cruel to be kind

I wrote shortly at Corante podcasting blog about Dave Slusher’s new service AmigoFish. I think it is important to write about such new tools, especially when they help the customer (in this case the listener) to get more of what they want – we haven’t seen a lot of those improvements in the last weeks.

AmigoFish is baiscally a tool, where you rate shows you like and don’t like, and then get predictions for what you might like also. Seems simple, but I find it quite valuable because the choice of shows already is so overwhelming. It might be easier for new listeners to get a set from a friend and then explore from there on a service like AmigoFish, and I highly encourage you to enter your ratings.

So when Dave asked me a while back ago about my feedback on his system, he of course got it. I usually can’t resist such a call. ;o) But why did it make my morning?

Warning, if you can’t stand people talking about what others have to say about them, skip to next entry ;) But I am more like a child in this having joy in sharing my joy with you. :o)

I wrote that entry yesterday, because I saw he had launched it to the public. On this morning’s blog read, I saw in my technorati watch list his quote on the AmigoFish blog “(Virtual) Ink from Corante”:

Nicole Simon has nice things to say about AmigoFish today in Corante.

It should be noted that her input is what drove the creation of the cosmos functionality. I originally didn’t think it would be valuable. After I went ahead and implemented a prototype version of it and then found myself navigating from show to show for dozens of steps from the first one, I realized that this was indeed a cool thing. Even now, sometimes I just look at the cosmos for shows, and then continue on the path for a while, seeing the top show in subsequent cosmos. It’s just plain cool. Thanks, Nicole.

See, told you so. (They usually say thanks at the end.) But it was going to get better than that.

When I was checking, if somebody has written something about it at Corante, I saw Dave did there too – and that really made me laught!

Nicole, thanks – for both the write up and your input in the alpha stage. It should be noted that the “Cosmos” functionality in the site came entirely from your suggestions and moreover it was one that I originally laughed off as not useful. After thinking about it and fiddling with algorithms, I realized you were right. Now it is part of what I really like about the project. As opposed to the very “me-centric” view of things via predictions, it is more of a gestalt view of what the general sentiment is amongst shows. Awesome!

I invited you precisely because I knew you’d be tough and while it stung a little to get your (quite long) original feedback, it is better today for having endured that stinging sensation. I appreciate your time and directness and willingness to express difficult truth to me.

“to express difficult truth” – now you know why it is called cruel to be kind. :o)

Thanks Dave, for making my day start with such a smile. Now I have to see where I can use that quote for advertising my services ;))

Tags: cruel to be kind