I hope that I'll be able to do a bit more interviews with the folks the next time I head out again.
About Massify Those of you who is unfamiliar with Massify: it's a film production social network / community that unites filmmakers, actors and fans in the pursuit of great film. The site provides tools targeted to filmmakers, as well as abundant space for users to showcase their portfolio and reels. In addition to features commonly found on other social networks, Massify also partners with recognized film production companies and organizes competitions to promote and attract talents.
Their latest competition is a music video challenge where directors will get to pitch ideas for the rock band Low vs Diamond. The winner will get to work with Epic Records and RSA Films - a great opportunity for aspiring filmmakers indeed.
Facebook started rolling out a new site design on July 20, 2008 for users to preview and test the functionality of the site. The new design has been under testing since the beginning of this year, and more than 100,000 Facebook users have participated in user testings which led to many layout and features included in the final version.
The profile page comes with a single status feed + the wall, with additional info and photos pulled into separate tabs. All the applications have been grouped into the Boxes tab. The users can add additional application tabs as required (similar to iGoogle fucntionality).
Tabs should address the insane load-time with many profiles, but the added benefit to Facebook is that there are now more opportunities for them to display ads - so it's a win-win situation for the company as well as the user.
Animoto = Generative music video using photography (7/12/08) [View | Hide]
I have been meaning to try out Animoto for a while now and I finally got to it today. The service analyzes photos and music to create a video slideshow.
Images can be uploaded or imported via popular photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, etc. For the soundtrack, you can either upload your own or pick from their music library, which covers several different genres, from classical to electronica, from jazz to indie rock.
As with any generative services, the results are mixed. You don't really have a say on how the effects will be mixed together. But it is good if you need to throw something together quickly.
Most people flock to Flickr Explore to discover interesting shots, but the algorithm is a bit of a hit or miss sometimes. Provided that you have pretty good photography skills and have a good idea of who it works, you can game the engine.
The best way to find photography on Flickr that speak to you is to discover your own gem. In many ways, explored photographs are already discovered. While on the surface it appears that you are finding something rare, in reality you are already one step behind the machine. Why let the machines decide your fate. Find stuff on your own.
Lately I've become active in the Utata pool again, because almost every photo feature there has depth that speaks volume. Don't take my word for it. Run up to the Utata pool on Flickriver. It's a better way to explore and find hidden talents.
Swurl is yet another RSS aggregation service that I just discovered. it has the usual list view (see seeminglee.swurl.com) but also a timeline view that places your activities around the activities themselves, instead of locking them into a calendar view. I like this.
Unlike most services which requires you to go about to invite your friends to join the service, it fetches your contacts from various services into the friends list automatically.
More goodies > FriendFeed is that Swurl apparently imports your complete set of Flickr data, not just recent stuff like FF. In this sense, I can see Swurl function better as a history trail.
Checking out Flowgram today and came across this video of an opera singer in the "top viral videos of the year" collection. The collection comes handy in verifying some of the principles made by the book I'm reading at the moment: Made to Stick: simplicity, unexpectedness, emotions, stories.
One vision, one line of thought, and classical music (6/29/08) [View | Hide]
I love TED, but it is not often that I find myself watching the same video over and over again. Using classical music as a medium, Benjamin Zander re-ignited my passion for classical music, my sense of purpose in life, and inspired me to not think about the tiny details which do not matter, and focus on experiencing everything with one broad stroke.
In this 147-page book (available for download as PDF), Hugh Dubberly collected over one-hundred descriptions of design and development processes in hopes to foster debate about design and development processes.
The book asks interesting questions: + How do we design? Why do we do it that way? + How do we describe what we do? Why do we talk about it that way? + How do we do better?
...with practical goals in mind: + reducing risk (increasing the probability of success) + setting expectations (reducing uncertainty and fear) + increasing repeatability (enabling improvement)
It's an interesting and inspiring read. Highly recommended.
Orange: First internet balloon race (6/25/08) [View | Hide]
Orange launched another advertising campaign: the world's first internet balloon race.
The game is a little bit different than most other internet games in that the game does not occur on one site, but instead occurs among multiple sponsor sites. Anyone can be a sponsor--all you need to do is submit a URL to the game.
Anyone can join the game and get a balloon. The only way to move ahead though, it appears, is when you visit a site, or when anyone decides to give you a boost or when you landed on a site that would give you extras.
The whole experience feels a little bit like web-ring meets 1010wins. If you are determined to win the race, you ended up visiting a ton of sites that you normally won't get to. The 'sponsors' in turn get some brand exposure. In this sense Orange is providing a free advertising platform in the name of an internet game, and through doing so create brand awareness for itself... power to the users?
Foldable display concepts by Johnny Lee (6/23/08) [View | Hide]
Johnny Lee from Carnegie Mellon University demonstrates some of his ideas on how we can simulate displays on flexible and foldable surfaces in order to fit large interactive display into our pockets. Tracking is accomplished using the Wii Remote and IR LEDs.
Many Eyes = Community for data and data visualization (6/22/08) [View | Hide]
I found an interesting site called Many Eyes a few weeks ago. It's a collaborative environment where users can upload data sets and use one of the site's visualization module to create interesting visualization.
To create the visualization seen above, I first grabbed the complete list of tags from my Flickr account using the flickr.tags.getListUserPopular method. I then formatted the results (tags and tag count) to the format required by the site. After my data is uploaded, I chose to visualize my data using the Bubble Chart format.
Here's an interactive version where you can explore my tags in detail, or search for a tag.
In the screenshot captured above, I searched for my initials SML and highlighted all the tags that contain it. The reason there are so many instances of it being used is partly because I like to use very specific tags, such as SML.Graphic-Design and SML.Appendectomy to easily get to my stuff on the public pool without the need to use combinations or username.
Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008 (6/22/08) [View | Hide]
I had a lot of fun photographing the Coney Island Mermaid Parade last year so I went back for seconds this year. As I process my photographs, I noticed that I am inherently attracted to really colorful things. The photographs bear similarity to my information design projects :)
Frustration with Yahoo Small Business (6/17/08) [View | Hide]
Last year I registered 200+ domain names with Yahoo. It was cheap and efficient, and all is well... until last week.
I had changed my American Express card number and as a result, when the domain names are up for renewal this year, the system alerted me on outdated information. I tried to update my payment information, and to my surprise there is no way to update all the payment methods at once. Domains' payment information can be updated one at a time only, which is a fundamental UI flaw.
To make matters worse, when I clicked on the link to update my information, the site would consistently return a blank page that leads to no where, and I am unable to update anything. I tried refreshing the page but again nothing happens.
In my frustration, I tried contacting support on the phone, and had been on hold for two hours without any assistance, and the call will then be terminated by the system. There are no email support available, and all the meanwhile I am receiving account suspension notices and my domains are failing one by one, a truly frustrating experience.
Here's when the nightmare begin: when I signed up for the service, the domains were 9.95/year. I just received emails telling me that starting on 2008-07-01, the renewals will cost me 34.95/year. If I were unable to cancel my accounts by that date, I will be paying upwards of close to $10,000 for domain names.
Do you have any suggestions as to what I might do? Alternatively, do you know if there is an email where I can reach customer support?
Firefox Mobile Concept Video (6/11/08) [View | Hide]
Mozilla Labs posted a demo video of the Firefox Mobile on their site today and it's highly innovative using just a single-touch interface — providing yet another great example of how limitations can incubate innovation.
The interaction design is really sweet. For more information, check out the detailed description of all the features on Aza Raskin's blog. (Aza is the head of user experience at Mozilla Labs)
Recently I bought a new computer, because my nifty XPC is really starting to feel old. The computer comes with Vista. Because of all the bad press that it has had, I was really worried how it will turn out.
The computer arrived a few weeks ago and I panic: I wonder how I can possibly get use to the Aero glass window title bars with the dirty smudging blurred effect. It irritates me. It's not clean.
But since I'm stuck with it, I had no choice but to customize my experience and make it better. It's been almost a month now and after much tweaking and adjusting (plus switching to Vista Aero Basic mode), it really is not that bad.
The single-panel scrolling program file list was awkward at first, but now that I have used it for a while, I find it to be quite usable. Production level jump, and I'm no longer sticking five million icons into my quick launch bar anymore.
To paraphrase Zuzana Licko, "people read best what they read most" (Source: AIGA), I believe that "people use best what they use most".
One thing I do like about this UI is that it only shows the related places relevant to the currently displayed photostrip, and only photos that are geo-tagged are displayed here.
The default view looks at the most recent photos only, with the option to sort by interestingness.
Other recently launched features include the ability the explore the world and places, allowing the user to either find out about popular cities, or little known destination — which is a great way to learn about the diversity of culture and humanity.
Beatport = Excellent source of electronica (5/8/08) [View | Hide]
I never really got into buying songs online. When iTunes Store first opened, I bought a few albums from it because I own an iPod, but very quickly I was deterred by the fact that I can't even play my iTunes purchases on my Squeezebox because of the DRM-protection.
Annoyed by the situation, I subscribe to Rhapsody Unlimited, which let me cue up pretty much anything I want for a low monthly subsription fee of $12.99. When I find something I really want to own, I just go buy the CD and rip it to MP3 so I can play it anywhere.
Then Amazon introduced Amazon MP3 Downloads, and it changed everything. Really, what's not to love about being able to purchase DRM-free MP3s encoded at 256k? I thought that the 1-click and ship to feature was evil in getting many books that I probably do not need then.. that's until I discover the even more instantly gratifying 1-click and download MP3 :)
Just when I thought that there can't be anything better than 256k DRM-free MP3 downloads, I discovered Beatport yesterday. Beatport offers 320k DRM-free MP3! To top it off, it even offer WAV (16-bit 44 kHz) and 192kbps M4A!
Little did I know, the site was actually launched in 2004, and the latest version as seen above was released in August 2006. Beatport focuses on electronic music specifically, with an eye squarely focusing on DJs and electronica lovers. In other words, it's made for me.
The content is top-notch, and I am able to get to a lot of remix tracks that I would not otherwise been able to get my hands onto if I were to browse on mainstream music sites (such as those described above).
Ten Thousand Cents is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase are all $100.
Kind of like Kyte, except with better UI – but it does not do video streaming captured on mobile phones which the Kyte platform allows.
In a gist: Yahoo Live allows anyone with a Yahoo ID to broadcast webcam video stream from multiple users at the same time. Y! Live was previously used at the Winter Music Conference which streamed live video stream from different events: http://live.yahoo.com/evt/wmc/
Y! Live is currently under an experimental release, and supports a highly customizable widget for your live feed. I will provide more details after I play around with this a little bit further.
Bonus: you can follow @ylive on Twitter to see if there’s anyone broadcasting live from the site: an interesting idea to get audience.
Updates + 2008-04-27: In the original blog post published on 2008-04-25, I have incorrectly stated that Yahoo! Live does not have native Facebook and MySpace support, and i was informed by the development team that there is in fact two Facebook apps and MySpace implementation developed. Details to be posted shortly.
PicLens = Image browsing made easy (4/22/08) [View | Hide]
I don't know how I managed to not know anything about PicLens until today.
PicLens is a browser plug-in which transforms image streams into a full-screen browsing experience. I installed the Firefox extension this morning and I'm in image surfing heaven moments after.
I have been on Flickr for a while now and have accumulated a lot of contacts over time. All of my non-friend contacts on Flickr are folks that I have made a decisive choice to maintain contact because I respect their photographic creation. 1000+ sounds like a lot, but when you consider that more than 24 million people are active on Flickr everyday, a thousand is actually quite a small amount.
While my intention is to be amazed by my colleagues' work, the paging mechanism + thumbnail clicking has also become rather annoying overtime. I tried using the Slideshow module to go through my contacts' photos, but the 200 count limit imposed by Flickr still create some problem.
PicLens does not impose image count limit to any browsing. The browsing model is also so fluid, transparent and intuitive that require zero learning-curve.
With this tool, I did something I have never done on Flickr today: 1. I browsed through every single image posted to my contacts' recent photos. 2. I browsed through the entire photostream from a contact I recently added.
There is no way I could have tolerated this process if I were to do this in Flickr's native interface. It has also replaces the need for flickrleech now, which I must say have served me quite well before PicLens.
But PicLens does not only do Flickr, it also does Facebook, YouTube, Google Image Search, Yahoo Image Search, and the list goes on... I tested it on Google Image Search and had the first tolerable experience on Google Image Search today.
Opening night is tomorrow (Thursday, April 17, 2008) 6-8pm Free at BAM with free cocktails, but you should RSVP.
(below is C+P'ed)
Connected Unconscious is a collaborative exhibition produced by Brooklyn Art Project and BAM celebrating the creative possibilities of our web 2.0 connected world. Featured work includes 15 original pieces from members of the BrooklynArtProject.com community of 1100+ members from over 22 countries.
RSVP NOW // ART, COCKTAILS & REMIXES In addition to all the great art, we'll be playing Connected Unconscious theme based video and music remixes created for the exhibtion by rising star Brooklyn DJ's, curated by Halcyonline.com. Enjoy free cocktails courtesy of BAM and meet
