Genres Hamper Mobile Internet

A Reuters article made the rounds 10 days ago — “Web pioneer: Design hampers mobile internet.” In it, Tim Berners-Lee decries, “Everyone was supposed to be browsing the Web with their mobile phone, but the problem is that it has not happened.” I’ve long been frustrated by how people seem to think that content is [...]

Enterprise Search Report Review

Tucked away in Adaptive Path’s latest newsletter is Chiara Fox’s review of “The Enterprise Search Report: Requirements, Costs, Products, and Practices.” Chiara gives the report high marks, which is good, since the report costs $1,350.

Adaptive Path Celebrates, March 24

As is written on the company website: In honor of our fourth anniversary, and as an office warming for our new space, we’re having a party. All are welcome — stop by, meet the team, have a drink. Thursday, March 24, 5:30 p.m., Adaptive Path World Headquarters, 363 Brannan St., between 2nd and 3rd. Please [...]

Is “User Experience”, for all intents and purposes, dead?

Reading the notes from a recent panel on UX disciplines, and remembering the notes from an earlier, similar, panel, I am left with the thought that the phrase “user experience,” as a meaningful term describing practice and concern, is dead. Dead dead dead. Which is disconcerting, since my company has all but bet the farm [...]

Wordsmith Hipsters

Over three years ago, I wrote about seeing Erin McKean, lexicographess extraordinaire, speak at a local bookstore. Well, reading the NY Times today, I see that she’s now editor-in-chief of the Oxford American Dictionary. At 33! And still very crush-worthy. Anyway, a decent article on how young’uns are storming the castle of words.

Folksonomy Talks: Information Architects Surpass Techies

Yes, I’m biased, but, based on the notes I’m reading about the folksonomy discussion at ETech, the IA Summit panel on Social Classification was a far richer and more robust discussion (note: I was on the IA Summit panel). The etech discussion didn’t really get beyond what you can read on blogs. The IA Summit [...]

Lev Manovich Lecture: Software > Culture

I’m attending a lecture given by New Media scholar Lev Manovich. He’s perhaps best known for his book, The Language of New Media. Notes: – the man introducing lev just used the word “interpenetration” – lev’s “powerpoint” is just a text file… which he uses because ideas come to him in his lectures, and he [...]

Applications as Digital Document Genres

A convergence of some thoughts here at peterme. First off, there’s document genres. Genres are “a distinctive type of communicative action, characterized by a socially recognized communicative purpose and common aspects of form.”* One way to think about documents is that they are tools for managing information and communication. We use our understanding of genre [...]

Using Document Genres – Good and Bad

One of the things that’s essential about genres is how they communicate what you would use them for. Genres are all about setting expectations for content, which is essential when you’re trying to accomplish something, and need certain kinds of information to do so. Genres on the Web must be painfully clear, since we don’t [...]

There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom*

Over two years ago, I attended the Supernova conference, and wrote about a panel I saw on collaborative business. The gist of the panel was that monolithic tools to support collaboration don’t work, and that what does work are smaller, more pointed task tools such as email and IM. Then, just this morning, I read [...]

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Links, thoughts, and essays from Peter Merholz