Internet

The Wisdom of Browse

In Design, Geek, Internet on 20 April 2006 with Comments Off

There’s some drama afoot lately as bloggers pick apart Digg’s user-controlled editorial system, looking for evidence of editors lurking in the darkness. But much of the conversation is overlooking a crucial nuance when it comes to authentic media and democratic editorial systems.
For the uninitiated, Digg is a tech news site, where the members post links [...]

Attention Daily Show

In Fun, Internet, Video on 20 April 2006 with Comments Off

Attention Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Hire this man immediately.
Don’t make me beg.

Design for Selfishness

In Design, Folksonomy, Geek, Internet, Tags, Technorati on 11 April 2006 with Comments Off

In 1996, Paulina Borsook wrote a story that, frankly, really pissed me off. In “Cyberselfish,” published in Mother Jones and eventually turned into a book, she wrote about how new have-it-your-way technology was creating a generation of spoiled brats with computers.
I took umbrage. Not only was I a proud member of the generation she [...]

Death to User-Generated Content

In Blogging, Flickr, Geek, Internet, Journalism on 4 April 2006 with Comments Off

Dear internet,
Can I make a suggestion? Let’s all stop using the phrase “user-generated content.” I’m serious. It’s a despicable, terrible term. Let’s deconstruct it.
User: One who uses. Like, you know, a junkie.
Generated: Like a generator, engine. Like, you know, a robot.
Content: Something that fills a box. Like, you know, packing peanuts.
So what’s user-generated content? [...]

I Live in the Future

In Design, ETech, Geek, Internet, Powazek, Technorati on 23 March 2006 with Comments Off

So today I found myself at home, sitting on the couch, plugged into my laptop. I was talking to a gentleman in Australia, where it was already the next day, over the internet with Skype. We talked about the web, blogging, and community, while his daughter squealed in the background. He recorded the conversation and [...]

Dear Business Week

In Fray, Geek, Internet, Journalism on 18 March 2006 with Comments Off

Thanks for featuring Fray, my humble site, in the lead of your recent story, You Are What You Post. We always appreciate journalists taking the time to use a 5 year-old personal story contributed to our “obscure” literary site as a to peg to hang a fear-mongering, hysterical story on.
But it would have been nice [...]

Four Themes from skinnyCorp

In Conferences, Design, Flickr, Geek, Internet, SXSW on 15 March 2006 with Comments Off

Another one of my favorite sessions at SXSW Interactive 2006 was Zero-Advertising Brands, where we got to watch Maggie Mason talk to the guys from skinnyCorp, the makers of Threadless among other creative commerce/community hybrids.
One of my favorite things about talking to folks that really get the user-generated web, is that when they tell [...]

SXSW to MPAA: STFU

In Apple, Conferences, Geek, Internet, Movies, Music, Politics, SXSW on 15 March 2006 with Comments Off

One of the most interesting panels at SXSW Interactive 2006 was The Future of Darknets, moderated by JD Lasica. And while the concept of Darknets - communities using private subnetworks to communicate and collaborate out of view of the larger internet - is indeed fascinating, the panel was not interesting because of the intended topic. [...]

Observations from ETech

In ETech, Geek, Internet on 11 March 2006 with Comments Off

I returned from O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference with a stack of business cards, a nasty case of the sniffles, and a brain stuffed with ideas. It was a fabulous time. Here are a few observations from my days in San Diego.

“Web 2.0″ definitely means something to someone, but no one’s sure who or why. (We [...]

What I’m Up To

In Design, Geek, Internet, Life on 4 March 2006 with Comments Off

So I’m starting a design studio. Something small, specializing in participatory interactive projects - sites that do something. It’ll just be me and a partner, at first. We’ve even got a small office space already, and an ever-growing list of clients. There’s just one thing we do not have. A name.
I have spent the last [...]