I find it pretty horrible for actually reading content on the site. When I try and read a review[1], I find the flow of my reading constantly broken by huge images and the copy jumping all around the page.
It's a pretty site, I just don't know if the design is right for the content in certain cases.
Am I crazy for actually liking that page you linked? I much prefer a site to carefully craft an article much like a paper magazine would, with the presentation given a great deal of thought as well as the content. You get to see high-quality images, visuals, and typography, instead of a Markdown document thrown into a Wordpress template with the article squeezing into a 40% width justified column and taking a backseat to navigation columns, ads, related articles, "share this!", survey popups, and pagination to make sure you see it all 4 times.
Besides, if you really hate original layout, you can reduce both extremes to something palatable with Readability and friends. That page happens to look great with it, though it does get rid of the image gallery and rating: http://www.readability.com/read?url=http%3A//www.polygon.com...
I forgot he released those in that format, and you're right; he really hit some impressive numbers with that experiment: "A week after the album's release, the official Nine Inch Nails site reported over 750,000 purchase and download transactions, amassing over $1.6 million in sales." (Ghosts I-IV)
I bought both Ghosts I-IV and The Slip. I also spent $300 on the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack that he put out last week.
And I downloaded Niggy Tardust for free. I did this because I had never heard Saul Williams and wanted to support an artist who I had never heard of. But after listening to it, I honestly just didn't like it, so I did not go back and buy it.
I wonder how many people were like me and downloaded it for free because of the experiment and Trent Reznor's involvement but didn't pay because it wasn't their style of music.
Although I'm really happy for him doing this, and it working out so well; Trent Reznor / Radiohead did this exact thing years ago and made millions from it, so I'm confused as to why this got such large publicity.
Access to the OS clipboard would require the use of Flash. I would like to stay away from that. We'll see what our options are. Thanks for the feedback!
Access to the clipboard are reasons why I still install apps like Grabbox, Tinygrab, etc (less steps I have to take). Hesitance over the use of Flash for a usability gain for the user seems like a silly sort of squeamishness (look at bit.ly's copy to clipboard buttons).
You're missing the point, I think. "will.i.am" is a stage name, not an anonymous handle. Whatever you think of the validity of the rule, surely you agree that its spirit is to make sure you can always clearly associate the account with the real person it belongs to. Surely you agree that the existing name achieves that better than "William James Adams, Jr.", right?
The point was more subtle than that. It's not merely "most people" in this case, it's a public account for a celebrity. The overwhelming majority of people, and essentially all of the target market, have no earthly idea what his real name is and don't care.
Regardless of what you think about whether this is a good or bad rule (and I tend to agree it's a bad one), no one is served under any interpretation of the rule by disallowing celebrities from posting under their stage names.
Basically, if it's an exception to the rule, then it's a sane and well-justified one. If it's a subtle edge case, then so be it. I think it makes very bad evidence of hypocrisy on Google's part.
It's a pretty site, I just don't know if the design is right for the content in certain cases.
[1] http://www.polygon.com/game/medal-of-honor-warfighter/2686