My brain has been popping with random bits and bytes over the past few days. I have also been stuck in front of the keyboard A L0T. So this may come out as more of a rant than intended, just think of me as channeling Andy Rooney.
- I have looked at so many social media/web2.0 community sites in the last week that my brain hurts from seeing so many faces boxed into little 50x50 squares. Where are the designers/UE folks who can think outside the box? There has got to be a new way to look at this. A grid of small faces is not organic and feels flat. Think about how Etsy reinvented the way we interact with items when shopping -- I want more of THAT.
- I am afraid that people - how they live and what they need - is getting lost in all the noise and geek speak around technology, media & social ads these days. Let's put the social back in social software. What do people want and need? And it ain't another bite on the neck or yet another place to "express, share and connect" with friends.
- We have reached a key moment in social media - I am now smarter about you my friends/connections/colleagues. This is fun and informative. Now, I would like to be smarter about me and you together. Great - I know that you are stuck in traffic or eating a pizza or getting on a plane - but how about we take all this data and do a bit of analytic magic to tell me which of my friends I connect to the most and share the most with [no not just a simple graph]? Which are experts on X and which on Y? I crave a deeper mapping of my network and how I can use it better.
If we are to live in a world that is flatter, more expansive and more loosely joined - we can do better. We have to, or all we will end up with is a lot of noise.
IMHO vimeo does a great job with not being another youtube site and stays far away from the mini avatars that you hate so much
Posted by: michael galpert | January 24, 2008 at 08:54 PM
Hey Deborah,
Bellasugar has been using a fairly consistent blend of text with images to display interesting content. I think it works on this site profoundly because of the target audience.
Here's the link: http://bellasugar.com/. Check out Beauty Marks, Makeup, Skin Care, Hair. As well as this page: http://teamsugar.com/beautymarks
I liked the Etsy visuals re: shopping -- makes sense there as well. But I'd suggest careful blending of visual with information especially in a business/marketing solution.
In terms of thumbnail images to quickly telegraph who's in/yet to join a community, for those not familiar with social bookmarking/or community sites, it may be best approach to convey the interesting types of people joining. It may be very tired for those people involved in social media on day to day. For those getting started, there's an interesting question -- So site and experiments will need to take into consideration our dual audience.
Just some thoughts on need to balance new more targeted approaches to collective communication. Then again, for those lighter conversations, some of those elements may continue to work well for that age group/and or mode of communication.
It'll be interesting to see evolution of cell phone technology and interfaces and how this impacts ways in which younger people will continue to cross-pollinate and share online.
For me I've always been interested in what people mean by share and what the value of that is, for individuals --
j
Posted by: Jan Skelton | January 25, 2008 at 12:05 PM
Agreed, and for the same reasons new photosynth linking of the social graph will take this to new heights. The 50x50 box will be a relic.
We have been working on these types of technologies for some time.
Watch this while thinking about the social graph:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/129
Enjoy..
Posted by: Jason Schultz | January 27, 2008 at 03:06 PM