Just a quick thought that I’ve been meaning to write about but never do: Apple’s iPhone didn’t start out a closed ecosystem; as I remember, Apple fought the good “open” fight against all the developer and press grumblings when they announced their Web Apps strategy with the initial iPhone release. All they heard was whining […]

(Mountain View) – Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Patterns, and Practices for Improving the User Experience, a new book on design patterns for social software by current colleague Christian Crumlish and former manager Erin Malone, features a riff on Micah Laaker’s recent “Evaluating Openness” missive. Headlining for Chapter 17 (“Open for Business”), Laaker’s “What does it […]

Nearly 5 years ago, I joined Yahoo! to work on its “Front Doors” effort: a re-imagining of its starting points (i.e. Yahoo.com, Yahoo! Search, My Yahoo!, and Yahoo! Toolbar). My work inside since has woven through several products and teams, but there is a consistent theme: working on products and platforms that expand the capabilities […]

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of presenting “Designing Your Product as a Platform” for BayCHI’s monthly program at Xerox PARC alongside Dan Brodnitz (who presented “20 Conversations About Creativity”). In the talk, I spoke about what it meant to be “Open.” The word “Open” is pretty packed with meaning, and I rarely find […]