A Thing or Two

UPS wins Typo of the Day for March 9, 2008

Last fall I attended the Internet Strategy Forum, where the focus was on the role of Community in business websites. The most distinctly out-of-touch speaker was from FedEx, and it was painful to watch the audience barely hiding their eye-rolling. As a fellow human, I suffered for the guy on the stage. But really, he was beyond the pale. As the VP of Electronic Channels and Strategic Marketing at FedEx, he revealed how far in the Dark Ages the company really is when it comes to understanding how your customers can make or break your brand.

Some time after that meeting, I downloaded the API for an e-commerce site we were developing. The documentation and disclosure agreements had such glaring errors and duplication of materials that I actually tried to contact someone via LinkedIn to let them know, so they could get it fixed and avoid further embarrassment. No one ever replied. I think they really just don't care.

And now, this—from UPS. What is it with the Big Two in delivery service?

You gotta love a company that will pay for an interactive campaign to run in the New York Times and then not bother proofing the creative before signing off.

Way to be Brown, guys.

Miz Liz on Biz: my sister, for Filemaker, on YouTube

My sister Liz is busy with her organizing career, and has been partnering with various companies. In this brief spot, she acts as a spokesperson to tout the benefits of using Bento, a new oreganizing product from Filemaker, which works with the newest Mac OS, Leopard. Learn more about Miz Liz on Biz.

Lainie gets Facebooky all over everybody's ass

This fall I attended the Internet Strategy Forum conference in Portland, where Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) told us we just have to learn how to work with Facebook apps.

Okay.

Isn't Facebook for teens and college kids?

So, to explore this valuable "marketing tool" on behalf of potential clients, I recently signed up for an account. The first thing I learned is that your cool DJ son doesn't want to be your "friend" on Facebook. But all his friends do. Figures: your son knows he'll always have access to the family fridge when he's in town; the friends know they are not guaranteed an unlimited supply of pop and munchies. They have to be nice to Mom.

The second thing I learned is that for a regional entertainment venue such as the Darkside Cinema, Facebook offers an opportunity to not only publicize events, but also give fans a place in the online world to show support. So I created a Darkside Cinema Fans group, and people started joining.

Then I discovered the Marketplace and Events. And things are rolling from there. I'm a Facebooker!

God, I feel so young and firm again.

poopy!

The baby book of today's media-savvy parents goes way beyond the pop-up.

Link: poopy!

coverpop

Jim Bumgardner, of krazydad.com, makes these interactive mosaics of collected images, which he calls coverpop.

Interactive, I said. Hover over any part of the image and see the meta data associated.

When you get to the page, hit reload a few times to see the amazing variety of coverpops. He's even sampled uTube, with coverpops for the sexiest videos, the most popular, etc.

Have fun, kids!

Alternative news in Corvallis

I found something called ORblogs, a compendium of Oregon blogs hosted by Paul Bausch, one of the original developers of Blogger software and author of several O'Reilly books. As of this post, there are over 996 Oregon blogs RSS'd into ORblogs. You can sort 'em by city, or just randomly sample the postings. If you are from Oregon and write a blog, you can add it to the list.

From there I found The Corvallist, written by a "single mom, mid-30s" and "local pundit" reporting on civic issues and current events here. She has an intelligent voice and a snappy sense of humor, something I appreciate in a news report. Maybe you will, too.

For a more traditional approach to alternative news—albeit online, try iCorvallis.com. Published by veteran journalist Tim Leslie, this site features writings from Corvallis citizen journalists, current and upcoming Corvallis events, and wire stories from OSU News Service.

Interrupts enabled...but should they always be?

Balancing life and work has long been a best-selling topic. But how about balancing work and distractions?

Clive Thompson of the New York Times reports on Microsoft's research into ways of reducing the incessant interruptions we handle—or drown in—at work. Ideas include spreading tasks across multiple monitors, apps that filter messages and tasks, and devices that "learn" when you can best handle an interruption.

Link: Meet the Life Hackers - New York Times (free registration required).

Update (11/2/05): Corvallis-based Jon Herlocker, OSU Assistant Professor in Computer Science noted for CoFE (a free Java recommendation engine for collaborative filtering) and co-founder of MusicStrands, is working on TaskTracer, Windows-only "personal computing environment" designed to keep track of tasks underway (across applications) and provide easy ways to organize, analyze, prioritize, and re-engage in tasks after interruptions.

WolframTones: An Experiment in a New Kind of Music

Stop what you're doing. Right now. Go immediately to this site and play around with the incredibly inviting, easy-to-use tools. As the site explains:

"WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Stephen Wolfram's computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music. Each program in effect defines a virtual world, with its own special story--and WolframTones captures it as a musical composition."

The site is intended for creating custom ring tones, but it offers an entirely engaging experience for anyone interested in clean interface design, or anyone who loves creating sounds and rhythms. Try it!

Yahoo Hires Journalist to Report on Wars

Sex isn't the only thing that sells. Yahoo is counting on you and me and everyone we know to find war a compelling enough topic that you'll visit their new Hot Zone site often.

That's right: all war, all the time. They've even hired a special "war journalist," according to The New York Times. What's the plan?

"A solo journalist ("SoJo"), [Kevin] Sites will carry a backpack of portable digital technology to shoot, write, edit, and transmit daily reports from nearly every region of the world."

So  visit often, and be sure to click on those advertisers. They're counting on your fascination with multimedia coverage of "every armed conflict in the world."

Free and Open Source: Internet TV On Your Mac

Digital TV (DTV) is now in Beta, downloadable from the new, non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation. Publish, receive and play back multi-format video in a clean, iTunes-like interface on your Mac (Windows users will get theirs soon; now there's a switch).

Check this out: You can subcribe to vblog RSS feeds. You can download any video file via http or BitTorrent. Or if you have something to say, you can create your own video channel and get it listed on the site.

Participatory Culture Foundation is partnering with Creative Commons, and they're calling DTV "Internet TV On Your Mac." This represents a solid, credible alternative to the networks and cable/sat channels. This offers a channel for independent voices: one to many, or one to one.

And you thought blogs made a dent in MSM. This is big. So big, in fact, that DTV has been nominated for BusinessWeek Best of the Web.

I want my, I want my, I want my DTV......

Adaptive path interview with Flickr's Eric Costello

This interview with Ludicorp's Eric Costello by Adaptive Path's Jesse James Garrett features insight into how Flickr morphed from a Flash-based massively multiplayer online game to a photo-sharing Web site, primarily using the actions and recommendations of visitors to guide development.

This article contains the first reference I've seen to the word "tagscape." But maybe I've just been asleep.

Citizen journalism: some ideas are so good they just spread and spread

Blogs Taking Off in Cambodia - From Wired News

A Cambodian nonprofit worker traverses the country, teaching students to publish blogs. The project promotes democracy and spurs internet use in a land where few people have access to the web. Matt Reed reports from Phnom Penh.