Archive for March 2009
At Issue } essential reading
Data Glutton, Data Pauper
I suddenly realized my problem with aggregators. When I configure my feeds, I want just about everything.
What’s Your Google Strategy?
Companies large and small have been wandering in the wilderness, trying to figure out how to play with the rapidly growing number of multisided platforms such as Amazon. MSPs are products, services, or technologies that connect different types of customers to one another. Credit-card companies and eBay link consumers and merchants. Google’s search engine connects advertisers and users of its services. Microsoft’s Windows platform has three sides (application developers, users, and OEMs), as does the Blu-ray standard for high-definition DVDs (content providers, manufacturers of DVD players, and consumers). Once a relatively obscure strategic problem, multisided platforms have become important for all companies today, thanks to the power of the internet and related technologies.
Social By Design
For marketers and publishers of the social Web, design matters. Creative matters. Ideas matter. It is true that properly utilized data can drive better decision making, but it is also true that all the data in the world doesn't create innovation without interpretation, and data doesn't always lead to great design (especially when the data is about the wrong thing -- clicks, anyone?).
Designing in Real Time For a Participation Economy
Everyone's (or no one's) favorite redesigned brands, Tropicana and Facebook, came up yet again at this weekend's Y Conference as Liz Danzico, chair of the new Interaction Design MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, focused on the concept of "designing in real time." She thinks redesign recalls are about to get a lot more common as designers are more likely to launch alpha or beta versions of experiences and then monitor user behavior to get feedback.
Market Research Must Get Real, Not Ideal, Social Scientists Say
Research is useless. Some of it, anyway -- if it does not reflect real behavior rather than theoretical models.
The Conversation Prism v2.0
What follows is a detailed mission statement and instructional guide to help you successfully endeavor into the social world of online communication and relationships building.
What Social Media Means for Search
The separation between search and social media is melting away, and a new paradigm is taking hold. Finding the right content is as much about whom it comes from as where you find it. By building a network of credible sources via social media, we're able narrow our "searches" to a select group of people whom we trust. For brands, this means a host of new challenges and opportunities are emerging beyond the traditional search channel.
Slices Of A New Journalism Pie
The AP reports that Huffington Post is going to announce tomorrow the creation of a $1.75 million fund with various donors to pay for investigative reporting. First target: the economy. This, I’ve long held, is where foundation and public support will enter into the new ecosystem of journalism: not by taking over newspapers but by funding investigations and other slices of a new journalistic pie.
Triumph of the Design Haters: With Facebook and Tropicana Tamed, Whose Redesign Is Next to Go?
In a simpler time, design wasn't harsher than a mixed-martial arts event. In the olden days, say three years ago, companies would order their new logos and new-and-improved packaging from their design fortresses on high, and the lowly customers below would quietly accept the blobby, 3D-textured versions of once-beloved logos without complaint. No more, of course.
The Real World Threw Up All Over Us
Apprehension, with an enduring edge to it. That's the general mood among the twentysomethings I've heard from during the last several weeks in response to a question I asked about how the recession is making them feel. The fear isn't just about the present but about the long-term future. Octopuslike, it has many tentacles. But the most strangling aspect, I think, is the perception of my Gen Y e-mailers that they dutifully set up their lives based on assumptions that suddenly no longer apply. They're anxious because they can't tell what the new rules of the game will be—or because they think they can tell, and they don't like what they see coming at them.
