It’s been a week since I made my application for a job at Rdio, so it’s time for an update.

Last Monday, an notification popped up on my iPhone. It was an email from Rdio’s own Wilson Miner, who was very kind to get back to me personally. He had bittersweet news. They loved my application, but unfortunately could only consider people eligible to work in the US. The job is a three-month gig, and the visa-related troubles and expenses are prohibitive.

I was honored with such feedback from people I respect so much, and I didn’t get sad because I knew that immigration laws could most likely be an issue. An opportunity like this was something that I wasn’t considering until two weeks ago, so I’m more than happy to keep doing what I love, waiting to apply again for a full-time position. I remain available for freelance work in both design and front-end development.

Thank You

Over the past days, I’ve watched with amazement as so many people sent me their well-wishes and tweeted the about the application with compliments. I wasn’t expecting such a kind, heartwarming response, and it made me really, really happy.

Thank you so much. I mean it.

Since I began freelancing, working for a company again has crossed my mind more than once. But I’d only do it if I could work on something that I need, use and love. However, the number of products that I use every single day is very small.¹ One of those products is Rdio.

Last week, Rdio’s Head of Design Wilson Miner tweeted a job opening for a Design Intern at Rdio. Being a subscriber and a fan of Rdio for over a year², as well as an admirer of the work some of the people in their design team have done, I didn’t even think twice.

The resume format is so awful. Resumes should be: What I’m interested in, what I’m good at, and why I’m good at it.

— Chris Wanstrath

I didn’t have a portfolio or even a resumé ready, but just like Wanstrath, I don’t think that was the best way of presenting myself. So I began preparing a custom webpage where I could write about what I love to do, show something I had done, and present it in such a way that — I believe — proved that I’m good at it.

I finished it by Friday, when most fellow europeans had already left work: paulozoom.com/rdio

I honestly believe it’s some of my best work, and I’m really happy with it, specially considering the timeframe. I got much love and great feedback from my peers on Twitter and Dribbble. But only Rdio knows who applied and who’s the best for the role.

This is a great opportunity. I’m crossing my fingers.

Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, on learning from Readability:

When Readability launched their competing app last week, their custom fonts received high praise and Instapaper’s looked pretty tired by comparison.

I could have interpreted this defensively and complacently […]

That would have just made me look stubborn and out of touch, failing to understand (in fact, trying very hard not to understand) why newer fonts could be attractive to customers, and failing to admit that I should have done it first.

Instead, I’m taking this misstep as a wake-up call: I missed an important opportunity that’s necessary for the long-term competitiveness of my product.

When Clear launched with great success a few weeks ago, I made my best to look at its strengths and weaknesses, in a completely unbiased way. It’s not easy, because one tends to be defensive about his own work.

There are a lot of smart people out there, both developers and customers, making and buying competing products. They do what they do for a reason, and what I have to do is understand what those reasons are, and how they can inform Listary’s product design.

So, a few days after Clear’s launch, the cogs in my head started spinning. What can we learn from Clear? What do we like about it more than our own app? How can we bring that into Listary? What are the things that we’re doing better? How can we explain those differences more effectively?

As with all the great apps, we will learn from Clear to make Listary better for everyone. We learned a lot from other apps like Mail or Tweetie, there’s no reason we can’t we learn from a competitor too.

They’re one of us.

One or two days after Clear launched, I tweeted:

Excited that @UseClear is making people rethink if they need that many features. It’s the same idea that made us build @listaryapp.

When Reading List for iPhone was revealed, Marco Arment wrote:

When iOS 5 and Lion ship, Apple will show a much larger percentage of iOS-device owners that saving web pages to read later is a useful workflow and can dramatically improve the way they read.

If Reading List gets widely adopted and millions of people start saving pages for later reading, a portion of those people will be interested in upgrading to a dedicated, deluxe app and service to serve their needs better.

Much like Marco’s case, a portion of the hundreds of thousands that downloaded Clear may be interested in a simple app for making lists that lets them share or sync their lists. To paraphrase Marco, Clear is showing a much larger percentage of people that having a simple list-making app is useful.

That’s great for us.

When a competing product launches, don’t get angry. Learn from it, and emphasize the differences. If your product is falling behind, work harder. If they’re bringing new customers into your market, be thankful and think how you can take advantage from that fact.