 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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The Week in Review
May 16, 2008 at 8:30 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! Google Maps Adds More Google Maps has been cranking out the updates fast and furious lately. In the last week the site has incorporated photos and Wikipedia entries, added the ability to pan upward in street views and this morning it announced a new Flash mapping API. Link List Color on Intranets Lists of links are an intermediate case between content-embedded links and menu items. Showing listed links in blue or in the site's main link color is the recommended design — and the one most intranets follow. Audiocast: The Future of the Internet Web guru Jonathan Zittrain worries that hyper-convenient but closed products like the iPhone are shutting down the party Google Shows Blurred Faces in Street View to Protect Privacy GM keeps building cars on XP In an interview with BusinessWeek, GM technology chief Fred Killeen said that, for now, he's sticking with Windows XP. Syrian blogger sentenced to three years in jail A human rights group says a 24-year-old Syrian blogger has been convicted and sentenced to three years in prison on charges of undermining the prestige of the state and weakening national morale. No off switch: "Hyperconnectivity" on the rise According to a new study from Interactive Data Corp. (IDC) and sponsored by Nortel, however, an emerging demographic of "hyperconnected" individuals in the workforce doesn't have an off switch. US envoy says toll from Myanmar cyclone might reach 100,000 Google Plastic Bag View Google Sightseeing blog reports about an interesting incident in Google Street View: a plastic bag blocked Google's camera on a street from Alaska. How Little Do Users Read? On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. Ad-support content will soon dominate digital media The ad-based model is apparently more popular among media execs than subscription or even pay-per-view models. A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media Woopra Lets You Stalk Your Users The rule-breaking part comes when you download and install the cross-platform Woopra desktop application, and install a special plugin on your WordPress- or vBulletin-driven site (presumably more plugins are in the works). Scented text messages patented in Germany Two German companies have patented technology for sending scented text messages on mobile phones. Open Screen Project Adobe will open the FLV and SWF formats. |
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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The Week in Review
May 2, 2008 at 8:30 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 how with print revenue down and online revenue growing, newspaper executives are anticipating the day when big city dailies and national papers will abandon their print versions. Google researchers say they have a software technology intended to do for digital images on the Web what the company’s original PageRank software did for searches of Web pages. Read how within the last five years, the size of the average web page has more than tripled, and the number of external objects has nearly doubled. While broadband users have experienced somewhat faster response times, narrowband users have been left behind. Read Jakob Neilsen's latest AlertBox, in which he writes, "Users scan lists by moving their eyes rapidly down the left edge. Menu items that are right-aligned make scanning more difficult." Read how a Dubai based firm is in the process of developing software that will make it easy to restrict access “to groups on Facebook deemed to go against the social, moral, cultural and religious values of the United Arab Emirates.” Read how Microsoft has come up with a “wearable pointing device” that looks somewhat like a hybrid between the gloves in Minority Report and the Nintendo Wiimote. Their patent filed in October 2006 was just recently published. Read this email lesson to Bcc. Read about the war against the web. Read how you can strip Twitter down to its raw, emotional core with Twistori. The simple website scrapes Twitter posts for exactly six keywords using the search engine summize. Read how old-school encyclopedia Britannica is giving bloggers free subscriptions to Britannica Online, the internet version of its multivolume masterpiece. Read how we’ve outsourced our own content, leaving little point to a fullblown personal website. Read how the number of messages sent via SMS falls dramatically among MIM users from 38 to only 23 messages per 100. Read about Henry Blodget unveiling the new SAI 25 which values the top 25 startups. At the top of the list was Facebook, bringing in a valuation of $9 billion. Read about Iceberg, which provides a drag and drop form builder and a workflow and process generation tool, and uses a visual flowchart like interface to create decision trees and other action and event triggers automatically. Stop using Ajax! Read how the future web will put "all the data in the world" at the fingertips of every user. Read how Adobe will open the FLV and SWF formats. Read about two German companies that have patented technology for sending scented text messages on mobile phones. Read about stalking your users with Woopra. |
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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5 Simple Ways to Send Better Emails
May 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris| When I first picked up Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, I thought it would be a pretty light book telling me lots of obvious stuff I already knew. After all, I send emails all day every day, and have been for a long time. However, I was easily proven wrong. While SEND is a quick and relatively light read, it contains lots of helpful information which I have already put in to practice. Here are five of the main ideas that I'll be sure to keep in mind for my emails from now on: 1. Seniority and "to:" Order This may not be an issue for you or the people you work with. In fact, before reading this in SEND, I never even considered it. However, my feeling is that when it comes to email etiquette, you're better off being safe than sorry. Essentially, Shipley and Schwalbe's point is that when assembling your "To" list of multiple recipients, put the names in order of seniority, if that applies. This is one of those tiny details that you may overlook, but someone else may not. 2. Good Subject Lines This is a pretty simple point to get, especially if you do much with email on hand-held devices (like your Blackberry). Keep your subject simple and on point. If the content of your email has nothing to do with the original subject line of the email string you're still in, go ahead and change it. However, if you use Gmail, keep in mind that the subject line is what Google uses to string emails together in a "conversation," so you may have other reasons to maintain a particular subject. Because we send so many emails, both internally and to our clients, I like to use an "internal" tag when sending emails to Newfangled people that are not related to particular projects. This way, a busy Project Manager can quickly identify my email and prioritize it among the many others from our clients. One of these subject lines might look like this, "Internal: Project Manager Meeting Rescheduled." Likewise, I might tag an email related to a particular project like this, "client.com: Go Live Schedule." 3. To Cc or Not to Cc The Cc field can be a shield, or it can be a sword, so use it with care. Because Cc stands for "carbon copy," the intent was to use this field to include a recipient who may not need to follow up directly on the email's questions or requests, but needs to be kept informed of the information. Using the Cc field can send strong messages, too. If an email conversation with a client gets tense, but you know that you are following the proper protocol, you might Cc your superior on your response. This "shield" approach will communicate to your recipient that you're done playing games and are confident that your superior will back you up if needed. If you do this, be sure you're in the right. On the other hand, if your email is accusatory or corrective toward your recipient and you Cc someone else, you clearly have your "sword" drawn. Be sure you're ready for battle. Lastly, I think it's polite to inform your recipient that you are Cc'ing someone else, and why. If the Cc'ed address is foreign to your recipient, they could immediately be on the defensive even if the don't need to be. In my example below, notice that if I didn't let "Ralph" know why I was Cc'ing Mark, he might get defensive and assume it was a passive aggressive way of complaining about the schedule being off. To: Ralph 4. "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." Donald Rumsfeld was given a hard time for this quote, but he's actually right. In fact, one of Eric's favorite quotes ("The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." ) points out that we often assume we know things that we don't, or that others know things that they don't. It's good to know that there are things you don't know- thanks, Rummy! This problem runs rampant in email, so never assume that the recipient of your message will know what you're talking about. Unfortunately, writing a huge email with lots of back-story won't necessarily do the trick either. Because people tend to get so much email now, thorough reading of long emails is not a guarantee. This means that your job is even tougher. You'll need to make sure that your email as comprehensive as needed but also as succinct as possible. Simple tricks like making sure that major points, instructions, or questions have their own line will make it easier for your recipients to pay attention and follow up. Also, if you are sending the email to multiple recipients, try highlighting particular information for them. Below is an example. Notice how I didn't just launch in to my questions without providing some context (the new employees). To: Eric, Mark, Mitch, Katie, Jason 5. Oh no you didn't! Not in My Inbox! Do you ever get emails forwarded to you that include days, weeks or even months of communication that the sender expects you to sort out in order to respond appropriately? Shipley and Schwalbe correctly point out that when this happens, the sender is essentially taking work from their desk and putting it on yours. Don't let senders make you do a ton of work they should have done before emailing you! An appropriate response to an email like this might be as follows in the example below. Notice how I politely bounced that work right back. To: Eddie |
Tags: project-management email business books
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Poke! ...Want to be friends?
May 1, 2008 at 10:00 am by Chris| This video is a pretty witty "real life" interpretation of Facebook socialization: |
Tags: social-media video
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More than Meets the Eye!
April 25, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris| via Able, via Design Observer: |
Tags: video technology
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The Week in Review
April 25, 2008 at 8:30 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 how Amazon is challenging Google's lead in apps. Read how U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010. Read Jakob Nielsen's latest post, in which he writes, "Since I started in 1983, the usability field has grown by 5,000%. It's a wonderful job — and still a promising career choice for new people." Read how the Supreme Court of New Jersey became the first court in the nation yesterday to rule that people have an expectation of privacy when they are online, and law enforcement officials need a grand jury warrant to have access to their private information. Take a look at Six Online Tools for a Green Wired Life. Read Jeremiah Owyang's report on OpenSocial. Read how Microsoft's Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said Tuesday that it's time for the company to acknowledge a new reality. Check out Live Mesh. Read how Mahalo.com is now using microformats for their data. Joyce Park, co-founder and CTO of Renkoo (developer of Booze Mail), says all is not well in Facebook Developer Land. Yahoo says, "Yeah, sure, we'll do that. And that, too..." Microsoft says, "Ownkiere." Read more about OpenID. |
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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Sketchbook Redux
April 24, 2008 at 3:00 pm by Chris| I've been scanning lots of pages from my sketchbooks lately. Check them out below: |
Tags: design art
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Quick Book Review: Send
April 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris
I've just finished reading a small book called Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. I'll probably write a larger post in the next several days about email in general in reflection on the book, but I wanted to just quickly post a recommendation. This book is a quick, but worthwhile, read. Send contains plenty of interesting NYTimes-column-esque factoids that contextualize email in the larger history of business and personal correspondence, as well as provides some advice as to how to do a better job using email. I began reading Send with the idea that I had "mastered" email. After all, it's what I spend the majority of my day doing. However, I quickly realized that there were many ways that I could improve. One of the large themes in the book is that senders often take for granted what information their email recipients will know. Consequently, the email itself ends up being quite inadequate and unhelpful to both sender and recipient. The authors recommend over an over again taking the extra time to ensure that an email is comprehensive and clear, rather than always prioritizing speed. Other topics they discuss include the "anatomy" of an email, different types of email (asking, answering, informing, thanking, apologizing, and connecting), emotional email, etc. Here's a review of Send from the New York Times. The authors have even set up a website for the book that includes a blog and some email horror stories. |
Tags: email business books
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The Week in Review
April 18, 2008 at 8:30 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 why older generations may stave of the death of the internet by tethered devices. Read how the NYTimes.com geocodes its articles to collaborate with Google Earth. Read this criticism of the titles and categories within Google Analytics. Read how Google is now indexing hidden pages- like those behind web forms. Read how Microsoft is about to launch it's own retail store. Read why Enterprise 2.0 is a computer security nightmare. Read why notifications are the new spam. Find out how to get Mac-suite software for cheap! Read why Yahoo-Google agreement could drive up ad rates. Read how the Open Geospatial Consortium has announced its acceptance of KML 2.2 as an official OGC Standard. Read why the Exaflood now seems unlikely. Read how one study shows that Google lost a share of its search ad dollars to Yahoo. Check out Wordie. Read how, in honor of the Australian launch of Google Street View, a Sydney-based newspaper hunted down the home addresses of some of the top local Googlers and disclosed some of their most personal information. Read why venture capitalists remain upbeat despite less return on investments. Read why Malaysian political candidates are required to have blogs. Check out GIMP's new look. Read how big and small companies are getting into the business of building an intelligent web of linked data. Don't Be Evil (psych!) How do you use Facebook? Brandon Rennels has compiled a fairly substantial list of user types. Read how researchers have built a quantum logic gate in an optical fiber, laying the foundation for a quantum computer network. Yahoo! buys Indextools. More legal trouble for Facebook? Read how Comcast is looking to further position itself as proactively addressing the issue of managing peer-to-peer traffic that traverses its network by creating a “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” for users and Internet service providers. Google Maps Predicts Traffic Conditions Read how Flickr has launched a new website for developers. Read how a new spam site goes online every three seconds. Read how ISPs have meddled with their customers' web traffic. Read how Google’s first quarter results were amazingly good, despite the worries on Wall Street about a slowdown in consumers clicking on its ads. Read why many dire predictions were wrong about Google's earnings. |
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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Asus Eee PC 900 is out.
April 17, 2008 at 5:00 pm by Chris| Here is an early review of the Eee PC 900 from Cnet UK. Looks like several great improvements, which will hopefully bring the machine one step closer to being the Newfangled standard issue ;-). Here is another review from Trusted Reviews. And another video review from Stuff.tv. And if you don't mind some cheesy music (just mute it), below is a video overview of the new machine: |
Tags: software hardware video
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Microsoft, you're embarrasing me.
April 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris| This internal Microsoft video, patting itself on the back for Vista service pack 1, was leaked this week. Not only is the video cringe-worthy, but it's extra annoying given that many users still can't even get SP1 for many confusing reasons (myself included). |
Tags: software video
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The Week in Review
April 11, 2008 at 8:30 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 through a debate held by Economist.com on the question of whether technology has succeeded in simplifying our lives. Read how rather than penalizing sites or web pages, Google filters out those pages that they consider to be duplications, placing them further back within the search results. Read how Google is now allowing outside developers to write applications that will run on its vast network of data centers. Read how the courts are chipping away at web sites' decade-old legal shield. Read how the U.S. government plans to pitch 'Phase One' of a 'net monitoring plan at RSA. Read about the Pennsylvania couple suing Google Street View. Watch this video of Michael Chertoff on REAL ID. Read why the Real ID act has been a real fiasco. Read how HP has officially announced Upline, a storage service that is useful for those who are seeking a way to share files with others or take advantage of online backup. Read about Google App Engine, which competes directly with an offering from Amazon.com. Read how European regulators found that companies such as Google and Yahoo violate European data protection rules by keeping data for too long and not telling users how stored search queries and clicks help target advertisements. Google Says Sorry! You Search Like A Bot! Read how European researchers say that the Internet infrastructure of the United States is one of the world’s best and getting better. Read how roughly half the paid clicks from Google are either bogus leads or they're totally untraceable. Learn how to flip text on the 'net. Learn about the design of Al Gore's new logo. Browse this list of ten typographic mistakes everyone makes. Read one user's opinion that he's perturbed by Flickr's decision to start allowing video. Read about the many people who are spending a HUGE amount of time helping Google … for free. Read how one of Microsoft's top lawyers has warned against a deal between Yahoo and Google- big surprise, right? Read about the US internet economy ranking fourth in the World Economic Forum report. How Should I.S.P.’s Tell You if They Want to Track Your Surfing? Find out 13 ways to use your blog to improve your sales process. Read how, according to a recent Harris Interactive survey, 59 percent of Americans take exception to Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo tracking their online activities for marketing purposes. Read how the FBI is nudging state 'fusion centers' into the shadows- so forget I ever mentioned them in the past few weeks. Where's my jetpack?!?!? Read about a "pocket guide to the best (and the worst) ideas about future tech, with quick bites tracing the sci-fi roots of those ideas and gauging how close they've come to reality." |
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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Audiocast: Our Human Footprint
April 10, 2008 at 3:00 pm by Chris| One of today's On Point programs was titled Our Human Footprint. It was definitely worth listening to, as it included guests Elizabeth Vargas, co-anchor of ABC News "20/20" and host of the National Geographic Special "Human Footprint," Dr. Eric Sanderson, associate director of the Living Landscapes Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society and co-creator of the Human Footprint Map, and Colin Beavan, also known as blogger "No Impact Man," he and his family conducted an experiment and tried for one year to leave no carbon footprint on the planet. Update: 04/11/2008: Here's another good blog on environmental issues: DotEarth, from the New York Times. |
Tags: audio blogging environment
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Another Tiny Laptop
April 8, 2008 at 2:00 pm by Chris
Hewlett Packard has just announced a new laptop (called the 'mini-note' at this point but still officially un-named) that weighs less than 3 pounds with a screen that measures 8.9 inches diagonally. The machines start at under $500 for a Linux-based model. Prices will go up for Windows Vista models with faster processors (clock speeds up to 1.6 gigahertz). The only major feature its Mini-Note lacks is an optical drive for ingesting DVDs and CD-ROMs, which will be able to be bought separately. You can watch a CNet video review here. This is a review from Laptop Magazine: |
Tags: user-interface-design technology computers
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Shifting the Culture of Project Management
April 8, 2008 at 10:00 am by ChrisIn previous posts, I've mentioned that there is a conflict of interest between the role of the deliverer and the resourcer. I pointed out that the deliverer's main concern is to deliver the project while fostering a good relationship with the client, while the resourcer's main concern is making sure that the company is properly utilized. This can make for an obvious tension between the deliverer's duties to their client and the company they represent. I've gone into detail before of how good resourcing will affect the deliverer, but in this post, I want to talk more about some specific strategies the deliver can employ to successfully shift the culture of from under-resourced-over-servicing to well-resourced servicing. 
First, let me clarify some terms. When I talk about the deliver role, I generally mean Project Manager (for a definition of the resourcing role, see here). While there are many definitions for project manager, the most appropriate definition for the role of Project Manager as we understand it within our staff at Newfangled can be found among those listed in Max's Project Management Glossary. According to Max, the project manager is:
"The person responsible for delivering the project in the agreed schedule, to the correct technical specification, i.e. defined to meet user requirements, and within the approved budget and other specified criteria, e.g. Key Performance Indicators. The project manager is the individual ultimately responsible to the end user."This means that our project managers need to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the scope, functionality, design, and development of the project in addition to being capable of managing client communication and the many deadlines within the overall schedule. Ultimately, this is a fusion of how the Account Manager and Project Manager roles are traditionally understood in an agency context, but incorporates some more technical aspects since what we deliver is both design and web development. However, most of the problems I encountered (or created) as a project manager were not the result of mis-communicating technical implementation issues, but the result of bad service and bad habits. Below is a simple David Baker scheme for shifting the over-servicing project management culture by employing some good service habits in coordination with resourcing: All Promises should be Delayed When on the phone with a client, there is a pretty good chance that, at some point in the conversation, you will be put on the spot with either a technical question beyond your expertise or with a request you cannot fully answer until it has been reviewed, priced and scheduled. In times past when I've run into trouble, I can often trace it back to this point because rather than delaying my response ("Let me get back to you..."), I've tried to answer immediately ("Well..."). In retrospect, it's easy to see how I was really shooting myself in the foot. Though one of your goals as the project manager is to maintain your authority over a project, not being able to answer a question right away does not necessarily hinder your control in this situation. In fact, rushing to answer a question and doing so incorrectly is more indicative of not being in control. In regard to technical questions, you should not expect yourself to have encyclopedic knowledge of all the various technical aspects or options of a project, so have no fear of being clear with your client that you need to look into the matter further and will get back to them shortly. If your research takes longer than you thought, take a moment to email or call them quickly just to check in and let them know that you're still working on getting the info you need to answer their question. Though your knowledge will increase with experience, as your client roster grows, you'll still need to do this as you discover the limits of your own memory- and that's ok. You're human, after all. Delaying promises is also a good response to requests. Every request for new work should be discussed and recorded in your initial conversation. This is a good opportunity for you to help the client to refine their ideas and perhaps consider factors they may not be aware of. However, the response they were probably looking for (i.e. When can it be done? and How Much?) should be delayed until it can be reviewed by your developers, then priced and scheduled by resourcing. Once you have a specific scope, price and time line planned out, you can respond to the client's request accurately. The client should see you as their point of contact with the rest of the company, not as a switch-thrower. All Promises should be Centralized In addition to needing to delay new work requests for the sake of clarifying the project manager's role, it's essential to do this in order to enable resourcing to do its job. When that request comes in, delaying it is step one, but identifying the delay ("Let me get back to you after I've reviewed this with Resourcing") will help your client to understand and respect how the company works. By delivering the price and schedule for work on behalf of the resourcer, rather than quoting it ad hoc, you will prevent the discussion from turning in to a bargaining situation or an apology for undelivered expectations and enable the resourcer to control the allocation of internal resources among multiple deliverers. All Promises should be Remote One of the other factors that often can cause trouble is your control (or lack thereof) of the boundary between you and your client. Because your promises should be centralized, as described above, a good response to a request made while you're on the road or meeting with a client in person should be that you will return to the office, review with resourcing, and then get back to the client. If being put on the spot is common and hard to resist over the phone, think how much more so it is in person or on your cellphone. Additionally, I would recommend giving consideration to clearly limiting the methods by which you are available to your client. For example, if you use an alias for your work email address and point it to your Gmail account, chances are that you've seen your clients' names appear in your chat list. Your best response is to block them immediately and let them know kindly that email and phone are your preferred contact methods. It's nothing personal, but IM chat is just too much. If you are prompt in responding to your client, limiting the method to your office phone and email should not be a problem at all. I've realized over the past few months that project management isn't something you can fully train for- the job really is the training. While there are, of course, some prerequisite skills, most of what you need to be successful will come over time as you get to know your clients and the resources you have available to you, and then review the mistakes you've made in order to build good habits to prevent making them again. As I've gotten to know and use the simple scheme above, I can clearly see how it would have prevented many of the rough spots I got myself into before. |
Tags: project-management resourcing
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NebuAd
April 7, 2008 at 10:00 am by ChrisNebuAd, (sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel) a new system from the Claria Corporation, is "the first consumer-centric behavioral targeting network," and, according to the Bits blog from the New York Times, is "farthest along" among advertising systems based on data gathered from Internet service providers. Here's a more-detail explanation of how it works:
...NebuAd installs a hardware device it has designed inside the network of I.S.P.s One device can monitor all of the information going to and from 30,000 to 50,000 users. The device associates the information it sees with the I.P. address of the user. [It] also examines other information about users’ computers in order to identify when an I.P. address is changed. The I.P. address is encoded before it is stored using a technique called hashing. That makes it harder for someone who might get access to NebuAds system to get a list of the I.P. addresses about which it has information. For each of the I.P. addresses it is monitoring, the NebuAd system analyzes the Web traffic including the addresses of the pages visited, the search terms entered, and keywords that appear on those pages. This information is distilled to about 1000 categories representing various purchase interest: shopping for a mortgage, researching lawnmowers, and so on. The system keeps track of how often and how recently users visited pages in these categories, but the system does not keep the list of the actual pages visited. The system also ignores Internet traffic other than Web browsing, such as file downloads and voice over the Internet calls. And it doesn’t have access to encrypted browsing sessions, such as those used to make purchases or investments online.Some comments left on a previous post from Bits show how concerned people are in general about ISP data being used for advertising. |
Tags: social-media marketing software privacy
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The Week in Review
April 4, 2008 at 8:30 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 what happens when bloggers with egos clash. Read how Firefox 4 will push out the edges of the browser. Learn about 7 blog improvements you can make today. Learn about Attracting, Retaining and Converting Prospects With Blogs. Read Jakob Nielsen's latest alertbox, which states, "Between the ages of 25 and 60, people's ability to use websites declines by 0.8% per year — mostly because they spend more time per page, but also because of navigation difficulties." Read how the Newspaper Association of America reported on Friday that print -ad revenue for the industry fell by 9.4 percent last year, the biggest decline since it started keeping records in 1950. Read how federal, state and local agencies, along with corporations and schools, are increasingly seen by Google as lucrative sources of extra revenue. Read more about the death and life of the American newspaper. Read how Amazon is putting the squeeze on publishers. Read why recession is the best thing for SEO. Read about a recent study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, that suggested 'clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers.' Read as this author wonders if we should auction off white spaces, similar to the 700mhz auction, or 2) leave them unlicensed and managed (like 2.4Ghz) but allow devices which don’t cause interference. Read about Microsoft's first customer ready to put Surface computers into public use. Read about the parallels between online social networks and tribal societies. Facebook Updates Developer Admin. Read how research shows that more than a quarter of eight to 11-year-olds in the UK have a profile on a social network. Browse these social network analysis visualizations. Read about the Saudi girl who was murdered by her father for talking on Facebook. Browse the resources at the GoogleDocs Community YouTube channel. Learn how Benjamin Franklin is influencing blogging. |
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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April Fools, 'Net Style
April 4, 2008 at 8:30 am by Chris| Eric thinks that RSS has ruined the tradition of April Fools pranks, but this guy shows that the 'net made his prank so much more real... ...speaking of April Fools, this has to be one, right? |
Tags: social-media blogging newfangled
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Good Web Design According to The SEO Rapper
April 3, 2008 at 4:00 pm by ChrisThis one is my favorite- he's got the attitude right. "It's just common sense!" |
Tags: google web-development user-interface-design design video
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