Selected by troyviss

• 
  Measurement Matters

• It's a newspaper, Jim, but not as we know it

  2 Feb 2010 | 9:40 am

  The iPad - newspaper saviour?  Kindle killer?  A device too far? It's wait and see time.  Before the launch, there was a huge focus on what the iPad could do for the beleaguered newspaper industry.  The Telegraph—using the widely assumed iTablet moniker—carried a piece about five ways the new device could change our lives.  Like may others, it carried a glorious message of hope: "The day's papers could be wirelessly delivered to the iTablet, complete with live discussion forums or social network integration to…

• Is print media the best resource for reaching your key audience?

  20 Jan 2010 | 2:48 am

  I saw this article in The Times at the end of December revealing that advertising in print is twice as effective as TV. It got me thinking about the relevance of this to PR. According to the article, for every £1 spent on print advertising, £5 in revenue is returned.I’d be interested to find out how this was calculated: this kind of information is invaluable to PRs when evaluating the effectiveness of their efforts. Here at Metrica we’ve found that more and more clients are looking at ways to show the wider marketing disciplines the effect of PR on sales.

• Digital skills lacking in PR industry?

  14 Jan 2010 | 5:52 am

  A recent PR Week piece entitled, "Recruitment consultants find digital skills in short supply within PR industry," has highlighted again the percieved disconnect between traditional PR and the digital skills needed to operate in the 'new' social world.  The clients we work with in social media absolutely buck this supposed trend so it seems that it is just taking a while to filter through the whole industry.  The piece is good feedback, however, on the areas that are lacking.  Metrica will be at the Social Media World Forum…

• COI's standardisation of PR evaluation metrics

  11 Jan 2010 | 4:08 am

  I was delighted to see that the COI has recently announced the results of its initiative to standardise PR evaluation metrics. Metrica worked closely with the COI on the plans and has long endorsed moving away from simple quantitative measures towards analysing the role that PR plays in a wider context.  For that reason it was pleasing to see four elements in particular… Firstly, establishing the programme without the recommendation of Advertising Value Equivalence should be seen as a giant step forward. The COI report describes AVE as a flawed metric and…

• Metrica Insights: Money, money, money

  17 Dec 2009 | 4:28 am

  It’s that time of the year that we all look forward to.  Snow is falling and festivities flowing as we prepare to say goodbye to 2009.  It’s been quite a year.  Not least remembered for a heavy downward pressure on budgets; in turn fanning the flames of the eternal debate about how much should be spent on PR measurement. Back in 1998, the CIPR, PRCA, Public Relations Standards Forum (PRSF) and AMEC put their heads together and produced best practice guidelines on the use of planning, research and evaluation within the industry.  The aim of the campaign,…

• 
  trendsspotting blog

• Is Twitter “Losing” or “Gaining”? Recent Stats

  Taly Weiss

  26 Jan 2010 | 8:26 pm

  Recent analysis by RJMetrics pulled from Twitter’s API may suggest that Twitter is losing popularity: The average Twitter user has 27 followers, down from 42 followers in August 2009. Twitter is losing 20% from its July peak: The monthly rate of new user accounts is currently around 6.2 million new accounts per month (or 2-3 per second). A large percentage of Twitter accounts are inactive, with about 25% of accounts having no followers and about 40% of accounts having never sent a single Tweet. Only about 17% of registered Twitter accounts sent a Tweet in December 2009, an all-time-low.

• Summary: TrendsSpotting 2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters

  Taly Weiss

  20 Jan 2010 | 2:41 pm

  TrendsSpotting Market Research has completed the release of the “2010 Influencers Series: Trend predictions in 140 characters”. We have followed major trends in six of the most promising categories to dominate the web this year: Social media | Consumer Trends | Tech and IT | Online Marketing | Video | Mobile. In this series we featured the predictions of digital and marketing experts on the big changes awaiting us. By adopting the “tweet style” format (limited to 140 characters), we were able to provide our readers with a more focused image of the predicted trends. Many of…

• 2010 Mobile Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 characters (6th report)

  Taly Weiss

  18 Jan 2010 | 12:20 am

  “2010 Mobile Influencers” is the sixth and last report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“. Findings: Major trends in 2010 Mobile: Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Mobile in 2010: # Payment      # Commerce      #Metrics # Advertising:  networks,  SMS, display, search, premium # Smartphones: Apple, Apps, iPhone, Google, Android # GPS      # Location      # Augmented Reality # Gaming      # Music      # Video 2010 Mobile Influencers: Trend Predictions in…

• 2010 Video Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 characters (5th report)

  Taly Weiss

  8 Jan 2010 | 2:39 am

  “2010 Video Influencers” is the fifth report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“. Findings: Major trends in 2010 Online Video: Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Online Video in 2010: # TV Everywhere      #live      #mainstream      #search #data      #direct      #mobile      #standards #advertising      #30- second #YouTube      #Hulu      #boxee 2010 Video Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 characters, by TrendsSpotting View more slides from…

• 2010 Online Marketing Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 characters (4th report)

  Taly Weiss

  5 Jan 2010 | 8:34 am

  “2010 Online Marketing Influencers” is the fourth report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“. Findings: Major trends in 2010 Online Marketing: Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Online Marketing in 2010: #social media #games #e-mail #real time #direct response #measurement #mobile #geo-location #video #niche 2010 Online Marketing Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 characters by Trendsspotting View more slides from TrendsSpotting. TrendsSpotting Market Research is now running its…

• 
  Mashable!

• 5 Ways Airlines and Hotels Can Drive Revenue with Social Media

  Shashank Nigam

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:18 pm

  Shashank Nigam is the CEO of SimpliFlying.com, an award-winning blog on airline branding. He tweets at @simpliflying.Social media is no longer the “new” thing, especially for airlines. JetBlue has over one an a half million followers on Twitter. Lufthansa allows passengers to update their Twitter or Facebook status about where they are in the sky. AirAsia drives buzz about its new destinations through custom micro-sites. However, most airlines (and airports and hotels) are still struggling to earn direct revenue from their social media efforts.Yet if Dell can make $6.5 million from…

• Google Buzz: The Official Demo [VIDEO]

  Adam Ostrow

  9 Feb 2010 | 11:08 am

  Google has just unveiled its latest attempt to become more relevant in the social media space: Google Buzz. The product is integrated within Gmail and will be rolled out gradually to all of the webmail service’s users over the next few days.We’re still digesting all of the implications of Buzz (and will have more coverage throughout the day), but in the meantime, here’s the two-minute demo of the product in action both on the Web and via mobile that Google showed off during today’s press conference:This video from Google looks specifically at the mobile features of Buzz:What are your…

• BREAKING: Google Goes Social with Google Buzz

  Ben Parr

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:21 am

  It’s official: Google has just announced Google Buzz, its newest push into the social media foray. This confirms earlier reports of Gmail integrating a social status feature.On stage revealing the new product was Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president for product management. While introducing the product, Mr. Horowitz focused on the human penchant for sharing experiences and the social media phenomenon of wanting to share it in real time. These two key themes were core philosophies behind Google Buzz.“It’s becoming harder and harder to find signal in the…

• Facebook Kills Lexicon, Focuses on Analytics for Page Admins

  Samuel Axon

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:20 am

  Facebook has removed its Lexicon analytics app, blogger Steve Rubel noticed last night.Don’t know what Lexicon was? That’s OK, a lot of people didn’t; it was announced very quietly, but it was a neat tool. You could use Lexicon to see how frequently, and when, certain terms were trending in status updates, just like you can use Google Trends to do the same with search terms.For example, our own Stan Schroeder was a bit perplexed a couple years back when the word “sex” had a massive spike in usage on May 30, 2008. It was the launch day of the Sex and the City…

• 7 Ways to Promote Your Offline Event Using Social Media

  Susan Payton

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:10 am

  Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an internet marketing firm. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog, and teaches marketing courses at Marketing EggSchool. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.We all know about Tweetups and online events, but what about events that you didn’t specifically invite the Twitterati to attend? Conferences, meetings and parties are all events that might not have started online, but which can definitely benefit from online promotion and mention.Leverage your offline event with some smart social media marketing. Here are…

• 
  ReadWriteWeb

• Can Google Buzz Succeed Where FriendFeed Couldn't?

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:20 pm

  Google just launched Google Buzz, the company's new social networking service which will be tightly integrated with Gmail. There can be little doubt that Google Buzz looks a lot like FriendFeed, the social aggregation service that was acquired by Facebook in August 2009. Today, FriendFeed's developers are Facebook employees and aren't likely to continue to improve the service in any meaningful way, while the active user community on FriendFeed continues to shrink rapidly. Given the similarities between the two services, we can't help but wonder if Google Buzz will be able to succeed where…

• How Google Buzz is Disruptive: Open Data Standards

  9 Feb 2010 | 11:31 am

  Google rolled out a social stream service today called Buzz. It looks on the surface like Facebook, FriendFeed and other stream reading and writing services. It will compete with Facebook and Twitter. Under the covers, though, this major product was built by a team of people taking a radical new approach to online publishing: Buzz is all about open, standardized user data. Google Buzz data can be syndicated out to other services using the standard data formats called Atom, Activity Streams, MediaRSS and PubSubHubbub. That couldn't be more different from Facebook. Google has taken open data…

• Mobile Health: Will Network Applications Help Us Get Healthy?

  9 Feb 2010 | 11:30 am

  Last week, we were at the mHealth initiative conference in Washington D.C. The keynotes were all about the impact mobile health applications are having in shaping the future of the health care system. Nothing demonstrates that more than the iPhone. In the 18 months since it was released, it has been perhaps the biggest thing to happen to health care electronic records, which has seen billions of dollars worth of investment in past decades. Mobile and wireless health applications directly impact the individual's health and have the promise of ensuring that when a patient leaves a doctor visit,…

• Foursquare Partners with Zagat, New York Times

  9 Feb 2010 | 11:17 am

  Foursquare has come out strong in recent weeks with partnership deals that look to put it at the top of the location-based app game. Last week, it announced a partnership with Bravo, the style and fashion-centric television network, and today it has come out with a partnership with Zagat, the restaurant guide, and the New York Times. As we wrote last week, Foursquare is competing in an increasingly crowded space. These partnerships may help it attract a whole new audience and remain competitive against other services like Yelp that are just joining in the location-based arena. Sponsor…

• Live Blogging from Google: Launch of Google Buzz

  9 Feb 2010 | 11:11 am

  This morning, Google is announcing some exciting new features for two of its most popular applications. Team Red, as we affectionately call ourselves, is present at the Googleplex in Mountain View, and we'll be live blogging the event, giving you, dear reader, a fascinating play-by-play. Stay tuned for updates! The event will begin at 10 a.m. Pacific (UTC -8). Just refresh this post to see new content as events unfold. Additional on-the-fly research and images from RWW journalist Frederic Lardinois. Sponsor 11:11: The event is over! Time to chase people down and ask some more pointed…

• 
  TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends

• Traumatized Toystrations - The Yenifer Cano 'House Things' Portfolio Binds Childhood Playthings (GALLERY)

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:40 pm

  (TrendHunter.com) At first glance (and even the second and third), I couldn’t quite believe that the Yenifer Cano ‘House Things’ collection was illustrated. So detailed the images are, I thought they were simply vintage…

• Aviation-Inspired Fashions - The Acne SS10 Collection Takes Notes for Amelia Earhart (GALLERY)

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:30 pm

  (TrendHunter.com) Seems the Amelia Earhart fashion phase is not at an end, at least not yet, considering the latest Acne SS10 collection. Inspired by this formidable female aviator, their loose interpretation is actually…

• MJ Action Figures - The Michael Jackson ‘Thriller’ Figurine (GALLERY)

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:20 pm

  (TrendHunter.com) For those of you still mourning the iconic King of Pop, the Michael Jackson Thriller Figurine is for you. Gone are the long lonely nights where you tossed and turned in bed, wondering how you were going…

• 100 Unique Theme Restaurants - The Most Offbeat Places to Eat and Drink Around the World (CLUSTER)

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:10 pm

  (TrendHunter.com) Over the last few years, I’ve seen some very unique theme restaurants from around the world; that an hotels belong to my favourite topics to cover, which is why I’m so excited to have some of the most…

• Saucy Wordvertising - Cheeky Valentines Day Ads by RobertRedd.com (VIDEO)

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pm

  (TrendHunter.com) Anti-Valentines day parties are all the rage. Or maybe you are one of those romantic types who can’t wait to be showered in chocolate, flowers and red foil (maybe massage oil)? This ad for RobertRedd.com…

• 
  Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report

• A List Apart 300

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  9 Feb 2010 | 7:29 am

  Issue 300 of A List Apart for people who make websites solves password-related usability problems with a dash of JavaScript, and employs content strategy to help your site do the right thing at the right time: The Problem with Passwords by LYLE MULLICAN Abandoning password masking as Jakob Nielsen suggests could present serious problems, undermining a user’s trust by failing to meet a basic expectation. But with design patterns gleaned from offline applications, plus a dash of JavaScript, we can provide feedback and reduce password errors without compromising the basic user experience or…

• Free advice: show up early

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  5 Feb 2010 | 7:31 am

  Delay happens. The train is late, the flight is cancelled, the traffic is murder. Travel is the leading edge of entropy, and entropy is the universe’s final comment on the meaning of it all. If the universe is expanding and there are snow delays on Route 1, it’s not your fault that you’re 15 minutes late to the meeting, right? Don’t be so quick to excuse yourself. If 80% of success is just showing up, 90% is showing up early. It’s hard for the client to sympathize with your lateness when she, who had farther to travel, managed to make the meeting on time. No…

• Ahem

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  3 Feb 2010 | 3:39 am

  The first part of my post of 1 February was not an attack on Flash. It described a way of working with Flash that also supports users who don’t have access to Flash. I’ve followed and advocated that approach for 10 years. It has nothing to do with Apple’s recent decisions and everything to do with making content available to people and search engines. It’s how our agency and others use Flash; we’ve published articles on the subject in our magazine, notably Semantic Flash: Slippery When Wet by Daniel Mall. We do the same thing with JavaScript—make sure the site…

• Free advice: buy a dongle

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  2 Feb 2010 | 7:20 am

  There is still no Wi-Fi on the northeast corridor Amtrak trains that carry hundreds of thousands of business travelers each day. So quit whining and get a USB 3G modem. It’s free with monthly service, which is tax-deductible. For the $60/month I pay Verizon, I can connect my laptop to the internet from any train, bus, boat, lounge, lobby, conference room, coffee shop, or just about any other environment to which modern business takes me.

• Laying Pipe

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  2 Feb 2010 | 5:22 am

  Dan Benjamin and yours truly discuss the secret history of blogging, transitioning from freelance to agency, the story behind the web standards movement, the launch of A Book Apart and its first title, HTML5 For Web Designers by Jeremy Keith, the trajectory of content management systems, managing the growth of a design business, and more in the inaugural episode of the Pipeline.

• 
  information aesthetics

• An Animated Infographic Annual Report

  8 Feb 2010 | 3:42 pm

  Dan Meyer's infographically translated statistics about the year 2009 shows an original and animated view on the now popular practice of publishing one's life as data. The data contains several dozen statistics about the pop culture he consumed, the people he talked to, the (Belgian...) beer he drank, the places he visited, the vehicles he took to those places, and the amount of sleep he enjoyed each day. These statistics was spread across several thousand cells of a spreadsheet, which were then condensed and animated into the 2.5-minute video clip. As one commenter smartly puts it, animating…

• Data Fiction: Storytelling with Information Graphics

  4 Feb 2010 | 4:53 pm

  The combination of storytelling and information visualization has been long predicted, although still very few examples do exist. On the other hand, some might claim typical information aesthetic visualization is all about tell a compelling story. Following project takes infographic storytelling one (literal) step further: Sumedicina [janalange.de] is the title of a fictional thriller story about an international virus scandal, and is mainly told through the medium of infographics. One might not feel completely sure whether this is just an excuse to create a collection of visually impressive…

• Huge Interactive Signpost Shows the Direction to Favorite Locations

  4 Feb 2010 | 1:00 am

  This gigantic, interactive signpost sponsored by Nokia Ovi Maps in the form of a dynamically rotating electronic LED screen allows passers-by to send in their favorite location and coordinates via text or email. The giant pointer, hung on a 60ton construction on height of 50m, then automatically rotates to the given direction and displays the submitted description to the world. Watch the documentary video below. See also the Nokia Blog [1,2] and FarFar. Via Engadget.

• Ward Shelley: Infovis Oil Painting Artist

  3 Feb 2010 | 9:35 pm

  Unknown to me before, visual (infovis?) artist Ward Shelley [wardshelley.com] comes as a refreshing surprise. Shalley's impressive oil paintings and pencil drawings use real information in an attempt to depict the understanding of how things evolve and relate to one another, and how this develops over time. Usual topics range from art or cultural history, such as the arc of an artist's career and its influences, or the effect of particular ideas in an aesthetic or political movement. The paintings are interpreted as being "wide-screen", as all information is available to the interacting eye…

• Information Landscapes in 1994 (MIT Prof Muriel Cooper)

  1 Feb 2010 | 10:32 pm

  Back in 1994, Muriel Cooper, one of the co-founders of the MIT Media Lab where she taught interactive media design as the head of the Visible Language Workshop, presented her work at the TED5 conference in Monterey, CA. Her presentation would initiate a new era of data visualization, and it changed the way designers thought of the possibilities of electronic media. (Maybe quite similar to how David Small's dynamic renditions of text changed my way of thinking about 3D visualization). Her work was revolutionary as it pushed typography into the 3 spatial dimensions, and augmented it with…

• 
  Boxes and Arrows

• Google, Stanford, and The Government Fight Swine Flu

  31 Jan 2010 | 11:37 pm

  Bolt | Peters recently collaborated with Stanford University’s Bill Behrman on designing the Google Sites template for local governments to use as a backup to deliver information on the H1N1 outbreak, and also disasters and emergencies in general. The goal was to create a template that was well laid-out, easy for non-techie local governments to edit and update with content, and conveyed the most important information to different audiences. How It Started: The Quick FixWith the recent outbreak of H1N1, Santa Clara County’s official public flu information site was taken down by the…

• Bringing User Centered Design to the Agile Environment

  31 Jan 2010 | 11:37 pm

  When the exciting opportunity to work in a post-bubble dot.com startup arose, I jumped to take it. I had the luxury of doing things exactly as I thought right, and for a while it was truly fantastic. I built a team with a dedicated user researcher; information architect; interaction and visual designers and we even made a guerilla usability lab and had regular test sessions. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm I had for my new job waned after six months when an executive was appointed Head of Product Development—who insisted he knew SCRUM1 better than anybody. As the Creative Director, I…

• 5 Steps to Building Social Experiences

  23 Dec 2009 | 12:54 am

  Nowadays everyone wants social in their sites and applications. It’s become a basic requirement in consumer web software and is slowly infiltrating the enterprise as well. So what’s a designer to do when confronted with the requirements to “add social”? Designing social interfaces is more than just slapping on Twitter-like or Facebook-like features onto your site. Not all features are created equal and sometimes a little bit can go a long way. It’s important to consider your audience, your product—what your users will be rallying around and why they would want…

• Research Logistics

  23 Dec 2009 | 12:54 am

  With more companies today putting a stronger emphasis on gaining a deeper understanding of their customer, it’s not unusual for us to be called in for a project to find that our clients don’t have a lot of experience with research and don’t know what to expect. This article is for every designer, architect, manager, engineer, and stakeholder who wants to know more about research and is intended to provide you with the most critical tools for interacting with researchers and understanding how the work that we do can make your job easier. This article will also outline what to…

• Tree Testing

  5 Dec 2009 | 12:02 am

  A big part of information architecture is organisation – creating the structure of a site. For most sites – particularly large ones – this means creating a hierarchical “tree” of topics. But to date, the IA community hasn’t found an effective, simple technique (or tool) to test site structures. The most common method used—closed card sorting—is neither widespread nor particularly suited to this task. Some years ago, Donna Spencer pioneered a simple paper-based technique to test trees of topics. Recent refinements to that method, some made possible by online…

• 
  Cool Hunting

• Gerlan Jeans Stacked Hat

  Tim Yu

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:41 am

  London-born but raised in Ohio, Gerlan Marcel made a big splash with her Gerlan Jeans diffusion line during NYC's Fall '09 fashion week by mixing bright colors and bold prints, spicing up an otherwise drab (aka black-and-gray) week. I was recently reminded of the line when it resurfaced in Beyonce's "Video Phone" music video (pictured in last image) featuring Gaga (which by the way is well worth a look if you haven't seen it already). Gerlan's colors, textile design and illustration all have an amazing neo-'90s look, but I especially like the cleverness of her stacked baseball cap. Like a…

• Acne Fall 2010

  CH Contributor

  8 Feb 2010 | 3:18 pm

  by Richard Prime No other brand could really close Stockholm's fashion week than the city's own home-grown independent super-brand Acne. With recent glimpses of its forthcoming venture into the world of furniture tantalizingly close in Paris, it was time to see what the brand has in store clothing-wise for the chilly months ahead. Acne based the collection around an aviation theme, citing Amelia Earhart as a central influence. Menswear gave a variety of flight jacket options in different material options. Trousers were cut close and well, as expected from the brand which made its name from…

• Jaime Hayon x Gaia & Gino: Valencia Collection

  Phuong-Cac Nguyen

  8 Feb 2010 | 2:15 pm

  The prolific Spanish designer Jaime Hayon's elegant Valencia collection for luxury label Gaia & Gino applies his talent for refreshing the modern to must-have iterations of classic candlestick and tea-light holders in crystal. The handmade pieces make an apt addition to the Turkish design studio's line of "affordable yet rare" products. Sandblasting each holder by hand, each incorporates a pattern mixing shapes and clefts designed to maximize light's refractive capabilities and demonstrate crystal's captivating chemical structure. The interchangeable bases allow for assembly in a variety…

• Steve Powers: A Love Letter For You Book and Tours

  Wendy Dembo

  8 Feb 2010 | 1:23 pm

  This Valentine's Day, celebrate love in all forms with a trip to Philadelphia to tour Steve Powers' ongoing graffiti mural project and the source of his latest book “A Love Letter for You.” Over the summer of 2009 Powers (aka ESPO) painted 50 murals on 20 blocks of Market Street as a love letter to and from West Philadelphia in a project dubbed "Love Letters." (Click on images for expanded view.) Documenting the process and installation of the "Love Letters" adventure, the book explores Powers' fascination with using graffiti to tell a story. To mark the book launch, Philadelphia will…

• Vans and the Places Where They Were

  Maggie York-Worth

  8 Feb 2010 | 11:17 am

  Evoking memories of pot-soaked Saturdays or long drives on the highway, filmmaker and photographer Joe Stevens' side project " Vans and the Places Where They Were" documents the glory of the classic seventies van in an ongoing photo essay dating back to 1996. Formatted horizontally rather than vertically, Stevens makes scrolling through the images akin to watching a lime green and candy paint parade of Econolines and Chevys travel across the screen. With an approach that looks not just to the evolving social and economic implications of his subject, Stevens describes how the project surveys…

• 
  information aesthetics

• An Animated Infographic Annual Report

  8 Feb 2010 | 3:42 pm

  Dan Meyer's infographically translated statistics about the year 2009 shows an original and animated view on the now popular practice of publishing one's life as data. The data contains several dozen statistics about the pop culture he consumed, the people he talked to, the (Belgian...) beer he drank, the places he visited, the vehicles he took to those places, and the amount of sleep he enjoyed each day. These statistics was spread across several thousand cells of a spreadsheet, which were then condensed and animated into the 2.5-minute video clip. As one commenter smartly puts it, animating…

• Data Fiction: Storytelling with Information Graphics

  4 Feb 2010 | 4:53 pm

  The combination of storytelling and information visualization has been long predicted, although still very few examples do exist. On the other hand, some might claim typical information aesthetic visualization is all about tell a compelling story. Following project takes infographic storytelling one (literal) step further: Sumedicina [janalange.de] is the title of a fictional thriller story about an international virus scandal, and is mainly told through the medium of infographics. One might not feel completely sure whether this is just an excuse to create a collection of visually impressive…

• Huge Interactive Signpost Shows the Direction to Favorite Locations

  4 Feb 2010 | 1:00 am

  This gigantic, interactive signpost sponsored by Nokia Ovi Maps in the form of a dynamically rotating electronic LED screen allows passers-by to send in their favorite location and coordinates via text or email. The giant pointer, hung on a 60ton construction on height of 50m, then automatically rotates to the given direction and displays the submitted description to the world. Watch the documentary video below. See also the Nokia Blog [1,2] and FarFar. Via Engadget.

• Ward Shelley: Infovis Oil Painting Artist

  3 Feb 2010 | 9:35 pm

  Unknown to me before, visual (infovis?) artist Ward Shelley [wardshelley.com] comes as a refreshing surprise. Shalley's impressive oil paintings and pencil drawings use real information in an attempt to depict the understanding of how things evolve and relate to one another, and how this develops over time. Usual topics range from art or cultural history, such as the arc of an artist's career and its influences, or the effect of particular ideas in an aesthetic or political movement. The paintings are interpreted as being "wide-screen", as all information is available to the interacting eye…

• Information Landscapes in 1994 (MIT Prof Muriel Cooper)

  1 Feb 2010 | 10:32 pm

  Back in 1994, Muriel Cooper, one of the co-founders of the MIT Media Lab where she taught interactive media design as the head of the Visible Language Workshop, presented her work at the TED5 conference in Monterey, CA. Her presentation would initiate a new era of data visualization, and it changed the way designers thought of the possibilities of electronic media. (Maybe quite similar to how David Small's dynamic renditions of text changed my way of thinking about 3D visualization). Her work was revolutionary as it pushed typography into the 3 spatial dimensions, and augmented it with…

• 
  visualcomplexity.com

• Plasma

  Comissioned by ArtAids, for the exhibition FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN, Plasma is an interactive network of links and tags that belongs to a ongoing research on the topic of AIDS, from an integral and holistic point of view. Created by Santiago Ortiz and L�a Legrand, the project is still under way and welcoming further collaboration.

• NetFlix Similarity Map

  This visualization depicts the similarities between 5,000 movies as found by an algorithm used for the Netflix Prize. Movies are represented by dots with adjacent titles. Similar movies, as determined by customer rating patterns, are connected by a line. Colors closer to red indicate a weaker similarity, and colors closer to yellow indicate a stronger similarity. Many similarly-rated movies tend to cluster around topics, themes, directors, or actors. You can see a previous version of the project here.

• PostModernNews

  PostModernNews deconstructs a collection of Twitter messages into a bag-of-words, replacing syntax with a graphic re-arrangement of terms that the reader must re-associate to assert meaning. Users can either enter particular search terms or select one of the expandable categories, e.g., Trends, Celebrities, Editorial, to get started. The interaction with the generated territory allows different behaviors. While some relationships are drawn, others are implied with boundaries, solid or porous, and others only appear when queried with the cursor.

• Mentionmap

  Released by Asterisq, Mentionmap is a web app for exploring your Twitter network. It allows you to discover which people you interact the most and what they're talking about. It's also an interesting way to find relevant people to follow.The visualization runs in your browser and displays data from the Twitter API. It loads each user's Twitter status updates (tweets) and finds the people and hashtags they talked about the most. Clicking a user will display their network of mentions as well as details from their profile. The lines drawn between nodes become thicker the more users mention each…

• SourceMap

  SourceMap is an outstanding venture sponsored by different groups within the MIT. As they state on the site: "When you invite people to an event, buy the ingredients for a recipe, or design the parts of a product, your choices have a significant impact. Some things have vast supply chains that stretch across the world while others are completely regional. Understanding the reach of our sourcing is fundamental to improving economic, social and environmental conditions."Sourcemap is a tool for producers, business owners and consumers to understand the impact of supply chains. The site is a…

• 
  FlowingData

• Track Mouse Activity On Your Computer

  Nathan

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:31 am

  Anatoly Zenkov provides this nifty tool (Mac and PC) to track your mouse pointer. Really simple. Just start it, let it run, minimize the window, and carry on as usual. In the end, you get this image that looks something like a Pollock. Circles show areas where the pointer didn't move while the tracks show movement. The above is my own activity during the past couple of hours. I was just randomly browsing while watching the Laker game, so it's kind of all over the place. Run while using a single application for a while, and you might see something like Zenkov's tracks on Photoshop. What do…

• Data Underload #8 – Unsolicited

  Nathan

  8 Feb 2010 | 12:56 am

  A few months back, the Caltrans Performance Measurement System (PeMS) opened up a brand spanking new forum where people could discuss how they used the group's traffic data. They created an email list to tell everyone about the new forum. The problem is that PeMS used a single address to email everyone. So when someone "replied all," he would in turn email every single person on the list. What followed was a long thread of emails that (entertaining) morning. This is that email thread. It got ugly quick (and kind of inappropriate towards the end). Let this be a lesson to you site…

• Weekend Fodder

  Nathan

  7 Feb 2010 | 12:30 pm

  Here are some links and stuff to chew on as you wait for the Super Bowl, in between the beer, pizza, and wings. Pink Floyd Timeline, 1960-2000 - A highly stylized timeline of music from Pink Floyd over the years. The making of the NYT’s Netflix graphic - The interactive showing the geography of Netlfix rentals was a big hit around the Web. Detailed, engaging, interesting, and a great ad for Netflix. An Interview With Nicholas Felton, Creator of the Feltron Annual Report - It manages to make a bigger splash every month. Felton gets into some of the details of compiling the report [thanks,…

• Undergraduate Summer Program for Statistics

  Nathan

  5 Feb 2010 | 11:28 am

  If you're an undergraduate with an interest in data and statistics, you should definitely consider applying to this one-week summer program: Explorations in Statistics Research. It's in Boulder, Colorado and your travel expenses, along with room and board, will be covered. The seven day workshop is designed so that students get a sense of how statisticians approach large, complex problems. Several different topics will be presented over the course of the week. You'll also get hands-on experience with computing and visualization tools. Basically, you're going to have fun with data when you're…

• Excessively Labeled Airplane Tells You Where the Big Cheese Sits

  Nathan

  5 Feb 2010 | 12:51 am

  In case the in-flight pamphlet isn't enough for you, everything on this Kulula airplane is labeled for your convenience. Look, there's even a spot to put your boots. So convenient. [Thanks, Fernando]

• 
  Subtraction.com

• D-Crit Now Accepting Applications for Fall 2010

  desk@subtraction.com

  6 Feb 2010 | 6:43 am

  The School of Visual Arts’ MFA in Design Criticism program, run by my friend Alice Twemlow, is gearing up for its second school year starting this autumn. There’s not another program in the country, to my knowledge, that gives students access to a wealth of critical design knowledge on this level: Create original segments in a radio and podcasting workshop with PRI’s “Studio 360” senior producer Leital Molad and host Kurt Andersen; voyage deep into 20th century design with design historian Russell Flinchum; learn investigative journalism techniques…

• Pulling Over and Asking for Directions

  desk@subtraction.com

  4 Feb 2010 | 6:34 pm

  All told, I think I did a pretty good job of ignoring “Lost” for years, in spite of all the raves and recommendations from friends. Mostly, it was out of self-interest; I couldn’t afford the time investment that another hugely complicated television series would require, especially one that seemed to inspire such obsessive fandom. But now, living with a “Lost” devotee as I do, I find I can no longer willfully ignore the persistent phenomenon that is J.J. Abrams’ labyrinthine television saga. I started watching a handful of episodes here and there last…

• We Love Patterns

  desk@subtraction.com

  3 Feb 2010 | 10:54 am

  Just clicking through this bevvy of gorgeous and incredibly fun pattern designs from the very talented, young, Argentinian illustrator Gastòn Caba (and others) is just plain joyful. I know everyone thinks I’m all about grids and minimalism and monochromatic palettes and being very serious (okay, guilty), but it doesn’t mean I don’t also find this stuff to be totally great, too.

• Notes on iPad

  desk@subtraction.com

  27 Jan 2010 | 6:26 pm

  It’s not as if I haven’t had a point of view on all of this tablet computing device stuff that’s been lighting up the Internets for the past several months, but for professional reasons, I’ve had to keep mum. Suffice it to say, I’m really excited about Apple’s iPad, announced today, and I’m even more excited about what can be done with it. However. I’m pretty sure that I’m in the camp that believes that this is not the salvation that most publishing companies have been looking for. Not that the device falls short in some way, but rather…

• The New York Rocker

  desk@subtraction.com

  26 Jan 2010 | 8:04 pm

  A small but excellent selection of covers from “the definitive music and culture publication in New York City in the early 1980s.” I’d never heard of it before, but then in the Eighties New York was just an idea and not a real place for me yet. These covers evoke that dreamland of my youth though: gritty, plausibly if not authentically punk, confrontational and exclusive (who the hell were Human Switchboard? Oh, that’s who).

• 
  A List Apart

• Words that Zing

  9 Feb 2010 | 1:00 am

  When someone consults a website, there is a precious opportunity not only to provide useful information but also to influence their decision. To make the most of this opportune moment, we must ensure that the site says or does precisely the right thing at precisely the right time. Understanding the rhetorical concept of kairos can help us craft a context for the opportune moment and hit the mark with appropriately zingy text.

• The Problem with Passwords

  9 Feb 2010 | 1:00 am

  Abandoning password masking as Jakob Nielsen suggests could present serious problems, including undermining a user’s trust by failing to meet a basic expectation. But with design patterns gleaned from offline applications, plus a dash of JavaScript, we can provide feedback and reduce password errors without compromising the basic user experience or losing our visitors’ trust.

• Using SVG for Flexible, Scalable, and Fun Backgrounds, Part II

  26 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am

  In Part II, dig deeper into the technology behind using SVG for your site design. Explore how to incorporate SVG in a cross-browser friendly manner, including using SVGWeb to ensure that the SVG shows in Internet Explorer. And discover the unique characteristic that makes SVG ideal for page backgrounds: scalability.

• Using SVG For Flexible, Scalable, and Fun Backgrounds, Part I

  26 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am

  Many of us think of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) as an also-ran: fine for charts and tables, but not much else. Yet SVG can actually enhance a site’s overall design, and can be made to work in even the most stubborn browser. In Part I of a two-part series, Shelley Powers covers important basics of working with SVG, including browser support and accessibility.

• The Survey, 2009

  15 Dec 2009 | 2:00 am

  For the third year in a row, good citizens of the web, we ask that you take a few minutes to tell us about your professional skills, educational background, career prospects, job benefits, and more.

• 
  UXmatters

• Taming the Elephant in the Room: Brand Perception and Bias

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  8 Feb 2010 | 3:10 am

  By Demetrius Madrigal Published: February 8, 2010 “People’s preconceived notions can be another elephant in the room—a barrier to achieving accurate and actionable feedback on a concept or design.” I’ve been a bit of a pizza snob ever since my first job making pizza at the age of 15. I’ve always had a pretty low opinion of Domino’s Pizza®, so I was very impressed when I saw Domino’s recent efforts to reinvent both their pizza and their brand identity by tackling their problems head on. When I first saw their ads and online video, which you…

• Numeric Filters: Issues and Best Practices

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  8 Feb 2010 | 3:08 am

  By Greg Nudelman Published: February 8, 2010 “Filters with numeric values remain among the most confusing, because many sites have not able to design usable numeric filters that people can use in an intuitive manner.” Faceted search has been around for a long time and has become the de facto standard for search on most ecommerce sites. However, filters with numeric values remain among the most confusing, because many sites have not able to design usable numeric filters that people can use in an intuitive manner. Recently, powerful user interface controls called sliders have become all the…

• Ironclad Contracts: Tougher Than a Pinky Swear

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  8 Feb 2010 | 3:03 am

  By Whitney Hess Published: February 8, 2010 “You’ve passed the seduction phase. You’ve made the client fall in love with you. You’ve determined the terms of your engagement. Now, you need to make things official.” You’ve passed the seduction phase. You’ve made the client fall in love with you. You’ve determined the terms of your engagement. Now, you need to make things official. When I used to do freelance on the side, while still employed full time, I never got my clients to sign contracts. I didn’t see the point, and I hated the formality. It felt stuffy, and I thought it…

• Hierarchical Task Analysis

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  8 Feb 2010 | 2:58 am

  By Peter Hornsby Published: February 8, 2010 “Hierarchical task analysis (HTA) is an underused approach in user experience, but one you can easily apply when either modifying an existing design or creating a new design.” As UX professionals, we have a great many analytical and descriptive tools available to us. In fact, there are so many that it can sometimes be difficult to decide which tool is most appropriate for a given task! Hierarchical task analysis (HTA) is an underused approach in user experience, but one you can easily apply when either modifying an existing design or creating a…

• Label Alignment in Long Forms | Paper Prototyping for Engineers

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  17 Jan 2010 | 9:40 pm

  By Janet M. Six Published: January 18, 2010 Send your questions to Ask UXmatters and get answers from some of the top professionals in UX. In this edition of Ask UXmatters, our experts discuss two topics: label alignment in long forms paper prototyping for engineers Ask UXmatters answers our readers’ questions about user experience matters. To read our experts’ responses to your question in an upcoming edition of Ask UXmatters, please send your question to: ask.uxmatters@uxmatters.com.

• 
  we make money not art

• LA Zombie: The Movie That Would Not Die

  Regine

  8 Feb 2010 | 10:41 pm

  Who would have thought i'd end up blogging about a splatter movie on wmmna? I'm not talking about any horror movie, i'm talking "gay-porn zombie film", a genre which i assume is under-represented in contemporary art. Written and directed by Bruce LaBruce and starring porn actor François Sagat, LA Zombie is on view at the Peres Projects gallery in Berlin, along with a dozen new works on canvas continue

• Crowbot Jenny

  Regine

  7 Feb 2010 | 10:55 pm

  Crowbot Jenny is a manga character. She is a socially-awkward girl who prefers to spend time surrounded by technology and animals rather than with humans. She built the Crowbot. Perched on her shoulder, the crow-shaped robot can vocalize a variety of crow calls to control and converse with her bird army continue

• The Gesundheit Radio

  Regine

  6 Feb 2010 | 11:45 pm

  Developed in 1972 to protect early microprocessors from dust, the Gesundheit Radio featured a sneeze mechanism that expelled dust from inside the casing every six month. A bellows system extracted dust from inside the unit, blowing waste from two outlets located on the front continue

• East Side Stories. German Photography 1950s-1980s

  Regine

  5 Feb 2010 | 12:55 pm

  30 black and white pictures from photographers who portrayed life at the time of the GDR, mostly in a way that steered away from the official GDR iconography continue

• The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one's own

  Regine

  4 Feb 2010 | 10:31 am

  Michael Rakowitz explores the influence of science fiction genre imagery on the design of Iraqi monuments, military uniforms and weaponry under Saddam Hussein, while illuminating aspects of the US-Iraq conflict over the past few decades continue

• 
  Newsgrist

• Found Art (East Village): Unmonumental 226

  joy garnett

  30 Jan 2010 | 10:23 am

  Found Art (East Village): Unmonumental 226, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

• Found Art (LES): Unmonumental 225

  joy garnett

  30 Jan 2010 | 10:23 am

  Found Art (LES): Unmonumental 225, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

• The Brooklyn Museum Commons: Trees (etc) Grow There

  joy garnett

  22 Jan 2010 | 11:36 am

  via that dreaded rag HuffPo (still good for some things):The Brooklyn Museum's Copyright Projectby Jonathan MelberWhen it comes to progressive, public-friendly copyright policies, few art museums can match The Brooklyn Museum. In 2004, it was the first art museum to adopt a Creative Commons license, allowing any non-commercial copying of any image in which the museum holds the copyright. In 2008, it was the third institution to join the Flickr Commons, making available high-resolution images of Public Domain artworks from its collection. Last week, the musuem published the detailed copyright…

• Artist Flores McGarrell Dies in Haitian Earthquake

  joy garnett

  22 Jan 2010 | 11:25 am

  Flo McGarrell cooking, Jacmel, Haiti, 2009via M|I|C/A:Flores McGarrell '97 '98 Dies in Haitian Earthquake1/15/10 Flores McGarrell '97 '98, an artist and director of a community arts center in Haiti, was killed in the earthquake that devastated the nation on Tuesday. McGarrell, 35, received a B.F.A. in fibers and an M.A. in digital arts at MICA and was a faculty member at the College in 2001 and 2002. He died when the Peace of Mind Hotel in Jacmel, his hometown in Haiti, crumbled during the earthquake.According to reports, McGarrell had stopped briefly at the hotel in Jacmel on his way home…

• "Good Law is the Best Art" Limited Edition Posters: Proceeds Go to UNICEF Haiti

  joy garnett

  22 Jan 2010 | 11:10 am

  via Clancco: "Good Law is the Best Art" Help Haiti Children, Receive a Limited Edition Clancco PosterJanuary 19th, 2010Clancco has printed 50 limited-edition posters, Good Law is the Best Art, based on Andy Warhol’s now-famous quote, “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”These limited-edition posters are for sale, with all profits after shipping costs going to UNICEF. UNICEF Promises that 100% of donated money will go to saving children’s lives in Haiti. Although the earthquake happened on January 12th, there is still much need for donations of…

• 
  FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE

• sleep walking by ~xblahx on deviantART

  9 Feb 2010 | 11:29 am

  via http://xblahx.deviantart.com/art/sleep-walking-104742979

• inspired by: on we heart it / visual bookmark #680965

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:59 am

  via http://weheartit.com/entry/680965

• The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture... - but does it float

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:53 am

  via http://www.butdoesitfloat.com/259536/The-only-way-of-discovering-the-limits-of-the-possible-is-to-venture

• The Things That Excite Me

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:49 am

  via http://thingsthatexciteme.tumblr.com/post/112321155/francesca-ceci

• StudioMakgill - The Lollipop Shoppe

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:45 am

  via http://www.studiomakgill.com/disciplines/identities/the_lollipop_shoppe/details#img224

• 
  Powered by Glasstire

• Tax tips today

  8 Feb 2010 | 9:37 am

  From 6-8 pm tonight, Tuesday, February 9, Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts will hold the first of two...

• San Anto new building

  8 Feb 2010 | 9:33 am

  Community-based arts org San Anto Cultural Arts (http://www.sananto.org/about.html) of San Antonio's Westside has bought itself a new old building...

• Hooks Epstein

  5 Feb 2010 | 7:25 am

  Disclaimer: I am so confused, do you go by Robert (http://a28.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/88/l_c7bbc0c887549c57570d87a7e965f1fb.jpg) or Rob (http://a28.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/88/l_c7bbc0c887549c57570d87a7e965f1fb.jpg)? CLICK ON THE LINKS...

• Art & Boats, Part 1

  29 Jan 2010 | 2:19 am

  I’ve got nautical kitsch and art all mixed up in my head. As the daughter of a boat builder (http://www.groverbuiltboats.com/)...

• The Worst Piece of Art I Ever Made: The Lapis Table

  27 Jan 2010 | 10:43 pm

  When Glasstire approached me with the idea of writing about the worst piece of art I ever made, I knew...

• 
  FECAL FACE

• Free Fridayz: POO, The Cat

  6 Feb 2010 | 6:52 am

  He's all soft, he's all cute, his claws all kill, he likes all chicken dinners from Trader Joes while wearing his turtle neck sweater.

• Antistrot & Never a Dull Moment

  5 Feb 2010 | 2:42 am

  We stopped through White Walls and the Shooting Gallery for a quick preview of these two shows opening Saturday Feb 6th.

• David Choe @Fifty24SF Preview

  3 Feb 2010 | 6:09 am

  We headed up to Fifty24SF to preview his show "Character Assassination" opening Friday, Feb 5th.

• Tofer Chin Interview

  2 Feb 2010 | 1:35 am

  We get to know this LA based artist before his show at Fecal Face opening Feb 11th.

• Maya Hayuk @Gallery 16 Preview

  1 Feb 2010 | 7:29 am

  Her show opens Friday Feb 5th @Gallery 16 in San Francisco. We take a peek and some new and older works.

• 
  Sprayblog

• The Endangered Species Print Project

  The Endangered Species Print Project offers limited-edition art prints of critically endangered species. The number of prints available corresponds with the remaining animal or plant populations. For example, only 45 Amur Leopards remain in the wild, so for this edition, only 45 prints will ever be made. A different organization, whose ...

• Spraygraphic Interview with Artist Jeremy Geddes

  Spraygraphic Interview with Jeremy Geddes SG: Where do you currently live and work? Please tell us about yourself? JG: I'm a painter living in Melbourne, Australia. Before I switched to full time painting I worked in game development. SG: What mediums do you work with? JG: All my work is either oil on linen ...

• Spraygraphic Featured Member: Derek Schaper

  Spraygraphic Featured Member: Derek Schaper Derek Schaper is a talented artist from Valdosta, Georgia. His Creative Project Section has some great paintings, drawings, and photography. Check out Derek Schaper’s profile.

• Christopher Wilson’s Dubai Series

  Christopher Wilson's Dubai Series Great Photography from Christopher Wilson

• Spraygraphic Vinyl Art Show moves to Conspire Phoenix

  Spraygraphic's Vinyl Art Show moves to Conspire Phoenix for the month of February. For the past two months, the art show has been hanging at Hoodlums Music in Tempe, but now we have loaded it all up and brought it to our favorite gallery in Phoenix, CONSPIRE.

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  Uncrate

• Ralph Lauren Polo Olympic Games Collection

  9 Feb 2010 | 9:31 am

  As the official outfitter of the 2010 U.S. Olympic team, you'll no doubt be seeing plenty of the Ralph Lauren Polo Olympic Games Collection ($10-$425) over the next few weeks....Visit Uncrate for the full post.

• Canon EOS Rebel T2i

  9 Feb 2010 | 8:57 am

  And so the DSLR wars continue. The Canon EOS Rebel T2i ($900) is the latest salvo from Canon, offering a number of improvements over the T1i it replaces. Highlights include...Visit Uncrate for the full post.

• Atlantic Records Time Capsule

  9 Feb 2010 | 7:54 am

  Founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson, Atlantic Records has come a long way in the last sixty-plus years, and the Atlantic Records Time Capsule ($200) chronicles the...Visit Uncrate for the full post.

• Creed Private Collection Tabarome

  9 Feb 2010 | 7:32 am

  It's not very often we cover a product that isn't going to be made anymore, but that's precisely the case with Creed Private Collection Tabarome ($405). Because the quality and...Visit Uncrate for the full post.

• NASA Space Shuttles

  8 Feb 2010 | 2:29 pm

  NASA's official night launches might be over, but you can recreate them with one of the remaining NASA Space Shuttles (roughly $28 million). Space Shuttle Discovery has already been sold,...Visit Uncrate for the full post.