, third-party app platform, and other ways to discover music so its playlists would decide what becomes a hit in order to exert leverage over the record labels to negotiate better deals. But music discovery is inherently social and the desktop little ticker of what friends are playing on doesn’t cut it. Spotify should let me choose to recommend my new favorite song or agree to let it share what I’ve recently played most, and put those into a Discover Weekly-style social playlist of what friends are listening to.

How Spotify is finally gaining leverage over record labels

Snapchat

Growth – I’m sorry, I had to.

Bulk Export Memories – But seriously, Snapchat is shrinking. That’s worrisome because some users’ photos and videos are trapped on its Memories cloud hosting feature that’s supposed to help free up space on your phone. But there’s no bulk export option, meaning it could take hours of saving shots one at a time to your camera roll if you needed to get off of Snapchat, if for example it was shutting down, or got acquired, or you’re just bored of it.

Add-On Cameras – Snapchat’s Spectacles are actually pretty neat for recording first-person or underwater shots in a circular format. But otherwise they don’t do much more, and in some ways do much less, than your phone’s camera and are a long way from being a Magic Leap competitor. That’s why if Snapchat really wants to become a “Camera Company”, it should build sleek add-on cameras that augment our phone’s hardware. Snap previously explored selling a 360-camera but never launched one. A little Giroptic iO-style 360 lens that attaches to your phone’s charging port could let you capture a new kind of content that really makes people feel like they’re there with you. An Aukey Aura-style zoom lens attachment that easily fits in your pocket unlike a DSLR could also be a hit

Snap explored selling a 360 camera

iOS

Switch Wi-Fi/Bluetooth From Control Center – I thought the whole point of Control Center was one touch access, but I can only turn on or off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s silly having to dig into the Settings menu to switch to a different Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device, especially as we interact with more and more of them. Control Center should unfurl a menu of networks or devices you can choose from.

Shoot GIFs – Live Photos are a clumsy proprietary format. Instagram’s Boomerang nailed what we want out of live action GIFs and we should be able to shoot them straight from the iOS camera and export them as actual GIFs that can be used across the web. Give us some extra GIF settings and iPhones could have a new reason for teens to choose them over Androids.

Gradual Alarms – Anyone else have a heart attack whenever they hear their phone’s Alarm Clock ringtone? I know I do because I leave my alarms on so loud that I’ll never miss them, but end up being rudely shocked awake. A setting that gradually increases the volume of the iOS Alarm Clock every 15 seconds or minute so I can be gently arisen unless I refuse to get up.

Maybe some of these apply to Android, but I wouldn’t know because I’m a filthy casual iPhoner. Send me your Android suggestions, as well as what else you want to see added to your favorite apps.

[Image Credit: Hanson Inc]

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2ELMwDV ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[themakersmovement]

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more ‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right. Instagram See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta. Web DMs – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about people’s photos, but it’s stuck on mobile. For all the college kids and entry-level office workers out there, this would make being stuck on laptops all day much more fun. Plus, youth culture truthsayer Taylor Lorenz wants Instagram web DMs too. Upload Quality Indicator – Try to post a Story video or Boomerang from a crummy internet connection and they turn out a blurry mess. Instagram should warn us if our signal strength is low compared to what we usually have (since some places it’s always mediocre) and either recommend we wait for Wi-Fi, or post a low-res copy that’s replaced by the high-res version when possible. Oh, and if new VP of product Vishal Shah is listening, I’d also like Bitmoji-style avatars and a better way to discover accounts that shows a selection of their recent posts plus their bio, instead of just one post and no context in Explore which is better for discovering content. Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button Twitter DM Search – Ummm, this is pretty straightforward. It’s absurd that you can’t even search DMs by person, let alone keyword. Twitter knows messaging is a big thing on mobile right? And DMs are one of the most powerful ways to get in contact with mid-level public figures and journalists. PS: My DMs are open if you’ve got a news tip — @JoshConstine. Unfollow Suggestions – Social networks are obsessed with getting us to follow more people, but do a terrible job of helping us clean up our feeds. With Twitter bringing back the option to see a chronological feed, we need unfollow suggestions more than ever. It should analyze who I follow but never click, fave, reply to, retweet, or even slow down to read and ask if I want to nix them. I asked for this 5 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse. Since people feel like their feeds are already overflowing, they’re stingy with following new people. That’s partly why you see accounts get only a handful of new followers when their tweets go viral and are seen by millions. I recently had a tweet with 1.7 million impressions and 18,000 Likes that drove just 11 follows. Yes I know that’s a self-own. Analytics Benchmarks – If Twitter wants to improve conversation quality, it should teach us what works. Twitter offers analytics about each of your tweets, but not in context of your other posts. Did this drive more or fewer link clicks or follows than my typical tweet? That kind of info could guide users to create more compelling content. Twitter Quitters And The Unfiltered Feed Problem Facebook (Obviously we could get into Facebook’s myriad problems here. A less sensationalized feed that doesn’t reward exaggerated claims would top my list. Hopefully its plan to downrank “borderline content” that almost violates its policies will help when it rolls out.) Batched Notifications – Facebook sends way too many notifications. Some are downright useless and should be eliminated. “14 friends responded to events happening tomorrow”? “Someone’s fundraiser is half way to its goal?” Get that shit out of here. But there are other notifications I want to see but that aren’t urgent nor crucial to know about individually. Facebook should let us decide to batch notifications so we’d only get one of a certain type every 12 or 24 hours, or only when a certain number of similar ones are triggered. I’d love a digest of posts to my Groups or Events from the past day rather than every time someone opens their mouth. I so don’t care Notifications In The “Time Well Spent” Feature – Facebook tells you how many minutes you spent on it each day over the past week and on average, but my total time on Facebook matters less to me than how often it interrupts my life with push notifications. The “Your Time On Facebook” feature should show how many notifications of each type I’ve received, which ones I actually opened, and let me turn off or batch the ones I want fewer of. Face…

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more – TechCrunch