 Christopher Butler Strategy and Resourcing Hi, I'm Chris. I've been working at Newfangled since September, 2004. | Chris Butler's Blog |
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My Initial Thoughts on Persai
January 31, 2008 at 5:00 pm by Chris
This week, I heard that a new startup, Persai, was going to be opening up invite-only beta testing. While I waited for approval of my invite request, I went to the Persai blog to get any additional information I could before used it. In a post titled, "What is Persai," Ted writes:
Persai is a content aggregator that is specific to your interests. You specify a topic that you're interested in with a few words, and Persai will find new content relevant to that interest and recommend it to you. As you use Persai, it learns about you, and can better recommend content to you. Recommendations are based entirely on content, other users' feedback has no bearing on what Persai recommends to you.The Persai homepage has a more "markety" version of this explanation: "Persai is an intelligent agent who finds content that is relevant to your interests. You tell it what you're into, and it will find some stuff that you might like. The more you use Persai, the more it understands your interests. Persai recommends content for you and you alone. No other user's feedback influences its decisions."After playing with this tool a bit, I can definitely say that it has potential, though it needs work. It seems to offer similar functionality to what you can do by creating an RSS feed for Google blog search results (I wrote about this recently in Building Your Online Reputation), except that Persai's results do not seem to be limited to blog posts. 
Persai allows you to set up your interest groups by specifying any word or group of words that describe your interest. You can then label this interest. For example, I created an interest using the words "time travel, future, past, parallel universes, wormholes" and labeled it "time travel." I also set up another interest with only "web design" and labeled it "web design." I wanted to see if the results would vary depending upon how complex your word group is. Incidentally, both groups retrieved only about 4 results for each, so I set up another group with only one word, "technology," and labeled it "technology." This group retrieved about 20 results. As of this writing, the results have not grown. I'm not sure why they are so spare. I also noticed recurring urls in my results, which makes me wonder what unknown factors may skew even a general search. 
I'm not sure how Persai "learns about you." There is a feature to 'reject' a result that Persai delivers to you, but there is no indication of how this would impact future searches. Does it just remove a snippet from your results list, or does it actually affect your interest profile (similar to when you reject a song that pops up in a station you configure on Pandora)?When you set up an interest, the site takes a while to retrieve results. In fact, as of this writing, my last three entries never completed. I added two identical entries to see if they would come up with the same results, and they never got passed the "building" phase. This makes me wonder if the duplication uncovered a bug in the site. Unfortunately, if an interest entry is still "building," you cannot delete it from your profile. I also noticed that when you update the words you assemble for an interest, the results don't update or change at all. Overall, there seem to be enough significant issues with the site to hinder it's potential from shining through. Perhaps from a flurry of beta-testing activity, the site is also quite slow and I encountered many error messages as I tried to navigate through my interest groups. I'll be interested to see where this application goes, and if they expand to introduce any "social" features. |
Tags: social-media software google search
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Tech Talk on Privacy and Social Networks
January 31, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris
On the subject of privacy, I recently heard this podcast from the New York Times. Listen here > |
Tags: social-media audio privacy blogging
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Google and Privacy
January 31, 2008 at 11:00 am by Chris| Eric's latest WebSmart newsletter on Gmail has begun a nice little conversation about Google and privacy issues, so I thought I would throw together a few links on the subject: Wikipedia's "Criticism of Google" page This article covers the various criticisms and controversies that internet search company Google has been involved in. Read it here Google-Watch.org's list of 9 concerns Read it here CNet News on Google This article deals with the information Google collects and doesn't make public. Read it here Norwegian authorities investigate Google on privacy issues Read it here Google's Matt Cutts on Google and Privacy His personal opinion about Google and privacy, not any kind of company position. Read it here Here are some links about privacy from past Week in Review posts: Read about the FBI Wiretap being cut off after the Feds fail to pay telecom spying bills. Read about the all-seeing, all-face-recognizing, fingerprint-collecting, iris-scanning eye of our government. Then pack your bags and head for the hills! Read about Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd challenging Google to provide leadership in the digital world. Update: 02/01/2008: SSL Gmail Not As Safe As You Thought! A security researcher has found that even using SSL HTTPS to access your Gmail account -- which was touted at the time as a surefire way to protect Gmail users against attack -- is vulnerable. Read here > |
Tags: privacy technology email google
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Spammy Emails?
January 30, 2008 at 4:00 pm by Chris| Recently, the Greasemonkey script for enabling HTML signatures in Gmail was updated for Firefox, and created quite a stir here at Newfangled. At one point, I was working on trying to fit just about the entire internet into my 'sig' but eventually settled for one that is roughly the size of one of those ice cream sandwiches we used to get from the school cafeteria when we were kids... Now I don't know what to do! Seriously, though, this script has opened up a bit of a controversy which can be summed up in one statement: "Is there such a thing as email etiquette?" I do think that email etiquette exists- the only problem is that nobody seems to agree on what the tenets of this code of conduct should be. While there are some concepts that most people seem to be in agreement about (I've listed them below), signatures seem to be the subject of contentious debate. According to the Technology Evangelist, heavily formatted email signatures are a no-go. He writes, "When you send an email, you are in effect storing information on the recipient's computer. Do you really think they're interested in using their hard drive to store your colorful email signature? Tip: Just tell them who you are. Name and contact information in plain text does the trick. Anything beyond that is wasteful."Mitch Wagner from Information Week agrees in general. He writes: "The primary purpose of an e-mail sig is to let people know who you are and how to contact you. If you're really, really important, your e-mail recipients had better already know that...The longer your e-mail signature, the lower down the food chain you are..."Wagner goes on to make some other humorous observations about sign-off style, as well, and the comments thread is pretty thick with conversation and many opinions on the topic (they're all over the map). So, is there a rule on email 'sigs' or not? I like that Wagner sees some gray area here. I don't necessarily agree that the bigger your sig, the less important you are (he also makes this connection later when he remembers a colleague of his that actually has a pretty grande sig), but I do agree that longer and more detailed sigs will be more appropriate in some roles and industries than in others. He does mention marketing (see this guy as an example) as one of those industries, so I guess we're safe if we want to go sig-nuts... Other Email Etiquette 1. Don't abuse the subject line. Forms of abuse include: Composing your entire email in the subject line, Typing your subject in all caps for dramatic effect, and Utilizing words like 'hot,' 'urgent,' 'emergency' when they are not warranted. Note: This includes any other derivation of 'hot,' like 'on fire' or 'caliente!' and/or combining unjustified words like these with the all-caps abuse (i.e. 'HOT!'). 2. Reply All Issues. Allowing for many to participate in an email string can be helpful, but can also be annoying. If your reply doesn't need to be heard by all, then don't reply to all. If the conversation digresses from the original subject, start a new email. 3. Spelling. Spell check your emails. Note: 'cuz' is not a word. '2' is a number, not to be confused with the words 'to' or 'too.' Similar confusion exists for the number '4.' 4. What ever you decide with sigs, if you have a long string going, be sure to not include the sig with every reply you send out. What are your thoughts on email etiquette? Did I miss anything crucial? Update: 02/27/08: Boxes and Arrows just published a great article that touches on just about every point I made above, but in much more detail. You can read it here. |
Tags: software email
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Is that Really You?
January 29, 2008 at 9:00 am by Chris
Unlike some people I know (Able Parris), I have a fairly common name, which means that simply Googling "Chris Butler" won't retrieve any information about me among the top results. I just can't seem to compete with the Chris Butler who makes Space Art or the Chris Butler who does wedding photography in Austin... Even Mark O'Brien has this problem! But then I realized that performing well in an unqualified search (i.e. just "Chris Butler") wouldn't really be that valuable to me, anyway. What would be much more valuable would be to perform well in a slightly more specific search that is actually relevant to who I am (i.e. "chris butler web"). Contrary to common belief, achieving this is actually well within your reach.Since I am happily employed, I am not really looking to improve my standing in search results for any other purpose but to unify my online identity. However, many people will look to improve their standing in a name-based search in order to boost business, especially if their name is their brand (talk to the Chris Butler who does wedding photography in Austin- I'm sure he'd agree). The first step is to determine what your online "hub" is going to be. This could be a personal website, a particular online profile, a blog, or something else. Your hub should be the place that will have the most up-to-date information about you, as well as be the source which you keep up with most often. I chose my hub to be my Newfangled blog. The second step is to utilize social media to point traffic to your hub. If you haven't yet participated in any social media applications, now is a good time to start. Most of these applications allow you to set up a simple profile free of charge, though many offer other utilities that you might find pretty useful for connecting with others based upon interests or other common criteria. Your profile should be consistent among all your social media accounts (stick to a common username, contact details, profile photo, etc.) and should all link to your hub. I would recommend at least setting up profiles with Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Technorati, and Digg. Because your social media profiles will indicate your areas of interest or expertise, you should begin to see an improvement in your standing among qualified search results within a few weeks. Prior to linking up all of my social media profiles to my hub, my standing was pretty poor. Even though I've been consistently working in the web/design/development industry for years, I was nowhere to be found! However, I actually now show up among the top results for many specific searches that are actually relevant to me (i.e. "chris butler blog," "chris butler web," "chris butler design," "chris butler technology," "chris butler risd," etc.). |
Tags: social-media google search
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The Week in Review
January 25, 2008 at 9:00 am by Chris
This post is a collection of things that caught my attention this week, most of which came to me via RSS feeds and blogs that I read myself. Now I'm passing them on to you (in the order in which I bookmarked them). Enjoy!- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse Om Malik's list of social networks from the '80s to the '00s. Read about the possible 2009 release date for Windows 7. If this is true, then even Microsoft must agree that Vista was a tremendous flop! Browse Smashing Magazine's list of 29 Brilliant Music Videos (via Mark). Read about Harvard's Robotic fly, which will descend on New York City. Read and watch a video about the musician and researchers collaboration that created a Dark Matter "Music Box" Read Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox, which says, "The average business metrics improvement after a usability redesign is now 83%. This is substantially less than 6 years ago, but ROI remains high because usability is still cheap relative to gains." Read the ideasonideas interview with designer Stefan Sagmeister. Trekkies everywhere don't know what to do with themselves as images and a teaser trailer hit the web. Browse these nice hand-illustrated maps (via Able). Check out the BBC's new homepage (in Beta). Check out and use the YouTube Known Issues page. Check out this great comic, and browse the others, too (via Able). Read one writer's opinion, that Google is poised to take a thunderous hit in the event of a recession. Take the survey "Does Social Networking 'Work' For You?" Read how Apple stocks took a huge hit in after hours trading on Tuesday, falling 12 percent and currently hovering around $130 on Wednesday morning. Wednesday was Mozilla's 10th birthday! Watch Sesame Street. Check out the latest tourist spacecraft- then figure out how to scrape together a bazillion dollars for your ticket. Read why personal data is like nuclear waste. Check out Chirp Interactive's Chirpscreen screen saver, now available in public beta, which aggregates images from Facebook and Flickr and brings them to your computer in an entertaining slideshow form. Read how Vista has logged fewer vulnerabilities in its first year than XP, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Apple Mac OS X did in their first years. Read how the Senate is set to revisit the legislation permanently granting the government's spies a free hand to unilaterally wiretap American telecom facilities and services and give immunity to the government's corporate partners in its warrantless wiretapping program. Read how Bill Gates will speak to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, planning to call for a "creative capitalism." He says, "We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well." Browse the many creative uses of the Bic pen. Browse Smashing Magazine's list of recommended usability and interface design books. Read about Chindogu: Form or Function? Listen to the Boxes and Arrows audiocast, "Getting a Form's Structure Right." Read about the Six Apart 'hackathon' and the OpenSocial API. Read about the new and improved YouTube for mobile. Read why this author is not a fan of the term 'content marketing.' Read about the Digg 'revolt.' Read about Digg CEO Jay Adelson's take on yesterday's 'revolt.' Read about Microsoft's second-quarter results exceeding everyone's expectations. Read and watch a video of Edward Tufte's assessment of the iPhone's interface. |
Tags: technology strategy hardware week-in-review user-interface-design video web-development design audio social-media art privacy marketing software
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My Favorite Audiocasts and Videocasts
January 24, 2008 at 8:00 am by ChrisNews Flash! We just added a new member to our project management team, Jason Adams. Among his many significant geek-cred claims (his Facebook status as of this writing was 'is sorting comic books') is his love for audiocasting. You can subscribe to his here (I haven't listened yet, but I have a feeling that when I do, I will like it). I mentioned audiocasts a while back in a post called The Internet Breathes New Life into Radio!, but aside from recommending one of my favorites, RadioLab, I didn't really mention any others. So with that, here is a list (in no particular order) of my current favorite audiocasts and videocasts (by the way, I use the words audiocast/videocast rather than podcast just to avoid showing preference to one particular player over others...):
MAKE Magazine: MAKE VideocastMAKE is a quarterly magazine that deals with all sorts of do-it-yourself messing around with technology. It claims to be "the first do-it-yourself magazine dedicated to the incorrigible and chronically incurable technology enthusiast in all of us." http://blog.makezine.com/archive/make_podcast/index.xml 
Mysterious UniverseThis one was a bit of a risk to put on my list. Mysterious Universe is a weekly audio cast that brings "the latest news from beyond the mainstream;" think of it as if Fox Muldur from the X-Files was actually a real guy and did an internet radio show with complete sincerity. So, I enjoy listening to this one while maintaining a decent level of skepticism. http://feeds.feedburner.com/mysteriousuniverse 
Meet the PressThis is the weekly NBC broadcast featuring moderator Tim Russert interviewing newsmakers from all over the world. http://podcast.msnbc.com/audio/podcast/MSNBC-MTP.xml 
The New Yorker: Out LoudThis is a weekly conversation between Michael Specter and various New Yorker writers about the latest articles and features from the magazine. Topics are all over the map, but always fascinating. http://feeds.newyorker.com/services/rss/feeds/newyorker_outloud.xml 
NPR: Fresh AirHosted by Terry Gross, this daily audiocast covers issues from politics to contemporary arts in an "intimate conversation" format. http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=13 
NPR: On PointThis has been one of my favorites for several years now, and is probably the primary way I keep up with current events. In fact, I love this show so much I even called in once (yes, I am that guy)! Hosted by Tom Ashbrook, the show airs twice daily covering topics from politics to art and literature. Each Friday features a 'week in the news' show with Jack Beatty, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510053 
PRI: Living on EarthLiving on Earth is a weekly news and informational program about the world's changing environment, ecology, and human health. LOE sends its correspondents all over the world producing excellent stories that you'd never hear elsewhere. One of the highlights of this program is its excellent sound production- not only will you hear the voices of the reporters speaking from the rainforest, but you'll hear the rustling of insects, screeching of monkeys and birds, and the rushing of rivers. Lots of fun. http://www.loe.org/podcast.rss 
Science TalkBrought to you by Scientific American, this is a weekly show covering the latest in the world of science and technology, hosted by Steve Mirsky. One highlight is the weekly feature, called 'Totally Bogus,' in which Mirsky mentions several stories and challenges listeners to identify which one is totally bogus http://www.sciam.com/podcast/sciam_podcast_r.xml 
Slate ExplainerThis is a short daily audiocast in which the Explainer team investigates and finds the answers to questions that everyone is sure to be asking. Recent questions have been "Will the interest rate cut affect me?" and "But I Don't Want a Rectal Exam! (ok, that last one isn't a question, but it was the title of the show). http://www.slate.com/podcast/id/2129874/ 
This American LifeThis weekly broadcast from Chicago Public Radio is hosted by Ira Glass and brings a theme-driven show in several 'acts,' each with first-person stories from everyday life. http://feeds.thisamericanlife.org/talpodcast 
RadioLabHosted by Jad Abumrad and science correspondent Rober Krulwich, RadioLab brings intricately produced shows where "science meets culture and information sounds like music." That's actually a really good description. This broadcast is unlike any other that I have heard! http://feeds.wnyc.org/radiolab If you have any audio/videocast recommendations or favorites, leave them in the comments! |
Tags: audio blogging
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CLUMPC - A new acronym coined...
January 23, 2008 at 4:30 pm by Chris| It seems that the Everex Cloudbook will take its place among several machines in what is a new (to me) category, the CLUMPC. CLUMPC stands for cheap linux ultramobile PC. There's even a blog devoted to this category! I wonder if we're supposed to pronounce this clumpy-see? |
Tags: software computers
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I've Been Here Before, Haven't I?
January 23, 2008 at 10:00 am by Chris
As part of his general theory of relativity, Einstein suggested that the shape of the universe itself was hyperspherical, meaning that there is no center as such and that the universe would look exactly the same from any point within it. This would mean that one could potentially, assuming a very powerful telescope, look in a straight line through the full extent of the universe and end up at the back of one's own head! Pretty strange right? Very strange. What does this have to do with web development project management, you ask? Well...Sometimes I feel like I'm having this cosmic Einsteinian experience when I get to a certain point in a project- the point when I realize that despite taking every precaution and exerting much effort to avoid the mistakes of the last project, I've actually made many of them again, plus a few new ones! The site is buggy. It looks wrong in some browsers. Time is running out. Everyone is unhappy. It's at this point when I feel like I'm seeing the back of my own head and I ask myself, "how did this happen... again?" There are some troublesome aspects of most projects that will probably never go away. Things like debugging, multiple rounds of QA, and rescheduling will always be a part of project management because not everything is predictable. But some of these things are actually inherently beneficial to the project. 
Let's start with bugs. Bugs are actually not a bad thing (at least, not always a bad thing). In fact, bugs exist because when software is initially designed and developed, not every factor can always be predicted and accounted for. This means that when the first test is run, the bugs are the first indicator of those unpredicted issues and actually help the project to be refined. However, bugs get less and less appreciated the closer the team gets to an important deadline. This is understandable, but sometimes unavoidable because there are often bug-revealing factors that don't come into play until late in a project (delayed access to databases, new requirements, etc.). But if you can prepare your client for these unforseen issues, and bugs in general, everyone will be much happier. Think about it this way: when any company releases some software that is tagged 'BETA,' it is a general warning to any user that they are likely to encounter bugs of some kind. It's kind of like saying, "we know this is unfinished, and we can't promise that using it will be a flawless experience." But, when the software no longer has 'BETA' stuck on it, users are far less forgiving of bugs. For a case in point, I only need two words: Microsoft Vista.The first thing that any of our clients should know when a site is first released is that there will be bugs. This is pretty normal. In fact, most of the time the visual design is not yet applied at this point, so there is definitely a strong BETA vibe going on. I find that if our clients know that bugs are a normal part of the development process, for all the reasons I stated above, encountering them is far less disturbing. (If any of our clients got the impression that our sites would be completely bug-free the first time they were used, we'd be in big trouble.) However, they do rightfully expect that as the visual design is applied and initial bug reports are addressed, that the site will emerge out of "BETA" in time for launch. This all seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? You're probably wondering, "what's the problem, then?" I agree, which is why I am often caught off guard when, during the home stretch of a project, things get a little tense and I do that bit of self-diagnostic wondering how this all could have been avoided. Often, the one thing that I know could have avoided this situation is the one thing we don't have: Time. 
In all of our project proposals, we schedule time for testing and QA. It is usually the last phase of the project prior to going-live, which means it is often the phase that gets thrown out when a project is down to the wire. What I've learned is that we need to be much more insistent that this phase is kept in place, even if that means the go-live date is delayed. After all, everyone knows that haste makes waste, right? Of all the phases that should have their full allotment of time, the testing and QA phase deserves it the most. Of course, enforcing this is much easier said than done. In order for this to really work, our clients need to feel that the testing and QA phase is just as important as we do. What I have realized is that when I find myself in that recurring moment of "I've been here before, haven't I," it's likely because I have failed to communicate how important the last phase is, and thus failed to win the client to that point of view also. Doh! Now, if only I could reach out far enough in the Universe to slap the back of my own head!We recently created a 'Project Anatomy' document (see left) that includes every possible step for a project that we might work on as a resource for the project managers. For some projects, not every step will be necessary, but following the anatomy as closely as possible will now ensure that testing and QA are definitely performed at various points in the process and are 'non-negotiable' even when time gets crunched. It's hard to say whether this will prevent every future project from bringing its manager to the 'back of the head' moment, but I'm confident that it will be a huge help. |
Tags: web-development strategy design project-management
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Everex Releasing its own Ultraportable, The Cloudbook
January 23, 2008 at 8:00 am by Chris
Everex, which already wowed geeks by releasing its gPC in partnership with WalMart, is set to release its own ultraportable- the Cloudbook (I love the name!). Designed to compete with the successful Asus Eee PC, the Cloudbook will have a 7-inch display and run the same Linux-based operating system as the gPC.Not only will a machine like this compete with the Eee PC, but the general proliferation of ultraportable and other systems running alternative operating systems will certainly challenge the dominance of Windows in personal computing. Additional specs from Everex's own site: 9 Inches, 2 pounds, 5 hours of battery life. Surf, email, blog, IM, Skype, compute. Cloud computing makes it simple and easy for everyone. |
Tags: software computers
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Alert! Serious Blogging in Progress
January 22, 2008 at 9:30 pm by Chris| In case you haven't noticed, our fearless leader, the Prez, the big cheese, our very own Mark O'Brien has jumped in head-first to the world of blogging and he's going nuts! Let Mark's enthusiasm be an example to us all! |
Tags: blogging newfangled
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Free Photoshop Alternatives
January 22, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris| In a post from last year (Make Your Own Adobe CS3 for Free!), I mentioned that there were several free online options for photo editing software. Here's an updated video from CNet detailing what some of those options are: |
Tags: design software
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Sitelinks and Search Snippets Updated
January 22, 2008 at 10:00 am by ChrisIn a past post (Sitelinks and Search Snippets) I mentioned that Google was rolling out a more expanded snippet for URLs that included a mini sitemap for the URL shown. I had also mentioned that Google had not implemented control of these site links for webmasters. As of recently, this is no longer true. Eric sent me the following screenshot (see below), showing that you can now control the sitelinks using Google's webmaster tools.  |
Tags: google search
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Thrift Store + Sharpie = Cool Office Mugs
January 18, 2008 at 1:30 pm by Chris
Somehow a bunch of our coffee mugs disappeared recently, so I managed to snag four nice ceramic ones at a thrift store nearby for 25 cents a piece. Plain white was just not cutting it, so I grabbed the nearest Sharpie and went nuts. Good times...My favorite one is the mug within a mug within a mug within a mug... I call it the 'infinity mug.' Pictured left: Mitch, Able, and Scott. |
Tags: design art newfangled
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The Week in Review
January 18, 2008 at 7:00 am by Chris
This post is a collection of things that caught my attention this week, most of which came to me via RSS feeds and blogs that I read myself. Now I'm passing them on to you (in the order in which I bookmarked them). Enjoy!- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Read as The Guardian asks Facebook, "Why on God's earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me?" Read about researchers who have grown a beating heart in a dish. Read about the US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search. Read as cosmologists consider, "Are we just a naked, floating brain in space?" Then, Read this post from Jonah Lehrer, who worries that the experiments of modern science are becoming increasingly detached from the empirical actuality of everyday life. Read about the monkey in North Carolina who's brain signals control a robot in Japan. Read how the nation's top spy, Michael McConnell, thinks the threat of cyberarmageddon! is so great that the U.S. government should have unfettered and warrantless access to U.S. citizens' Google search histories, private e-mails and file transfers. View the nicely designed annual report for designer Nicholas Felton (via Nolan). Watch this incredible video showing how three designers created an epic war scene in 4 days. Check out Pentagram's redesign of Dairy Today magazine. Makes you think you might be interested in cows and what not... Browse MIT's presentation of a visualization of all the nouns in the English language arranged by semantic meaning. AKA 80 Million Tiny Images. Read an interview between John Maeda and the AIGA about his recent appointment to the office of the president of the Rhode Island School of Design. Read how Mozilla has expanded by hiring three of the principals of Humanized to work on user-interface design for Firefox and other projects. Read about the Chevy Volt and how sick-nasty-awesome people want it to be. Read what Steve Jobs had to say about Bill Gates retiring from Microsoft: "Bill's retiring from Microsoft is a big deal." Read how Sun Microsystems has announced plans to buy open source database software maker MySQL for roughly $1 billion (woah!), or $800 million in cash and $200 million in options. Read about the computer program that could translate dog barks into human speech. In anticipation of this, my dog dictated the following message to me, "Woof, woof woof WOOF." Read this article on why most people don’t use advanced search, and what can be done about it. (via Eric) Read about the Silicon Valley startup that has created a product that bypasses Windows to start computers faster. Check out the winner of Google's Innovate or Die competition. Check out this video of a Hitachi technology that has done Microsoft's surface computer without the table. Read Technobabble's whitepaper which discusses measuring the impact of social media upon your online influence. Browse Jeremiah Owyang's list of People on the Move in the Social Media Industry. Read Kami's advice to companies: "Register YourName Sucks Without Delay!" Watch as Richard Serra puts some spin on what 'mass media' means. As I watched this I kept thinking that 'internet' or 'facebook' could replace references to 'television' throughout. Browse the Flickr photostream from the Library of Congress. Read about the study that says that 2007 was the Earth's second-warmest year in a century. Read about the 'passionate worker,' who 'doesn't show up because she's afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it's a hobby that pays.' Learn how to build a geodesic dome using Legos. Don't have 90 minutes to watch Steve Jobs' blah blah blah blah? Watch the entire MacWorld keynote in 60 seconds (via Able). Oh, the irony! |
Tags: technology strategy hardware week-in-review user-interface-design video web-development design audio social-media art privacy marketing software
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Building Your Online Reputation
January 17, 2008 at 10:00 am by ChrisIf your website is already or is becoming a significant part of your marketing or operation, it is going to start to be more and more important that you are aware of your online reputation. The internet has many venues for individuals to voice their opinions and concerns about your product or service, so it's going to be to your advantage to be aware if your name is being praised, or dragged through the mud. If you're not sure how to do this, here are a few suggestions:
The first and probably most important thing to do is set up an RSS feed for search results for your company name online. If your are familiar with subscribing to RSS feeds, this is a pretty simple maneuver. If you're not familiar with this, start by reading our Web Smart newsletter, RSS: When the Web Comes to You. Since blogs are one of the most likely formats to find current consumer feedback, go to Google blog search and search for your company name (also, read another of our newsletters, Blogging: The Bedrock of Advertising 2.0- it covers just about all of what I'm dealing with here and more). Depending upon your name, some of the results will not be related to you. That's ok- you can filter through these quickly. What you want to catch are the correct ones, so you may want to include some other terms if appropriate. Notice that on the left column of the search results page, there is an RSS feed for your search. By subscribing to that feed, you'll now get an alert every time your query is used in a blog somewhere. Even if blogging is not a part of your online strategy, being in touch with blog activity that is related to your company is essential for both building your reputation, and repairing it if it's damaged. Since you now get these handy alerts, you can respond to posts related to you promptly. For example, if you see an article that is recommending your product or service, or describing a good experience with your company, you can quickly view it and add a comment of your own thanking the blogger for their post. This communicates to everyone involved that you value consumer opinion, and are willing to submit to a certain level of transparency to interact with customers or clients. Keep in mind that time is of the essence, so if your comment is vastly outdated compared to the original post, its visibility will be pretty low. This kind of activity can really help to build your reputation, even if the blog search feed you've subscribed to is not specifically related to your company name. It could even be topical (i.e. searching for 'agency web strategy') so that you can contribute your expertise to the general conversation that's occurring online. On the other hand, if your reputation is being damaged through blog activity, this gives you the opportunity to either correct false information, or apologize if the criticisms are accurate.
Update: 02/05/2008: Here are a couple of blog posts from the HubSpot blog about blogging: 10 Commandments of the Blogosphere 5 Tips for Efficient Blogging |
Tags: strategy books blogging
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Sketchbook or Scrapbook?
January 16, 2008 at 1:30 pm by Chris| There's been a recent dispute in the office of whether 'scrapbooking' or 'sketchbooking' should be used to describe the practice of maintaining a book that contains drawings and/or collages. I contend that 'sketchbooking' is correct, as 'scrapbooking' connotes something entirely different. Your thoughts? Here's a slideshow of some of my sketchbook pages: |
Tags: design art newfangled
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A Few Great Short Videos
January 13, 2008 at 9:15 pm by Chris| I first saw this video about graphic designer Milton Glaser while I was in Malaysia in 2005. Adobe had linked to it from their website. I could never remember the link, but just found it again on YouTube. You can watch it below: Another great video is this famous one from Charles and Ray Eames. I feel badly posting it- everyone should order the Eames film collection! And here's a nice one about Saul Bass: As a kid I loved all of the books by David Macaulay. Here are a couple clips about his work: |
Tags: design video
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The Correspondence of Christopher Butler and Able Parris
January 11, 2008 at 4:00 pm by Chris| Before either I or Able started working here at Newfangled, we sent lots of mail to each other- even when we lived 5 minutes apart! I think it started when Able sent me some lego grass with a stamp on it. This continued for years, and continues today (though not as prolifically). You can browse some of our postcards through the slideshow player below: |
Tags: design art newfangled
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The Week in Review
January 11, 2008 at 7:00 am by Chris
This post is a collection of things that caught my attention this week, most of which came to me via RSS feeds and blogs that I read myself. Now I'm passing them on to you (in the order in which I bookmarked them). Enjoy!- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Check out these cool wall stickers. Watch this video introduction of the Bug Labs open source hardware modules from CES 2008. Check out Bug Labs at http://www.buglabs.net. Read about the telescope funded by Bill Gates and the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences that will be able to survey the entire sky every three nights. Read about Mozilla's social offering, Weave. Check out the new features of Google Docs presentations. Take a look at these awesome animated letters (via Able)! Browse the (awesome) design work of Carin Goldberg, the designer responsible for the layouts for the New York Times' 7th Annual Year in Ideas (http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2007/12/08/magazine/index.html) Read and see pictures from Bill Gates' CES keynote presentation. Read why one scientist thinks that physicists should seriously consider the idea that the universe is a giant virtual reality simulation. Read about Intel breaking up with the OLPC project. View these incredible tape-art images (via Nolan)! Read about the Swiss study that analyzed 26 biofuel crops and decided that some are better than others. Read why Nicholas Carr thinks the IT department is dead. Get a first look at images from Spike Jonze's adaptation of "Where the Wild Things Are." Browse Jakob Nielsen's list of the 10 Best Intranets of 2008. Read and watch videos about Mark Malkoff, a comedian living in an IKEA store. Browse 'I Love Typography's' list of 15 Great Examples of Web Typography. And the award for Most Bizarre Technology Consolidation goes to the Taser MPH -- the first combination hand-held music player and Taser. Don't Pod Me, Bro!!! Check out this incredible |