Active Involvement in Web 2.0 Still Low

New results show that a small percentage of users of so-called social computing or Web 2.0 sites get actively involved in directly contributing to the site. An article on vnunet.com summarizes the results. A key point that is made is that most of these sites, like YouTube, Flickr, and Wikipedia have huge numbers of people actually viewing them so if a relatively small percentage of them contribute, that still accounts for some significant contribution numbers. However, it is important for those building Web 2.0 capabilities into the projects and products to keep these percentages in mind when tracking both passive and active interactions.

Fashion and Technology Meet

I've been seeing a trend toward technology companies focusing more on great design - in fact fashionable design. Geeks of Doom has an article that points out that electronics giant Philips and crystal company Swarovski are collaborating on a line of fashionable tech accessories called Active Crystals. So far, the Active Crystals line has unveiled four sets of headphones of polished silver metal embedded with crystals: Space, Icon, Amazone (in-ear headphones), and Mirage is of the (ear hook headphones). See the "read more" link below for more information.

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Intelligent Designs: Edward Tufte Champions Truth and Beauty in Analytical Design

When information needs to be communicated, Edward Tufte demands both truth and beauty. He is the father of analytical design and a visionary in driving for optimal integration of purposefulness and aesthetics in design. Fran Smith has written a very good summary of Tufte's history, work, and influence. See the "read more" link below for the Stanford Magazine story.

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Everything you ever wanted to know about AJAX but were afraid to ask...

This aims to be the simplest possible AJAX example, using only static HTML files. Examples can be tried on the website, or downloaded and run locally. First, there is a (short) explanation on the DOM, then on the XML HTTP Request Object and finally the two are combined to make AJAX. A more useful example with a PHP-driven backend is also available.



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Palm Hires iPhone Designer

I find it interesting and heartening that designers are seen as critical and central to a company's future success. The article below reports that the key iPhone designer was hired by competitor Palm in the hopes that Palm may be able to come up with a design as good or perhaps better than the amazing iPhone one. Quite apart from the details of this particular story, it is interesting how important design has become.



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