Bernardo A. Huberman has been, so far, the most impressive speaking in a very impressive series. and, lucky you, they just just posted the video of his talk.
The web mediates interactions among distant people on a scale that was never possible in the physical world. From vast social networks, to grass-root amateur creativity and the creation of encyclopedic knowledge, a collective intelligence is at work in ways that differ from traditional communities in style, intensity and effectiveness of interaction. I will present the results of several studies of social dynamics in the web, as well as mechanisms we have designed to access this collective intelligence while improving users experiences with digital content.
It's a recursive old world we live in these days, in which ideas are put up on one blog only to be refined and realized by the next several blogs. I've been giving a building community talk that is starting to do what I want it to, i.e. connect theory and practice, and Josh Porter's slides on slideshare had influenced my thinking. Now he reports on my talk, moving the ideas forward further still.
Different views of self We expose different views of self. Our home self, our work self, and services each represent a different view into our lives, different relationships, different interests. Our Facebook profile, for example, shows a different window on us than our LinkedIn profile does.Interesting question: if all of our online profiles were added together, would it be representative of the *real* us?
(this is a very pertinent question given the recent claims that Facebook is trying to map *the* social graph…it’s not clear at all that anybody but a single individual knows the extent of their own social network....)
This reminds me I have not been a good girl and reported on one of the two things I found more revelatory at Graphing Social. Facebook is the next Google (unless they mess up.) When I saw them speak, I was really surprised at their point of view. They are obsessively driven to map the social graph. Your goal very much defines you as a company. Corporate missions are often doublespeak, but if you can take a mission and boil it down a sentence, like "making the world's information findable and useful" then you can create a collective mindset that will move the needle. It must be big enough to be aspirational, small enough to make progress toward.
If Facebook's mission is to map the social graph, they will have a data asset that they can monetize. They do not need to worry about missed opportunities enjoyed by the application makers, they don't have to worry about an unclear ad business. Or at least, they shouldn't (and their valuation certain suggests it's a non-issue.) They will own a core piece of data that is so useful and more important, so novel that their business model should make itself visible as the Social Graph gets built. They are waiting for their adsense. Maybe, like Google, they'll spot a company doing it half-right and because they understand the social graph they can connect the dots. Or maybe once they understand how people connect, a new model will become obvious.
Perhaps there is a very obvious 1:1 relationship between Facebook and Google simply in they are both mappers. What's left then, to map out? It would be a good thing for a start-up to know.
I said one of two things... the second is not so big, but still very interesting. This new generation of developers are radically more user centered than any of those before. Slide, RockYou, and others hammered home over and over in their talks the value of both user testing and A/B testing. I know many larger corporations that can't manage to do qualitative and quantitative research affectively, and here are these tiny companies launching products in a handful of days, and they manage to squeeze it in. As Porter (Michael, not Josh) says, "What gets measured, gets managed." These kids have their eyes clearly on the end goal, and know how to get there: through the good auspices of their users.
Tantek Celik (moderator), David Recordon SixApart, Chamath Palihapitiya Facebook, Joseph Smarr Plaxo, Ted Grubb Satisfaction Unlimited
Joseph: plaxo all about connecting all the places where you data is. a webwide solution. demos pulse. pretty nifty. working on a open source tool
david: fairly famous for the opening social graph paper for example, vox, how do you bootstrap a social network? you already have one, they might not want to bring everyone over, but you don't want to start from scratch either. How can you share value but not have ot give up username/password everywhere they go.
ted: we allow uses to import their profile into satisfaction, if the company supports microformats... such as flickr.And dont' forget to check out Jim
Design
Finally, facebook in the house!
facebook update
- deep integration
- mass distribution
- new oppurtunity
watch the alpha geeks
- new tech moves through hackers, then entrepreneurs then platform players
examples include screen scraping and the peddle powered internet presaging data platforms and interest in alternative fuels
On Facebook (they have a new report coming out)
facebook is growing 1.14% a day
aps are growing 2% a day
87% of usage goes to 2% of aps
top 50 developers by usage looks like a more traditional long tail, but all 5K and the tail is way long
compares it to chris anderson's research, including book sales.but facebooks long tail is essentially useless right now.
the power law is skewed, that may change, but thats the bad news.
many applications competing for the same users. dating aps have the best uptake, then messaging and chat, just for fun as a category isn't strong.
the most successful category with active users is sports then gaming, chat, fashion, just for fun)
most active categories (what are people building) just for fun, then messaging, then gaming, then video (multiple categories, so may not be fully accurate)
aps with over 100,00 users messaging, dating, gaming, video, just for fun, (sports weaker here)
top 40- top friends, funwall, superwall, superpoke, video, x me, ilike, movies, graffiti -- top aps seem to be topping out, growth slowing.
a web 2.0 refresher
the more users, the more value
building a collective database
* building on top of open source, yahoo pays people to extend
* learning from open source, wikipedia uses volunteers
* p2p sharing users build song swapping tools as a byproduct of their own self interest
* google works this way, and to some extent facebook too
key concept: harnessing collective intelligence. ajax doesn't matter, what matters is value grows wiht userbase.
a network-effect-driven data lock-in, with accelerating returns. red-shift companies
Yahoo started with user generated content, and picked and chose best. google figured out how to automatically extract meaning from activity. They coudl automate what yahoo was doing.
page rank as true start of web 2.0
wesabe uses it too, with fan scores, recommendations, and data information being gathered and used for advice.
facebook is picking up data but you don't have much control over it, there is not much intelligence in the data.
for example, a list of facebook invites
* geni.com knows sean is my brother
* my company directory knows I work at oreilly
* google knows I worked with Danese
* amazon knows who's written books for me
- why should I confirm? can't facebook learn to use databases?
How ridiculous is this? my phone company knows everyone I ever called, but my phone only knows the last ten. Phone companies suffer from churn-- data could create lock in.
"are you my friend" anyone with email, phone, IM already knows who my friends are (Yahoo, are you listening???)
xobni is extracting data such as phone numbers and email, click to call, statistics on how often you communicate, let you know when you haven't talked to someone in a while.
The Internet Operating system
the subsystems will not be devices, they will be data subsystems. facebook describes itself as a platform, it's really a subsystem platform, not a platform yet. if you study history, a platform beats an application every time. lotus 123 to excel... wordperfect gets beat by MS word.
two types of platform
* one ring to rule them all
* small pieces loosely joined
facebook can't do it all. hopes they will help open it up to a small pieces model
=> thoughts on the social graph read it!
questions you should be asking
* am I doing everything i can to build applications that learn form my users?
* Does my applications get better with more users, or just more busy and crowded
** consider filtering, smart filtering
* if ""data is the intel inside":http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/data_is_the_int.html" of web 2.0, what adata do I own?
* what user facing services can I build against it?
* does my platform give me and my users control, or take it away form us?
** you have to create more value than you capture
Random thoughts about what I want form the social grpah
* I want social networks to reflect my real social network
* I want it to help me manage those contacts (how to reach them, updated status)
* I want it to manage my groups of people
** I need to put java people together, or facebook people, if I know them or not.
** people I know, people I don't know, people I regret knowing
* I want it to recognize asymmetry in relationships
** how can I reach out to superstars in a field I don't yet know
** I don't want to just manage my friends. In fact, the closer they are, the less I need to manage.
* I want fine grained control over what I see and what I ignore
** some people I just want flickr feeds, other ones I want everything. I want to see this persons blogs, but not their tweets.
* I want to discover interesting people
is Tim normal? Probably not, but good ideas here.
geni.com .. mothers maiden name no longer a good security question ;)
I can't recall if he had a point, except smart understanding of relationships
facebook doesn't fit my relationships -- steve case: i sold him a company, what am I going to say, we hooked up? might be accurate.. yes, that was a quote.
FOWA, should look at different tie describers
what do people want to say about themselves? What do I want to say about them? What if I could adjust my view of the people. How do I want to see them? could I rearrange modules to shape how I want to be updated?
jaiku has done great things, and just got acquired by google. takes idea of smart presence to mobile. your phone knows where you are. your phone should tell you if a friend is in berlin and you are going to wake them up. Or if a friend ins town, you cna ping them. I do this with twitter, but obviously not as effective. But do I want my movements tracked?
I'm and inventor. I because interested in long term trends because an invention has to make sense in the world in which is finished, not the world in which ist is started." ray kurzwell
think far along the curve, think about new platforms, think about future of applications, think about taking the platform forward so we can say, wasn't that platform quaint?
QUESTIONS
Q: criteria in companies distribution channel?
A: one of my fundamental beliefs about web 2.0 - it's distribution, creating interfaces with your customers. The best use all channels, web facebook, etc. They want as much contact as possible. The need to understand each of those channels, and there may not be much overlap-- ilike says only 4% overlap between web and facebook uses, they tend to choose. thinking of twitter, everyone has a favored interface the uses is the asset, and the services you can offer to them, and you can figure out how to offer that.
Q: If Facebook will dominate, won't they fight to keep their uses to themselves? Even if everyone wants it?
A: I'm ont sure, there are a couple answers. If you become truly domainate, no need ot share- facebook isnt there. Google is a good example. they own a lot of data they don't share BUT they also share a lot as well. They spider the same sites as yahoo and ms. you can share and still dominate. if large graphs cooperate, say geni and facebook cooperate both sites become more valuable. There is value in openness, if you focus on building services for users, then you choose ... it ultimately depends on the services and applications you build. Right now there is way more for facebook to gain by being open, as they try to crack open these deep mines of data. For now and for many years to come, all the trends say openness is good for you.
Dave McClure is useing fun movies ot intro folks. this was at the end of Tim's talks
remember altavista, and when you first started using google, you felt guilty? for abandoning altavista?
1st gen search engines: search engines "crawl" links to pages, they make a copy in something called a index, they find pages you are looking through, originally via term frequency. this was too spammable, because control was in the hands of the webmaster.
2nd gen search engines: use factors off the page that wemaster can't easily influence
SocialMedia.com is an app network
apsaholic allows you to track the success of yoru ap vs. your peers
evolution of online advertising
1997 websites
At Graphing Social, a facebook conference. I'm doing the biz track, Jim the tech track. Lee Lorenzen is talking now on facebook 101 and user perspectives.
I'll try to pull out interesting points
from Wired
Just 9 percent of the fair sex want products that "look feminine," like a pink Playstation or Hello Kitty keyboards. The remaining 91 percent seek something sleek and sophisticated, more boardroom than teenage bedroom. The data comes from a study, done by the advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, of 750 British women age 24 to 45.
why is this news?
Reading Six Apart - Movable Type News - "Why do you care about business blogs so much?"
Outside of the blogosphere's echo chamber, most people who want to publish a page on their intranet at work are still stuck asking a geek down the hall to make the changes, and then waiting 3 weeks for it to happen, and another 3 weeks for the fixes for the mistakes in the first update. Those people deserve a tool as powerful and simple as blogs, if only to help preserve their sanity. And just maybe, some of those people will start to think "Hey, there really is something interesting about blogging."
Having an easy way to publish to your website is critical, and overdue. There is nothing more painful than knowing exactly the small change you need to make, and being a prisoner to an engineers schedule, believe me I know.
That said, I would hate to see blogging -- short form diary-style public personal unedited musings-- become a synonym for content management or publishing. Too often corporations put up a "blog" which is heavily edited and very much the party line, and the only thing it has in common with blogs is length. And sometimes not even that.
Corporate blogging is a huge opportunity for companies to speak to their constituencies in honest, informal terms. Let's not let them think they can buy a tool and get instant credibility.
Mobile Persuasion - Stanford University
Check this out-- I've long been a fan of B.J. Fogg's work, and loved his keynote at the summit, so I figure this event should be a blast....
I'm surprised how often I see the word "versus" in email. Photoshop vs. illustrator, personas vs. ethnography, email address vs. username, and blogtools vs. CMS. When I was a freshman in art school, I learned a useful word: dichotomy. It was years later I learned phrase "false dichotomy" and I'm wondering how many people have yet to learn it. In particular, I'm thinking of those working in new media/participatory media/social media.
I keep reading how blogs will make traditional publishing irrelevant. I also read how traditional publishing already provides a reliability and consistency that will show blogs to be merely a fad; the geocities of our time. And just over a year ago (I know because my domain registration notice just came) I sat down with friend Lars and added the word false to that particular dichotomy by thinking up PublicSquare.
A dichotomy is defined as "a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities."
1. Almost everybody talks about blogs and big media (usually thinking about New York Times or Fox news, depending on who has annoyed you most recently). But publishing is currently taking the form of a continuum, from blogs to big media, with wikis, jotspot, writerly, writeboards, scoop and many others filling in the space between one maverick vomiting up ideas to a group refining raw facts into something palatable.
2. Mutually exclusive: Bloggers are adding editors, Om Malik for example, and newspapers are adding-- nay, forcing-- reporters to blog. Drupal has blog modules and articles modules and the difference is slight.
3. Contradictory. um. yeah. How contradictory are these two writing forms? When I was looking at them recently, they both depended on one thing for success: a person who can consistently write, and write well. Of course someone who writes every day, but only on their cat's antics and their hair challenges is an aspect of the blog, but is this person really making Arthur Schultzberger tremble in his shoes? A journalist and a (successful) blogger are much of a muchness, except one gets fact checked and edited.
Where revolution is truly happening in my opinion is in the birth of collaborative publishing tools that enable new behaviors in writing, often children of the wiki family. Where blogger and other blog platforms were simply (though certainly impactfully) ways to make writing significantly easier, and came form a long line of tools form the printing press to the electric typewriter to microsoft word. They are all technology to get technology out of the way.
But wikis, writerboard, slashdot and scoop are all trying to get groups to be smart together, to write together and they give birth to a new kind of writing *and* giving voice to one-hit-wonders of authorship.
More on this coming soon... .
Dot-Com Boom Echoed in Deal to Buy YouTube - New York Times
A profitless Web site started by three 20-somethings after a late-night dinner party is sold for more than a billion dollars, instantly turning dozens of its employees into paper millionaires. It sounds like a tale from the late 1990’s dot-com bubble, but it happened yesterday.
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The amorality of Web 2.0
"I'm all for blogs and blogging. (I'm writing this, ain't I?) But I'm not blind to the limitations and the flaws of the blogosphere - its superficiality, its emphasis on opinion over reporting, its echolalia, its tendency to reinforce rather than challenge ideological extremism and segregation. Now, all the same criticisms can (and should) be hurled at segments of the mainstream media. And yet, at its best, the mainstream media is able to do things that are different from - and, yes, more important than - what bloggers can do. Those despised "people in a back room" can fund in-depth reporting and research. They can underwrite projects that can take months or years to reach fruition - or that may fail altogether. They can hire and pay talented people who would not be able to survive as sole proprietors on the Internet. They can employ editors and proofreaders and other unsung protectors of quality work. They can place, with equal weight, opposing ideologies on the same page. Forced to choose between reading blogs and subscribing to, say, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Atlantic, and the Economist, I will choose the latter. I will take the professionals over the amateurs.
But I don't want to be forced to make that choice."
I found Jeff Jarvis' rebuttal a little extreme
"So Carr is really saying two things: He is saying that the professionals are better than the amateurs because they are paid. I don’t buy that. And he distrusts the amateurs, which is saying that he distrusts the public those professionals supposedly serve.."
I'm pretty sure Carr isn't saying that, at least, that's not how I read it.. what I read was that professional publications can afford things like editors, copyeditors and factcheckers. And that makes their work better-- which it typically is. And that the death of these organizations' ability to fund themselves means the death of editing and fact checking. Which would be sad.
Why do people involved with the new media feel like they need to take such an extreme positions? Why do big media's faults have to mean we though out big media's virtues? (baby, bathwater people?)
Tagging good, taxonomy evil! Blogs good, New York times evil! It's all rather random, since most bloggers love some form of big media, be it New York Times or the tiny but still quite professional Onion.
It's clear we are in a period of change... bloggers are growing in power, which increases their operating costs, which means going professional, which means advertising, which means a number of advertising networks have been created to serve them, which means soon they'll be changed into... big media. or medium media. "Hey, if you would just stop swearing, Downy will give you 80 thousand dollars this year" "Can you tone down the Iraq war stuff? We've got blockbuster looking to give you 120 thousand over the next two years"
Then they'll face what the big guys have had to for a long while-- separation of editorial with sales to keep integrity, or they'll sell out. They'll add a few people to their staff to make sure the copy is up to snuff, to draw in more users, more advertisers. They'll get better in some ways, worse in others.
This is not a revolution, this is the seventh wave, and it may be the biggest one now, but not bigger than the 14th, or 21st wave coming next. Some will get swept out to sea, and others will survive. We'll see who is who. Now our big media is fox, the times, knight ridder, in a few years it may be the times, kottke and boingboing.
Looking forward to it.
Reading Ted Rheingold's Web Journal, I was excited. Just yesterday I'd come to the conclusion that Web 1.0 was all about technology, Web 2.0 was all about human behavior when I read
today I heard Ross Mayfield succinctly say Web 2.0 is made of people while Scott Rafer explains the phenom as the Participation Generation. I love those two because they acknowledges that participation of the tool users is just as significant as the tool makers who sincerely made the tools for just those users.
It's a much better way to think about the change (and we all sense the change, even if we don't all necessarily think it's worth versioning) than focusing on Ajax and webaps.
Looking at "What is Web 2.0"
They present this list
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
DoubleClick --> Google AdSense
Ofoto --> Flickr
Akamai --> BitTorrent
mp3.com --> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
personal websites --> blogging
evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation --> search engine optimization
page views --> cost per click
screen scraping --> web services
publishing --> participation
content management systems --> wikis
directories (taxonomy) --> tagging ("folksonomy")
stickiness --> syndication
Most of these fit the conceptional model well... ofoto is to managing photos as flickr is to sharing and publishing photos
mp3 is to finding and acquiring music as Napster (was) to sharing and exchanging music
CMS's are to managing content as wikis are for collaborative writing spaces.
Taxonomies are for managing content via metadata as tagsonomies are for sharing and opining on content via metadata.
In each case we go from a patriarchal management system to a collective or personal sharing/cocreation model. Some don't quite fit, but it's interesting to see how many do.
From Good Morning Silicon Valley
when Chan refused to settle on behalf of her daughter, the record companies regrouped and now want to go after the teenager directly -- but first they want the court to push Mom aside and appoint a legal guardian in this matter.and
Tanya Andersen, a 41-year-old disabled single mother living in Oregon, is not only contesting RIAA allegations of piracy ... she's countersuing
The tactics of the RIAA obscene and bullying. The court document for Tanya's suit paints an ugly picture (and is one of the most amusing legal documents I've ever read)
Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had “been viewed” by MediaSentry downloading “gangster rap” music at 4:24 a.m. Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had used the login name “gotenkito@kazaa.com.” Ms. Andersen does not like “gangster rap,” does not recognize the name “gotenkito,” is not awake at 4:24 a.m. and has never downloaded music.
Awareness is the answer to this kind of behavior, of course. The more suits that come forward, the more the record industry will be viewed for what it is- a cowardly greedy monopoly incapable of innovation and doomed to a slow death.
Jon Udell: Heavy metal umlaut: the movie is a facinating look at the life and times of a single page of the wikipedia. Check it out for a illustration of what open-editing makes possible.
A9/Amazon is sporting a new Yellow Pages feature, whose claim to fame is its use of photos...
Palo Alto-based A9 said it compiled the index by covering tens of thousands of miles in trucks equipped with digital cameras and global positioning system, or GPS, receivers.
Bistro Elan is exactly the kind of business you would want photos for. They have no conspicuous sign, and are nearly hidden by vines. But a search on Palo Alto showed "Bistro Elan" as a listing, and when I clicked it I got this.
Can you imagine showing up at these people's house?
"Hi, reservation for six!"
The real Bistro Elan, shown here (I took pictures up and down California Avenue to kill time while Philippe made copies in Kinko's.) Have fun comparing the real photos with the ones Amazon is currently showing. I'm sure this is a temporary issue, but it's been temporarily wrong all weekend. And with the extensive news coverage, I'm sure I'm not the only one to spot issues. Is this really how they want to launch a ground-breaking feature that introduces their customers to a new body of competency? Hopefully no one is really using it yet.
As an aside, Bistro Elan is a terrific place to eat. One of the best in Palo Alto, IMO.
I love the treo despite its numerous faults. I checked mail, SMS'd philippe, took a photo, am blogging, will listen to sanseverino on the train with one device!
All watched over by machines of loving graceis Adam Greenfield's brilliant take on the future of our profession, and what it means for all of us as designers. I'm glad he's writing even if I cannot these days.
I'm in Michigan right now, but if I were home, I'd go see PARC Forum Series on Innovation | October 28, 2004
"It is fashionable, but premature to write off the future of the US info tech sector. The dot.bomb collapse and offshoring are quite real, but hints of the path forward are hidden in the history of Silicon Valley and the tech sector. And the secret is this: innovation advances from failure to failure, not from success to success. The time has come to understand and embrace this hidden source of the US' technological dynamism, lest we end up like Venice in it's last century, trapped by old habits and sinking beneath the sea that once sustained it's economic and innovation miracle."
A part of a plane fell off and landed somewhere near Chicago. The reporters were scrabbling to get to the scene to interview the affected, and went to Yahoo Maps to map the way there. They saw the new business finder and were able to use it to phone up locals to get their reactions, and thus were able to scoop their competition.
I like this story because it reminds us with our personas and our user research and so on that the tools we build will be used a hundred ways we didn't expect and could never expect. And that makes me kinda happy.
It's funny how technology changes you in small and unexpected ways. The integration of a camera into my Treo has caused me to change how i communicate.
Like any good wife, I always call my husband upon arriving in a destination (as does he) but how much better is it to grab a snap as one rides in a taxi to one's hotel?
He can also get a feel for where I am, I feel like he's arrived with me.
He's also with me via the Treo during amazing moments.
Standing at the foot of the capitol on a rainy day, my breath was knocked out of me as the clouds parted and the sun lit up the Lincoln memorial.
Snap, share and Philippe messages back-- "wow".
I got to share my wow with him.
I can preview Asilomar to my friends who will be attending the retreat.
Victor and I traded images of our respective states on Sunday when I was at the beach, and he in the heart of NYC.
It's a richer conversation, a better one.
And I can tease my dad about cool old cars I've seen. Or ask my sister advice about my outfit or send her a photo of a pair of cool shoes. Or ask my husband if he likes a shirt I see on sale.
I thought the camera in the phone was bullsh*t, useless and gadgetry, but every the simple camera in the Treo, which is far form the best one could hope for, is enough to do the one thing I need and appreciate.
it makes my conversations better.
at webvisions. scott hirsch just gave a kick-ass talk on business understanding of design value. anil is now tallking about uses of blog trchnology. also, nate who talked with me this morning did great shaping a vision for IA & CSS. natek.typepad.com. more soon...
i'm on caltrain, trying to blog on my new treo 600. as service fades in and out, it should be a fun experiment.
i'm mad for my treo, but as philippe points out to my chagrin, i'm often in love with a new device. the clie was my darling breifly, until shoddy utility underneath flashy designwas revealed in use. I loved the cabriolrt until I realized a roomy backseat didn't make up for soft stearing or lack of pick up. farfegnugen, where art thou?
yet the wins are so fine I go into each purchase like a little girl: this will be a miata, a pentax s100, an elph... this will be a bit of technological delight that will not only make me feel okay about dropping my dough but redeem my profession: DESIGN! that is what I hope. my finger will grow accustomed to the tight spaced keys and my network will grow and load time will improve... it's what allows early adapters to adapt.
only the worst products take the roses from our eyes, while the best form our bed.
I'm rereading David Aaker's excellent book, Building Strong Brands and in chapter 7 he goes over changing a brand, and the reasons why. He then counters them all saying that consistency is usually the best course (he's not that didactic: he mentions KFC's need to distance themselves from fried food. Hmm. Did that work?)
I had my aha of recognition when he mentioned this scenario: a brand manager is asked in a meeting with senior types what is he going to do about the fact that the brand has been flat the last three quarters. Will he
a) Say: I'm going to do the same thing as the last three managers?
b) Say: I have an exciting new plan to reinvent our brand!
So it goes with redesigns as well-- it's not the users who are bored with the design, it's not the users who are bored with the brand, it's the employees. And they decide on change.
The second whammy was my realization that most people determine that they are going to change before they realize how they are going to change.
This means companies have committed to change before they have determined if the change makes things better or worse. Then, six months down the line, millions of bucks in the hole, who is going to be the brave one who says "This is going to make things worse. Let's not do it." The same guy who said "I've got an exciting new plan?"
Of course there are may ways to avoid this trap: going in ready to get out, prototyping, testing with user groups, shorter change cycles, regular checkpoints to decide go/no go. But think of the last redesign you saw. Wasn't more like "We're doing a redesign AHHRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHAAAAAHHH" (my berserker imitation, excuse me).
At times like this I think of poor Levis, floundering to try to make themselves more relevent than the 501. All they did was weaken their claim to reliable comfortable real jeans, and take their changes with the piranhas of change: the fashionable set.
We, the ones who look at our site, our brand, our product ever day, we are the deadly ones. What our customers call comfort we call dull. We're like a bored teenager that dies her hair blue over a long weekend. We must curb that energy, and point it toward extention and growth with care, rather than reinvention.
Reading Globetechnology
"A Canadian man accused of being one of the biggest spammers in the world by Yahoo Inc. has agreed to stop sending unwanted e-mails and plans to help educate children about the dangers of the Internet."
I thought, it's never enough to be guilty, it's never enough to stop doing what your doing, no: you have to REPENT your SINS and PREACH to others about the EVIL of your ways.
Then again, why look a gift PR oppurtunity in the mouth.
My Brilliant Failure: Wikis In Classrooms
Visions of "negotiating meaning", "knowledge construction" and "student-to-student interaction" swam through my head. I wanted to share with the participants my experience of collaborating in a wiki environment, and how it feels to have someone else edit your document, how you see a concept from someone else's mind map. ... But finally, I ended up using wiki as pumped-up PowerPoint. "
Interesting story to read for anyong who thinks teh right technology will change/solve everything.
from The Virtues of Chitchat - Making I.T. Work - CIO Magazine May 15,2004
"the blogging phenomenon has intriguingly useful implications for IT. I have to ask myself: Why wouldn't it make sense for an IT project manager to post a blogor "plog" (project log)to keep her team and its constituents up-to-date on project issues and concerns? Is it inherently inappropriate for an individual to post constructive observations about a project's progress? IT organizations that can effectively use blogs as managerial tools (or communication resources) are probably development environments that take both people and their ideas seriously. "
lots to ponder in this article. one is the funny tone of shock- how can they let employees to opening say what they think!" but far more interesting is contemplating how a blog can be so much more. When MT came out their pricing notice, a number of arrogant souls said, hey just go back to notepad and ftp. But the reality is, even for folks for whom those tools are sufficient, blogging is just easier. And easy means everything you know and think is more likely to make it into documentation-- for good and for bad.
A critical problem is getting people at the end of a project ot write out documentation. But inline at eh time documentation si both easier and more useful.
I would question though, if blogs (or plogs if you wish) are the right tool. i'd say a wiki, with it's emphasis on topic over chronological ordering is more useful.
Still, over all I think it's an excellent trend, one smart companies should take advantage of. Blogs make post-mortems easy, reveal problems earlier, and make it more likely people will take the time to write down at least some of the logic behind decisions, plus it helps mitigate the bus-factor.
all good.
"I finally got around to checking up on all the way cool stuff Y!'s been doing with RSS of late. I'm still sitting here shaking my head in awe at all of this"
where'd you go today, honey?
out.
what did you see?
nothing.
and the truth is... i went blogrolling following to see how long it took from a B&A comment to find someone I knew.
i saw medical history, flash strategies, political activism, european history...
actionscripthero
jesse warden
peter joel
fullasgoog
anticlue
family medicine notes
medical weblog
gruntdoc
practice for a practice
wonkette (made me pause for a sec to read)
Matthew Yglesias (made me laugh over brucetta)
Informed Comment
fistful of euros
metamorphism (my favorite-- "Paul Gaugin: The light here rocks. Doesn't the light here rock? Have you ever seen light like that? Vincent van Gogh: Lalalala.")
uppity negro
and finally found someone linked to I knew: rebecca blood
six degrees my ass.
how many degrees are you from some blog(ger) you know?
IMDb :: Boards :: Underworld (2003/I) is the prototypical message board thread, complete with every type of board denizen, including the troll, the flamer, and helpful citizen, the rabid fan and many others. if I ever wanted to show clients the reality of what their message boards will become, i might choose this thread.
The best UI critique of Orkut (IMO), but also he's right about the pointlessness, He's right about ownership, he's right about the interaction and this is what it looks like.
YASNS stands for Yet Another Social Networking Service and Orkut is clearly YASNS. With emphasis on the YA.
Three days in I'm wondering why bother?
BTW, I won't invite you if I don't know you/know of you-- I feel like social networks are broken by "false connections."
but you can buy your way in....
from BBC NEWS -- Net beats books with children
"Children apparently know more about the internet than about books, a survey suggests.
Six out of 10 youngsters questioned knew that "homepage" was the front page of a website - but only 9% could explain what the preface to a book was.
More than a third knew that "hardback" was a type of book, but 57% identified "hard drive" as part of a computer.
Children said they were regularly using the internet to help with their school work. "
I wonder what this study actually tells us. Knowing what a homepage is helps you navigate-- it's a term you have to learn to be able to use functionality. A preface is common in books for older kids, and not all books have them, and if you don't know what it is, it doesn't harm your ability to use the book.
I would have liked to see something on how books stacked up in leisure time... how does Harry Potter do against Yahooligans? Still, it's clear that the web is here to stay is a vital research tool for everyone from children to the scientists who spawned the beast.
From Nua Internet Surveys Weekly Editorial
"...the battle between the two companies wasn't just about dramatic improvements in browser software. The war was also important because it mirrored the way the Internet changed from a warm, friendly community to a cut-throat world in which only the strong survive and prosper. "
Netscape has now reached a Mac-like low in numbers. I'm sad for Mozilla, but still dreaming that 4.7 disappears from the face fo the planet.
From Nua Internet Surveys Weekly Editorial
"Because we're become so accustomed to using the Net to keep in touch with friends and colleagues, we tend to forget that it was once perceived as being solely for socially maladjusted individuals who had problems communicating with 'real' people. "
A new study shows this is bunk. Now go out and touch someone... er, type to someone...
When he's right, he's right: Supporting Multiple-Location Users (Alertbox May 2002)
I found Lessons from the London Undeground in my inbox this a.m. and read it with some doubt: yet another metaphor for IA? When do IA's find time to do IA when they apparently spend so much of it explaining what it is.
Then I was sucked in. And utterly charmed and intrigued by the metaphor of the London Underground for the web.
If you've ever emerged from the underground (or the metro, or the subway) dazed and perplexed and disoriented, you know what I mean when I say that is much like coming up from a long stint of surfing to stagger to the kitchen for a soda (and accidently walk into the closet. or maybe that's just me). We learn a new set of navigation rules to the point of almost unlearning our native ones.
It's a whole different world underground, with all our usual wayfinding devices (sky, wind, square walls, windows) removed; to be replaced only by signs. Signs get to be very important.
It's an apt and intriguing metaphor, complete with solutions we have hardly begun to tap into.
Thought-provoking article. Check it out.
I wasn't going to glean today; I've got so much work to do BUT the universe has sent me some interesting stuff, so I share with you!
I'm mad about Ada, btw...
Ada Lovelace, Countess of Controversy
"Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, is something of a giant in the world of technology. The daughter of celebrated poet Lord Byron, Lovelace was a Victorian society hostess, the mother of three, and a mathematician widely credited as being the world's first computer programmer."
Was Ada Really the First Programmer?
"In the notes, which ended up being three times longer than the original Menabrea paper, Ada outlined how the Analytical Engine might have worked had it ever been built. She explained how the Bernoulli numbers, a complex numerical system first described by 18th century Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli, might be broken down into simple formulas that could be coded as instructions for the machine. Perhaps more importantly, her poetic prowess endowed Babbage's dry technical details with grandeur. "
I've been reading the book on her, "The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter" and highly recommend it.
Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate I should have something insightful to say, but I don't. Buy it, read it, stay up late thinking about it.
The Art & Science of Web Design Great primer on design on the web: perfect for anyone new to the medium. Jeff Veen covers aspects of web design from tech requirements through architecture to advertising online. Should be the text book for any class on web design, and provides the generalist knowledge needed for good web IA.
From: Gleanings
To: gleanettes
Subject: Gleanings: Experience Design and glow-in-the-dark rabbits
IA & DESIGN MATTERS
User Experience and Interface Design Resources
from SIGIA
"For those of you interested in paper prototyping and evaluating with prototypes in general, you might find some useful tips in the following paper. Showing it's age a little bit (it came out a bit before the web hit town), but I've had good feedback on it's practical use as a how-to piece.
(zipped .pdf, 4.3 meg)
NEWS
from NUA
Harris Interactive: Online kids now spend up to USD164 billion
A new study has revealed that online US kids, teenagers, and young
adults aged 8 to 24 are now spending at a projected rate of USD164
billion per year.
more articles about the changing face of the web.
from tomalak:
ZDNN: AOL quietly linking AIM, ICQ.A person familiar with AOL's situation says the company is taking some steps
internally to make AIM and ICQ interoperable, but that it faces challenges
meshing the cultures of the two companies and also with the kind of users
signed onto each system.
NewMedia: Is Rich Media Worth It's Weight in Gold?
Software designers and Webmasters keep pushing forward like scouts in the wilderness, claiming new audio and visual landscapes as their own. As a result, the Web now is a swirl of color and movement, games, three-
dimensionality, and virtual worlds--it's a bastion of rich media. But there's a rub.
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Mutant Rabbit Raises Controversy Over Genetic Manipulation
From: Gleanings
To: glean-team
Subject: Gleanings:less real but more fun
APROPOS OF NOTHING
I am in love with this site. With its well thought out icons, strange
photodisk testimonials and clever personalization and stickiness ploys it is more successful as a fake site than many real e.coms.
Goodwill. Globally.
more on fake websites
NY Times: Wacky, Fake Web Sites Grab Attention.
The trend is meant to capitalize on the growing use of and fascination with
the Internet as well as to take advantage of the capabilities of the Web to
produce content at a low cost that appears to be genuine. In other words, on
the World Wide Web, it can always be April Fool's Day.
this has to be seen to be believed.
super postal worker.
EYECANDY
(flashcandy)
http://www.graffiti.org/figm/index2.htm
http://www.lorenhaynes.com/
I quite like the design and navigation of this webshop.
http://www.entercomm.com/
NEWS
domain squatters are starting to lose...
Yahoo! Wins 40 Domain Names (AP)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/446029.asp
from Tomalak
Salon: Don't call us.
In five years writing about the Net, I've seen a lot of ridiculous endeavors -- like publicists who fax over press releases and then request that, if you don't plan to write about "Making Merry with Shari's Berries!" you fax back an explanation of why you passed on that hot story tip.
from webmonkey
Friday, 18 August 2000
Levi's and Phillips have banded together to create the first commercially available line of e-clothing! They're starting out with jackets that come with built-in MP3 players and cellphones, and cost between $600 and $900 (so reasonable!). Some people are concerned about the possible health risks of having so much technology constantly radiating your body, but I just want to know what the coats look like. I mean, unless they're really cute, you probably won't wear them enough to worry about anything but the wrath of the fashion police, right?
Read all about it at Wired News
and more
Industry Standard: Hello, And Welcome to Our Redesign!
Q&A with Alex Weil, designer at Charlex. What I tried to do was raise the
quality of the Web site to match the brand and culture it created through
the phone. The first thing we did was add its well-known slogan to the top of
the Web site. "Hello, and welcome to Moviefone!" can also be downloaded as an
audio file.
Adweek: From July 3, 2000; Sneak Previews
Recent Industry Standard article states over half the web audience is at 600x800 or less, connecting at 33.6 or less, 54% at 16 bit ... be kind, y'all
get the story here: TheStandard.com: The Right Tools For The Job
News on browsers and plug-ins as well... but don't get too excited about flash's 97%. It's all the flashes combined, and I saw a flash 4 site crash a flash 3 enabled browser just today....
