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Media User Experience User Interface

Jaime Levy: redefining UX Design through creativity and innovation

A visionary UX designer, Jaime Levy has garnered recognition for her exceptional creativity, innovation, and contributions to the field of user experience design but most importantly pioneering the early internet era of online content creation and editing. With an unwavering passion for blending technology, design, and storytelling, Levy has shaped the digital landscape and redefined the way users engage with products and services.

It was a period of changes and of cyberpunk, the Berlin Wall was no more, the Soviet Union vanished a few years later, and the web ascended upon individuals creating a new way of connecting and producing contents with a multitude of services. The revolution of the internet was a high wave a few daring individuals had the ability to surf.

Jaime Levy was born in Hollywood California attending San Francisco University State University graduating with a B.A., then obtained her master in interactive telecommunication program from NY University of Tisch School of the Arts.

The 90s were the commercial blooming years for Silicon Valley with a crescendo of computer companies investing in California. The new medium was the computer having become a staple appliance across many households in the Unites States.

Jaime Levy in the early 90s.

Jaime Levy understood the potential of the web not just as a communication tool, but as a leverage to deploy a whole new meaning of products and services from advertising to web development, including the distribution of digital goods bypassing the traditional channels.

The 90s were fostering the idea how the web would spawn a whole new meaning of digital interactions and content consuming. The internet was aiming at replacing the old medium like the press and TV, and slowly everyone was turning their head at the marvel of creating virtual products without involving industrial capabilities.

This is the era of the Web 1.0 where the user mainly acquired information using html documents as an extension of the press, libraries, and book shops. However, Jaime didn’t like playing by the rules and pushed ahead to distribute her works to all computer owners.

Cyber Rag magazine on floppy disks.

Jaime created and published the e-zine named Cyber Rag, a digital alternative and cyberpunk magazine on a floppy disk in the first years of the 90s. The magazine is part of her artistic counter-culture production and a major statement of early digital art in public galleries. Her creativity as a digital artist went onto producing in 1993 an interactive press kit for Billy Idol’s album titled Cyberpunk.

In 1994 Jaime was working at IBM as a UI designer while at the same time producing an animated series called Cyber Slackers, and it’s here we see a major contribution of online content as one of the earliest productions seen on the web. This idea were coming from brainstorming sessions Jaime would have with her friends while in New York, creating new things way ahead of their time getting inspired by real life.

It was while at IBM Jaime was introduced to their web browser Mosaic for the first time, understanding how the importance of dynamic content would play in favor of her creativity, so she begun exploring HTML and followed that path boosting her career and work output.

She landed a creative director position a year later at Icon CMT, there Jaime started creating Word.Com online magazine receiving praise and recognition for the structure content. Her constant effort and creativity eventually allowed her to be recognized by Newsweek magazine in the Top-50 people in cyberspace, then features on TV in Good Morning America as The Most Powerful Twenty-somethings int he US.

Having the ability to read a magazine online was unique for the time. Web pages that were usually static and written just with HTML (CSS came later), were suddenly enhanced with animations and sound making interactivity the main feature of these contents. Web users were exposed to new type of media giving them the power to be in control of what they were reading.

Looking back at Jaime’s accomplishments it’s possible to see how much she pushed the envelope of digital creativity, and how successful she was in influencing Silicon Valley with her ability to develop content and leverage the web as a major distributing platform.

Jaime wearing sunglasses.

Thirty years ago the general consensus towards the internet was limited considering it a thing for nerds, something quite of a niche involving specific groups of people dedicated to tech stuff, nowhere as close as radio, TV, press, with their coverage and influence. Along with other women in tech, she was featured multiple times on newspaper and magazine for her ability to change the status-quo of the cyber space.

As a pioneer of interface design and early digital online contents, Jaime continuously experimented with her work. A roller coaster of opportunities and failures chiseled her career by becoming an influential creative before anything else. At heart she is an artist experimenting with technology, pouring out the postmodernism narrative of the newly globalized society using computers to change the culture.

First issue of Cyber Rag only on floppy disk.

As the 90s flipped into their second half things started to change for Jaime, and after leaving Word.Com confident in finding a new role in another company to continue innovating the web, but unfortunately it didn’t go as planned as the drums of the commercial internet phenomena started to drown in noise all her work and creativity. There was a struggle to create more and more relevant content as the web grew exponentially quarter after quarter.

After looking around she moved back to California in LA with a deep sense of uncertainty, leaving behind New York and major efforts in Cyber Slackers with her published content and art works. From a nice Manhattan loft to somewhere in the city of angels performing freelance gigs.

Perhaps returning home was a rushed decision, some of her friends and former colleagues remained in New York as the east coast of the US started becoming the second hub of tech innovation: several design companies such as Razorfish would become important players in this industry. Jaime did reflect upon this, asking herself if she would fit or if these companies were ready to handle her.

But why didn’t we see any of Jaime’s works in the last years or did we hear of her? The majority of her creations were stored into mediums we no longer use, they haven’t been distributed beyond their original format and the last time I used a floppy disk was 2003. Jaime’s work isn’t for the masses, it’s a dedicated crafted art that found through the digital medium its purpose, also cyberpunk wasn’t for everyone and as a movement it was dwindling down yielding to other socio-cultural happenings. But also the Dot Com Bubble had just blown crashing the markets and creating a black hole where company investments suddenly disappeared into thin air.

First edition of the book from 2015.

In 2016 I was searching for some reading material on UX design and many online users were suggesting UX Strategy by Jaime Levy, published by O’Reilly Media (ISBN 1449373003). The book is a very good set of information that are well explained and layered out, illustrating with real cases how to create experiences for brands.

After finishing the book and taking many notes and sticking plenty of bookmarks across pages, I went on with on with my life leaving the book on my shelf. I never bothered searching for the author how I usually do, and then forgot about it.

It’s 2023 and out of curiosity decided to read Jaime’s book again gliding over the highlighted sections to test my knowledge. The book still stood solid despite the passage of time. A second edition and updated edition was published two years ago by the same company (ISBN 9781492052432 ), that is next on my purchase book and eager to see what new strategies she implemented. This is how I discovered Jaime Levy and her work deciding to write about on this blog.

A word of advice for designers.

Jaime’s career spans over thirty years of digital creative publishing and innovation that have influenced the early days of the web. Perhaps ahead of its time just like the avantgarde artists that often tend to see the future before anyone else. Getting things right and wrong is the duty of these artists without the need to be apologetic.

Jaime has continued her career in UX design providing innovation and strategy to companies like IBM, Huge, Cisco, and many more. She has been teaching at various universities in California and New York contributing with her knowledge to shape the experience-making in product design.

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Brands Companies Media

Netflix, what’s happening? (long post)

When Netflix offered itself to BlockBuster in September of 2000 for just $50 million, laughter was the answer from former CEO John Antioco further declining another offer to take BB’s titles online through Netflix. Antioco’s tenure of BB would be short after that moment as the company pitched into a nosedive for obvious reasons bleeding liquidity and popularity, one of them being the pursuit of old business models avoiding any foresight of tomorrow’s changes, but the most important was ignoring how technology had changed society at the turn of the century with internet and its many applications.

On the other hand, Netflix had embarked on a successful journey after that September of twenty two years ago, first with in-mail DVD shipping and then with streaming their content over a computer, until today where any electronic device linked to the web can play what the company has to offer. Success allowed Netflix to produce its own format rather than just publish movies or tv series from other sources, they did so by marketing their IP trying to surf the latest socio-political trends of the last five years, and this allowed their brand to remain relevant across the expanding popularity of social platforms reaching billions of people worldwide. The perfect communication machine.

Growing pains

As the company expanded its roster investing many millions of their own into new productions, prices slowly went up from their original monthly fee of $8 to the $15.49 of its premium streaming quality -almost doubling- but it’s understandable as times do change having inflation playing its part and new content costs quite a bit to make. This left Netflix vulnerable in the last few years with production targeting specific themes of culture, sexuality, ethnicity, politics, making it a risky bet because social issues have been galvanizing left and right the population with a crescendo in recent times. Also, their decision to sever ties with actor Kevin Spacey for his allegations and therefore abruptly ending the hit House Of Cards, have played a major role in the company’s health.

This vulnerability turned the company from being a successful business model to a marketing machine willing to produce fast and loose content trying to please everyone in the audience over the latest trends. While it seemed to have worked in the beginning, now it’s not anymore and Netflix has been pulling the plugs on several projects that didn’t meet their expectations including series amid production, ratings have been dropping and the viewers are not willing to pay for content that caters to a specific niche of society, leaving the largest share of customers questioning recent price changes and subscription plans

About subscription plans, Netflix is introducing a basic one for $6.99/month with ads running inside. Ads? Yes, ads playing while you watch what you just paid and subscribed. Wasn’t the plan to pay for content having ads removed in the first place? Yes, it WAS, now no more. This is setting back Netflix by putting it in par with other solutions hooked to your living room TV set, now there is little difference of choice from your cable provider and a streaming service.

Why all of this? I’m assuming that Netflix is running low on options to fill back its treasure room that has been running low over the last years because of poor decision-making over their productions. Movies and TV series cost a lot, so much they have been bleeding Netflix for sometime without making back what they thought they would; who to blame? We can only blame the pervasive pursuit of marketing strategies and poor numbers that shift like a wind socket in all directions without any prior notice. Marketing departments play their game far from the field, they gather data according to trends with a superficial approach to the user’s needs until it’s too late and “Whoopsie Daisy!” the cookie crumbled.

Do your research

When creating or improving a product/service, the first thing to start with is research to acquire new data discovering the necessary. In User Experience you cannot afford to skip your research process otherwise you don’t have anything to work with, much like bricks when building a house, and you don’t want to deliver something useless that just costed a hefty budget. Netflix should have researched better data over what the users needed without focusing just on trends, and should have listened to paying customers on what they really wanted to consume; instead the company seemed to have audited outside their user base and based their marketing research in an echo chamber. Imagine running a restaurant near a university or college campus, sourcing your recipes to the tune of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green peas; albeit tasty options they don’t reflect your consumers’ wishes and habits. Youngsters don’t want those food options because they’ve been eating them for years at their parents and grandparents house every Sunday meal of their lives. Teenagers and young adults know pretty well they can eat anything without worrying about putting on weight or thinking about health-related issues, so they go ahead and chomp down burgers, fried food, and guzzle down sugars like no tomorrow, so let them be, let them eat like that in their youth because they can only do that once in their lifetime. But Netflix doubled down and insisted on serving youngsters tofu and cold soups telling them they are healthy and that’s what the cool kids eat.

Issues

There are other important issues reaching the core of Netflix business structure that through time did not improve the company’s position, these five points are an influence to their brand name:

1. Netflix thrived when there were no competitors

At the beginning of this post I wrote about the early steps of Netflix and how it was the only company on the market, they did the right thing defying business giants like BlockBuster questioning their very own existence and eventually crushing them; this left a huge void to fill and so they did fill it alone without any metric to test their efforts. However, their rapid success overshadowed some important priorities such as which direction to take, but most importantly the did not establish a focus on a small/specific product line to consolidate and create the business identity, but rather constantly throw things at the wall hoping for something to stick.

2. Netflix thrived thanks to others’ IP

The floodgates of fame and wealth opened thanks to productions crafted by other companies, think about The Office, 30 Rock, The Parenthood, these just from NBC/Universal -going as back as 2011- along with vintage TV series from our youth. It was a major hit for Netflix especially because portable devices like smartphones and tablets were new technologies capable of streaming contents from the web, this helped a lot in their growth process.

3. Others watched and learnt

Disney amid others like Hulu, NBC/Universal, Amazon, silently watched from afar and started taking notes on the future of entertainment away from the traditional TV cable distribution. Star Wars was coming back with three major movies continuing the saga, including season series and minor movies that would connect in between all the lore; so Disney bought all George Lucas Star Wars assets and removed their IP from others platforms and went on their own with their Disney+ streaming service. They’re plan wasn’t a fluke.

4. Others want their IP back

As we mentioned the competition catching up by making their own club house, brands like NBC/Universal want their IP back to be streamed exclusively on their platform. The Office is one of them along with 30 Rock, two very successful series that have been collecting accolades for years and years; now that they’ve departed Netflix the company tried to fill their voids with their own productions without the expected returns.

5. Stranger Things won’t last forever

This show is amazing and nostalgia is always a safe bet for brands, but how long will it last? Titles like Stranger Things have huge success until they don’t have it anymore, because producers push to saturation trying replicating through the seasons what made titles triumphant in the first place; however, the audience can easily catch that drift and there’s the high risk of emulating the many mistake of Game Of Thrones over their lasts three seasons. I assume Netflix has already something in the works to replace Stranger Things in the near future when its magic will eventually fade out, and this big next production should be founded on deep entertainment beliefs to be a worthy title for the company recuperating their wealth back.

Conclusions

I canceled my Netflix subscription in 2018 for lack of quality content and also because having Prime with Amazon was a better deal. I did enjoy streaming movies and TV series I hadn’t watched in a long time, but I grew tired of parsing through Netflix’s catalog where titles of average and low production were the majority, I assumed they belong to some forgotten VHS store placed in a strip mall in the suburbs, something like an old BlockBuster. I thought it was just me believing Netflix would allow you to watch any movie you wanted, working as a library where you will eventually find something to enjoy, unfortunately it wasn’t the case and there were families, friends, colleagues, where they all believed that too when they subscribed for their first time to the platform. Netflix doesn’t work like a library where you pull out of memory lane a title from your childhood; it’s also understandable for technical and practical reasons why this doesn’t happen. My criticism towards Netflix is them caving in too many trends that seem to be deep but are not while trying to cater and please everyone in the audience; the company should roll back at what made them popular  but it’s not possible to set back the clock as competitors have grown through time -so much- Netflix should diversify its business offer by providing something others can’t get their hands on for a while, they should entertain the idea of streaming different live events like e-sports, concerts, creating live shows, because if paying a monthly subscription to watch ads is now the thing for Netflix, they might as well become a TV network and change their format once and for all.

Some reading about Netflix:

https://about.netflix.com/en/news/announcing-basic-with-ads-us

https://thenextweb.com/news/netflix-subscriber-losses-dont-mean-streaming-is-dying

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/20/netflix-showing-limits-woke-capital-dave-chappelle-special-antiracist-baby/

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Media

Facebook into publishing

After a long period of slow morphing from social platform to market place, Facebook has set a new course towards publishing by developing tools for independent writers that will allow them creating contents and have them ready on the platform.

The project will start in the US with the possibility for small businesses to expand their reach through new channels and media formats. This will highlight furthermore the importance of content-creation as the main tool to move information and reach users.

It’s an important move by FB especially since Twitter leaped towards newsletters by acquiring Revue, a service similar to Substack, going beyond the boundaries of their platform and reaching new audience segments.

FB will likely face new challenges in terms of online debating and censorship now the company fully steered into publishing. Users subscribing to this type of service can expect topic limitations on what they can publish if FB policies are included, so we can anticipate the online debate to expand furthermore into a micro galaxy of its own.

Publishing has moved from mainstream realms onto smaller and more successful authors/creators over the last ten years, this thanks to internet and the wide availability of electronic devices that allow for a better variety of content browsing.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea to improve how businesses can connect to their audience and customer base. Fresh new approaches are essential to create new curiosity by developing ways to understand social behavior especially in these pandemic times.

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Media

Exiting YouTube

This morning I woke up to this message by Joe Rogan announcing his departure from YouTube onto Spotify for an exclusive content deal. The Joe Rogan Experience will slowly move throught the summer and through the fall with his videos and podcasts transitioning to the new hosting platform away from YouTube and Apple Podcasts. This move has the potential to inspire other content creators to seek better deals and conditions to protect their intellectual properties.

Over the last two years YouTube channels have been hit with a demonitization process that took away the majority of earnings from content creators. Ads stopped rolling when companies decided their brand didn’t want to be associated with certain videos and topics, this prompted the YT community to look elsewhere for sponsor funds so they could keep up their output for their fans.

A large number of youtubers create content for the audience so they can watch it for free, yet for some this is a form of hobby and for others a full time job that puts bread on the table. I know many people over the internet believe making video as a childish things, perhaps some dare saying that’s not a real job, however looking at the steady quality of Joe Rogan his passion for conversation and knowledge keeps people listening for hours.

Recent Youtube policy changes in terms of monetization, advertising, content topic, have left creators very bitter especially for the lack of communication from the YT management. The aftermath of all this unwanted shifts prompted big creators to reconsider their position and to protect their intellectual properties. Other minor video/social platforms have emerged and youtubers do parallel uploading of their creations to increase followers and monetizations.

I believe Joe Rogan will set a precedent motivating other big names to move away from Youtube. Even Twich has succumbed to strict policies who have become unfriendly with internet users. But The Joe Rogan Experience is a strategic platforms for hosting a large variety of interesting people from show business to academia. Some of his guests have been at the center of controversis drawing all kinds of attentions, therefore increasing number of viewers and visibility to the podcast.

Rogan has managed to take away from Youtube millions of viewers, investments, followers, with the possibility to start a domino effect affecting the video platform of Google who has drifter away from user-content and more towards cable network influences. His move works also as a statement towards the lack of concerns from Google and other tech giants to address the issues affecting content creators.

User Created Content remains the next frontier of communication for millions of people across continents. With very little youtubers have grown into businesses often registering millions of dollars of profits and a viewership no television channel has ever imagined. This type of digital format has reshaped people’s behevior into adopting mobile devices as the main and respectable alternative to television. I wouldn’t be surprised if YouTube has an actual plan to boot large content creators off their platform to keep only passive viewers, turning it into another television network.

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20 years, every day.

Noah Kalina has kept going with his project of a picture of himself each day of his life, and now he has reached the 20th year of this amazing art project and human/social research.