BusinessWeek Loves User Experience
The December 6, 2004 issue of BusinessWeek (with the inflammatory “The China Price” cover) is a boon to folks who care about good design in all its components.
The treats:
Pierre Omidyar and eBay
A profile of Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay. And this phrase:
The Web’s real power lies in its ability to connect people instantly around [...]
Examples of Interaction Design and What’s Interesting About Them: #1 In a Series
A couple weeks ago, a friend and I were asked to present on the subject of interaction design. The audience needed primer material. We started out the presentation by walking through some examples of web-based interaction design and explanations as to why they were interesting.
I thought I’d share a few.
Booking Reservations at the Broadmoor. A [...]
Oahspe — The product of too much nitrous?
She pointed me to this image:
The title page to Oahspe, a sacred text written by a dentist, and credit for the first use of the word “star-ship.”
Self-serving Social Networks
David Weinberger posted about “Selfless Social Networks,” and his thoughts didn’t ring true for me. While I agree that the users of these tools aren’t predominantly selfish, I don’t agree that there’s a significantly strong thread of selflessness. I wrote a comment to that post saying that, if anything, these tools tap into our self-serving [...]
Relationships, not Information
Ever since reading his insightful weekly columns on Hotwired’s too-good-for-its-own-good site Packet, I’ve been a fan of Michael Schrage, and the insight he brings to issues of business, economics, technology, information, and society. An old essay of his, “The Relationship Revolution,” has been recently reposted, and ought to be required reading for those of us [...]
For what little it’s worth…
I firmly believe the… disgusting? distressing? … brawl that complete last night’s Pacers/Pistons game is a symptom of living in George Bush’s America.
America is increasingly a country predicated on fear, hate, and demonizing “the other” (whatever that other is). I wholly expect to see such senseless conflagrations erupt with shocking frequency throughout this land [...]
The Tension between the Personal and the Public
Cathy Marshall touched on this in her talk on personal digital libraries, and Gene addresses it in his post on personal information architecture: these new systems necessarily call into question the relationship between the personal and public.
Cathy discussed it with respect to annotations, markings, etc., that we might have in our personal digital library [...]
Cathy Marshall on Personal Digital Libraries
Yesterday I attended a lecture given by Cathy Marshall on her nascent research into Personal Digital Libraries. Cathy has written a lot about hypertext, digital libraries, the experience of reading, and other such subjects, and it’s now seeming to come together in research on how we will maintain our own digital libraries.
Cathy’s work strongly [...]
Fall Movie Update: SIDEWAYS and THE INCREDIBLES
Alexander Payne’s Election is among my favorite movies of the last 10 years, and combine that with the universal critical favor that Sideways received, and I went in with some pretty high expectations. And went out feeling, “Eh, it was pretty good.” Sideways goes a baby step beyond About Schmidt (which my dad dubbed [...]
How (Not) To Sell A Novel Product
From Dan Brown (via email) comes a compare-and-contrast exercise in using marketing content to communicate what a novel technology does. This is the Tivo problem — it’s hard to get across what the thing does, but when people use it, they love it. In this case, we’re talking products that wirelessly connect your music [...]
keep looking »Linkblog
- And the angel said unto him, stop hitting yourself!
March 4, 2010 | 8:34 amFunny.
- A new global visual language for the BBC’s digital services
February 22, 2010 | 2:24 pmTruly impressive work, and an impressive post detailing it!
- Talking Heads in Rome 1980
February 21, 2010 | 8:26 pmA series of 11 videos on YouTube of a 1980 concert. Sweet.
- Hot Pockets Ingredients
February 21, 2010 | 8:22 pmUm. An elegant poster of a disgustingly over-ingrediented “food”.
- The Birth of Cheap Communication (and Junk Mail)
February 21, 2010 | 12:07 pmFun, breezy take on the original “Victorian internet” – the British Postal System.
- Roger Ebert: The Essential Man
February 16, 2010 | 8:06 amHe might have no jaw, but Ebert has been as eloquent as ever of late (and quite the liberal activist!)
- Bing Maps Explore is pretty sweet
February 11, 2010 | 6:21 pmSadly, it requires Silverlight, but the functionality is fly. Check out the “Map Apps” (bottom of the screen). The Streetside Photos app draws geotagged photos from Flickr and applies them into the Street View. Pretty awesome.
- Ravens Coach Brian Billick Tackles Super Bowl XLIV : NPR
February 6, 2010 | 10:03 amAs we approach the Super Bowl, I found this interview about what a coach really does surprisingly informative.
- Henrietta Lacks: A Donor’s Immortal Legacy
February 6, 2010 | 10:02 amThis is utterly fascinating. Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells are the world’s first immortal cells. I had never heard of HeLa cells before this interview with author Rebecca Skloot. Now I want to read the book.
- The Incredible San Fancisco Artists’ Soapbox Derby, 1975
February 4, 2010 | 8:00 am24 minute film about a truly delightful community endeavor. I don’t think SF has this kind of artist mojo any longer, but I’d love to see something like this Oakland, careening down Joaquin Miller Road.
- Paywalls, Blogs, Comments, Editing and Magazines: A Conversation with Paul Ford, Web Editor of Harper’s Magazine | The Awl
February 4, 2010 | 7:37 amIf you’ve followed ftrain for the past 10+ years, you already know that Paul Ford is among the smartest people on the internet. This conversation with The Awl about pay models for publishing and his experience at Harpers is a little precious at times, but worth a read.
- Interview with Bloom County creator Berkeley Breathed
February 2, 2010 | 8:12 amBloom County was among those key influences informing my sense of humor, including Monty Python, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Edward Gorey. This interview looks back to its creation.
- Axe Cop
January 31, 2010 | 9:52 pmSo awesome. And funny. The best comic ever written by a 5-year-old and drawn by his 29-year-old brother. I wanna Avocado Soldier t-shirt.
- Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 3 and 4
January 31, 2010 | 7:28 pmRick Prelinger collects archival, industrial, and found footage of San Francisco, and presents them as clips in front of live audiences. Delightful look at the city’s past.
- Roger Ebert’s best films of the decade
January 31, 2010 | 7:23 pmI’m a little late on linking to this. Historically, I’ve found Ebert to be far too forgiving a critic (he just loves movies too much and gives poor ones a pass), so I was surprised at how close his list is to mine (if I bothered to make one). Synecdoche, Me And You and Everyone We Know, even Juno.
- Taking Directions from Slime Mold
January 25, 2010 | 7:54 pmIf my colleague Kate Rutter were to have a spirit organism, it would be slime mold. Slime mold are bizarre, neither plant nor animal nor fungi, and they’ve become the poster species for self-organizing systems. Anyway, they can also design subway systems. Scroll down to listen to the piece about them.
- Where has all the popcorn gone?
January 24, 2010 | 4:20 pmThe folks on Chowhound have the same question I did the last time I went to the supermarket. Popcorn could become the next artisanal fetish.
- S.F.s Market Street changes as city evolves
January 23, 2010 | 8:07 amCarl Nolte does it again with an exploration of Market Street’s multiple personalities. The stretch between 6th and 9th is among the most depressing urban blights in the US.
- Online Dating: The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures
January 21, 2010 | 8:13 pmOKCupid.com is a dating site. OkTrends is where the people behind the site reveal insights discovered through statistical analysis of site behavior. It’s awesome.
- How to be a superstar bartender
January 18, 2010 | 8:39 pmExcellent set of explicit instructions for the basics of mixing drinks (measuring, shaking, stirring, twists, etc.)
-
Archive for Linkblog »
