Month: July 2011

July 23, 2011

Trying to cancel a Spotify account

I’ve used Rdio for about a month now. Earlier I wrote how much I love the service. I still do, it’s tremendous. When Spotify launched in the US I figured I’d sign up for their premium account and give it a shot for a month.

After a few weeks of using the service it’s clear that it’s not for me. I don’t like how Facebook determines the entire social graph. 1 I don’t like how it automatically crawled my iTunes library without my approval. 2 Mostly though I just didn’t like the service as much as Rdio.

Since my premium account was $9.99 a month I wanted to cancel it while it was fresh on my mind. Turns out Spotify makes it pretty difficult to do this. You first have to head to your subscriptions page. There you see this:

Silly me for thinking I’d find a nice “Cancel” link on that page. You have to go all the way to the bottom where you’re able to view your options for leaving. Okay, that’s not terrible. A bit obtuse of a UI, but I’ve seen worse.

That “View your options” link then takes you to this screen:

Alright, that’s just lame. I’m trying to end my paid subscription. I clearly already know what a premium subscription to Spotify offers because I already dealt with all the marketing copy when signing up. Bombarding me with the bullet points again seems desperate.

There’s still no cancel link though. I guessed that it was the “Why do you want to leave?” bit all the way down at the bottom. Turns out you have to go to this page where you then have options for telling Spotify why you are cancelling.

In contrast, Rdio has a Subscriptions tab in my account settings. There, right at the bottom highlighted in red text is a button that reads “Cancel subscription.” Simple. Easy. Intuitive.

When paying for web services trust is a huge factor. It may seem counter intuitive, but the easier you make it for users to leave the more likely they are to stay. They’ll simply trust you more for being upfront with them. Rdio understands this. Spotify clearly does not. Don’t hide vital account functions like cancellation behind tongue in cheek questions like “Why do you want to leave?” I know why, just let me do it and get out of my way.

Notes:

  1. A Facebook account which I don’t have. ↩
  2. That part definitely wasn’t cool, my local drive is separate from your web service, keep your hands off of it. ↩

July 23, 2011

Problems with AP’s new “linking” policy. Good post from Lauren Rabaino that breaks down the problems with how the Associated Press is mishandling links. Some seriously backward thinking going on there.

July 23, 2011

Outdoor office FTW

It’s a gorgeous day in Portland today. A perfect excuse to work outside.

July 22, 2011

Don’t forget the popcorn!

I spent all day helping a friend move across town. We were so close to getting everything in to the new place and then realized we forgot the popcorn in the elevator. 🙂

July 22, 2011

Don’t Fear the Internet. Fantastic series that aims to introduce basic HTML and CSS to non-web designers. The videos are incredibly well designed and focus on getting you actually doing things.

July 21, 2011

More photos and a reading list

I’ve meant to set up a photo blog for a while now. I made a quick photo theme a while back but it was really just a dirty hack of this theme and I never got around to setting it up. This time I decided to eat my dog food and set it up on WordPress.com.

This way I can use the iOS app even more and maybe hammer on post by email some as well. I got that set up last night so head on over and take a look.

I also have wanted to start tracking more information through my domain. I started off simple by just writing a basic reading list feature into my theme. It’s a digital bookshelf stream of sorts.

I’m hoping things like length of time reading and page count will, in aggregate, show some cool data after a year. I still have to figure out how to track length with Kindle texts though.

There are some rough edges, author and genre pages for example, but I’ll clean up the loose ends and then make it all available on the existing Github project.

July 21, 2011

Leading by Omission. A talk about management and what’s wrong with taking a traditional business approach by Ricardo Semler. The beginning has some wonderful examples of industry malaise and lack of innovative problem solving.

July 21, 2011

Missing the point with school social networks

I read an Edudemic article this morning about the future of school social networks:

Now, a movement is afoot to create student-friendly social networking sites, which would be limited to education and bound to particular districts or schools. These sites would give students the chance to communicate with peers in person and via the computer, in a setting not unlike an online school. Yet the most desirable aspect of school-friendly social networks may be that they would allow students to work together in a productive manner, while providing adults with the peace of mind sites like Facebook simply cannot offer.

This is all well-intentioned but it likely won’t be successful in any meaningful way.

It reminds me of educational video games. Things that education executives draw up to try to marry technology with their version of learning. They don’t work. You can’t create a video game that kids will want to play by removing its soul.

Similarly, creating a school social network by allowing for social connections which parents, teachers, and administrators approve of misses the point. You’re leaving out the soul of a network. It’s this soul that makes Facebook and Twitter so appealing in the first place.

Growing up outside of a very small, rural town meant being extremely isolated in many ways. Had you told a junior high or high school version of myself that I could use something like Twitter, Facebook, or, hell, even my blog to connect through shared interests with people irrespective of place, age, or social status I would have been floored.

That’s the soul of these platforms. That’s what makes them revolutionary for schooling. If you think creating sanitized, school-friendly networks watched over by parents and administrators is going to create any meaningful learning opportunities then you’re totally missing the point.

Educate kids on proper usage. Teach them online safety. Show them the power of serendipitous connections to people a world away. But don’t, for their own sake, limit their potential because of fear.

July 20, 2011

Evening clouds

After a few days of rain the sun has brought out sweet clouds in Portland.

July 19, 2011

America’s ‘detainee 001’ – the persecution of John Walker Lindh. Superbly well-written article by John Walker Lindh’s father about his son’s decade long detainment by the U.S. Government. Quite sad, but powerful, to read at times.