Just A Persona

A View into Wine Flavors

2008-11-03T13:42:00.001-07:00

Here's an innovative display, illustrating taste for wines. I've long been curious with challenges like this (originally challenging myself to come up with a *useful* description method for beads).

I found comparing Riesling to Sauvignon Blanc (and seeing the added stress on "herb") enlightening (while "crisp" is the same).

The author writes,
What is the relationship between wine varieties and flavor components? This visualization attempts to show the strength of these relationships. I culled descriptive flavor words from over 5,000 published wine tasting notes written between 1995-2000 in a major Australian wine magazine.

Cheat Sheets (it's a help thing)

2008-10-19T20:47:00.009-06:00

In Google's RSS reader, there are shortcuts. It's a quintessential AJAX application, like most humans really don't understand: a webpage UI for a full application. (Don't let the simplicity of the page fool you, there's a lot you can do here.)
Quick keys, like Windows users (may) love, aren't usually options in a browser, but they are in the Google Reader - and more than you'd expect.
Enter the paper taped to the wall... a table of quick key reminders.
But they've gone one step farther: the "?" is a quick key for a shadow-box cheat sheet. Shadow boxes are ~50% transparent so you don't forget what you were doing, but show you want you need. In this case, the font is large and there's a scroll bar.
This is what every web site should have - quick keys, a cheat sheet, and a universal "?" to show it in any context.
To be clear, this would do three things:

Provides help
Provides at-a-glance awareness of possibly useful advanced features (ferrying newbies to guruhood unsuspectingly)
Perhaps most interesting... forces product managers and designers to consider what a jet-pack, fully-empowered experience on their site might actually mean...

All worthwhile as a norm.

The Talkies (video-enhanced sites)

2008-10-14T14:09:00.004-06:00

I've been watching as more and more sites use video to introduce, explain, or generally teach users the value they offer. I don't mean tutorials per se (like Mog's tours), but optional homepage embellishments, etc, that tastefully tell the story. (As opposed to this.)
I just came across perhaps my new favorite example of the concept: Google positioning this video on a standard map page. They linked to it from a post on "getting around in your neighborhood." I'm guessing a lot of Google map users are still unaware of the "re-routing (drag route)" or "directions by walking" features.
In the last 18 months I've found myself pitching the power of on-site videos like these. But it wasn't until now I see the comparison to when film gained sound. I think the level of engagement we users experience takes a significant step forward.

Engaging Marketing Email Award (i.e., hard to delete)

2008-10-11T11:32:00.002-06:00

I was clearing out my old Yahoo inbox, marveling at the things I subscribed to 3 years ago. After a while I realized I had been reading this newsletter from Powell's Books of Portland, OR. Stepping back, scrolling up and down, you have to marvel at how rich, interesting, and beautiful they've made it. Really nice work. The email looks exactly like the web page, even in my Yahoo browser.
And such a quirky, fun, piece at the very end about the store cat.

The Google Doc, Form

2008-09-04T18:27:00.001-06:00

Don't know what I was doing in February to miss the addition of Forms to Google Docs, but I stumbled onto it tonight and wow. I can't wait to use this.

Super intuitive, as you'd expect. I'm sure it won't work on my iPhone, but I'll forgive them that. I created this 3-question form in about 3 minutes.

You can see it here on the Google server, but I've embedded it below, too. (Yes, of course, embedded.)

You can also email the quiz, then watch their input grow on a web page (with nifty graphs). What better way to gather lunch requests?

Loading...

Grand Central (of nothing new, unfortunately)

2008-08-25T13:09:00.001-06:00

I got a voice mail this afternoon through my web-based GrandCentral account - as both a forwarded call to my cell with options to accept and record the call, or forward to voice mail. Anyone remember Grand Central? Google acquired them on July 4, 2007 for rumored $50M.

Apparently, nothing has happened with them since? That's a pity. Google immediately stopped giving out new accounts, so unless you had one ... uh, over a year ago, you're still outta luck.

That's a shame. This really seemed like the future of the phone.

Go China Go! (or, Wesley Chan, I mean)

2008-08-13T21:11:00.001-06:00

I stopped blogging recently, falling victim to the Twitteritis that has plagued the (non-micro) blogosphere. That is, microblogging--the satisfaction of crafting zen-like, haiku-like, Internet posts to my, eh... 88 subscribers--ruined my appetite to craft anything longer.

But tonight I got an email from a dot-com that just deserves the full treatment. Kudos, that is.

There's an International component: they're Chinese.

Yes, as the Olympics unfold, TIVO's on hold and I'm blogging about a Chinese dot-com, distracted by virtual customer service. Guess I'm just a persona at heart (knuck, knuck).

So, I bought a bike mount to hold the random GPS devices I'm working with in my current gig. I found it on the web - it holds basically anything (a contraption of various screw vices with foam pads). But I ended up ordering it FOR NINE DOLLARS from a completely fly-by-night-looking website. I'm old enough to remember clearly fearing giving my credit card to just any website. This site reminded me of exactly those days as I caved and thought to myself: "Well, my anti-identity theft tools are in place... I think."

So just today I commented to a friend at work, something about ordering it a few weeks ago... but from a Chinese website (rolled my eyes). "We'll see what happens."

I received this email tonight.

It reminds me so much of a true small business--of my father's wholesale flower shop, that we launched from our garage when I was in the 2nd grade. I actually stood in the driveway and welcomed people (real, actual, professional florists... wow) as they parked and walked up to our house. It was a big deal.

Man, is this email over the top or what?

From: "info.usa@virtualvillage.com"

Date: August 13, 2008 7:04:27 PM MDT

To: justapersona...

Subject: Virtual Village Notice - item 72476736 : arriving soon

Dear Andy,

Further to your purchase from Virtual Village I just wanted to thank you for your order.

It was shipped by airmail on Aug 3 2008 7:00AM and though we can’t control the post, shipping usually takes 14 to 21 days so your parcel should arrive soon! (If you chose FedEx it should have arrived by now).

I’d also like to introduce myself; I’m Wesley, your account manager and you can contact me at WChan@virtualvillage.com.

I’d love you to visit us again and to try and tempt you I’ve set up a promo on our website! Visit www.virtualvillage.com, choose an item and enter M3Q4F3X7Y when checking out for 25% off any product!

The promo runs until the end of this month so don’t hang about!

Kind regards

Wesley Chan

Your Personal Account Manager

Virtual Village USA

Please tell us if there’s a problem you need solving BEFORE you leave feedback. We’ve 2 goals: to ensure YOU’RE 100% satisfied and that WE get great feedback. If you have any issues, contact gethelp@virtualvillage.com and we promise to treat your request as TOP PRIORITY

-----

This email was sent using ChannelAdvisor marketplace management software.

Visit us at http://www.channeladvisor.com

Forget olympic high diving.

This little email, from this little company, suddenly makes me a fan. This is what business was supposed to be. This is what dot-coms were meant to be.

14-21 days? Are you kidding? I'm leaving the olympics on hold. I'm emailing Wesley to see if I can help out. Surely we can do better on the shipping.

Health Insurance Confusion: Usability 101

2008-05-18T13:52:00.001-06:00

It's open enrollment with my insurance provider this month, and as I wade through documentation sections regarding healthcare topics, I'm struck by a simple change that would make this much easier.

Not that they haven't tried to make it easy. I have print material, online web pages, PDFs, and almost a dozen flash videos with voice, chapters, etc. Each is professionally produced.

And each makes the same one, simple mistake.

For any healthcare topic, there will be a section explaining what it means (such as "Annual Deductible"). And then, there are subsections for each policy. There are dozens of policies, so the bulk of space taken up (of print, video, or voice content) regards the 11 policies that don't pertain to me.

Worse, for every topic, I need to wade through these similarly-named policies and re-discover which one is mine. (High Deductible PPO Standard Plan vs. Health Net High Deductible PPO Standard plan, for example.) Actually, my plan name isn't even mentioned in several of these, and I have no idea why.

Obviously, a website would fail if it didn't clarify after login what content is relevant to the user. Imagine, post login, presenting everything as a PDF, where 90% of what's in the PDF is not actually available to the user. Well, if you are going to mail something to me you know who I am, so isn't that basically like I've logged in?

Such a pity, too. Really nice Flash video production, and so thoughtlessly designed.

Photo Diving Insanity (it's a good thing)

2008-05-02T19:13:00.001-06:00

Anyone who enjoyed the PhotoSynth demo will like this.

The HardRock Cafe's website has utilized some flavor of it via the emerging SilverLight technologies from Microsoft. (Fyi - the FireFox plugin for Slverlight on the Mac worked flawlessly for me.) This is way cool.

Try it:

- On the HardRock Cafe Memorabilia page...

- Go to "Beetles" (left nav)

- Look for the letters - a picture letters that were mailed

- Go to the envelope

- Look at the stamp

...no, really LOOK at the stamp.

(No, it's not a real stamp.)

Is it just me, or does this smell like Paul Allen?

Spock.com: Identity and Reputation (village gossip 2.0?)

2008-04-06T15:08:00.001-06:00

A friend emailed me this morning from Japan that he found his name in a crime report. It's someone else. His name is fairly unique, and as he returns to the US after a decade abroad, he is facing the common ex-pat issues of not having any "official record." This really hurts as one engages potential employers, mortgage lenders, etc. This crime report, indexed by the search engines and easy to find, of course calls to question whether this life history he's explained checks out.

I'm suggesting he set himself up on Spock.com, a site that seems promising for two things:

A.) verification from both peers and search engine spider algorithms of bio/resume details, and

B.) finding this verification info easily, as it gets trusted placement in Google, Yahoo, etc.

An active netizen these days may of course feel this is no big deal: my Linked-in and twitter are all indexed and prominently placed in search results for my name or "handles." As well, the promise of the "Social Web" is that sense can be made of my different profiles on different sites, and complete bios of all our publicly-accessible identities can be constructed automatically (yes, disquieting for some); SocialThing is an example.

But in reality, it's still a lot of work to make sense of aliases, handles, name variations, relocations, and especially if you have a slightly common name. Besides, how useful is it to read my chatter on Facebook or Twitter; sometimes you just want to make sense of if this is the guy in the crime report, the author of this book, etc. This is exactly what Spock set out to solve, using social networking features. People who know you confirm the accuracy or inaccuracy of details. It's one of my favorite examples of supporting both the infiniteness of the World Wide Web, and simultaneously, the smallness of a village.

I remember the first day I used Yahoo.com (vintage). I was astonished when I searched for (and found easily) a person I hadn't talked to in a while, but knew in Denver. That it (this Internet thing...) had such precision was fantastic. Of course as the Web has grown, so has the difficulty of repeating that simple search / result.

Spock is an eloquent solution for an accurate bio on the web. It has both the credibility of not having come exclusively from people (easy to fake), nor the incompleteness and errors that algorithms alone can construct. I also find it's alias and tag system more promising than the simple Linked-In resume-on-the-web formula (which is great for that other sort of purpose).

Caveate: Spock.com is in Beta, and was in Beta last April when I first learned of it. Sometime last fall they completely lost my profile, so I've started over from scratch. Since my full, legal name has been a ridiculously complicated story, I'll give them some slack. Hopefully their technical woes are past, and this will come out of Beta soon.

Anti-Social, Un-Networking Tools (stealth-wired)

2008-03-02T18:39:00.001-07:00

Google's chat client ganined an "Invisible" mode last week. I can see you, you can't see me, but I can initiate a chat with you if I need.
(You can send me an email, if *you* need.)

I've spent some time recently thinking through the basic communication model, and had to cheer when I saw this.

I really think we should start seeing increased "MOOD SUPPORT" since, well, who really wants to be available to everyone at every moment. It's more than an "invisible" mode in chat - it's dialing down the noise of all social media, flexibly.

So, what's this mean for Metcalfe's Law? Maybe it's a question worth considering. There's clearly a distinction to be made between the value of increasing servers and websites versus increasing users; however, the value of the Internet is increasingly bolstered by people and an immediacy of participation. Help forum communities and flickr are both examples. So is Google's algorithm. As we add layers of "my contacts" into the value proposition of the Web itself, I wonder if the "social" layer we're collectively sculpting will see a backlash, or what that might look like.

"Feed Me" (the houseplant twittered...)

2008-03-01T13:56:00.001-07:00

This is fantastic!

The Twitter blog explains it... I have nothing to add (but gasps of awe).

My father, once a wholesale florist, would have surely wired both greenhouses to support 100's of these (if his son didn't beat him to it).

Talking (twitter) Books

2008-02-23T00:17:00.003-07:00

Ulysses is being "read" aloud (via Twitter). (Credit Mario Menti), of BBC.
It strikes me it might be interesting to get other texts you might be trying to study via Twitter. Advanced psychology? Algebra? Three sentences at a time?
Or perhaps Ulysses lends itself in a special way, really, to the disjointed experience of thoughts lofting in from various people, places, contexts...
Give me the cat, then get the hell out of here. --AndyPack, 12:16am, via Twitterific
On second thought, forget it.

Where's The Moon? (we wondered)

2008-02-21T01:40:00.009-07:00

We all, it seems, yearn to join a topical and relevant conversation.

I had a great conversation with a friend just yesterday, pondering this. He described (fantasized) jumping into a massive discussion (ie, online) about how "Comcast is down" as he sat there at home, irritated and isolated. "How many people are out there, right now, like me...?"

Well, there's Twitter, of course. As unintuitive, and naively optimistic as this community is, we seem to be trying to do just this: engage in meaningful discourse.

How could anything considered "discource" or "meaningful" fit into 144-character snippets? And, how could "dialogue" ensue from (a massive universe of) displaced, unfamiliar individuals?

Tonight I had a memorable dose, and solid example of this hard-to-explain phenomenon unfolding. As I snuggled into our 3-cushion, 4-person, family unit of American Idol, I was called out into the street - to join the banter. My cell phone buzzed (unexpectedly) with a tweet from a friend in Oregon:

"No clouds beautiful view of eclipse" --Dougmatix

Eclipse?!

I commented to my 14 yr-old step-son, "there's an eclipse in Oregon - right NOW."

He ran outside, and returned: "Mom, what direction would the moon be?" (...)

A moment later, in came another tweet, but from Colorado: "...damn its dark outside. Who turned off the moon?"

I twittered: "Follow eclipse" to see what was going on.

In began the flood... And suddenly, the eclipse was more interesting than American Idol.

I eventually twittered - for Dougmatix, and anyone else monitoring the air waves: "Marvelling over accounts of the lunar eclipse in the NW. Thanks to Twitter, and all via Twitter."

Oh, and I eventually walked outside. (Gasp.) (No, I mean: the crescent was amazing.)

I understand now, how someone in the Carribean recently reflected on the experience of an earthquake, and the initial reflex - to tweet." When I came across this last month, I didn't really get it.

Let's consider this "microblogging." What is this Twitter I speak of?

Here's twittervision. Nuff said.

Here's a British newspaper, pondering Twitter changing news habits.

Here's an educator, pondering Twitter in education.

From a technical perspective, duh...

> The ability to systematically scrape people's experiences with tidbit summaries for syndication can only be accelerating.

> The ability to systematically deliver said syndications to folks on a couch (like moi) can only be accelerating.

But from a psychological perspective...

> Is it really of value to "tune in" to banter like this?

Tonight I feel connected to both a high school buddy from 20 years ago (in Oregon) and a few dozen people who's observations seemed to line a physical path as the moon's shadow travelled -- between my door (in Denver) and his (in Oregon). Come on: that's awesome!

Bravo, Twitter.

Home Sick (coloradan)

2008-01-23T22:15:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, you got sick and stayed home in bed, and were disconnected from the world.

After a week or two of that, you were dying to get out and see people again - be part of it.

I spent the day home in misery, a victim of a very nasty stomach flu thing.

And of course, not only did I IM with colleagues all day, I stayed on video chat with my wife for hours (something hard to do when you're at work).

But the best thing was viewing the map, above.

I've never felt so connected with the state of Colorado.

2007: Where's My (social network) Yearbook?

2008-01-21T23:52:00.001-07:00

I made some really fantastic friends in 2007 -- online. Cre8Buzz, MyCupid, WAYN, FaceBook, MySpace, to name a few, not to mention MeetUp -- all yielded new relationships which I continue to enjoy and am thankful for.

2007 was many things social, and in the bigger picture, I see a few reasons this feels more interesting (this year) than it might have otherwise:

> I changed jobs (from Denver to Boulder) and am thinking a lot about (offline) "social circles"
> My 20-yr high school reunion was an amazing experience, and not a day passes without me noting how it changed my perception of myself (..."Social Networks give us new pieces of ourselves" -- Stowe Boyd)
> I product-managed TWO social networks from scratch
> I joined 50+ social networks doing research and attended the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco (where I networked & LinkedIn with a myriad of new friends)

But the other night, hunkered down checking my messages on one specific social network, Cre8Buzz (full of middle-aged Internet professionals sharing photos of their children and asking each other to read our blogs...) I noticed that one person had changed his profile photo again.

"I liked his old photo," I thought to myself. "I'm sorry I don't have a copy of it, just for remembering."

Then it came crashing down on me: my god, all of this -- the dialog, the uploaded pix, the wacky comments... "will be lost (someday -- maybe by April!), like tears in rain" (to quote Bladerunner).

I stared at the monitor, at My Friends, scrolling up and down.

There was not time to lose: I began right-click-Save-Image'ing each friend's profile pic to, to, to... a New File, "Cre8Buzz.com, 2007."

Whew!

I've looked at that folder a few times since, scrolling through the pictures - each so familiar, at the moment. It's like one's sophomore year in high school: human, transformative, and brief.

How strange to be middle-aged and feel the temporality of relationships and existence. But by this time next year, we may have all migrated to a new generation of URLs. Like graduates.

I wish we could have a year-book, one where "threads" replace clubs, where avatars are the photos. And frankly, where we could sign each other's. BFF, Andy (or something).

(sniff, sniff)

2007 was a good year. Seriously, thanks guys.

Happy Birthday (email alerts)

2008-01-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday, and the last thing I expected was an email phenomenon. But as soon as my wife reminded me this morning, I found a variety of "Happy Birthday" emails from various social networks in my inbox. No, not from people in those networks, but from the automated alert systems. Several were surprisingly tailored to me.

My favorite has got to be from "Where Are You Now" (wayn.com), because the name suggests the midlife crisis I'm avoiding. (It's actually a travel site.)

Flickr wished me a "glitter-filled day," linking to user contributed content (example image above).

Thinking about how birthday alerts SHOULD work, there's always Plaxo: addressbook integration across Gmail, Yahoo, AIM, Outlook, etc -- with built-in 2-week reminders of birthdays for anyone you have a date for. It also offers electronic cards, and will send them on the right day.

Unfortunately, the 2 experiences I've had with Plaxo were... probably user error:
1.) I wished a colleague a birthday 2 weeks ahead of the actual day (and he was quite uncomfortable with it, since neither he nor I could figure out how Plaxo got the date in the first place),
2.) Plaxo wished *me* a happy birthday last week, stating it was the 16th (it's the 21st) (...increasingly unhelpful as I age).

My Great Grandpa lived to be 96, and talked about the first car he ever saw. I figure I've got about 55 more years of these birthday alerts. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

XO (as social hardware)

2008-01-21T06:25:00.000-07:00

I've joked before about "social hardware" - devices that force us to meet people, like a 3-way plug adapter in an airport.

The XO is my new favorite example, though, because it's designed to network even in the absence of an Internet connection. That's right: it networks with other XO's, facilitating shared documents, collaborating on composing music, video conference, etc -- even if now one has access to the Internet. Add to that how if ONE of them does get a connection to the World Wide Web, then it shares that connection with all the others. (Community Wireless support is a pervasive, albeit quiet movement, it's true.)

As I tweeted Friday night, I drove home with the XO open, scanning for WiFi hotspots. From the freeway, I picked up the FlyingJ truckstop (it's router is named "FlyingJ"). And once into Denver, I pulled over at one point and counted around 40 networks (almost all of them locked). It was quite a show (image above).

I recently plugged my "Net2Phone" headphone/mike into my MacBook (with built in camera) and video-Skyped with a friend in Europe (for "free") that Net2Phone mailed me my headphones in 1998, I believe. Yes, 10 years of struggling to make video conferencing a reality in my life and the lives of the people around me.

The XO does it without even an Internet connection. Bravo.

Imagine a village or a school with a 100 XO's, and the ability to call up your friends or family and video chat. This may be the closest they come to having telephones in each house. How ironic I'll never meet 90% of the neighbors I see as icons on my, on this XO.

XO XO XO

2008-01-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

So, the XO I bought is being passed from friend to friend. My objective in buying it wasn't to have my kids use it, or give it to a child in the US, but to help spread awareness among my adult friends in the Internet software industry - engineers, product managers and entrepreneurs.

...by handing it to them, and sending it home with them.
Letting them connect the hyperbole on the Web with a (Martian, plastic, inter-) face.

Maybe they will be more aware of this hardware experience and the community behind it, as it proliferates Internationally. Maybe they can contribute in some way. Who knows? It's so clearly a social experiment, this XO idea in general, unfolding even as I write.
I'll invite them to comment here after their turn, explain what they see in it, from their perspectives. And what they think.
Other XO news here.

Chrysler 300 Customization (and youtube event)

2008-01-13T14:08:00.001-07:00

I posted yesterday about custom shoes, and noticed moments later this TV about customizing your Chrysler 300.

It turns out, it's a video contest as well, with a dedicated page on YouTube: YouTube.com/Chrysler300. (No, they don't give you your car if you win.) How crazy.
Ironically, though it doesn't show on this YouTube cut of the TV ad, the aired version ends with:
"Upload videos of your own customized 300 and your ride could get a place of honor at one of our events. (fine print: No purchase necessary...).
No purchase necessary?!
The complete rules are here, but don't clarify how to enter this contest without buying a car.
I hereby launch a spin-off contest, "Spin Your Neighbor's," where you customize a Chrysler 300 you didn't actually purchase. Go ahead and upload it as part of Chrysler's contest; we'll judge entrants there. ;-)

Custom Shoe (nation)

2008-01-12T13:35:00.001-07:00

Customizing products on the Web for order and delivery has intrigued me from the git-go. From Cisco routers to Nike Shoes to VW Bugs... I'm pleased it flourished at least enough for me to lose track of the progress.
A quick survey this morning left me satiated, better-shoed, and even entertained.
If you click one link from this post, check out Puma's Mongolian Shoe BBQ (it rhymes; and, it's a stitch)...
MongolianShoeBBQ.Puma.com
If you click a second link, here is where I created my (totally awesome) Converse pictured above...
Converse.com
The level of interactivity involved, along with the emphasis on style, seems to lead everyone to use Flash. That's interesting if you think about more and more industries adopting (?) this means of customer engagement.
Well, Nike didn't invent all this of course. There was always the world of high-performance dance and heels. For a little less glitz but a lot more shoe, check out
ShoeUSA
The half-dozen others, in case you're dying to customize your favorite brand.
Vans (via GiftAmerica)
Reebok (RBK as their newer version of their name, aparently. RBKcustom.com as the website.)
Nike (interesting branding... NikeID.nike.com. So, Nike Identity?)
Etnies (interesting URL choice: ME.etnies.com)
Isn't it interesting how shoes feel like an appropriate way to differentiate ourselves - to rebel against standards, while still fitting in. Our own custom form of (whatever everyone is wearing...) Converse.
By the way, for custom t-shirts, jackets, coffee mugs, custom poster art, mouse pads, bumper stickers, etc etc... there's always Zazzle, "Infinite one-of-a-kindness."
One more way to visualize the Long Tail.
I'm still waiting for my custom pizza-for-delivery interface, though. If I find it, i'll link to it here:
http://del.icio.us/apckrd/custom_products(byWeb)

First Post From The XO (merry xo-mas!)

2007-12-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

I've posted a few times about the XO (One Laptop Per Child, Laptop.org). My wife and I jumped at the chance to order one as part of the option for US residences to participate, buying two and having one sent abroad.
Of all my X-mas experiences, I don't recall ever having 1 item I was most looking forward to and waiting for it to arrive by mail. To top it off, it arrived today, Dec 24th, in the afternoon.
It's amazing! Not a laptop replacement (not for the faint at heart, at least) but definitely a gadget worth spending some time with. The idea that this may play the role in the world that it might makes the experience a little sacred.
The keyboard is tiny, almost like a speak-n-spell. The whole thing is unbelievably tiny. But it showed me my neighborhood Wi-Fi signals on a 2-D layout like I've never seen, and made joining connections into a mesh network a snap.
...bottom line, I can't put it down and I'm posting this from it right now.
Hopefully, this can be a huge step forward for mankind.
Merry Christmas.

Dynamic Flash-Display Linking (ala Truman Show)

2007-12-16T16:21:00.001-07:00

I posted before about the flash-animated relationship links on a couple of thesaurus websites - they stretch and rearrange and you click through the words like a monkey swinging in the trees (words = trees; you = monkey).
I'm waiting to get some friends set up in YourTrumanShow, but it looks like they've done something similar -- but as a WIDGET (?!).
If you're on YourOwnTrumanShow, ping me so we can link up. I'd like to see this in action.

Ave. US Emails Per Week (~300+300)

2007-12-16T15:23:00.001-07:00

This just in from eMarketer. Ouch. No wonder everyone communicates by FaceBook now.

Translation 2.0 (dynamic translation-ish)

2007-12-16T14:22:00.001-07:00

I haven't spent much time with it, but Lingro is looking interesting. Online translation needs to catch up with the Web (which is no longer about static pages). This might really have some (useful) legs.
In truth, it's not translating, but embedding dictionary links. But while this isn't real translation, and it doesn't replicate the entire website in a different language, it would surely be very useful for a large population on the earth as they struggle along in 2nd languages.
Maybe a real candidate for XO popularity.
It got a short review here.