thoughts on ffwd.com demo at DEMO.
a couple of thoughts — a) DEMO really kicks ass — great way launch a product — the amount of twitter on ffwd made me mad jealous.
b) i repeat myself — i cant understate the value of simple. I like ffwd, the people behind it are strong industry vets and their beta has been very interesting from the beginning. They are definitely addressing an interesting problem (well we might be a little bias here) and had a nice social approach. The issue here seems to be that their extended development and beta cycle left a site clearly decided by committee. There is so much going on that all you get it noise (now its entertaining noise, and maybe thats the point) but its almost impossible to navigate to anything of premium quality.
you click on the 30 rock channel and i get some cgc (consumer generated content/crap) of some girl singing muffin-top song. maybe thats what some people find entertaining but i am most definitely out of that bell curve. granted the channel has a disclaimer noting that quality of the channel is improving, but come on — you people have a deal with hulu.
features (features, features everywhere, but not a drop to drink). I know where these features are coming from as i have been tracking the development of the site and all are most useful but i am totally overwhelmed. I have 30 (a little exaggeration) variations on my channel concept and a million ways to fine tune it.
overall the UX is really interesting the UI is very professional and with time i think they are going to have a really great site, but there is that great saying (well actually my saying) — “start with simple, follow with function(allity)”
disclaimer — we are working on this same problem and its a biatch of a big one — i give ffwd serious props for their execution here i just wish they had gone a little minimalist (i.e. Philip Glass for you music nuts following them over from iLike)
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