From: gleanings
To: y'all
Subject: Gleanings: Everybody matters

DESIGN MATTERS

Larry Constantine's examination of how the shopping cart metaphor is abused in most site implementations in "Use and Misuse of Metaphor" -
http://www.foruse.com/ApplicationNotes/metaphor.pdf

also on CHI-WEB recently someone asked for recommendations of magazines for designers.
http://www.acm.org/archives/wa.cgi?A2=ind0009d&L=chi-web&F=&S=&P=6416

USABILITY MATTERS

How usable are dropdowns? I recently asked the members of CHI-WEB and put together this summary
http://www.acm.org/archives/wa.cgi?A2=ind0009d&L=chi-web&F=&S=&P=7665

PRIVACY MATTERS

Pew Research: Trust and Privacy Online
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=19

report:
http://63.210.24.35/reports/pdfs/PIP_Trust_Privacy_Report.pdf

surveyed 2,117 americans, 1,017 of them internet users

- 86% favor opt-in privacy policies that require companies to ask before
using personal info
- 54% believes web site tracking is an invasion of privacy; only 27% think
it is helpful
- 56% cannot ID the primary tracking tool (cookies); only 10% have set
browsers to reject cookies

ECOMMERCE MATTERS

Rick Levine, of Cluetrain Manifesto Fame put together some of the best, most
common sense advice for designing an e-commerce site in his article - "Your
customer isn't an idiot"
http://www.hatfactory.com/customer.html

NEWS

as ever, mostly from tomalak. you could get everything he puts up rather than just what I find interesting by going to http://www.tomalak.org/todayslinks/newsletter.html

Inside: Burn-Rate Casualties Ripe for Big-Company Buyouts.
Jason Chervokas and Tom Watson. While it may be clear now that giving a bunch
of content creators buckets of money and expecting a return in the near term
was foolish, it is equally clear that the market for online content is growing
rather than contracting...
http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,10029_13_30_1,00.html

News.Com: Lawmakers want to legalize MP3.com service.
Dubbed the "Music Owners' Listening Rights Act of 2000," the bill would give
companies the right to copy CDs, store them online, and stream the songs
individually to listeners who could prove they already owned a copy of the CD.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2872715.html

Internet Week: Patent Licensing Benefits Both Sides.
Did Amazon really obtain tangible assets in return, or did it go easy on Apple
just to get a license under its belt? Meanwhile, eBay, whose plans are still
not fully fleshed out, similarly stands to benefit by taking in license fees
for its technology.
http://www.internetwk.com/columns00/ed092700.htm

from the standard

MUSIC TO ADVERTISERS' EARS: According to a new study released by
Arbitron & Edison Media Research, 20 percent of Americans claim to
have listened to online radio. Despite the criticism levied recently
at the value of online advertising, 46 percent of Net radio listeners
say they pay attention to streaming advertisements. Half of them pay
attention to banner ads, and 40 percent say they have clicked on one
in the past month. By comparison, only 30 percent of non-streaming
users say they pay attention to banner ads.
http://www.thestandard.net/article/display/0,1151,18797,00.html?nl=np

MOBILE CLICKS: Ad click-through rates on mobile devices are booming in
Japan. According to the Japanese ad agency Dentsu, the market for ads
distributed via Net-enabled phones will reach $92.6 billion in fiscal
year 2001, which begins in April. ValueClick Japan, which runs ads on
NTT DoCoMo's I-mode service, reports a click-through rate that, at 1.5
percent, is three times higher than the average rate for ads the
company sells on PCs.
http://www.thestandard.net/article/display/0,1151,18828,00.html?nl=np
posted by Christina Wodtke 9/28/2000 8:44:00 AM

From: Gleanings
To: gleanettes
Subject: Gleanings: Experience Design and glow-in-the-dark rabbits

IA & DESIGN MATTERS

article on experience design
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/experience/index.html

User Experience and Interface Design Resources
http://msdn.microsoft.com/ui/

from SIGIA
"For those of you interested in paper prototyping and evaluating with prototypes in general, you might find some useful tips in the following paper. Showing it's age a little bit (it came out a bit before the web hit town), but I've had good feedback on it's practical use as a how-to piece.
(zipped .pdf, 4.3 meg)
www.enteract.com/~marc/writings/prototyping.zip "

NEWS

from NUA

Harris Interactive: Online kids now spend up to USD164 billion
A new study has revealed that online US kids, teenagers, and young
adults aged 8 to 24 are now spending at a projected rate of USD164
billion per year.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=FS&cat_id=11

more articles about the changing face of the web.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=FS&cat_id=18

from tomalak:
ZDNN: AOL quietly linking AIM, ICQ.
A person familiar with AOL's situation says the company is taking some steps
internally to make AIM and ICQ interoperable, but that it faces challenges
meshing the cultures of the two companies and also with the kind of users
signed onto each system.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2632911,00.html

NewMedia: Is Rich Media Worth It's Weight in Gold?
Software designers and Webmasters keep pushing forward like scouts in the wilderness, claiming new audio and visual landscapes as their own. As a result, the Web now is a swirl of color and movement, games, three-
dimensionality, and virtual worlds--it's a bastion of rich media. But there's a rub.
http://www.newmedia.com/nm-article.asp?articleID=2287

APROPOS OF NOTHING
Mutant Rabbit Raises Controversy Over Genetic Manipulation
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/rabbit000918.html
posted by Christina Wodtke 9/27/2000 8:49:05 AM

From: gleanings
To: experiensors
Subject: Gleanings: mark and dack

OPENING THANG

dack.com is good. Not only the source of the lovely best practices shopping cart article I mentioned in an earlier glean http://www.dack.com/web/shopping_cart.html , and the now-famous Amazon tab-cancer http://www.dack.com/web/amazon.html , he offers

flash is evil
http://www.dack.com/web/flash_evil.html

the new economy bullshit generator (scary how many of the terms it generates I used to hear bandied about at my former company)
http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

the excellent intranet cost generator, for cost justifying making your intranet halfway decent
http://www.dack.com/web/cost_analyzer.html

go. http://www.dack.com/web/

IA MATTERS

New paper from Good Experience: The Wireless Customer Experience: Download the white paper here for free:
http://www.creativegood.com/wireless

and a few other Mark Hurst tidbits
"New York Times: A special e-commerce section, including a story by
Ben Stein about why it's hard to produce humor online, and another
story about "geek fashion," which includes a quote from little ol'
me.

E-commerce section:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/09/biztech/technology/index.html

Ben Stein:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/09/biztech/technology/20stein.html

Geek fashion:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/09/biztech/technology/20laferla.html "

and also another mocking of mark hurst (relax Mark, this means you're famous!)
http://www.lfw.org/jminc/customer%20experience/http://www.goodexperience.com/

NEWS

ZDNN: Palm, Motorola pack cell phones.
Under an agreement to be formally announced Monday, the two companies plan to
develop a phone by early 2002 that combines Palm's operating system with
Motorola's wireless technology. The new device will feature a color-display
screen that is larger than most cell-phone displays...
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2631800,00.html
posted by Christina Wodtke 9/26/2000 8:52:35 AM

From: Gleanings
To: Interfaces
Subject: Gleanings: Your recommended daily serving of IA

OPENING THANG

Well, fast company finally went after fucked company and now Pud has to change his logo. If you are a designers, he's putting out a general call for a new logo. If you loved the old one, order his merchandise now... he's selling it out and won't be producing more.
http://www.fuckedcompany.com

IA & INTERFACE MATTERS

http://www.eastgate.com/ thanks peterme for this pointer to a source of interface thinking.

http://www.shift.com/shiftonline/html/onlineTOC/2000/8.5/html/maeda.html
contemplating our medium of choice.

from MSDN good article on KISS
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/welcome/dsmsdn/humanfactor8_4.htm

Information Architects Construct Their Sites With a Unique Blueprint
http://www.publish.com/features/0007/feature4.htm

NEWS

a longish but interesting article on the latest even in the music wars.

Are You Digitized?

That ringing you hear isn't from the new Jimi Hendrix box set. It's
the bell announcing the next round in the digital-music wars. Not
surprisingly, the first punch has been thrown by Universal Music
Group, which distributes the Hendrix catalog. Having prevailed in
court (MP3.com may need to write a $250 million check), the world's
largest record company may be taking a big step toward trying to sell
what's now available for free.

Late Thursday night, News.com and Inside.com reported that Seagram's
Universal, soon to be part of Vivendi, cut a deal with Loudeye
Technologies to encode and store 14,000 audio tracks and 30,000 music
videos, the label's "entire U.S. active catalog of audio and music
video titles." Loudeye has some high-profile encoding deals with other
entertainment companies, but the news here is that it'll be hosting
now, too.

Both sides of the transaction talked to both News.com and Inside.com.
Neither talked money, but both talked size. "We'll be storing 150
terabytes," Loudeye founder and CEO Martin Tobias boasted to News.com.
"Between us and the U.S. Department of Defense, there's nobody else
who comes close to that capacity." Inside.com pointed out that
Tobias's multiple titles also include "minister of order and reason."

Inside.com reported that the tracks "could be ready for streaming or
other means of digital distribution in a matter of weeks." What
Universal intends to do with 150 terabytes remains unclear. Both
outlets discussed samples for free and full tracks for sale, and
Inside.com listed Universal's many digital initiatives without probing
how much they might overlap.

How might people buy some of these 150 terabytes? At a conference in
Beverly Hills, the president of Emusic.com said that the subscription
model made the most sense, while the public statements of major labels
like Universal continue to suggest that they want consumers to pay by
the track. And while Napster's still in business, no one's buying
anything. Ding! - Jimmy Guterman

Universal Licenses Music Catalog to Digital Encoder
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2837789.html

Universal Takes the Digital-Music Plunge, Contracting With Loudeye to
Provide Security
http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,9833_9_16_3,00.html

Emusic.com President Says Paid Music Downloading Can Work
http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/155506.html

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Before They Were Politicians
The making of the eighth-grade president
http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0009/lil_pols/

Performance Artist Shocks U.S. Out Of Apathetic Stupor
http://www.theonion.com/onion3633/performance_artist.html
posted by Christina Wodtke 9/25/2000 8:37:55 AM

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