blog – Page 25 – crackunit.com

Why youth heart myspace

I get why MySpace is popular, but I don’t get why it should be 30 million people popular. So I was happy to read this article by Danah Boyd at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

It’s a rough transcript of a really well considered talk on the nature of spaces (public, private, controlled and uncontrolled) and the way in which adults and youth inhabit them. I won’t try to precis is here; you should read it yourself. It’s one of those articles that I’m storing bits of in my brain. They’re going to make me appear smart sometime soon. Maybe.

Her blog post that introduces it is here:

Whatever: Writing Tips

Tips on writing better written in a simple and easy to follow fashion – Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don’t Want to Work at Writing. Almost everyone I know could benefit from reading this. And even if I don’t know you, I’d still recommend it.

Update:Â As Lori points out here: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/02/15/180927.php not everything in the above post is totally correct and buttoned down. But at the same time I really do think there’s some great ideas and principles in there.

Flipping the Funnel

Flipping the Funnel (ebook) – as ususal Seth writes in a way that makes you think, “duh, of course, who didn’t know that”, but then you realise that you didn’t, and he’s just implanted something new and brilliant in your brain.

A really straightforwardly written ebook about how tools like del.icio.us and flickr can be used to give your company’s fans a voice that can have a really unique kind of cut through. Read it or weep.

Going Underground

Is it really possible to overlay music onto the London Underground map? Each line representing a genre, giving proximity and intersections real meanings? Sounds bloody impossible to me. But someone’s given it a red-hot go. Nice work – Going underground from Guardian Unlimited: Culture Vulture

Evil Google logo

When I’m tired and not feeling on top form I can never really be bothered to look at stuff online. The one site that always cheers me up a bit is Boing Boing, you’ll never fail to find something interesting, odd, funny or inspiring. I’m not sure which category to put this one in…

As I’m sure everyone knows it’s now very cool to hate Google. So this Script to replace Google logo with Evil Google logo is just what you need. It takes the Google logo and replaces it with one created by the Students for a Free Tibet.

In case you don’t know the story, Google have agreed to filter their search results in China to comply with the government’s censorship wishes. It’s a tough one. Google was already being crippled in China so in some ways it’s a good thing that they’re now accessible and, importantly, able to show users when things have been stripped out by the local authorities, meaning they can see they’re being censored.
Allegedly all the big search engines have done similar deals with the government. But now that Google are officially ‘evil’ they’re the worst (of course)…

dumb, crass, stupid, sexist lavazza

Interesting thoughts on complaining via buzz tracking. Russell doesn’t like the Lavazza posters with busty women on them (russell davies: dumb, crass, stupid, sexist lavazza). I think the image, as a photograph, is middle-shelf toss-fodder. Yes it’s sexist, yes it’s a bit crass. But most of all I really can’t see how this is going to appeal to drinkers of a relatively high end coffee… I’m not offended by it, I just think that the whole campaign is misguided.

I’m much more interested by the power of blogs as routes to reach marketers. Trackbacks, links, and general Google strength are all things that as bloggers we can harness for our own aims.

Given that it doesn’t take many letters to the ASA to get an ad taken off air, how many blogs would have the same effect?

A List Apart: Articles: Web 3.0

I almost feel like I know the guy in the empty seat, or certainly someone cast from the same mold. Zeldman writes about the state of the web. A List Apart: Articles: Web 3.0.

But ours is a medium in which, more often than not, big teams have slowly and expensively labored to produce overly complex web applications whose usability was near nil on behalf of clients with at best vague goals.

True, and that’s still the case. There’s some people who’ve learned from their mistakes (and some who haven’t), some technology that’s improved (and some that hasn’t), Web 2.0 is not a magic wand. In fact (for me) it’s not really very much, apart from a handy organising thought. But the above quote could just as easily be applied to a Ruby-on-Rails project with lashings of AJAX if it’s being run the wrong way by the wrong team.
We’re on an upward tech curve, innovation is happening. VCs and money people are catching up. And for them Web 2.0 is just a lazy shortcut to describe a load of stuff that has been combined to make a few good web apps work better.

That sort of feels like where Zeldman is going too. And he ends the piece with a lovely message which I felt was written just for me:

To you who feel like failures because you spent last year honing your web skills and serving clients, or running a business, or perhaps publishing content, you are special and lovely, so hold that pretty head high, and never let them see the tears.

But just you wait till I get my AJAX, Ruby driven, social dog walking group reminder photo blog service up and running. The VCs will be whacking down my door with their greedy fists. Or something like that.

PowerPoint Kills

I’m not someone that believes PowerPoint is inherently evil, it’s not. It has some flaws (as does most software), but I reckon the thing that hurts it the most is the use of templates. The whole thing is set up with bullet points as the default setting, which means that using bullets is the lazy man’s option. Whilst they can be a good way to ‘outline’ your presentation, as a way of getting people to engage they’re rubbish.

(Just as an aside: one thing I’ve wondered over the years – do MBAs teach people that more is more, especially when considering words on a PowerPoint chart? I’ve noticed a strange correlation).

Here’s a great article about appropriateness of presentation styles, from the always insightful ‘Creating Passionate Users‘.

A list of other recent posts that put me in awe of this blog:

Happy Reading.

Sunrise over Canary Wharf

I didn’t ever want to start making this a what-i-had-for-breakfast-blog, but a combination of a few things have driven me to this post.

1. A new camera – finally I’ve got one that I can carry around without needing a rucksack, hooray!
2. I’m liking bright cold mornings right now. This felt like a nice expression of that.
3. Setting up my blog to integrate with Flickr.

So, this is what I saw out of the office window when I arrived at work early the other day, shot on my new digital camera, posted on Flickr. (And I had peanut butter on toast for breakfast).

Frog Review

All usability reviews should be carried out by talking frogs. And no, I’ve not spent the weekend licking toxic toads! Check this site if you don’t believe that frogs are the future of usability: Frog Review: Ticketmaster. I can see these guys being bigger than Jakob.

(via lots of blogs)