Become a Bitstripper
Posted by goodmind on March 26th, 2008
Given the gloom and doom outlook for the newspaper industry, we’ve never been able to understand why they don’t put the funny pages up front (not to mention why they’re so keen to shrink the Sunday comic strip space in general). In the smash success of Bitstrips, we at last have some concrete, co-rendered evidence that people are willing to invest significant time and energy in a comic strip. As per usual boingboing has graciously boiled down the essence of the website as;
“a fast, easy, sharing-friendly comic creation site — you make “characters” using a Wii-style menu, pose them and fill in dialog, layout your strips and monkey with the backgrounds, borrowing material from any of the thousands of strips that have been made to date. Once your strip is done, anyone can modify it — it becomes part of the commons. In the first two weeks of the site’s existence, more than 16,000 strips were created by the users of the service.”
In fact, Bitstrips has been such a hit that they recently suffered a server overload. We particularly admire their sense of humor about the black out (as evidenced by the comic below), and that they had the good sense to showcase the broad applicability of their service at the same time. Why make lemonade if life hands you lemons, when it’s far more entertaining to create a comic?
Designer Information
Posted by goodmind on March 12th, 2008
We read a lot of design blogs, and consequently, encounter a good deal of theory and rhetoric on the subject. Along the way, we also came across a simple graphic which speaks for itself, succinctly summarizing what separates user friendly products from the non. It’s the best bit of information design we’ve seen to date;
(via Bits & Pieces)
In Our Element
Posted by goodmind on January 30th, 2008
The Periodic Table has been abused as a visual metaphor, but we think the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods is quite apt, all things considered. Not only can it be put to practical use as a reference resource, we think it satisfies the main criteria of any good visualization method; making information more memorable and as a result, more functional.
We’ve included a screen shot of the Table below, but highly recommend checking out the real deal at visual-literacy.org. Scrolling over each “element” generates an example of the method in action.
The Reunification of Journalism
Posted by goodmind on January 28th, 2008
Though we have often alluded to the day when the distinction between bloggers and journalists would at last disappear (and the “citizen” could be dropped from the odious phrase “citizen journalist”), we never thought that it might actually happen in our lifetime.
The approaching collapse of this once powerful divide is being facilitated by the slow but steady increase in websites distributing “hyperlocal” content. EveryBlock and outside.in are just two of the more popular local news aggregators and filters, and while their geographic reach is currently limited to just a few major cities, the success of the concept could have much further reaching implications.
Fred Wilson, author of A VC, owns a stake in outside.in, but makes a compelling case for why the site could drastically increase the role of the local community paper in the national media food chain;
“If a mom (or dad) could blog for two hours every morning between dropping off her kids and going shopping…where are her stories going to get picked up? What if they could get picked up by the big city paper that everyone in her town reads. That’s why I am so excited about Outside.in’s effort to get it’s neighborhood pages and buzzmaps onto newspaper websites all over the country. Here are outside.in’s buzzmaps on the Washington Post website.”
What we find fascinating about this whole idea (and post) is that it genuinely believes and automatically assumes bloggers are capable of producing “stories,” and that these stories are worthy of being “picked up” by a traditional medium. While this sentiment is not uncommon within the blogosphere, supporting what was once a pipe dream with a structural mechanism is, well, news to us.
Outside.in basically aggregates locally produced blogs, analogous to an American Idol for up and coming bloggers by linking worthy posts to newspaper websites. (To see how this differs from the usual life cycle of a blog post, click here). Though Outside.in’s primary competition in this space is EveryBlock, South Korea is also taking steps to legitimize Citizen Journalism through actual academic institutions. Intended to promote best practices among graduates, OhMyNews Citizen Journalism School could steal the show as the NCAA for finding and developing amateur blogging talent.
Campaign Season for Consumer Electronics
Posted by goodmind on January 7th, 2008
We’ve been sadly remiss in our blogging throughout 2008, such to the extent that the grace period for New Year’s resolution jokes has already come and gone. Fortunately, our preoccupation with shiny new toys doesn’t have to expire with the holiday seasonal spirit. That’s why we recommend taking a look at Gizmodo’s ongoing coverage of CES 2008.
The international Consumer Electronics Show kicked off today, simultaneously ushering in what would appear to be yet another stellar year for the Las Vegas Tourism Bureau. The social media circus has rolled into town to cover four days of emerging tech concepts and keynote speeches, while providing those of us not fortunate enough to make it with commentary drier than a Dean Martin martini.
Though we’re a little miffed we didn’t warrant an invite and a comped hotel room, our wounded pride is probably nothing compared to what political bloggers are enduring at the moment.
