Objectified, a design documentary by Gary Hustwit, the director of Helvetica. Screening at film festivals, cinemas, and special events worldwide.

1. Trailer, Objectified.

Yahoo defined internet search a decade ago, but since then the brand became somewhat strained in each and every aspect of its services. Google is to Yahoo where Yahoo was to AOL. The company did expand, but they made little effort in improving. It’s hard to dilute what direction they’re taking, or interestingly enough if they know the answer themselves. The fact is that the Yahoo brand has a lot of potential, and a substantial user base, but it needs a lot of work, and what good time it is during a corporate restructure. Here are a couple of suggestions and pointers to hopefully help them out.

Keep up. If the company is losing behind being competitive, one easy check-box is to improve user experience. Yahoo hasn’t changed much in years, and their design isn’t even good in the first place. Numerous companies managed to refresh their pages last year, though Yahoo supposedly being one, it shows how re-design is able to capture interests, and good re-design defines how users interact; it helps to keep users coming back, and this should be basic. The reason I choose other services is because their user experience is simply better, and it helps for example, going through relevant results and information, even searching.

Refine and define services. There isn’t a race to expand your portfolio, so don’t try to acquire and cover other services without refining what is already on the catalog. Yahoo has been very eager in trying not to be left out to what others are offering, but it does so briskly and impetuously. There is never a very well refined service offered by Yahoo, and while this is hard to realize, at least respond to user feedback and implement occasional upgrades. Yahoo Mail has remained the same ever since it was refreshed two years ago, and not to make it worse, but the classic interface is still an option. Third-party content is all over Yahoo, and while this keeps advertising revenue in-check, it’s not good for users. Content becomes diverse and dissipated, not to mention undesirable and in-your-face; it is like having the contents of an entire newspaper summarized on one page, and this brings us to consistency.

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Here is an excerpt of recent articles I’ve shared on my Google Reader.

Theme park gives kids a taste of capitalism. CNN

Have we reached peak oil?

Central London’s unused underground tunnels for sale. New York Times

Google proves humanity is sick and sad, but absolutely hilarious.

Exxon Mobil posts record $45.2 billion profit in 2008.

New battery technology increases 17″ MacBook Pro battery life by 60%.

Google enters the smart grid industry.

Google voice search on the iPhone, and an on-the-fly translator.

Matthew Honan’s experiment with the location-aware lifestyle.

“Simply put, location changes everything. This one input, our coordinates, has the potential to change all the outputs. Where we shop, who we talk to, what we read, what we search for, where we go; they all change once we merge location and the Web. I wanted to know more about this new frontier, so I became a geo-guinea pig. My plan is to load every cool and interesting location-aware program I could find onto my iPhone and use them as often as possible. For a few weeks, whenever I arrived at a new place, I would announce it through multiple social geo-apps… I would become the most location-aware person on the Internet…

The trouble started right away. I was going to be gone for a week on business. Did I really want to tell the world that I was out of town? It wasn’t just leaving my wife home alone that concerned me… anyone who cared to look at my Flickr page could see my computers, my spendy bicycle, and my large flat-screen TV all pinpointed on an online photo map. Hell, with a few clicks you could get driving directions right to my place…”

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1. Matthew Honan, Issue 17.02, Wired Magazine.

“On November 5th, a launch campaign began in Tokyo, with two McDonald’s locations in Shibuya and Omotesando being totally converted to ‘Quarter Pounder’ shops. The restaurants offer only two choices on the menu: a Quarter Pounder set for 500円, and a Double Quarter Pounder set for 600円. The interiors are minimal black, and feature Le Corbusier sofas. Interestingly enough, there are no discernable connections to McDonald’s: no golden arches, no Ronald. Japanese consumers are not likely to know exactly what a pound is, or a quarter for that matter, but no clues are even offered on the ultra-minimal Quarter Pounder website.”

1. fivebyfifty » QUARTER POUNDER.
2. NO LOGO, Naomi Klein.

Here is an excerpt of recent articles I’ve shared on my Google Reader.

The Hive Five winners: what’s the best tool for the job?

Amazing tilt-shift time-lapse videos.

Ten ways to re-think your commute. BBC

“Near perfect” solar design could change the entire industry.

Redscale film shows analog photography is not dead yet.

Google’s green energy future revealed.

Silver-zinc batteries coming in 2009 with 40 percent better run-time than lithium-ion.

Long overdue GPS upgrade could save airlines $10 billion a year.

Current State makes you mini Captain Planet.

Revised on September 26, 2008.

There has been a surge of webpage re-designs in 2008, though some may be controversial, the momentum of Web 2.0 has continued to revitalize content delivery in the digital age, and how far have we come. Not only has the front-end interface been upgraded to cater for more intuitive, efficient surfing, server load on the back-end has been reduced, and upon the client-side, next generation browsers have promised enhanced performance and sophisticated features, under even tighter security. Not to mention the unprecedented growth and potential of mobile browsing. Now all that I need is free city-wide Wi-Fi.

1. 10 hot web re-designs of 2008, CNET.

Here is an excerpt of recent articles I’ve shared on my Google Reader.

The end of aviation: what will happen when we can’t afford to fly?

McCain vs. Obama on renewable energy.

Chase Jarvis: Advance testing the Nikon D90.

‘Traffic from space’ videos blow our minds. BBC

What’s it like to stand on the Water Cube’s high-dive platform?

1 percent of Australia’s geothermal power potential equals 26,000 years of energy.

Slow down in a world built for speed. Carl Honore

Here is an excerpt of recent articles I’ve shared on my Google Reader.

Why Top Gear got it all wrong in “Prius versus M3″.

Apple’s application store could emerge as $1.2 billion business by 2009.

The future could be swell, but we’re blowing it. United Nations

Time for Plan B: cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. Lester R. Brown

Are gadgets using up some elements?

China’s plastic bag ban is working so far.

Mercedes plans to eliminate fossil fuels from product line by 2015.

How priorities make things happen. Scott Berkun