The Worst UI

A few days into my holiday vacation I finally succumbed to the cold I had been holding at bay for the past couple of weeks. I spent a good deal of time on the couch with a fever and very little energy. I watched TV to pass most of this time - specifically the on-demand services of Netflix, Amazon, and Verizon Fios. It was of no surprise that after just finishing work on a major website redesign I was more attuned to the UI and UX of these services than usual. It was also of no surprise that the experience of using Netflix and Amazon was superior in every way to Fios. What is surprising is just how bad the cable box is in terms of interface and function. I can't think of a product used daily by most people that has a worse UI. The difference in the user experience between “over the top” services and those of the cable companies is huge and continues to get bigger. Netflix and Amazon are A/B testing every aspect of their interface to maximize video streams. The cable companies are clearly not (unless they are, and they are just incompetent when it comes to product design). Over the last week I experienced countless instances of poor user experience, as well as a couple of major defects that turned me off using their services even more than I already was. The worst issue was when the “resume” option didn’t actually resume the two and a half hour movie I was almost done watching, but instead restarted it. That combined with the fact that there is only a single fast forward speed meant I had to fast forward for almost 15 full minutes to catch up to where I left off. That happened twice since the pause option only holds a pause for about 5 minutes and then kicks you back out to the menu.

Content is still the driving force when it comes to competition between all of the video on-demand services, but I think that the user experience is a key aspect that most analyses underestimate. A common use-case for watching video (not just when you are convalescing on your couch) is to load up one of these products and browse around. Good recommendations, a functional search, a smart layout, and controls that work smoothly are going to be a major factor in the user’s decision of which service to load up in the first place.

Verizon Fios is now offering Redbox as an option through its set-top boxes, and in the UK Virgin is offering Netflix through theirs. That sounds like an amazing opportunity for both parties to run tests and track data, learn, and iterate on their products. I feel confident that Netflix and their ilk will do that, but for the cable companies it will probably wind up being another missed opportunity to improve their product.

Salt, Sugar, GIFs

Michael Moss' "Sugar Salt Fat," the latest in the "there's no food in our food" book trend, details how processed food companies spend enormous amounts of money on R&D to get the public to eat as much of their product as possible. Brilliant minds collaborate to find what they call the "bliss point" of new foods using a combination of chemistry and advanced mathematics. They optimize the shape, color, and consistencies of food to make them as appealing and addictive as possible while using industry lingo like "mouthfeel" and "flavor burst" to describe and measure the success of their work. The stakes are hundreds of billions of dollars, and the results are products like Lunchables, where an individual children's meal can contain up to two full days worth of sodium and saturated fat. I couldn't help but think about the similarities between processed foods and the most popular online content these days, specifically the viral-content factories Upworthy and Buzzfeed. Like the food scientists at companies like Kraft and General Foods, these companies do an amazing job of constantly researching the best ways to get people's eyeballs on their product. I have a great deal of respect for the technologists, product developers, and research analysts at these companies who have enabled their editorial teams to perfect the skill of writing the most sharable and clickable titles on the internet. Even if you don't actively visit Buzzfeed.com, you are no doubt familiar with their style of click-bait titles like, "29 Things That Are Way More Important Than Work Right Now" and "The 19 Worst Things Ever" that have become ubiquitous in all of our news feeds. If you actually click through (and based on the numbers, most of us do) you will often find that these articles are not much more than a half-assed list of animated GIFs of other people's intellectual property.

Upworthy has also figured out a winning formula for social distribution, even when they are just re-packaging someone else's YouTube video. In an online presentation they explain their social-first strategy. Their two primary tactics are using software that selects the headline with the highest click-through from a pool of 25 options, and being meticulous about every image and piece of copy used to promote their content on Facebook. Their titles are even more ridiculous than Buzzfeed's; "Walmart Went On The Record About What It Pays Its Workers. It Didn’t Count On Us Knowing Math." and "What They're Trying To Do To This Man Is Rough, But What He Says At The End Is Devastating" are two of my recent favorites.

What Buzzfeed and Upworthy are doing with online content is finding the mental "bliss point" of the internet. They are constantly tweaking their mixture of ingredients to optimize the "clickability" of their content, and their numerous iterations are creating a product that values convenience over quality. Reading Buzzfeed instead of a book or newspaper is like snacking on empty calories instead taking the time to prepare a healthy meal. It's easier and provides instant gratification, but in the long term it's as bad for you as the mouthfeel of a chemically-altered salty sweet flavor burst.

Emmy Prediction From a Guy Who Doesn't Watch the Emmys

I watch the Emmys the same way I watch the Superbowl. I'm a little curious, but mostly just because everyone else seems to care about it so much. This year I am going to be watching because I have a prediction that "House of Cards" is going to win in one of the big categories. The Emmys are voted on by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences - a group made up of more than 15,000 actors, directors, producers, and other people with various jobs you would see listed in the credits of a television show. This is a group who has come to understand that their best interests are served by having new distribution outlets such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, XBox, YouTube, Yahoo, Hulu, etc…

These "over the top" outlets have been thriving for years as distribution outlets for non-original content and consumers have fully embraced them. Binge-viewing of TV shows is now a mainstream occurrence and the ability to catch up on previous seasons is the reason why shows like "Breaking Bad" continue to gain more viewers in each consecutive season. More recently these companies have started to create original programming, recognizing it is the biggest driver of new subscribers and the best way to reduce churn. Critical recognition is the only thing missing to fully legitimize these companies as producers of quality content.

I think that either Kevin Spacey will win best actor, or "House of Cards" will win best drama series. It's going to be tough because while "House of Cards" was a great show and Kevin Spacey gave a compelling performance, they are still underdogs compared to the other nominees in both categories. But I believe the voting body for the Emmys will act in its own best interests. For many voters, even if they think another nominee is more deserving than "House of Cards", it will be hard for them not to reward the nominee that will ultimately deliver more work and more opportunities for themselves and their peers.

UPDATE: I was wrong! The biggest win for HoC was David Fincher for "Outstanding Director For A Drama Series". However, I was correct in my prediction that I don't really care about or watch the Emmys. I read about the winners this morning. Last night I was watching "Breaking Bad" like everyone else.

Should We Teach Them How to Code?

A few months ago I took part in some conversations with the steering committee of the Entertainment, Media, and Technology (EMT) group at NYU Stern. The purpose was to make sure that the EMT specialization prepares students to work in the space where media and technology continue to converge. We discussed the ideal level of understanding of technology that an MBA student should have. It was acknowledged by the group that people on the business side never understand technology as much as they should, and that this disconnect often lead to a competitive disadvantage in many companies. Questions were raised about teaching MBAs the technical details about platforms and how content is distributed. When it was inevitably asked - "Should we teach them how to code?" I started to think about it in the context of my own education. I got my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Tufts University, and became a software engineer immediately after graduation. Having that kind of a technical education and learning how to approach technical problem solving at that early stage of my life was something that helped me immeasurably in my career. I started my MBA at Stern 12 years later. I found the program to be tough, but mostly because of the high caliber of students and professors. The concepts themselves seemed very basic. Once you've had to use Fourier transforms to solve signal processing problems, wrapping your head around Porter's Five Forces isn't very daunting. Getting the technical education first, and at an age where I was able to absorb all of that information was key.

When it comes down to it, a really smart engineer can learn business concepts much more quickly than a smart MBA can learn technology. That being said, I agree with the steering committee when they quickly came to the conclusion that teaching someone "how to code" is its own specialized master's program and not something you can tack on to the MBA curriculum. There's a lot of value to a good MBA program, but if you are looking to be an innovator or an entrepreneur in the media business, I recommend learning how to code over getting an MBA. It's tech-driven companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix that are disrupting the media industry. And it's people who code who are leading the charge and changing the landscape of this industry.