It's slow?

So … it was reported that Google was “slow”.

This brings us to this blog’s title, Fast, is never fast enough. How slow does a Google search have to be, before you try an alternative service? And when did it start to matter how fast it takes me to find the answer to a question?

Google reported that 14% of its user’s experienced either an outage or “slow down”. So, if you were one of the people impacted on a Google, did you try to Yahoo? No one reported an increase in Yahoo’s traffic, at least that I saw. Does this mean the masses are so tied to Google that no one tried alternative search engines?

I understand the outrage over inaccessibility to Gmail and other services, but “slow” searching? How slow does searching have to be, before you try an alternative service? How many outages does Google have to suffer before users start to use another service?

I did an internet search, using Google and Yahoo, for the last reported Yahoo service outage. From the information that I found, the last Yahoo outage was back in February 2000 (source: 02/09/2000, Yahoo outage raises Web concerns, Network World Fusion, Brian Fonseca, http://www.networkworld.com/news/2000/0209yahoo2.html).

And look at the headline, “Yahoo outage raises Web concerns” and yet there were no gloom and doom Google outage web impact headlines.

My, “fast is never fast enough” quote originated when I was discussing purchasing CISCO stock back in the 1980’s (yes, see picture for proof) and he thought I wanted to buy the other SYSCO. I tried to explain the importance of network speed, the lowering costs of bandwidth, and the impacts on business. Because users are demanding ever faster networks, being fast today will not be fast enough in six months. Therefore, fast is never fast enough, and that CISCO was going to be successful.

I was amazed when the iPhone first appeared on the scene. Here you had a device about the thickness of a pack of cards and smaller than a 3 x 5 card that could access the internet from almost any location. And what was the major beef? It was slow! Slow! An easy to use, phone, internet access device that is smaller than a 3 x 5 card and the main complaint is that its slow?

And it seems that search is following the somewhat the same path. A fast search today will be considered a slow search tomorrow. Fast is never fast enough.

I’m reading about the new Amazon “Large Screen” Kindle and some reviewers are wondering if the device is too big. The Kindle 2 is about half the size of a sheet of paper and the new Kindle DX is about the size of an 8 1/2” x 11” sheet of paper. Since when is a sheet of paper too big?

So, if you happen to be developing a portable device how do you determine its appropriate size?

Way back in 1984 the first Motorola DynaTac cell phone was compared to a brick, in both size and weight. Today’s Razr cell phones are about 4” folded and 7” unfolded length wise and about 2” wide. I have a slider phone (not a Morotola) that has a slightly smaller screen than a Razr's but also happens to be 4” long docked and about 5 ¼” long extended and a little less than 2” wide. So it seems that the a good size goal for a basic cell phone may be the U.S. Dollar bill, as its 6.14 inches long and 2.61” wide or 155.956 mm long by 66.294 mm wide. Folding it in half reduces its size or overlapping sections like slider phones also make it more compact.

Well what about smart phones like the Apple iPhone or Blackberry? Well, take your basic 3” x 5” index card and design away. Most smart phones will easily fit onto an index card of this size (most are a little smaller actually).

If you are looking at designing something a little bigger, say a UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC)? Well a 6” x 9” wire bound steno pad seems to be the standard size.

I seem to think that maybe an 8.5” x 5.5” device might be a good size. Basically it’s the same as half of a sheet of paper. You might be able to get a screen size of about 8.5” diagonal. This is a little bit bigger than some of the UMPC’s on the market today, and provides some room for a larger screen and keyboard.

So, is using products that we seem to use every day to as a guide for new products? Well it seemed to work well for Herman Hollerith, who designed the first punch card system, somewhat based on the size of U.S. currency available at that time , which were a little larger than today’s currency, and the control cards for 1880 area textile looms. It could also be coincidental that the original iPod was about the same size as a deck of cards.