Ryan McManus's Barbarian Blog

The Raft

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:16:02 -0500

“[Jobs] built a perfect machine in Apple, his best machine – but the thing that sunk in as I read his biography is that that craft was designed for a single operator.”

Some thoughts on a post-Jobs Apple over at my Tumblr.

Firefox wants to Webify you.

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:54:04 -0400

Our friends at Mozilla asked us to help them ring in the launch of Firefox 6 by celebrating the unique nature of the Internet and our relationship to it. The Internet is pretty amazing–though it’s the same everywhere in the world (well, mostly – sorry China), every person experiences it in their own personal way. What might be a routine day on the Internet for me would be totally different for a woman 10 years younger from Akron, Ohio who loves surfing.

Each of us have our own very unique web, which is the concept behind Webify Me. The site guides you through a 20 question “Internet persona” quiz (sort of like you’d find in Sassy Magazine in 1992) to divine just what kind of Internetter you are. Upon completing the quiz, the site automatically assembles and lays out a collage of totems; personal objects to represent all of the unique facets of your Web. Click on any totem to find out what it represents and symbolizes.

Your collage is then saved to a gallery on the site where users browse other people’s Webified selves, and you can also save your collage to your desktop, tweet it or post it to your Facebook wall to show off.

We’ve always loved the revealing nature of what’s in your bag photos; all these seemingly innocuous objects laid out on a table, combining to reveal a lot about their owners. We wanted to make a site that would use this metaphor in a digital way, but still feel very physical.

The process of building a site like this took us on a sort of wild scavenger hunt, combing different cities for the 250+ objects that would come to represent each user’s collection. We then had to label, catalog and carefully photograph each item to create a database of totems for our machine to pull from (not to mention about a dozen possible background surfaces).

We then had to map out a quiz which would create a collage that was both unique and relevant to the user. That meant having questions with answers which were weighted towards types of behavior, not just mapped to single objects. We also added in variables like location, browser type and other fun easter eggs to ensure a truly unique experience that would provide a snapshot of each visitor’s personal Web.

We’re very excited to launch this project with Mozilla – so go find out what your Web looks like. You’re unique and beautiful, and we love you.

Ryan Adams Hates Your Freedom!

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:23:43 -0400

Ryan Adams hates your freedoms. And I love him for it.

LP Roulette

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 14:20:43 -0400

Like most good ideas, LP Roulette came about over lunch.

Benjamin Palmer, Pfeffer and I were talking: What is it that record stores offer that the Internet doesn’t? What aspect of discovery have we lost?

The thing we came up with, besides local community, is browsing by album art. Those of us old enough to remember used to sometimes just browse racks and racks of LPs or Longboxes and when we stumbled upon some bad-ass looking album art, our interest was piqued. Often, that’s all you had to go on – if the clerk didn’t know or have an opinion, you were on your own. No checking Pitchfork on your iPhone.
”
And often, when you did roll the dice, man, it was BAD. Bad bad. But sometimes, juuuust sometimes, it was AWESOME. Dinosaur Jr.’s “Green Mind”., Galdalf, Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend”.
(I STILL have a 14 year old crush on that girl)

So we set out, over lunch, to fix that. To bring back that thrill. We give you, Internet, LPRoulette.com.

LP Roulette picks an album at random from Amazon’s stacks. You get the cover, the name of the record and the band name. That’s it. No ratings, no preview, no social tools. Look good? Buy it instantly. Not your cup of tea? Try the next record in the bin.

Pure, unadulterated music discovery. Happy Hunting!

No Ad: NY

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:15:28 -0500

Yes! It’s true – we helped build NO AD: NY with Morgan Spurlock and the good people at Aviary. It’s a collective project to edit out all the ads in Times Square, to imagine what the mort densely advertised place on Earth would be like if the ads suddenly vanished. We’re stoked to be part of it.

But we need your help! Go on, edit a frame, pitch in. And tell your friends?