There was some controversy last June when uber Ph.D. student Danah Boyd wrote an essay for her blog Apophenia reporting on four years of ethnographic research on social networks. That essay claimed there was a demographic segregation by class between Facebook and MySpace. The current issue of the JCMC offers some quantitative evidence that Boyd’s informal observations are correct.
New views for Google search
Google is continuing to experiment with the presentation of their search results. It doesn’t work particularly well, but the concept and initial release of Google views is very compelling. By adding view: to the search query, the results are grouped together in one of a few pre-determined ways: as a timeline, a map location, or information filters.
Highlights of WikiSym 2007
While I’m not going to be in Montreal, I am planning to follow some of the activity being posted online. In addition to the obvious wiki coverage, WikiSym is rife with experienced bloggers and (hopefully) a few Twitterers. There are some events that are accessible online, even if the face-to-face discussion is not.
Emergency 2.0
Bloomington has a growing awareness of how Web 2.0 can be used to create community, promote business, and share resources. With access to news still constrained by the timing of events, I think Twitter just showed it’s value as a catalyst for the spread of information … at least to those making use of the channel.
Building sustainability through design
Sustainability is a hot topic. Partial credit goes to Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina that preceded the movie. In the world of human-computer interaction, designers are now thinking deeply about the consequences of their creations. Last spring, IU School of Informatics professor Eli Blevis presented his research paper—”Sustainable Interaction Design: Invention & Disposal, Renewal & Reuse“— to the international CHI community in San Jose, California. This seminal work jump-started formal research about how design and sustainability are related.
Blog World Expo
The Blog World Expo is taking place on November 8th & 9th in Las Vegas. The list of speakers is impressive and would be worth the $75 if Vegas was within walking distance. The nice thing about missing a conference on blogging is that there is sure to be some blog posts about it.
Free WARC
I got a temporary account on the World Advertising Research Center web site and snagged a few business-ey papers of possible relevance to my academic design work. Access to the full online library is limited to some sample documents, and even then I was only able to download a selected few. Still, it was worth the effort since some of these publications may find their way into a future design document.