codegent is a full service web development new media agency, based in clapham, london, uk, that delivers well-designed content managed sites, microsites and flash games supported by robust technology and integrated marketing solutions including search engine optimisation, pay-per-click and html email.
Recent months have seen patent law suit stories hogging the headlines of broadsheets, tech websites and blogs. It is becoming a popular debate in the digital industry, and seems to be getting bigger and more common by the day. Patent law isn’t a new concept, they’ve been knocking around since 500BC, and I don’t think anyone would argue that they’ve done a pretty good job of fostering innovation. King Henry VI in 1449 granted the world’s first 20 year patent to John Of Utyman for demonstrating the creation of coloured glass in England – a genuine advance in design that was well worth paying for, but there’s a limit to how far patents should be allowed to go. I think we are seeing that limit become increasingly obvious in the smartphone and digital tablet market. Making it a frustrating, time-consuming period for developers and users.
To make sure we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet - A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor, on agreement that they have created a particular product that is new, non- obvious and useful or industrially applicable. This written patent gives all the rights to the inventor and prevents others from making similar products, using or selling this product without the owner’s permission. When owning a patent you have the right to sell, license, assign or transfer your product. The space of time you own the patent for can vary depending on countries and international agreements, but must be re-issued and updated when out of date to stop others from using your idea.
As I said, the most notable patent problems at the moment surround the Smartphone and tablet market. Each smartphone may involve as many as 250,000 patent claims. Very recently infact (9th September 2011) patent law has seen Apple take Samsung to court in Germany, claiming that Samsung infringed the recognisable iPad design. The court judge Johanna Brueckner-Hoffman highlighted “the minimalist, modern form is a clear impression of similarity”, and had the Samsung Galaxy Tab removed from sale in the majority of European countries. However, the ban has now been lifted from European countries, apart from Germany, and put on hold while the court reviews whether the original ruling was appropriate. People are desperate to get their hands on these pieces of technology; a ban in Germany is not going to stop them importing it from other countries.
Apple and Samsung will also face each other in courtrooms in Australia, North America and Asia over similar claims. This appears to be a legitimate claim, with Apple at the forefront of design, they have created a new product that has a unique look and appeal for the digital market. The original iPad and the iPad2 have become iconic design symbols for 2011, surely no one can get away with creating something so similar.
While that claim might be at least vaguely sensible, we are starting to see a lot more that don’t sound so genuine. With claims of Google buying a patent, then selling it to HTC who promptly uses it to sue Apple it almost appears that each of these competitors are trying to get one over on each other. One-upmanship on a huge scale, with everyone being sued by everyone else, the only way to get one up and make their money back, is by finding another patent law they can buy, and then sue others for breaching it.
The growing popularity and potential profit of suing for breach of patents seems to be creating an influx of companies setting up businesses just to get money out of others. Therefore creating what appear to be ridiculous patents, for example LCC created a patent on sending confidential information over the internet, and is now suing large companies such as Microsoft and Monster.com.
Another crazy patent involves a court spending two months reviewing 675,000 pages of documents about a pattern on toilet roll. Yes, toilet roll, Georgia-Pacific claimed that Kimberley–Clark’s use of an embossed diamond pattern on Cottonelle violated its trademark and patents for a similar pattern used on Quilted Northern since the early 1990s.
Here are some of the strangest patents I have come across recently:
Buttock Parter - International Patent W002069773
Yes, that is a patent that parts your buttocks while you sit on the toilet seat.
Poop Catcher - German Patent DE4020440
One end of this devise connects where the sun doesn’t shine, and the other is connected to an all purpose suction pump. I think you can picture the rest for yourself.
Unicorn Maker - US Patent US4429685
This bizarre patent demonstrates how to create a unicorn by joining the two horns of a goat together creating one central horn. Abracadabra a unicorn.
Santa Claus Detector - US Patent US5523741
This child’s Christmas device uses its inbuilt power source to flash and tell you when Santa has arrived.
This has been quite the topic of conversation in the Codegent office recently, you can see why in this BBC News article.
This week the world’s favourite micro-blogging site Twitter announced that it’s crossed the 100 Million users mark. Quite an achievement for any online business and let us not forget that Twitter is a business. Their most recent round of venture capital funding will leave their value at 8 Billion dollars, but where’s the money coming from to justify that value?
Well as we all know, Twitter currently makes no money, it’s free to users and is a bottomless pit for the aforementioned funding. So what are the market speculators valuing at 8 Billion dollars? The site and all its posts? The technology behind the service itself? No, of course not. That myriad of information (purely narcissistic, or otherwise) although interesting is worth nothing, even the news reported on Twitter is usually a short version of what exists elsewhere in a much more readable form. Even the infrastructure itself over the years of R&D and redesign is probably worth somewhere from a few hundred thousand to a few million at the most (although the 24/7 running costs must be remarkable).
So what’s worth 8 Billion US Dollars to the many investors who keep Twitter running? You.
Quick calculation $8,000,000,000 ÷ 100,000,000 = $80
That’s pretty reasonable! Each user being worth $80 is a great deal, for it is you that they own. Unlike Facebook, to date Twitter seems to remain relatively unscathed in this regard. Facebook has come under plenty of fire for user privacy issues in the last 12 months. Mostly this is because Facebook is very clear that the user is their particular commodity, but people don’t like being seen this way. Facebook knows all about you, what you like, where you go, who you talk to.
Twitter is no different. It knows who you follow and therefore what you like. It knows who you tweet to and even where you are when you tweet. The reason it has escaped criticism is largely because it hasn’t taken advantage of this. Yet! But at some point the investors will want their $8 Billion back. Thus the conversation has been sparked, how long will it be until Twitter introduces advertising to their service?
On a wider level this has happened on similar services and successfully too. Google for example saturate you in advertising throughout all their services. They are so good at it though, the advertising itself is so subtle and so well targeted, that users rarely find it irritating. However, they achieve this in much the same way as Facebook, that being collection of personal data. Google know all about you, it’s just not as obvious as Facebook, who are recently the whipping boy for privacy issue gripes.
In fact, when Google bought out YouTube for close to $1.7 Billion in late 2006 they began the process of heavily commercialising the site. At first this resulted in the usual condemnation of any change but has been largely embraced and accepted by the sites users. And no doubt it’s this advertising that brings in the much needed running capital to ensure a site as complex as YouTube keeps going.
The fact is social media companies treat the user as a product, that’s just an underlying principle of online business. If you (the consumer) appear to be getting something for free, then you are the product. Overall, we have to recognise that this is a trend which is prevalent online now, the long game is king.
As members of this industry the strategy of these companies should be obvious to us, find a niche and populate that niche with great content for free. This will draw thousands, millions or even hundreds of millions of users to you. Once traction is that high, sell these users (or at least access to their prefrontal cortex’s) to the highest bidders.
Sounds horrific, doesn’t it but it’s actually not always a bad thing. The reason Facebook came under such scrutiny was their willingness to share user’s details with partners by default. If user’s have the ability to control what’s shared then bad press can be easily prevented, unfortunately Facebook learned this the hard way. That said, the other usage of our information by Facebook was internal, Facebook’s servers simply determined which, of their myriad of available adverts, were relevant to us. This actually works and personally I find it’s always showing me things I’m genuinely interested in. Google’s extensive algorithms seem to do much the same, with plenty of advertising, but all of it related to the searches I’ve made and hence, things I’m interested in.
We can only hope that lessons learned by others are taken into account when Twitter inevitably begins leveraging their huge user base for something more profitable. If adverts appear in my feeds which are relevant to me I should be happy, right? It’s a balance of course; most users accept that adverts are needed to support their favourite sites and services. This is still a learning period and both sides need to forge some tolerance. Users need to understand that who they are and what they like is up for grabs and online services need to understand there’s a limit to this, users will only tolerate being owned by their favourite service if that trust isn’t abused.
As a creative in a medium-sized digital agency, I often find myself juggling five different projects at a time. It demands concentration, finesse and a great playlist (I recommend Yuksek). I appreciate these moments, they create adrenaline and are hugely motivating.
When a big wave of work passes, and all the designs have been sent, it's suddenly a lot calmer at my desk. I call it the “waiting for feedback” period, or the “in between” stage. It can be great, but as someone who thrives on pressure, I don’t like sitting there with nothing to do. So I’ve come up with a list of things I do, that you may find useful.
You'll thank yourself later
Your personal library
When it’s hectic, you need things quick: photos, icons, buttons. Looking for them on a website, designing them, or picking them from another file costs precious time that you could be using more productively. So I bring them all together on the same PSD. Having everything together in the same place means no mucking around. Organise it like a pro and name all the layers. Doing this from the offset means you won't have to re-name each one of them on your final design... and we all know that’s a pain.
Be consistent with guidelines
Having all sorts of raspberry shaded colours for your links, or 5 different sized fonts, all fighting for their supremacy within your design, is always going to start looking like a dog’s dinner in no time. Templaters will be pulling their hair out on the development side if you present them with something inconsistent. So I create guidelines. A base on a photoshop file with the HTML colour codes, the font used, and the size for title, subtitle and content. Being as precise as possible, I use it for each of my projects instead of creating a new one. Then all I have to do is pick up elements as and when I need them.
Look forward
Wave your “availability flag”
When I’m not 100% work mad and I’ve finished my projects, I happily let my mind wander. This is the time to go for a walk around the office, wave your availability flag and be nosy. Designer mates might need help. Project managers may bring some new insight on future projects; or your boss might have some news on upcoming pitches.
Discover what's going on around you
Being up to date with what’s going on in the agency isn’t everything, it’s also really important to know what's happening outside the office in the fields of design, gadgets and informatics. Everything evolves so quickly in the digital world and technology is developing constantly. It's important to know what you are talking about and what is, and isn’t possible.
If I get any down time, I go hunting through my “Must read this!” bookmarks. Mashable, Smashing, and many other art/digital magazines are on the list. Igoogle normally has some tasty news. Thinking about what’s going on outside your immediate environment can pay dividends, Tmobile did this brilliantly with their adaptation of the Royal Wedding (around 23 million views) http://www.youtube.com/user/lifesforsharing?ob=5.
Hang around on your favourite design blogs and refresh your mind. Check out your competitors’ websites. And my personal favourite: awards websites. I'm always amazed by some ideas and it helps me think deeper and forget about boundaries. I am the design eyes of the agency; so if I find something great, I like to share it.
Open your mind, observe and learn
Watch out for great exhibitions
Plan your weekend. I am a pro when it comes to last minute planned weekends. Time Out London, Spoonfed and other websites are packed full of arty days outs. British people, you don't know how lucky you are being able to step in a museum for free. I had to pay a fortune back in France to access Beaubourg, le Louvres and le Musée de l'Orangerie, even with my Art student card! So now I visit exhibitions as often as I can: pop into galleries and practice street photography with my old Olympus. It teaches me to think about my shots and act with my mind rather than my finger. There is always a book shop on the way treasuring interesting books about Design, Art and Digital. Things you've seen, photos you’ve taken, people you've talked to, places you've discovered will all inspire you.
Ask Techies
I’ve never understood the distinction between designers and techies: after all we all do both, it’s just that my specialism is in the look and feel and theirs is in the build. Designers have to be technically aware and techies need to be creative - or at least they do in the world of digital. So, if I have an idea, however outlandish… I find picking a developer’s brain can pay dividends.
Back on the bench
In design, you need to be proficient in several softwares: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects... and their versions evolves all the time. There are always new shortcuts, new actions, new filters... if watching tutorials is not enough it's time for a course. Constructively use some of your free time to look out for interesting courses to improve your current skills, or help develop new ones. Photography is great for being able to master all sides of a photo shoot. Yoga or strategy courses to calm yourself, focus, and inspire your inner temple. Anything that helps you discover the unknown, gives you added value and helps you enjoy life.
Projects immersion
Finally, one of my multimedia professors told us once to be passionate about your projects. That was one of his main criticisms, you must be able to understand the subject fully and you must produce a piece of design in complete symbiosis with its purpose, respecting its target. To illustrate his point he told us about a salsa website he was working on that made him end up in a ... salsa class (if you saw him you’d find that hard to believe). Anyway, I’m waiting for a luxury spa project.
So, immerse yourself in your project, become the target, read books and magazines around a subject, think about it all the time, become a geek.
Or... write an article and enjoy your downtime, however fleeting it may be.
I’m recently new to Codegent but I’ve been working in London for a long time and there’s one thing that really grinds my gears lately. Not involving work, or home, or the digital world but rather all three, that being the bit in between, the journey to work.
Now I’m happy to admit that I’m a bit of slave to the digital world myself, I’ll agree that we’re in a new age of digital connectivity and therefore the easy access we have to the internet just about everywhere can greatly enhance our lives. Increasingly we can interact with the world in incredible ways through tiny devices we all carry in our pockets. I’m completely up for that by the way.
Just the other day I was out in London and spotted a lovely view of the Thames, which I snapped and popped onto Facebook, for my friends and family to enjoy, within a few seconds. While looking for a decent lunch in the West End recently I simply typed restaurants into my smart phone and saw every restaurant local to me. This was unheard of until recent years and is extraordinarily useful.
So these devices can enhance our interaction with the real world in a truly profound way, giving us information about the world, letting us record the world, even allowing us to enhance it. One thing I think people forget though is that they do live in the real world. I probably read my email and the news on my smart phone every morning and while sitting on the train this is easy. However, I then put my phone in my pocket and depart the train to walk to the office.
Some people though, have a very difficult time taking their eyes off the tiny screen that populates their vision. I’ve genuinely seen the train doors open and the person standing in front didn’t even move due to their smart phone induced stupor, causing what is popularly known as a Blackberry jam behind them.
People are texting and walking into the road obliviously, or into other people, or walking incredibly slowly down the pavement causing everyone behind them to move at a snail’s pace. I was just trying to get to work, I didn’t expect to be doing the conga through Wandsworth at 9am, I’d have dressed up a bit if only I’d known.
What I’m saying is, okay, great, we have cool smart phones. They can do some great things, brightening our experiences of the world and the way we interact with it. So if you’re wandering down the street browsing the net fair enough, the digital world is a vibrant addictive place. Just don’t do it in a very busy station, or while crossing the road, or piloting a shuttle mission or basically… in front of me. It just really grinds my gears!
