Want to see an example of a terrible corporate website? Dominos.com
(Except the real time pizza tracker, that's actually really cool.)
25 October 2009
19 October 2009
17 October 2009
Google wave, more digital history
The whole thing is long, but the first few minutes are very interesting. Google Wave is a response to the following question: What would email be like if it was invented today?
Google Wave video
As the speaker notes, the original protocols for email were created more than 40 years ago, pre-dating internet as we know it. One way this affected the way email works is that it basically mimicked the only existing way (at that time) of sending information from one person to another over long distances and asynchronously: normal mail. One person talks to one person, and maybe the second person replies.
If you overlook the fact that the processing power and computer networks that we now take for granted were at that time only the wildest speculation of the smartest and most studied people in computer science, email is a very unimaginative advance. All it did was take the snail mail paradigm and transfer it to the digital environment: send-receive.
As I understand it, a "wave" is a rethinking of the communication paradigm. With email (and snail mail before it), the basic idea is to communicate one set message to one or a few people, and maybe there is a reply. The letter is a fixed product, and is only accessible based on the efforts of the participants, i.e., to give access to the letter, someone who has it has to send it to someone who doesn't. In turn, if a reader wants to provide feedback, they have to reply and specifically send to previous readers and writers. There is no master source of information except a person who has read all the letters, if there even is such a person. (If you've ever tried to collaborate with multiple people on a long term project via email, you know how hard this makes things at times to keep everyone current on what's been done, what needs to be done, what's changed, etc.)
A wave changes this paradigm by starting from the beginning as a message that exists apart from the participants. Rather that starting with the person, who you will tell something, you start with the something you want to communicate, and linking your friend to it so they can read it. Once created, the message exists apart from the creator, in some place where lots of people can access it, like a computer server.
To explain it a little more concretely, let's say you want to tell two friends about a boat trip. You start by creating a wave (which looks mostly like a webpage) titled "Boat Trip." You write a short message and then link your friends digitally. When one next logs in, he sees he has a new wave. He opens it, reads it, and replies. (So far, just like an email.) But then they say, "Hey, that was a good story. Do you have any pictures? Oh, and do you mind if I show this to some of my friends?" When you next log in, you see the reply, and the question, and say "Sure." Your second friend later logs in, and instead of just seeing the original message, sees the whole conversation. He replies also and says, "Yeah, cool trip. Here's some pictures of my last trip." And he posts them to the wave. Your first friend logs in, sees your reply, and links other friends. He also comments on second friend's pictures. Later arrivals to the conversation also get to see all items added to the original message. As you can imagine, it's already starting to get pretty convoluted, but items are laid out in chronological order, with each item date stamped and lated comments sub-bulleted. But to make it easier to actually see how the conversation evolved, there are history buttons (like on a wiki page) that allow you to start at the original message and watch each addition in the order it was made.
The closest analogy I can come up with is that a wave is more like a book. Some one writes it and leaves it in the library for others. As they read it, they can add to it, creating a later edition to the book, which sits next to the original on the shelf, and so on.
An upside to the email paradigm is that between two people, the information is fairly easy to organize. If you printed out a series of emails and replies between two people and put them in order, you would basically create a physical book that tells the story.
By contrast, a wave is much less meaningful outside a digital environment, where it cannot be manipulated real time by the reader to see the changes over time (and by the way, the above description is only the most basic introduction to the capabilities of a wave). While I anticipate waves will revolutionize and much improve group collaboration, they also mean we will be tied firmly to the electronic world; truly digital history.
Google Wave video
As the speaker notes, the original protocols for email were created more than 40 years ago, pre-dating internet as we know it. One way this affected the way email works is that it basically mimicked the only existing way (at that time) of sending information from one person to another over long distances and asynchronously: normal mail. One person talks to one person, and maybe the second person replies.
If you overlook the fact that the processing power and computer networks that we now take for granted were at that time only the wildest speculation of the smartest and most studied people in computer science, email is a very unimaginative advance. All it did was take the snail mail paradigm and transfer it to the digital environment: send-receive.
As I understand it, a "wave" is a rethinking of the communication paradigm. With email (and snail mail before it), the basic idea is to communicate one set message to one or a few people, and maybe there is a reply. The letter is a fixed product, and is only accessible based on the efforts of the participants, i.e., to give access to the letter, someone who has it has to send it to someone who doesn't. In turn, if a reader wants to provide feedback, they have to reply and specifically send to previous readers and writers. There is no master source of information except a person who has read all the letters, if there even is such a person. (If you've ever tried to collaborate with multiple people on a long term project via email, you know how hard this makes things at times to keep everyone current on what's been done, what needs to be done, what's changed, etc.)
A wave changes this paradigm by starting from the beginning as a message that exists apart from the participants. Rather that starting with the person, who you will tell something, you start with the something you want to communicate, and linking your friend to it so they can read it. Once created, the message exists apart from the creator, in some place where lots of people can access it, like a computer server.
To explain it a little more concretely, let's say you want to tell two friends about a boat trip. You start by creating a wave (which looks mostly like a webpage) titled "Boat Trip." You write a short message and then link your friends digitally. When one next logs in, he sees he has a new wave. He opens it, reads it, and replies. (So far, just like an email.) But then they say, "Hey, that was a good story. Do you have any pictures? Oh, and do you mind if I show this to some of my friends?" When you next log in, you see the reply, and the question, and say "Sure." Your second friend later logs in, and instead of just seeing the original message, sees the whole conversation. He replies also and says, "Yeah, cool trip. Here's some pictures of my last trip." And he posts them to the wave. Your first friend logs in, sees your reply, and links other friends. He also comments on second friend's pictures. Later arrivals to the conversation also get to see all items added to the original message. As you can imagine, it's already starting to get pretty convoluted, but items are laid out in chronological order, with each item date stamped and lated comments sub-bulleted. But to make it easier to actually see how the conversation evolved, there are history buttons (like on a wiki page) that allow you to start at the original message and watch each addition in the order it was made.
The closest analogy I can come up with is that a wave is more like a book. Some one writes it and leaves it in the library for others. As they read it, they can add to it, creating a later edition to the book, which sits next to the original on the shelf, and so on.
An upside to the email paradigm is that between two people, the information is fairly easy to organize. If you printed out a series of emails and replies between two people and put them in order, you would basically create a physical book that tells the story.
By contrast, a wave is much less meaningful outside a digital environment, where it cannot be manipulated real time by the reader to see the changes over time (and by the way, the above description is only the most basic introduction to the capabilities of a wave). While I anticipate waves will revolutionize and much improve group collaboration, they also mean we will be tied firmly to the electronic world; truly digital history.
06 October 2009
I wish I could do anything as well as this guy rides a bike...
My reply to a recent email:
~~~
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1137883380?bctid=21337502001
I love this stuff, I can watch it for hours. When I can, I like to watch the X Games, which features a bunch of events besides BMX, which is what this is called.
(On a side note, I've been watching the X Games since ~2000, and in the last few years they've been getting a lot more TV coverage. As a result, it seems, the events have changed a bit to get bigger and bigger jumps, more speed, more height above ground, etc.; in a word, more attention-getting. But I think they are missing out...it's the small moves that he makes in this video that are so spectacular, where he's balancing the whole weight of the bike on one small patch of tire or stopping the bike on one wheel and doing almost static jumps from one surface to the next (or for that matter, backflipping off a tree!...never gets more than 10 feet off the ground, but how cool)...maybe just personal taste, I suppose, but that's me. Thanks for the link!)
d
http://espn.go.com/action/xgames/xg15/index
~~~
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1137883380?bctid=21337502001
I love this stuff, I can watch it for hours. When I can, I like to watch the X Games, which features a bunch of events besides BMX, which is what this is called.
(On a side note, I've been watching the X Games since ~2000, and in the last few years they've been getting a lot more TV coverage. As a result, it seems, the events have changed a bit to get bigger and bigger jumps, more speed, more height above ground, etc.; in a word, more attention-getting. But I think they are missing out...it's the small moves that he makes in this video that are so spectacular, where he's balancing the whole weight of the bike on one small patch of tire or stopping the bike on one wheel and doing almost static jumps from one surface to the next (or for that matter, backflipping off a tree!...never gets more than 10 feet off the ground, but how cool)...maybe just personal taste, I suppose, but that's me. Thanks for the link!)
d
http://espn.go.com/action/xgames/xg15/index
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