At its best, the Web is a place for unlimited exchange of ideas. But the uncivil discourse that unfolds in comments sections can be poisonous. A study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication suggests that rude comments on articles can change the way we interpret the news.
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/11/174027294/the-nasty-effect-how-comments-color-comprehension
One of the pleasures of watching movies and television is finding characters you recognize from your own life. Matthew Baldwin is a Seattle–based writer, and he spent a long time looking for a specific kind of character — someone with autism. That’s because his son was diagnosed with autism in 2006 at the age of two, and back then Matthew only knew about one portrayal of autism in media: Rain Man. Matthew tells KUOW’s Jeannie Yandel about two other characters he was happy to discover recently; Abed from the NBC sitcom "Community" and Spock from the 2009 Star Trek reboot.
Highlights from the 92nd Street Y universe.
http://blog.92y.org/index.php/item/kurt_vonnegut_breakfast_of_champions_podcast/
How Computers and the Internet are Re-programming Human Behaviour.
Denise Wilton, co-founder of B3ta and creative director at Moo, joins us this week to discuss creativity, community, Chris Morris, Commodore PETs, cross stitch, corpses, Community Chests and cheating.
Meanwhile, your hosts become angry and confused about popular culture and Leila badly wants to believe something Roo still can’t bring himself to stomach.
Are you prepared to experience the most interesting thirty-six-and-a-bit minutes of your life so far? Go and get a cup of tea first. We’ll wait.
http://shiftrunstop.co.uk/2010/08/12/episode-39-denise-wilton/
Cities abound in data generated by their inhabitants (virtual worlds, city websites) and created automatically by systems or monitoring. How does this online manifestation of the city interact in tangible ways with urban design and informal urban constructs? Is there such a thing as "the street as platform"?
This week, Kevin Yank (@sentience) and Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) conclude their conversation with Derek Powazek (@fraying), co-creator of JPG Magazine and creator of Fray, about the care and feeding of web communities.
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2010/03/26/podcast-54-building-communities-with-derek-powazek-part-2/
James’s new book, “Connected”… Unintentionally influencing your friend’s friend’s friend… How happiness is like the flu… Obesity spreads like an idea …… … but don’t try to lose weight by dumping your fat friends… An old shampoo commercial, voting, and Facebook pseudo-friends…
Godin gives a top-level understanding of how to build your community, a good followup to this presentation is my interview with Max Alexander about the tactics of creating groups.
We are all big fans of user-centered design, and all of us have tried our hand at CSS or database design. But somewhere along the way, the third leg of the tripod got lost: business.
It’s critical to know what your business model is. Without this information, you have no idea which actions of the user are valuable and which are not. And without knowing that, you are as likely to spend hours working on an aspect of the website that delivers no value as one that does. This is not usually a fatal mistake in a large corporation, but in a start-up it can literally kill the company.
In this talk, Christina Wodtke, founder of Boxes and Arrows and product developer at LinkedIn, walks through the most common business models, the desired user behavior that supports them, and how those business models affect the architecture of the website including features and functionality.