In connection with the yesterday link to the Apple UI posted by Ionut, here is the Yahoo user interface blog. The user interface bookshop code and documentation published by Yahoo can be accessed here. Great hints for those interested in usability.
I was looking at some old favorites and one of them (from those days when I was fascinated by Aqua and I was analyzing the secrets of the transparent icons) sent me here. Must–read for those who forget that technology it is for people. And those who are aware of this should read it too. As well as the undecided ones. Enjoy reading!
By the way of what Ionut wrote in the previous days (actually, yesterday) regarding the advertising agencies and the Internet, here is what Seb Royce (jury member at the Cyber section and Creative Director at Glue London) said in the last issue of Campaign (an article containing opinions about Cannes Lions):
“It’s time to stop pretending that we support the digital and to start allocating a proper budget for this area. And I’m not thinking only at the media. Comparing with the money spent outside the Internet, the budgets for production are still really low when it comes about the digital field, although the Web world will become very soon our main communication channel.
In Great Britain we face the risk of getting stocked because - in spite of the fact that the traditional agencies are aware that they should focus more on digital - they don’t have the necessary know-how to do it, while the digital agencies are well-trained in this field, but they do not have the necessary financial resources.”
The TreeWorks blog is mentioned in an interesting article about corporate blogs published by “Business Magazine” right in this July.
For more details about the new blog approach as a PR instrument for Romanian companies you can check out the entire article in Romanian.
I never worked in an advertising agency, so I only know this as an outsider, lurking and catching information with one corner of an eye. Our agencies have considerably grown up in the last years. Fly the tie for this! Our advertisers won at famous festivals, they became regional chiefs and they managed to place Romania on the world’s advertising map.
But from here, from where I’m standing right now, advertisers look like they are really outsiders too when it comes about the web. And this is not a reproach I can assure you, because I always believed nobody could know everything, and nobody should even try that. But the reason I mention this, is because I think they regard the web as an over-stuffy little thingy, a sort of “come on man, what should we do about it? You think that we should also post something on this web-site?”. And they act accordingly! Why this attitude?! Because those people in charge of the “online matter” are just some web viewers who suddenly woke up with a task that is real “Chinese” to them and of which they tend to get rid as fast as possible.
And all these in the context of the Internet being the most pretentious amongst all the other advertising fields. In order to create an effective online advertising, one definitely needs a better knowledge when it comes about TV, radio or print. The Internet offers many things, but not for free. It requires equivalent payment in return. All its advantages, like interactivity, targeting, monitoring, can only be exploited with knowledge of the in-depth environment.
Extending an advertising online campaign is no more a simple problem of mobbing bits’n’pieces from company’s visual identity into a 468×60 px space and then stuffing the banner on a website. Or it really shouldn’t be like this.
‘Till nowadays, I didn’t saw on the Romanian web any advertising campaign in which an agency had invested a great deal of effort. Everything that is made on web has a feeling of leftovers from a delicious print and TV ad meal. The proof is that Romanian agencies have no obvious web entry within the festivals (and I say obvious because there are some shy attempts like “The urinals’ unwritten code” – Leo Burnett for Golden Drum, but they are lost between the way much more superior foreign outputs). What a pity, because there are really good genuine web people who could do all the hard work with an admirable passion.
You open a website and suddenly you see the window covered during plenty of seconds by another red or green un-wanted window (according with the color of the brand that advertises). Some other times, an icon comes straight into your sight and you can’t turn it off because the button is quietly situated on the corner of the screen or it is quite missing. And… this is not all! You navigate on the web absorbed by your own personal interests and suddenly you are dined by an ad. As an advice: do not turn up the volume to the maximum… or you’d better use Adblock. 
From the group of annoying online ads, should also be remembered: unexpected pop-ups, ads that “move” the page content, adverts that float over the screen, advertisements with blink effect and, of course, the usual spams and their bothering offers and announcements.
Exactly as the TV viewers change channels at the adbreak, in the same way the Internet users are looking for ways of getting free from these annoying advertisements. An often-used method is blocking ads with special software. The most known are: Mozilla Adblock, Webwasher, AdSubstract, AdsGone, Norton Internet Security.
These are tools that make advertising pop-ups to be invisible or that use filters for blocking them.
Any company that intends to promote an online brand should also consider these things that I wrote above in its marketing strategy.
What is the main difference between Romanian newspapers’ sites and NYT’s? The Romanian ones wake up in the morning and after an hour go back to sleep. NYT’s is awake 24/7.
The New York Times lesson is: a newspaper site doesn’t have to be the web image of the printed edition. A newspaper website can and must offer much more. A website can present the events in the moment the editors have the news, it doesn’t have to wait for these news to be printed and brought to the kiosks.
I know, I know, we need that , we need that, we need people to take care only of the web part. How long will one keep going with that excuse? When it will become clear for everyone that a web investment worths the money? When it will be clear that a really striking website needs people dedicated 24/7 to this task, and not people making updates as a plus for another job?
It’s true, I saw a few shy update attempts during one day, but they were so shy that one might be afraid that they will dissapear if it breathes near them. Why are these usually small news whispered in a corner? Are they less important because they didn’t saw the “print light”?
Why do I visit CNN and NYT so many times a day that I can’t even remember and why do I visit Romanian press websites only once a day? Because theirs web sites are awake and with their eyes on everytime. While ours are most of time sleeping and I don’t want to disturb their sleep.
12.00 : Cover story on NYT : Missile Tests Divide Seoul from Tokyo
12.30: Cover story on NYT : Statelessness Goes Better With Coke. Or Does It?
and on owers sites…
12.00.Cover story : PRM deputy Dragomir “Corleone” builds up in Herastrau a pub from thermopane
12.30.Cover story: PRM deputy Dragomir “Corleone” builds up in Herastrau a pub from thermopane
………………………………………………….
22.00.Cover story: PRM deputy Dragomir “Corleone” builds up in Herastrau a pub from thermopane
Did you get it? Well, he builds up
“We gathered here for not to stay dispersed” an older joke was saying.
Empty joke, isn’t it? Well… I think not. It wasn’t empty before, and it isn’t empty now either. Because then it was a criticism of those useless meetings with flying flags and a lot of sunstroke. Now it works perfectly for many groups that cut mint to dogs (of course, after they previously rubbed it), agitating their spirit for nothing.
Then the joke said “We gathered here for something we don’t belive in”. Now the joke says “We gathered here because we don’t have something else to do”.
And now, a 400 years older one, that it is not written by me: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main […] Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Now we got to the subject of this post: The Community
A goup it is not a community. It becomes a community when its members begin to feel themselves as parts of one body and not as separate islands. When they feel that they can freely ask and get back answers, that they can talk and they are listened, that they can create and receive support for this, when they have acces to a spring of knowledge and when their personal experience mixes with the others’ personal experiences and, all together, they give birth to something bigger then a any other individual.
Briefly, when “We gathered here not to stay dispersed” becomes “Everyone of us is a part of the unit”.
And where is the connection with the web?
Well… there is a connection. Because the Web was born as a result of the specific necessities of the community. It grew up and became a welcoming land for the arising and the development of countless communities, thus becoming itself the biggest community ever.
Those who manage to build powerfull web communities, will be the winners on the “battlefield:web”, because …
Communities generate first-class content
Thanks to the joint input, the content created by the community members is constantly improved, sifted, distilled until it becomes of a high quality that reflects the community’s image. Aiming to obtain the others’ recognition and appreciation, the community members work hard in order to create high quality material, to offer first-class suggestions and opinions.
For example, when a literary creation is presented to a literary community, this will generate competent reactions and opinions - these last ones being themselves quality community products. This is one of the greatest advantages of a community.
The interaction between the members of a community is usually constructive, not destructive.The divergences of opinion and their solution contribute at the community’s unity and development.
« Content is king »! So, owning and generating high quality content will always be the key of a powerfull position. Without quality content delivered in a fast and accessible manner, nobody is alowed to dream at the web player statute.
The communities inspire loyalties
When people find a community they feel comfortable with, they stick with it for as long as their necessities are fulfilled. Our time is way too short as for imigrating from one community to another or as for activating in too many communities.
Communities are like families. Their members know, recognize, approve and disapprove each other, they become part of the others’ lives. Usually, a community looses its members only when it starts to creak and when managing lines that helped at its construction are forgoten..
Communities can be easily targeted and identified
A community is described through its members and through their common interests. No matter if it is about literature, policy, photography, advertising or exotic fishes! The community always tells everything about itself. By its own presence, the community makes available to any interested person the necessary informations for initiating and maintaining the contact with its members. Communities are the ideal target of all sellers and advertisers.
Powerful communities become powerful voices that can produce echo in many other areas of society
So powerful that they could force presidents to resign, giant-companies to change their strategy, military troups to come or to leave, spaceships to fly or to rust!
The voice of a community is lauder then all individual voices of its members at one place, exactly as a petition signed by a thousand people is stronger then one thousand letters that will get streight to the trash.
But how communities can be build?
Because to implant a stake in the ground and to say “all ye romantic poets come here and gather around this stake. We’ll be a community” is not really working. Romantic poets are famous for their free spirit.
An individual consents for a community according to his interests, from the desire of becoming better, of receiveing support, of helping others, of feeling he is part of something he believes in.
However, an individual won’t consent to a community if:
- he doesn’t know about its existence
- he doesn’t have the will of gaining knowledge, the will of growing
- he is already all involved within a community that shares his vision and that fullfils him
- the community doesn’t manage to impress him through the quality of its opinions, of its actions and of its members’ creations
- the area in which the community operates it is of no interest to him
- he can’t visualize any benefits from this adesion
- the laizyness > the enthusiasm
I know many polemics. But others have overtaken them so now we’ll have to look over the fence…to be continued.
First premise: the over-population and the people’s need of reshaping their surrounding social space. That’s why iPods are so popular.
Second premise: the excess of socialization options and the need of a selection system
A hitech solution for these two: something based on bluetooth or wifi, integrated in iPod and that broadcasts what its owner listens. Plus additional information – exactly as a personal portable portal. Resumes, classifieds, pictures, blogs, contact cards etc. With a selection and admittance system based on different users types: strangers, casual acquaintances, pals, friends, relatives. The next-generation MySpace.com.
What’s the utility? First of all it’s socialization. You accost easier somebody who is listening to the same type of music as you listen. There are common background odds.
Moreover, the possibility to promote your classified ads: I sell roller skates. I realized that I prefer cycling. This for example for those environments where interests convert. For example a bikers’ club, where specialized cycling ads blow up publicly. Of course you can also imagine a sort of an automatic stock exchange.
Or advertising through inserts of content emissions. A pretty girl in a crowded area could make nice money.
Or an efficient signaling form taking into account the erosion of marriage as an institution and the disappearance of “I’m taken” symbol of the wedding ring. And these being caused by the growth of concubinage.
Like RFID on steroids. Speaking of RFID and of point of sale, I think that some products that could tell their story to the client would be really cool for the market leaders. Especially if these products incorporate a real informational component.
And, exactly as signaling, here is something I am thinking of: The digital cryptographic brands/labels. Something based on PGP or on another crypting method that contains and broadcasts digital signatures of the used brands (in order to reduce to 0 the chances of producing imitations).
I really think that these things aren’t an utopia. The future is rich info placed in the acquisition, contact or consumption point. Every time you’ll see these gizmos on the street, remember that here is where you read about them for the first time.
PS1 The academic title is for fun, of course.
PS2 If web 2.0 is about meshes on existing applications, API’s and the access to the external databases, web 3.0 will become web 2.0 plus the omnipresence of the information, full mobility, all kinds of various small gadgets that talk between them and the confusion between online and offline.
Everybody follow me: Start> Adobe> Uninstall Photoshop. And you over there… the one with the Mac(Intosh)… do you think I can’t see you?! I’m talking to you, too! Illustrator, Corel, Flash, Maya, uninstall all these softs that help you designing. Junk the pencils, varnish graphic tablets and hang them on. You don’t need them any more.
Why!? What do u mean why? Have you any design studies? Are you in the Society? Well… then, you have no right to pretend you are a designer! You pretend that your portfolio contains much more companies then those “with the law” - all together? And what about the awards? Have you any paper? What do you mean what paper? That paper from the Society. You have signature, right? Did you pay your dues? If not, give it up!
Yeap, boys and girls! In a world where the audience is encouraged to be creative, to communicate, to express and where those who manage to live from this are acclaimed, there is a country where living from this could become illegal. Can you guess from three attempts? Come on, it’s really easy! You live there (oups, I spoiled the magic)!
What is all about - in essence: They (the boys who studied design in the Russian age, and who’s creations can be admired here) want to tell us or, better said, to enforce us to leave aside our creative enthusiasm. We should not create without their permission and, of course, we should pay tax.
I understand when it comes about that necessary paper for performing a brain surgery. I understand when it comes about that necessary paper for conducting a plain. I understand when it comes about that necessary paper for building an edifice. But what’s all about that paper that allows one to create a logo?
Mister M. Buonarroti, I don’t know if that painting with the two people standing face to face and with their toes stretched one towards the other it is good or bad. All I know is that you have no competences. And that’s so obvious, because we can’t find you on our list… Put it down! Is it against the ceiling? What’s up!? Got no sand?
More details from kit:1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Sign the petition and make some noise
