Arrested Development’s Mitch Hurwitz Talks About Getting the Bluths Back Together→

/

Another extensive interview with Mitch Hurwitz:

I do think the biggest difference is I really very quickly stopped making this as shows and started making it as an eight-and-a-half hour Arrested Development. And so my recommendation would be to sort of take it as a whole. But my other recommendation would be that people don’t feel compelled to watch it all at once. There might be certain social pressures on certain groups to do so—which I would say is wonderful and flattering. I don’t take any of that for granted.

But I just worry that, you know, you can watch all the 24s back to back because it’s action and you can stop when you get a little burnt out. Comedy requires something of the human body, you know. And you can get tired of laughing. I hope they’re laughing. But I also hope they don’t get tired of laughing, you know. So, really, it’s okay with us if you take your time. It’s yours now. That’s the whole thing with Netflix. It’s yours. Do with it what you want.

That "social pressure" is the primary reason I think Netflix is making a mistake releasing Arrested Development all at once.

'Arrested Development' Creator Mitch Hurwitz→

/

Rolling Stone:

Are you confident that a movie is going to happen?
This is definitely the first part of a bigger story. I know there's more story and I've mapped out the story. I'm confident in how that will be. Still, I wouldn't have predicted this Netflix thing years ago. The creative people involved in this want to do more together. The actors want to do more of this. I want to do more of this. The writers want it. I think every part of it will be easier, unless this is a giant debacle, which is also a possibility. In that case, we'll do it as a little stage show.

Despite my efforts to keep my expectations extremely low, I find myself excited about the new season of Arrested Development, which pops up on Netflix on May 26. This is a great long interview with the show's creator, Mitch Hurwitz. 

Like Once, Friend Anywhere→

/

Ben Thompson, a month and a half ago on his blog, stratēchery:

If we accept the thesis that messaging is the foundation of social on phones, and that messaging is inherently personal, then that means Facebook has a pretty significant brand perception problem. Their definition of social is public broadcasting, a definition they have reaffirmed both through word and deed. Users have learned that nothing on Facebook is personal or private; why would they expect to use Facebook for messaging? It’s not just that other apps are better at messaging; it’s that Facebook’s carefully cultivated value proposition is in direct opposition to messaging.

So this is pretty old news, but it echoes something I noticed just this morning. I sent a friend a message on Facebook and even as I sent it I seriously thought to myself, "hey, is this going to show up on somebody's timeline?" How crazy is that? Facebook has created a platform so unpredictable and so weighted against privacy that I seriously questioned whether a direct message to someone might (accidentally or "accidentally") end up public.

Obviously Facebook would assure me that they'll never change their security settings (retroactively) so that my private messages would suddenly show up on my profile page. And that example is likely too extreme to pass the smell test. But their entire reason for being is "sharing", and they've built up a pretty serious history of erring on the side of everything-public-all-the-time. At this point nothing would surprise me.

So that's (one reason) why I barely use Facebook. And one reason why Ben thinks the company is in serious trouble.

Introducing A T-Shirt Celebrating The Washington ‘Football Team’→

/
Wear it with pride.

Wear it with pride.

I’m not going to conduct a poll about it, and I’m not going to target-question American Indians, but I will venture to say some Washington football fans are uncomfortable with the team’s name. I know because I’m one of them. So we partnered with Sneeki’s Tees, which designs awesome D.C. sports stuff, to make a T-shirt that a progressive Redskins fan can wear without having a racial slur across his/her chest. Consider it an act of silent, wearable protest. Plus, it’s pretty good-looking shirt.

I love this shirt and bought one immediately. If you're a fan of DC football but not a fan of using a racial slur as a team name, you should buy one too.

As an aside, maybe the team should change the name to "Football Team". There might be some trademark issues but "DCFT" has a nice ring to it, right? And we'd already have these sweet shirts.

Exclusive: Inside Hangouts, Google's big fix for its messaging mess | The Verge→

/
Google Voice, a product that could have been revolutionary but has instead languished, has been pulled into the Hangouts team with the promise of future integration. Singhal says that "this is the future for Google Voice," but offers no timeline for the integration of the the two products.

As a heavy Google Voice user, I am both irritated that Google hasn't improved the product in years and terrified that Google might pull the plug at any moment. If they really integrate it with the new Hangouts product (an effort to unify all of Google's messaging systems), that will at least indicate that they plan to keep Google Voice running - and perhaps even that they will be improving it. Time will tell, but every day they don't shut it down is a good one.