January 2009
6 posts
7 ways designing in public can improve your... →
I was going to say something about this, but it’s said much better here.
Karma?
There’s another dimension of a person’s participation in an event - intention.
If I run into someone walking around the corner and someone else comes to help us and those two people get married, I am essential, but I had a neutral intent.
If I see someone I don’t like and I punch them and someone comes over to help and they get married, I had a selfish intent.
If I want two...
Important vs. Essential
Say you’re talking to an old coworker at a party. Another person you know walks by, and you decide to introduce the two. You never see those people again, but they end up getting married and having a kid that invents the cure for AIDS.
On butterf.ly, you get just as much credit for the AIDS cure as its inventor, or the inventor’s parents. Traditionally, we give all the credit to...
Abuse & Permissions
Because everything is interconnected, content ownership would make things miserable. For example, if someone enters “Andrew Mason and John Doe hosted a poker game,” who owns it? John? Me? Both of us? What if John doesn’t know my email address (so I’m never formally linked to the event), then how do I claim ownership? It’s a mess.
Here’s a simple approach:...
December 2008
7 posts
Don’t think we should spend too much time getting the interface right before we code a prototype. Inevitably, we’ll want to change it once we start using it… so we should design just enough to make something usable.
Tree diagrams (and other visual structures) are indispensable for structuring data, but more often than not, they’re not the most useful way to display it to a human. You still have to navigate the tree and connect the dots to get your answer. They’re useful when you don’t know what you’re looking for, I guess. In the case of butterf.ly, though, for any given event, you...
As I hash out the butterf.ly interface, I’m finding myself lifting a lot of stuff from Twitter. I think that’s a good thing - interface isn’t where we want to innovate. If there are good design patterns out there, it’s less work for everyone to just use them.
Although the sites are very different, they are similar in the sense that most of your time is spent reading and...
What is Butterf.ly? (as of 12/30/08)
Butterf.ly is a website that shows you how the world is different because you exist.
To use butterf.ly, you start by entering an important life event - your job, your marriage, etc. You then answer the question, “who couldn’t I have done this without?” Those people are notified that they made a difference in your life, and they, in turn, tell butterf.ly who they...
First Butterf.ly charts
These charts demonstrate butterf.ly’s syntax.
My Job
@I founded #ThePoint
@EricLefkofsky offered @me funding
@EricBelcher told @EricLefkofsky about #ThePoint
@I built PPM4 for #Innerworkings
@SteveAlbini and @GregNorman inspired in @me a proper work ethic.
@RobBotchnick hired @me to work at #ElectricalAudio
@LindaGarton allowed @me to do an internship at #ElectricalAudio
...
First Post
I had the idea for butterf.ly, a website that shows you how the world is different because you exist, three or four months ago, in August, maybe. I have a lot of website ideas, but this one has been impossible to shake. Despite my overwhelming responsibilities at The Point, I am compelled to give butterf.ly a shot and see where it goes. I’m hopeful that spending an hour or so every day on...