Media

The redesigned Google Maps comes with a handy virtual tour to acquaint users with what’s changed. That’s hardly revolutionary, but in a very nice bit of user experience engineering, the tour has some extra smarts built in. If, like me, upon first getting access to this new version you immediately start poking around and trying out various searches and only click on the tour option later, the tour’s messaging will cleverly acknowledge that state: Messing about with a new product unguided is a completely natural first use case for just about any product, and my guess is almost everybody does this. So creating a corresponding behavior for this tour makes perfect sense. Instead of assuming that the tour will commence with the product in its virgin state, this opening message says “It looks like you’ve already started exploring the new Google Maps!” and guides the user from there. This took a little bit of extra design and engineering, and the end result does not make or break the product. But to me, it’s significant in that it clearly signals how much thought and care the product team has invested into the app. That’s worth loads. If you don’t already have access to the new version, you can request access at the preview site, or read Google’s announcement from last month. To follow me on Twitter click here.

The social browser creates a unique Android app that introduces navigation for bigger screens and "elevator buttons" for improved scrolling.

An initiative offers creative and effective public service announcements for inspiration.

Sometimes, cease-and-desist letters are mere morsels of intimidation, their legal grounds swamps. One lawyer decided that the accuser, West Orange, N.J., itself needed to shut up and go away. His letter smacks of literary genius. Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

Since the state broadcaster was shut down last week and its 2,600 employees fired, there has been an outpouring of solidarity, despite its long history of mismanagement and patronage.

The Emmy Award-winning actor who shot to fame on the HBO drama “The Sopranos” as a hard-living crime crime boss.

In the final of five Mr. Magazine™ Minutes mini-series with top magazine media executives, chairman and CEO of Active Interest Media Skip Zimbalist tells Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni why he is bullish about the future and power of print magazines and magazine media. On Friday, watch for the release of Mr. Magazine™ Presents: Bullish on the Printed Magazines, a mini-documentary featuring all five interviews in the mini-series The Power and Future of the Printed Magazines. Join Mary Berner, David Carey, Steve Lacy, Bob Sauerberg, and Skip Zimbalist and yours truly in the first ever Mr. Magazine™ mini-documentary. Stay tuned!

In the debate over native apps versus mobile websites, The Boston Globe is officially hedging its bets. And in the how-much-to-charge paywall debate, it’s going surprisingly low. Today the newspaper is releasing a new native iPhone app as an extension of the subscription based BostonGlobe.com. Considering that the launch of the well-reviewed BostonGlobe.com two and a half years ago was considered a landmark in responsive design — meaning it reflowed readily from desktop to tablet to smartphone without the need for a native app — it’s an interesting move. As is the price: A full subscription to the Boston Globe iPhone app will cost just $3.99 a month. That’s $47.88 a year. Compare that to the alternatives: At full freight, a seven-day print-plus-digital subscription runs $727 a year, while a digital-only subscription costs $207 a year. All for the same content. “A year-and-a-half in, we’ve been able to grow the subscriber base with our own systems and relationship with the customer. But this gives us access to another group of people we think we haven’t been able to get as well,” said Jeff Moriarty, the Globe’s vice president of digital products and general manager of Boston.com. That audience, Moriarty said, is smartphone users — in this case iOS users who enjoy reading in the app environment, like discovering material through Newsstand, and who take advantage of the simplicity of the app store’s one-click purchasing. A supplement to responsive design, not a replacement #bostonglobeapp-slideshow { position: relative; width: 320px; height: 568px; } #bostonglobeapp-slideshow > div { position: absolute; } The Globe is, like other smart news organizations, recognizing that mobile is the future of news consumption. But its big bet was on responsive design — in a sense, a bet on mobile news being consumed in the browser rather than in a dedicated app — even though there were plenty of discussions within the Globe at the time about the wisdom of having a separate iPhone app to supplement its new web strategy. Moriarty said the core of the newspaper’s two-site strategy remains the same: Boston.com will be the destination for free news, entertainment, and information, while BostonGlobe.com will be the home to the Globe’s reporting. But the new app also acknowledges that there are some things responsive sites and mobile browsers can’t do. As HTML5 evolves, fewer and fewer of those things are about technological constraints. But apps do still have some advantages in discovery and attention — being there to be found in the App Store, having a default position on the user’s home screen, and in the case of Apple’s Newsstand, some advantages in terms of automated issue delivery. (Although some of those advantages are changing.) But Moriarty said going native shouldn’t be interpreted as a step away from responsive design. Taking the app route opens up users to a familiar set of gestures for reading and navigating, enables push notifications, and allows for a higher degree of customization, Moriarty said, noting that he couldn’t think of anyone “who has been as aggressive with responsive web design as we have and come back to the app market to take advantage of that as a niche play.” And newspapers can use all the niches they can assemble these days. The Globe app echoes the newspaper typography and general feel of BostonGlobe.com. It offers up all the main sections of the Globe, but also lets readers create a customizable feed of headlines or scan a selection of trending stories. Two additional features, weather and traffic, are likely to add some utility to the app for readers in the Boston metro area. “We focused on making it feel very mobile-native as opposed to porting an existing presentation over,” said Michael Manning, the Globe’s director for emerging products. The Globe built the app over several

George Zimmer, the founder of Men’s Wearhouse and a frequent presence in its commercials, was fired by the company’s board on the day of its shareholders’ meeting.

It's no coincidence that the teaser videos come just a day before Twitter rival Facebook is expected to announce an Instagram video feature for sharing more than photos through Instagram.