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'Don’t ignore your stupid ideas.'

williamwilkinson.com

1–10 of 41 posts

Re: 'Don’t ignore your stupid ideas.'

#6

For all the new designers out there, please don't add a CSS text shadow to the main body of your text content. By highlighting everything, you make everything less readable.

And don't replace the default scrolling with javascript, it's slow.

And doesn't work right. Hitting "page down" doesn't work unless you first click on the page with your mouse.

Re: 'Don’t ignore your stupid ideas.'

#7
What does this say? I mean, it's nice that he made a popular app and a ton of money, but there is nothing to learn here. It was either raw luck or a stupid populace or both that made this happen. There's no insight in to the design of a well made and genuinely entertaining or interesting application here, just a gimmick app that somehow made it big.

It's discouraging to read things like this, because the implied moral is "any stupid idea you come up with has a chance of making it big". But if that's true, then why bother taking your time to design good applications? Why strive for excellence when some random gimmick app is just as likely to make money?

Re: 'Don’t ignore your stupid ideas.'

#8

What does this say? I mean, it's nice that he made a popular app and a ton of money, but there is nothing to learn here. It was either raw luck or a stupid populace or both that made this happen. There's no insight in to the design of a well made and genuinely entertaining or interesting application here, just a gimmick app that somehow made it big. It's discouraging to read things like this, because the implied mora…

It reminds you that when your small ideas require proportionately small efforts, you might as well do them and see what happens.

Too many people inappropriately shrug off their smaller thoughts as not worth doing, because they're not going to 'change the world' or some other low-probability outcome.

Re: 'Don’t ignore your stupid ideas.'

#9

What does this say? I mean, it's nice that he made a popular app and a ton of money, but there is nothing to learn here. It was either raw luck or a stupid populace or both that made this happen. There's no insight in to the design of a well made and genuinely entertaining or interesting application here, just a gimmick app that somehow made it big. It's discouraging to read things like this, because the implied mora…

What does it mean?

Perhaps iPhone users really are that desperate?

Re: 'Don’t ignore your stupid ideas.'

#10
Not shown: 1000s of goofy iphone apps that generated close to $0

If the moral of the story is "Do funky apps for fun and be happily surprised if they make any money" then I agree. If the moral is "Do funky apps and expect to make $16k over a weekend" then I have to disagree.

Note: I say this as the co-author of a very nice funky app: http://fakewhale.com I am currently waiting by the phone for investors or acquirers to call.

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