Blogs Media Lab

How often should a blogger post?

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We’ve often discussed how much we should be posting behind the scenes of the Walker Blogs. I’m sure most people writing a blog or reading a blog have opinions about that. Darren Rowes has a post about this very topic where he raises several valid points on his own and quotes an equally relevant post [...]

We’ve often discussed how much we should be posting behind the scenes of the Walker Blogs. I’m sure most people writing a blog or reading a blog have opinions about that. Darren Rowes has a post about this very topic where he raises several valid points on his own and quotes an equally relevant post by Seth Godin.

So how do you balance growing an audience through frequent posts against retaining people by avoiding reader fatigue? An article previously mentioned suggested publishing at regular frequencies, a strategy we’ve tried on our Visual Arts blog with some success. That is certainly a good for bloggers to get in the habit of writing but with more people using RSS it certainly seems less important for readers.

Sources:Beth’s Blog

Interactive Tables (Instruments, Lights and Twisting)

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I thought I exhausted my accumulated links with last weeks post, but I found a few more interactive tables to blog about. reacTable* Quoted from their website “The reacTable*, is a state-of-the-art multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical artefacts [...]

I thought I exhausted my accumulated links with last weeks post, but I found a few more interactive tables to blog about.

reacTable*

Quoted from their website “The reacTable*, is a state-of-the-art multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical artefacts on the table surface…”

It uses physical tokens to interact with the table which of course has the benefit of precision but the draw back of maintenance, loss, etc.

The Pond

Created by Potion Design, the Pond uses small lights to interact with the round screen. This is one of the few tables I’ve blogged about that I’ve actually seen in person, I can say the light wands offer precise control for many users (up to 6) at a high frame rate. I don’t think the project has been deployed in it’s final form anywhere yet, but its a lot of fun.

Tilty Table & Twisty Table

Developed by Onomy Labs the Tilty Table has been used at the San Jose Tech Museum. The interface consists of a table top that users tip to operate. The Twisty Table also incorporates twisting into the tabletop interface and has been used at the Maryland Science Center

Strategies for exhibiting new media art

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Sabine Himmelsbach gave a lecture last week at UCLA on exhibition strategies for media based artwork. The lecture is online in Real Player format, or check their amazing archive for other material. Himmelsbach was head of the exhibition department at ZKM | Center for Art and Media from 1999 until last year.

The Children of Pine Flat on Art on Call

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I’m working on a new Art on Call feature for our upcoming exhibition Sharon Lockhart: Pine Flat. Lockhart’s media are film and photography, and she uses them to create an intimate portrait of contemporary rural life as experienced by the youth of Pine Flat, a small town in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. [...]

Pine Flat recording session

I’m working on a new Art on Call feature for our upcoming exhibition Sharon Lockhart: Pine Flat. Lockhart’s media are film and photography, and she uses them to create an intimate portrait of contemporary rural life as experienced by the youth of Pine Flat, a small town in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. With the help of the artist’s studio, Art on Call features the children of Pine Flat telling us their stories, revealing the process behind the shoots, and giving an account of what it was like to work with Sharon. To my ear these recordings are magic, nothing profound but a clear reflection of the relationship and trust that developed between artist and subject.

In addition to the children of Pine Flat, Art on Call includes Walker director Kathy Halbreich commenting on the installation and personal reflections on the project. Kathy’s comments in combination with those of the kids make a compelling audio addition to the installation. The stops–which will be posted before the opening on April 23rd–can be downloaded or played online by visiting http://newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc/. To listen on the phone, call 612.374.8200 and enter the code from the list below (look for the files tomorrow or Friday at the latest).

1107 Kathy Habreich on Pine Flat

1108 Dakota talks about the film segment Sleeper

1109 Alex on the film segment Hunter

1110 Alex on the film segment Reader

1111 Becky and Katie discuss the film segment Swing

1112 Kassie talks about Lockhart and her collaborator Becky Allen

1113 Katie and Becky talk about their portraits

1114 About Dakota and the photography process

1115 The kids talk about the Pine Flat Portrait Studio

1116 Katie on Matthew

Musematic is online.

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I started reading Musematic earlier this week. The site promises to be: Rants and raves on the latest trends in the world of museum informatics and technology. An intrepid cast of experts from the Museum Computer Network and AAM’s Media & Technology Committee share their insights, observations and tricks of the trade. It’s just starting [...]

I started reading Musematic earlier this week. The site promises to be:

Rants and raves on the latest trends in the world of museum informatics and technology. An intrepid cast of experts from the Museum Computer Network and AAM’s Media & Technology Committee share their insights, observations and tricks of the trade.

It’s just starting out (under 10 posts) but the quality of writing so far is impressive. I’m sure this will provide good reading in the future.

Web 2.0 explained better

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It’s hard to count the number of times I’ve been asked to explain the buzzword of the year “web 2.0“. I finally found an explanaition of the phenomena that makes more sense (to me). Ajit Jaokar took Tim O’Reilly’s principles of Web 2.0 and changed the order a little. I’ve found O’Reilly’s explanation complete but [...]

It’s hard to count the number of times I’ve been asked to explain the buzzword of the year “web 2.0“. I finally found an explanaition of the phenomena that makes more sense (to me). Ajit Jaokar took Tim O’Reilly’s principles of Web 2.0 and changed the order a little. I’ve found O’Reilly’s explanation complete but unweildy when trying to boil down this “web 2.0″ thing down to a simple couple sentences. Jaokar’s readjustment focusses our attention on outcome, not implementation and that makes all the difference in the world. So the next time Robin asks “What is this web 2.0 buzz about?” the answer could be as easy as “It’s about harnessing collective intelligence”.

source: O’Reilly Radar

Interactive Tables

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This is a short list of links to interactive table projects that I’ve accumulated over the past few months. Intellegent Vibrations has developed what they call an Internet Table. According to their site the surface of the table as a “tap screen” which they go on to describe being for ordering food, drinks or surfing [...]

This is a short list of links to interactive table projects that I’ve accumulated over the past few months.

Intellegent Vibrations has developed what they call an Internet Table. According to their site the surface of the table as a “tap screen” which they go on to describe being for ordering food, drinks or surfing the internet all while being impervious to liquid. Apparently (and I’m referenceing this) the touch screen technology has to do with detecting sound waves at the edges of the glass screen. That explains why you have to “tap” the screen not just touch it. This has other applications including a “tap screen” store window which also appears to be in developement. Honestly the website leaves a lot to be desired so I can’t get very specific. Some images of the table on Craowiki.

UbiTable was developed by Mitsubishi Electronics Research Labs. The table allows users to walk up connect their laptop, camera and “fluidly share, manipulate, exchange, and mark up their contents with each other on a large tabletop surface”.

Jean-Baptiste Haué, Pierre Dillenbourg published their research on three interactive tables at various levels of completion for the CRAFT – School of Computer and Communication Sciences in Switzerland. Their Noise Sensitive Table responds to sound levels aroung the table and records a visual representation of a conversation. (similar idea to the Conversation Table)

The Novo Infotainment Table takes the interactive table back to it’s arcade roots with some spacey styling to compliment the two joystick and multibutton interaction. Although it is called an “Infotainment Table” it is obviously geared toward games.

For all these links I’m drawing from Nicolas Nova’s blog Pasta & Vinegar. Nova himself taught a class which had a project about interactive tables. The outcomes are documented online. Nova also linked to a workshop about collaborative artefacts and that page has an even more extensive list of interactive tables and roomware. It looks like there was quite a lot going on in this field in the last few years that I didn’t know about.

Why did MySpace work?

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Danah Boyd’s take on why MySpace worked. The short answer is Subcultural Capital. The longer answer is in an essay on Boyd’s site that I’m excerpting below. Initially the essay sets up a history of Friendster and MySpace which is a good read in itself but moves into reasons for success later. It is not [...]

Danah Boyd’s take on why MySpace worked. The short answer is Subcultural Capital. The longer answer is in an essay on Boyd’s site that I’m excerpting below. Initially the essay sets up a history of Friendster and MySpace which is a good read in itself but moves into reasons for success later.

It is not about technological perfection.

Portability of identity doesn’t matter. Easy-to-use interfaces don’t matter. Visual coherence doesn’t matter. Simple navigation doesn’t matter. Bugs don’t matter. Fancy new technologies don’t matter. Simple personalization doesn’t matter.

Before you scream “but it does to me!” let me acknowledge that you’re right. It does matter to you. The question is whether it matters to the masses. And it doesn’t. Especially for teens.

…

Friendster focused on simple and narrow, giving users very limited options and cracking down on all hacks. For a long time, they took away features rather than adding them. They worked to mainstream-ify, to be equally generic to all users. MySpace added features all the time, making it a game to see what had changed, to find new ways of navigating the site. Hacking the site became a cultural phenomenon with websites being dedicated to hacking techniques (brought to you by fellow cultural participants not O’Reilly). MySpace let users define the culture.

It’s worth noting I found a link to Boyd’s essay and an interesting read about podcasting stats on the Powerhouse Museum’s Fresh + New blog.

Shields up!

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We’ve decided to give Akismet a new test: trackbacks. Walker blogs have been trackback-free since the launch, and this was generally considered to not be a loss since we were too new to generate many inbound links. Today, however, a quick tour through the list of linking blogs proves otherwise: there are worthwhile posts out [...]

We’ve decided to give Akismet a new test: trackbacks. Walker blogs have been trackback-free since the launch, and this was generally considered to not be a loss since we were too new to generate many inbound links.

Today, however, a quick tour through the list of linking blogs proves otherwise: there are worthwhile posts out there talking about us! (awww) In fact, the whole reason I’m posting this here is so I can link to this post about the channel (and link to the original post in the ECP blog). In the future that will all happen automatically with this change.

Hopefully everything will go according to plan, but believe me I’ve got my finger on the trigger over here – any spam gets through, any lame posts about nothing and BAM, no more trackbacks…

In the meantime, read something you like here? Something you hate? Post about it on your blog with a link back to the original, and you’ll show up in the trackback list.

Weblog Usability from Jakob Nielson.

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There were some good suggestions about Weblog Usability on Nielson’s site, posted October 2005. Some suggestions about writing style that are general purpose suggestions for the web, but I also mention this because the Walker Blogs missed his first and second points. 1. No Author Biographies Unless you’re a business blog, you probably don’t need [...]

There were some good suggestions about Weblog Usability on Nielson’s site, posted October 2005. Some suggestions about writing style that are general purpose suggestions for the web, but I also mention this because the Walker Blogs missed his first and second points.

1. No Author Biographies

Unless you’re a business blog, you probably don’t need a full-fledged “about us” section the way a corporate site does. That said, the basic rationale for “about us” translates directly into the need for an “about me” page on a weblog: users want to know who they’re dealing with.

It’s a simple matter of trust. Anonymous writings have less credence than something that’s signed. And, unless a person’s extraordinarily famous, it’s not enough to simply say that Joe Blogger writes the content. Readers want to know more about Joe. Does he have any credentials or experience in the field he’s commenting on? (Even if you don’t have formal credentials, readers will trust you more if you’re honest about that fact, set forth your informal experience, and explain the reason for your enthusiasm.)

2. No Author Photo

Even weblogs that provide author bios often omit the author photo. A photo is important for two reasons:

  • It offers a more personable impression of the author. You enhance your credibility by the simple fact that you’re not trying to hide. Also, users relate more easily to somebody they’ve seen.
  • It connects the virtual and physical worlds….

Nielson’s point is certainly interesting, sharing an author’s credentials on a blog makes perfect sense but I had never seriously considered having author images (they remind me of the Wrox covers which I’ve never seen as flattering). I certainly wouldn’t have put it at #2 on my list of usability errors, ahead more serious problems like #5 Classic Hits are Buried which is a mistake I realize we have also (partially) made. On the plus side point #8 about Mixing Topics supports our rational for splitting the Walker Blogs up into 6 different sites.

If you publish on many different topics, you’re less likely to attract a loyal audience of high-value users. Busy people might visit a blog to read an entry about a topic that interests them. They’re unlikely to return, however, if their target topic appears only sporadically among a massive range of postings on other topics.

Just a few more things to think about when starting/fixing/maintaining a blogging initiative.

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