IA Summit Bloggers

Martin Belam: Macau (slight return)

This week I'm going to be paying a lightning visit to Macau. The trip is so short that I'm unlikely to get much chance to blog about it whilst I'm there. Or indeed see anything worth blogging about whilst I'm there. However, I wrote quite a few blog postcards from Macau and Hong Kong last year, and thought it worth putting together a reminder myself of what they were.

The grave of the magnetic telegraph engineer

The EA Games centre in Hong Kong

I also paid a second visit to Macau last year, just as China was beginning to host the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Martin Belam: D45's from Apple's iTunes? I'd give it a 'D'

The music industry has been going 'back to the future' for format inspiration again, with the launch this week in the US of the D45 via iTunes. These digital downloads feature an 'A' and a 'B' side, and the thumbnail image embedded in each digital file looks a bit like an old 7" single sleeve or a jukebox promo version of an old hit. The range includes a 'D45' from Michael Jackson (of course), and 'Use Somebody' by Kings Of Leon, a record that I'm sure you'll agree is simply synonymous with the 7" vinyl format.

Where to begin?

Back in the early 1900s when the shellac 78 was first introduced, you used to get two tracks. One of them was the track you wanted. The other one - the 'B' side - was a track you probably didn't want, and most likely had never heard. You got it because physically the record had another side to it, and it looked pretty shoddy, even by music industry standards, to sell you half a blank record.

This 'new' initiative seems like just another attempt by the industry to roll back to the days when it was normal to have a track or tracks you didn't want foisted upon you at the point of purchase because music content hadn't been disaggregated.

It isn't even that 'new' a re-hash of an old idea. In 2007 Rhino tried to introduce the digital greatest hits EP, echoing another old physical format, the Extended Play 7".

I'd love to have been in the marketing meeting where they decided that the future of digital music distribution isn't to allow people to download 'Kiss' by Prince for $0.99. What consumers really want is to pay $1.49 and get absolute classic 'Love Or Money' bundled with it alongside a PDF image of an obsolete physical format.

Peter Boersma: Links for 2009-07-18 del.icio.us

Design - Before Creating the Car, Ford Designs the Driver - NYTimes.com
"Antonella is an attractive 28-year old woman who lives in Rome. Her life is focused on friends and fun, clubbing and parties. She is also completely imaginary. [..] Antonella was the guiding personality for the Ford Verve, a design study that served as the basis for the latest-generation Fiesta. A character invented by Ford designers to help them imagine cars better tailored to their intended customers, she embodies a philosophy that guides the company’s design studios these days: to design the car, first design the driver."
URWERK - The future of fine watchmaking

Martin Belam: links for 2009-07-18

How User Behavior Influences Search Results | SearchEngineLand

"As a site owner, how do you structure your information architecture for easy search? As a marketer, how do you know what words to optimize for and when you dig up the top used phrases, do you make a separate page for each one? Wouldn’t that make for a gigantic web site that will confuse everybody? Welcome to information overload."

(tags: google bing searchengine seo searchengineland)
Hacking, Cyber Crime, TechCrunch & You… | Wellwrittenwords Internet Marketing

"On the other hand, if TechCrunch was to openly condemn the hacker to the greatest extent possible, turn him over to law enforcement (digitally-speaking of course), and then refuse to publish even one word of what was passed to them, they would be setting themselves on a pedestal and would become the focus of just as much publicity I’d say. Then, if some two-bit blogger were to publish any of that data at a later date, he would be seen as just that: A two-bit blogger trying lamely to make a name for himself".

(tags: techcrunch twitter)
Is this a joke? – Bad Science

"This research was incomprehensible and unreadable. Anybody who claims to have been persuaded by the data quoted here is telling you, loudly and clearly in the subtitles, that they don’t need to understand a piece of research in order to find it compelling. Such people are not to be trusted, and if research of this callibre is what guides our policy on huge intrusions into the personal privacy of millions of innocent people, then they might as well be channeling spirits."

(tags: badscience homeoffice civilliberties database police)
Points of View Message Boards 8: More Numbers | BBC - BBC Internet Blog

From the comments: "I think the remarks about meta-discussion on message boards by Jeff Attwood is very relevant here". Possibly. Although the way I read it, it appeared to be sending message-board people off to look at a blog, which would possibly kick the whole thing off again from the start. In a rather 'meta' way...

(tags: ugc pointsofview bbcinternetblog nickreynolds)
Data Visualisation @ News Innovation London | Cristiano on Tech/Life

"I gave a little talk at News Innovation here in London 2 weeks back, at which I quickly ran through a long list of data visualisations to show how it can help people understand things easier. I promised to put the list on my blog and forgot till now".

(tags: data datavisualisation #newsinnovation)

Martin Belam: The mysterious case of The Telegraph's anonymous columnist who cost the BBC 45,000

It was No Rock And Roll Fun who I saw pointing out that The Telegraph had reported on the BBC's £45,000 payout to the Muslim Council of Britain, all the time referring to an anonymous 'panelist' who had made the libelous statements on Question Time.

Most other media outlets mentioned that the mysterious 'panelist' was Charles Moore.

They also seemed to think the fact that he is a columnist for, and ex-editor of, The Telegraph was a significant element in the story. And several other British media outlets mentioned that he has been waging a campaign against the BBC's Licence fee funding, including an article he wrote just a few days ago for The Telegraph entitled "Dear BBC: No, you can’t have my £142.50. Will I see you in court?".

Which only serves to make the omission even more glaring.

This behaviour isn't in any way exclusive to The Telegraph.

It would be very easy to leave a comment under this blog post and say to me that "Martin, you used to work at the BBC, and where is their comprehensive coverage of the struggle to get the Balen Report released?" or "You are working at The Guardian, and I can point to some of their articles about Tesco or tax documents from Barclays which are somewhat scant in their details".

Which is why I see this particular example as a symptom of an industry wide issue.

The media have decried an era of spin under a 'Nu Liebour' Government. We universally leap to condemn a culture where spin doctor media management leads to there being 'a good day to bury bad news'.

Yet when the bad news is about our own industry, our industry employs similar tactics.

And just as politicians are being found out by 'new media', so are we. These are tactics that belong to an analogue era.

15 years ago, you could publish an article about a mysterious 'panelist', and pretty much rely on the fact that only a very small proportion of your readers would have been intrigued enough to do further research. Even if they did, their options were pretty limited.

Maybe they'd go to the local library to look up some newspaper back issues. Or phone or write to the BBC or the newspaper editor and hope to get some clarification. Or maybe they'd be very pro-active, and buy another newspaper title to see if they had more detail on the story.

And today?

I'd wager that the number of Telegraph readers who wanted to find out who the mystery panelist was and who didn't have access to an internet search engine was tiny. For the majority, if they were engaged enough to do their own bit of research on the name of the panelist who had just cost the hard-pressed Licence Fee payer £45,000, they'd end up thinking that the paper they had just paid money for had treated them like a bit of a mug.

With the impact of digital distribution, and the effect of the economic downturn, we have more than enough reasons to think that the news industry is dying. Treating our remaining paying customers like children who haven't learnt to use Google yet makes us look like we have a collective death wish.

Martin Belam: links for 2009-07-17

BBC in £45,000 payout to Muslim Council of Britain secretary general - Telegraph

'A panellist'? 'The panellist'? Why, surely the deductive investigative journalism powers of The Telegraph can uncover the mysterious identity of this 'panellist' as being Telegraph columnist Charles Moore, who just 7 days ago was writing "Dear BBC: No, you can’t have my £142.50. Will I see you in court?"...oh...I see what they've done there...

(tags: telegraph bbc charlesmoore)
Autodesk SketchBook Pro 4.1 | Wireframes Magazine

Looks interesting and worth a trial download [via @solle]

(tags: sketching wireframes)
Twittergate – political spat over swear word blog - Reading Chronicle

"A POLITICAL spat has erupted in West Berkshire after a Tory councillor used his internet blog to accuse an opposition member of talking b**locks". Leaving aside the actual story, well done to the Reading Chronicle for shoving a '-gate' on the end of the word Twitter to short-hand it as a scandal, and describing David Betts Twitter message as his 'blog'.

(tags: twitter reading readingchronicle)
The Game Crafter - Your game REALIZED - Home

Wow - this looks an awesome opportunity for customised birthday / Xmas presents :-)

(tags: games design publishing)
Tomorrow's news today, today's news eight weeks ago | Adam Macqueen

"Someone's just caught up with my story for Books and Bookmen in Private Eye 1236, published on 15 May, then..."

(tags: privateeye adammacqueen)
Final thoughts on the Morgan Stanley story - The Media Blog

"No other story recently has so clearly highlighted the growing divide between the agendas and concerns of the old media and new media worlds".

(tags: mediablog morganstanley twitter)
Man on the moon? Yeah, right | Open thread | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

I've got a hunch this thread is just a honey-pot... ;-)

(tags: apollo11 conspiracy commentisfree ugc)

Karen Loasby: human-centered design toolkit from IDEO

IDEO have created a free downloadable toolkit for NGOs and Social Enterprises. The Toolkit is divided into four sections: The Introduction will give an overview of HCD and help you understand how it might be used alongside other methods. The Hear guide will help your design team prepare for fieldwork and understand how to collect stories that will [...]

Joshua Porter: 21 Quotes for Designers stolen from the World of Writing

I recently stumbled over a great set of quotes about writing curated for an English Composition class. Since I'm writing a fair bit lately (a new book, in fact) I couldn't stop my mind from inserting "design" in the place of "writing"....

Martin Belam: Where was the 'editorial viewpoint' at the News Innovation unconference?

Last week's News Innovation unconference was a very interesting gathering of a lot of engaged people who are interested in journalism, many of whom have a deep understanding of the web. However, there was a distinct lack of focus on 'editorial'. In this short video interview I made, Linda Kennedy of newsatsize10.com makes the point that the day, for her, seemed to be about form without content. She also says that, given the mantra about data and data-mining in some of the talks, she was unsure of how this data would be used:

"It was quite amusing that there was no data about who wants that amount of data"

Linda Kennedy at News Innovation from Martin Belam on Vimeo.

She said that she preferred her data more like speed-dating, with a little bit of information.

Her sentiments echoed a couple of thoughts that flittered through the Twitterstream. Judith Townend said that the day had been:

"#newsinnovation data hyperlocal data hyperlocal data hyperlocal & a bit of monetising chat"

Martin Stabe tweeted that:

"Many hacks wouldn't recognize what was discussed at #newsinnovation as journalism. Next unconf needs to address the newsroom culture issue."

It is all too easy to fall into that kind of trap when we think about web applications and services. It is easy to just think about plumbing, and make sure that stuff is delivered. To think about whether the user can understand how to turn the water on and off. To just concentrate on whether the taps are at the right height, and if the user understands the scale with which they calibrate the temperature and the pressure. If we are really thinking about the whole user experience though, we need to be just as concerned about whether the editorial effort pours red or blue or purple water into the pipes.

I think we talked a lot about plumbing at 'News Innovation'.

This reaction also made me wonder a bit about how the format of the day had affected the content. The unconference structure favours those in the audience most likely to put their names down first. Without formally defined tracks, it is possible that the early barrage of post-it notes addressing technical and data-driven topics drove more philosophical and editorial topics underground. The unconference also managed to uphold an unhappy tradition of tech conferences and newsroom culture - the speakers were almost entirely homogeneously white men.

Next...

Next week I'll be publishing an essay version of the homogeneously white male plumbing talk that I gave at 'News Innovation' - "The tyranny of chronology".

Luke Wroblewski: Mobile Apps: In the Store or the Browser?

With recent announcements that Verizon and Symbian are both jumping into the app store fray, the number of mobile application development options for software providers begins to looks unmanageable. Consider the list so far:

Apple's App Store
Google's Android Market
Nokia's Ovi Store
Research in Motion's Blackberry App World
Palm's App Catalog
Microsoft's Skymarket
Verizon's App Store
Symbian's Horizon

So it's not surprise that software makers are looking toward applications that run in mobile Web browsers. Web applications are classic solution to reach. Write once and run anywhere there is a browser. Which today, is the majority of networked phones. Yet the classic tension of rich vs. reach that exists in Web browsers on the desktop also holds on mobile devices.

As pointed out in Web Application Solutions: A Designer's Guide (PDF):

The primary benefits of a thin client are reach (anyone with a Web browser can use it) and deployment (can be updated and distributed through a Web server). The primary disadvantages are limited interaction options and typically slower response times. state management, and script execution (run-time). Rich Clients leverage local processing to enable rich interactions and can utilize Web Services to connect to distributed data sources and auto-update. Unlike Thin Client applications, Rich Clients can be used offline and more easily integrate with local hardware and software.

On most mobile devices, key operating system capabilities are not available to the Web browser. Yet. But a gradual shift is underway:

Nokia recently released a beta of Nokia Platform Services 2.0, which provides a JavaScript API that enables widgets to access device data and information, such as contact records, the device's camera, and location information.
Apple's Mobile Safari browser now includes a Javascript API to the iPhone’s location functions. This means a web app can have access to a user's coordinates which were previously only available to native iPhone apps.
Apple also provides JavaScript multi-touch event support in the Safari browser on the iPhone so now you can create web applications that utilize gestures like pinch, flick, etc.

Of course, Web companies like Google believe all mobile apps will run in the browser.

"We believe the web has won and over the next several years, the browser, for economic reasons almost, will become the platform that matters and certainly that’s where Google is investing" said Vic Gundotra, Google Engineering vice president. Michael Abbott, head of application software for Palm, said advances in the browser being introduced through HTML5 standards meant that web applications could tap features of particular phones such as their accelerometers. Mr Gundotra said even Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, had said “Build for the web,” when the iPhone was launched, but the idea had met with resistance from developers at the time. The timing was not right, he suggested, but “the rate of innovation in the browser [over the past 12 months] is surprising.”

Hopefully the transition happens faster in mobile browsers than it has in browsers on the desktop.

Tags: mobile, javascript, technology, sensors

Karen Loasby: organising in the New York Times

I won’t make you guess which camp I’m in! “The workplace is divided into two camps: those who have a place for everything and the rest of us, who waste time — up to six weeks a year — looking for files, letters and other detritus. In a recent survey of 200 executives of 1,000 of the [...]

Anders Ramsay: Designing beyond the surface layer

Designing a user experience is usually considered synonymous with the work of designing the part of a system users will directly interact with. While that is all good and well, a general problem I see in the UX practice is that this then becomes the place where the UX work not only begins, but also [...]

Martin Belam: links for 2009-07-16

A small change for search | Martin Belam | Inside guardian.co.uk

"During June we also ran a short survey of users to ask some specific questions. I was pleased to see that only a small percentage of users thought our recent changes had made the service worse, whilst a third thought it had become noticeably better. Over 40% of users gave our site search 8 out of 10 marks or higher".

(tags: guardian search martinbelam)
Crossrail at Tottenham Court Road : London Reconnections

"For those interested, from this week onwards the new Crossrail Visitor Centre will be open to the public in the area as well - it's located at 6-18 St Giles High Street and opens on the 16th". I'd wager it won't have a display on how an incoming Conservative Government may affect the financing of the project. Great time lapse pics of construction in this post though.

(tags: crossrail transport londonreconnections)
Welcome To The Highgate Public Library

From the "D'oh!" the humanity files - I've been reading the Highgate Public Library blog for months via RSS, and I've only just twigged today that it is in Highgate, Vermont, not Highgate, North London, just-down-the-road-from-me. Lucky I didn't try to go to any of the events, eh? Call yourself web literate etc etc

(tags: library nothighgate)
Alternatives to conferences :: ia play

"Information architecture conferences have become less specialised, covering a broader range of web design and management topics. If you are a regular attendee then you’ll have seen the big name speakers run through their spiels before. There’s usually some intriguing presentations from less familiar speakers but you don’t actually have to attend to find out what they have to say. The presentation slides and audio are increasingly available after the event and bloggers are likely to report or twitter the highlights. You can contact speakers direct if you see a presentation that looks particularly interesting. Most will be more than happy to talk to a fellow enthusiast. Remember if they’re not giving a big presentation then they probably aren’t being paid to speak anyway."

(tags: iaplay karenloasby conferences informationarchitecture)
Newspaper goody bags spark graffiti spree | Holdthefrontpage.co.uk

"Hairspray paint sold in goody bags by a local newspaper during a festival may have been used to daubed graffiti around the town. The bags were on offer at Midsomer Norton's Mardi Gras festival and contained copies of the Somerset Guardian and Standard newspapers, along with some brightly-coloured hairsprays. However, it appears the paints might have been used to daub some graffiti around the town, forcing the council into a hasty clean-up operation ahead of a visit by Britain in Bloom judges on Monday."

(tags: holdthefrontpage localnewspapers humour)
Newsinnovation London: Audio from the event | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog

Some "rough and ready audio" from the event featuring Simon Willison, Will Perrin, Rick Waghorn, Toby Moores and Mark Jones

(tags: journalism journalismcouk #newsinnovation)
Why ITV’s micropayment plan is unlikely to make the Grade | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog

One of the things that interests me in this debate is the '200m people watched Susan Boyle on YouTube and ITV never got a penny'. To me, the thing is, prior to YouTube existing, nobody outside the UK would have seen Susan Boyle at all. It is quite hard to put a quantifiable figure on those extra eyeballs. Susan Boyle (and her agents) certainly made money out of it though. Perhaps ITV should focus their monetisation efforts on getting a cut from the Boyle publicity machine, not trying to monetise random eyeballs from the US.

(tags: itv youtube susanboyle micropayments journalismcouk)
Twitter and teens: Challenging the idea of the young digital native | Media | guardian.co.uk

From the comments "Twitter isn't the holy grail, nor is it Satan personified. It's just a web-service that lots of people seem to like...If you see an article about Twitter, just skip it, like you would one about cricket, potassium mining or insects. Unless, of course you love either cricket or insects. Nobody loves potassium mining, obviously. I can't understand why every article I come across on Potassium Monthly is about potassium mining. Sheesh, we get it, you like potassium."

(tags: humour ugc twitter potassiummining mediaguardian)
Financial Times iPhone App Worse Than Trialware | Epicenter | Wired.com

"The Financial Times released its iPhone app Tuesday, touting it as free. But the not-so-small print reveals that this is severely crippled trialware app that could very well be useless in first few minutes you use it". Interesting that one reaction to anything not 'free' is that it is 'crippled'

(tags: iphone financialtimes wired)

Joshua Porter: Designing for Active Lurkers

Instead of treating people as either taking some important action (the one we want them to) or not taking it, there is a spectrum in between.

Martin Belam: Expectations of the News Innovation unconference on camera

Whilst I was at the Media Standards Trust and WSRI sponsored 'News Innovation' event hosted at NESTA last week, I was trying out my latest gadget, a Flip Ultra HD camera. As part of that, I filmed a few of the guests before the event got going, including Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust. I was asking them about what had brought them to the event, and what they expected to get from it.

Here are my clips of:

Martin Moore - Martin Moore blog
Julian Darley - juliandarley.blogspot.com
Adam Tinworth - One man and his blog
Nigel Barlow - Thoughts of Nigel
Rick Waghorn - Out with a bang
Matt Buck - Hack cartoons

News Innovation Unconference vox pops from Martin Belam on Vimeo.

Next...

Tomorrow I'll have a short video interview I did with Linda Kennedy, which gave a very fresh editorial perspective on what at times was a rather techie and data-driven day.

Luke Wroblewski: Motion Detection for Windows & Mac

Continuing the thread of understanding consumer product platform capabilities, Bill Gates today confirmed that Microsoft's Project Natal (a full body motion capture system) is not only for the XBox gaming platform but for the Windows operating system as well.

"Gates talked about a world in which depth-sensing cameras such as the one Microsoft is adding to the Xbox allow people to control their PCs, game devices, and televisions. Using your body to control devices makes a lot of sense, Gates said."

Apple Inc. likely has a similar system in the works if patents for the Apple "wand" lead to a product release.

"Apple is exploring the possibility of including a wireless "remote wand" that would unlock three-dimensional controls similar to those offered by Nintendo's Wii controller."

In short, motion detection input devices are coming to the Windows and OS X operating systems. What kinds of software will follow?

Tags: microsoft, apple, product concepts, technology

Peter Boersma: Links for 2009-07-15 del.icio.us

There, I Fixed It: Epic Kludges + Jury Rigs

Karen Loasby: alternatives to conferences

I’m very pleased that London has just had a conference dedicated to user experience design. UX London is a great step forward but I didn’t actually go. I love the annual IA Summit but this year I didn’t go to that either. I’m thinking about the autumn and winter conferences and if I don’t plan them [...]

Joshua Porter: Are you rewarding good behavior, or just any behavior?

In general, a very good question to ask when building a reputation system...

Martin Belam: links for 2009-07-15

Sweeble: Making Print Production Accessible | FUMSI

Sue Greenwood has written this piece for FUMSI magazine - a good introduction to the Sweeble service if you didn't get to see her sessions at either JEEcamp or #newsinnovation

(tags: print publishing sweeble suegreenwood)
TechCrunch decides to release confidential Twitter documents; ethical questions raised | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog

"Stay classy, Arrington!"

(tags: journalismcouk techcrunch michaelarrington arroganthypocrite)
Off-the-Wall Tallies of Jackson's Sales - Carl Bialik | WSJ.com

"For many years, Mr. Jackson's lifetime sales tally typically was reported at 200 million albums world-wide. But in late 2006, news articles began putting the number at 750 million, a figure that became part of the popular lore as Mr. Jackson was attempting a comeback. In the last few weeks, it has popped up in obituaries and retrospectives. So how did the sales figure nearly quadruple?". Music industry in 'pulling sales numbers out of thin air' shocker! Surely not?

(tags: wallstreetjournal michaeljackson music statistics)
Muse — PROJECT EURASIA

The upcoming Muse album has an associated online game / clue-fest / Cold War era role-play element to it

(tags: muse music)
Inspecting council accounts 2008/09: Haringey Council

"Haringey Council’s accounts, together with all books, deeds, contracts, accounts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them, are made available every year for inspection and for making copies. The accounts for the year ending 31 March 2009 will be available from 6 August 2009 to 3 September 2009, between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday, on application to the Chief Financial Officer, Haringey Council, Level 7, Alexandra House, 10 Station Road, N22 7TR, telephone 020 8489 2975 / 3725". Surely in 2009 it is just easier to publish the damned things on the web?

(tags: haringey transparency accounts)
Now Swine Flu panic sweeps Britain | Daily Express

Fantastic front page montage.

(tags: media dailyexpress swineflu humour)
This politicisation of swine flu is bad for our health | spiked

"The average mortality rate of influenza in the UK is 600 deaths per year in a non-epidemic year".

(tags: swineflu health spiked panic)
Ghostly image of Michael Jackson appears on car bonnet - Telegraph

And yet they say that the mindless pursuit of Digg votes will dumb down the media?

(tags: michaeljackson telegraph ghostlyimageswhichareclouds)

Martin Belam: The Barbican at 40

Today the City of London Corporation is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Barbican Estate with a party for around 400 residents. As anniversaries go, the timing seems a little bit arbitrary - I've seen articles on the web suggesting the actual anniversary was July 7th or July 8th - but it was certainly in 1969 that people and families first moved into the new tower blocks. They are now a familiar part of the London skyline, but, as with most landmark developments, at the time the concrete towers were not always seen as a popular architectural addition to the city.

Adrienne Keith Cohen, writing in The Guardian, describing a tour of the City as the development progressed said:

"For a taste of reality, carry on to Barbican, the bedevilled scheme to bring domestic life back to the city. You need imagination, a fairly expensive purse, an urge to be in at the beginning of a new project and the sort of taste that runs to small bright pieces of modern furniture to yearn for a flat in this little city within the City."

Much of the press coverage at the time seems to have centred on how the Barbican Arts Centre was being developed - when they weren't talking about industrial disputes on the site anyway.

I did find one fan in The Guardian's digital archive though, London diarist Gerard Fay. In 1965, four years before people started occupying the estate, he wrote:

"It was in 1959, after some years of reading about it, and even writing about it, that I came to believe that Barbican would, in the end, be built and that it might be a good place for a Londoner to live. So I wrote to the town clerk at the corporation of the City of London and had an acknowledgement from the housing department. An interim letter a couple of years later confirmed the existence of the applicants' list and that my name was still there.

In the housing department, near Guildhall, is a splendid model of Barbican, truer to the facts than some architectural models though still a bit suppositious in its minor details. Some features have already been withdrawn - for instance a romantic-looking bridge across a lake. But others remain and building of them is in progress. The City has never swerved from its original intention that Barbican should become a genuine residential neighbourhood for people who felt they could afford nonsubsidised rents on a most expensive site."

Yes.

The rents.

At the time the price of living in Barbican was phenomenally high. Terence Bendixson wrote in The Guardian in December 1969:

"The £45-million Barbican Scheme is unlike any other municipal enterprise in the country. It is a residential neighbourhood being built by a council, the City Corporation, but it is not a collection of council houses. As in a commercial development, rents are designed to cover the cost of the project, which is why they work out at about £12 a week, less rates, for a one-bedroom flat and £1,065 a year for a penthouse 'maisonette' with three bedrooms and two bathrooms."

I don't know if Gerard Fay achieved his ambition of living there. In 1969 the waiting list was already long.

"To live in the Barbican, all you have to do is put your name down and wait until a flat of the size you want becomes available. However, about 2,500 people who have put their names down since October, 1968, when lettings got under way, are ahead of you in the queue, plus hundreds more who registered when the project was only an architect's drawing."

If you want to get a glimpse of what London looks like from the top of a Barbican Tower, then this photo gallery will give you the idea. There is also an interesting overview of the history of the Barbican on the Barbican Living website.

Luke Wroblewski: Revisiting Networked Objects & the Role of Designers

My recent set of articles on consumer platform capabilities and the trends they proliferate (like designing for sensors and hardware becoming software), made me revisit Bruce Sterling's definition of the object of the future (the spime) and the role designers play in helping people wrangle these networked objects.

Spimes: Networked Objects of the Future
We can trace several different types of objects through human history: artifacts (transitioned us to agriculture), machines (automated our work), products (the result of mechanical processes), gizmos (today’s objects de jour defined by their complicated nature and an over-abundance of features), and spimes (networked and self-descriptive).

Gizmos have transformed us from consumers (of products) to end-users (highly advanced consumers). We no longer merely consume objects, and as a result, user experience has become a crucial part of the development cycle. But no amount of interface simplification can keep gizmos from being “pressed up hard against the limits of usability.” Their very nature is tied to complexity. When a gizmo is made too simple it returns to being a product and personally enriching interactions that are enabled by the gizmo’s many features may be lost. As a result, there are good reasons, both financial and social, for keeping gizmos delicately “poised between chaos and simplicity” (think cell phone/camera/PDA/music player devices and the breadth and depth of interactions they enable).

All objects are defined by the culture that nourished their development: products -the mechanical age, gizmos -the digital age. Spimes (our objects of the future) are no different as they represent the composite picture of our current networked information age. Spimes are objects that have “swallowed” our past by combining social networks, RFID tags, GPS systems, self Google-ing, peer-to-peer networking, auction sites, chat applications, digital storage, and more. Spimes can reveal most anything about themselves. They are precisely located in space and time, have a history and identity, and make their nature transparent to us. Spimes are “user groups first, and objects second”. But most importantly, spimes allow us to make good on sustainability through a traceable lifecycle. Because spimes have identities and complete histories, they create accountability: we know where they end up and we know the impact they have on our world.

The Role of Designers
A world soaked in the information generated and gathered by spimes forces end-users (those of us making their way through the feature-rich vat of today’s objects) to become wranglers (those who chart paths through changing fields of object data and relationships). Complex objects bring with them personal costs: cognitive load (the personal brainpower required to think about things, talk about things, pay attention to things, be entertained by things, etc.) and opportunity cost (to make room for an additional object in your life, you have to sacrifice something you are already doing).

“There isn’t enough time in the world for people to sacrifice infinite amounts of opportunity and cognition. This means that in a spime world, designers must design, not just for objects or for people, but for the technosocial interactions that unite people and objects: designing for opportunity costs and cognitive load.”

Every person can’t wrangle all the world’s technosocial issues all the time.

“It follows that much of this activity should be done for [us] by other people. A class of aware, well-informed, trained and educated people who can navigate their way through this field of complexity, negotiating the snaky process of technosocial change and guiding them toward the sustainable. People who will make it their professional business, no, even their calling, their practice, their very mode of being –to create a human-object relationship that is as advanced as [we] can manage while still being acceptable to [us]. Who would that be then? Designers. Who else is there?”

Tags: bruce sterling, product concepts, technology, sensors, interface

Karen Loasby: conferences to learn IA at

I was asked for some advice about conferences to attend if you are just learning about IA. IA Summit The IA Summit is still the main event of the IA year. There are usually 3 days of multi-tracked presentations preceded by 2 days of workshops. It is certainly a great place to meet IAs and to get [...]

Matthew Hodgson: Social media not just for the young!

People typically think that social media is only used by young Australians. Finding hard statistics on Australian demographics though isn’t easy, particularly when you don’t have $750USD to fork out for the latest Forrester research paper. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), though, is a handy resource if you’re willing to put in the time [...]

Martin Belam: links for 2009-07-14

Jewel of Medina withdrawn from Amazon.co.uk | MediaWatchWatch

"'Legal reasons'? As far as we are aware, there are no legal reasons for Amazon.co.uk not to sell this book. If you know otherwise, please get in touch".

(tags: amazon mediawatchwatch)
Time Out Magazine Suck At Email Spam | Richard Kershaw | Quality Nonsense

"Does this read like an email from a real user? The the low-rent sales copy, bolding of features and promo code scream ‘no’. It’s spam from Time Out or someone hired to promote their site. Not only is spam email illegal (under the Data Protection Act in the UK), but it’s bad for business".

(tags: timeout spam)
Wenlock Olympics success : Shropshire Star:

The latest, and 123rd, edition of the Wenlock Olympic Games has just taken place. They were first held in 1850 and pre-date the early 'official' Olympics.

(tags: olympics shropshirestar wenlockolympics)
Tim Berners-Lee and the Digital Revolution | BBC Internet Blog

As far as I can tell, whilst the BBC were punching the air in joy because TBL was at their event, across London those of us at NESTA were punching the nearest BBC person we could see because TBL *wasn't* at the WSRI sponsored #newsinnovation event.

(tags: bbc nesta #newsinnovation mediastandardstrust timbernerlee bbcinternetblog)
Section 44 in Chatham High Street. | monaxle : blog

"I went down to Chatham High Street today to take some pictures of the flyover being demolished and to use up a film I’ve had in a camera for over a year. Doing so had some unexpected consequence". Which was a pair of handcuffs for taking photographs.

(tags: photography police civilliberties humanrights antiterrorismlegislation)
Did Twitter bury "Bruno"? | Blog | Econsultancy

"It seems a bit hasty to blame Twitter for the failings of 'Bruno' at the box office — the 'Bruno' Twitter stream currently has plenty of positive mentions for the film"...and so then your point was what exactly?

(tags: bruno econsultancy sittingonthefence)
OMG U FAIL SO HARD : Guinness World Records Limited « FAIL Blog

Not. Funny. Enough. And even if it turns out to be fake it is still very, very, very funny.

(tags: humour fail)
Music Hack Day

Results of the Music Hack Day held at Kings Place over the weekend. I wasn't able to get to any of it, but from what I heard there were some fun apps developed, some of which you can try out on the site...

(tags: music hackday kingsplace events guardian musichackday)
The plural of anecdote is not data » Suw Charman-Anderson » Strange Attractor

"Morgan Stanley and the media both seem to be more interested in having their biases validated than they are in exploring the evidence to see where it leads them. Sadly, it seems that neither have been spending enough time watching CSI and drawing from it key lessons about assumptions, evidence and how to draw conclusions".

(tags: children twitter morganstanley suwcharman teenagers)
Fetish night blasted - Wigan Today

From the comments: "I'd just like to add that that is my picture you have added up there and I am not pleased, especially since you have used it without anyones permission, and haven't legally signed anything or made an agreement with me or the photographers".

(tags: wigantoday copyright copyrightinfringement)