American Airlines fires AA.com designer for reaching out to customer 1.) Graphic designer and blogger has bad experience with AA.com, 2.) Designer mocks up AA.com page design and blogs about it, 3.) AA.com UX designer emails blogger with info about challenges the AA.com web team faces, 4.) Blogger posts UX designer's response (anonymously), 5.) American Airlines figures out who UX designer is and fires him/her for talking. [more inside]
posted by tippiedog on Nov 17, 2009 - 158 comments

Aardvark is a Q&A chat service that tries find people to answer your questions among your friends, friends of friends and people who know something about your subject. In practice it's a bit like AskOmegle. [more inside]
posted by The Devil Tesla on Nov 8, 2009 - 38 comments

Making the Modern World presents a set of twisty little passages through the history of science and invention, from the eighteenth century to the contemporary era, brought to you by the UK's Science Museum.
posted by Miko on Nov 4, 2009 - 4 comments

Why do we have an IMG element?
posted by chunking express on Nov 3, 2009 - 84 comments

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google talks about what the web will look like in five years. The internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content... content will move towards more video... today's teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years.
posted by twoleftfeet on Oct 29, 2009 - 152 comments

Google began inviting volunteers to a public preview test of their new Wave web-based collaborative email and document communications platform yesterday, which enables users to "communicate and work together in real time." Initial reviews this past May seemed positive. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Oct 1, 2009 - 75 comments

Read Between the Leading, is a podcast for those with a love of good design and typography hosted by two students from SCAD. Season two just started with an interview with brand designer, David Airey, previous episodes of RBtL include discussions on information visualization, the future of web design with Jason Santa Maria (previously), speculative work and why graphic design is serious business (previously). [more inside]
posted by thebestsophist on Sep 21, 2009 - 3 comments

The Design Cubicle articles focus on design tips and resources on all subjects of design; ranging from print, web, logo, branding, advertising and marketing. Popular articles include 10 Common Typography Mistakes and understanding the importance of good type skills; and 12 Common Photoshop Mistakes and Malpractice. The strategies behind designing a successful and memorable logo involve a process which progresses through various stages of listening, research, development, feedback and changes. 11 Steps of a Successful Logo Design Process.
posted by netbros on Sep 19, 2009 - 4 comments

Love Helvetica and modernist typographic design? Seen the film? Now, with the power of browser userscripts, you can have the 20th-century high-modernist experience in your favourite web applications. Scripts exist to Helveticise Gmail, Twitter and Google Reader, and work with a variety of modern browsers. [more inside]
posted by acb on Sep 15, 2009 - 69 comments

Google Fast Flip: Newspaper Stand 2.0
posted by fatllama on Sep 15, 2009 - 34 comments

Joshua Green Allen, who has been posting great internet for more than 15 years, if not longer, merges seamlessly with a new technology. If any twitter account is worth being renowned far and wide for hilarity: His Is. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Aug 25, 2009 - 27 comments

Long form journalism on the Web is "not working." - TIME.com Managing Editor Josh Tyrangiel ..Among the detractors of this statement is David Sleight, Deputy Creative Director of BusinessWeek.com: "Really? It’s 2009 and we’re still having this conversation?" Scattered industry advice on this topic varies from moderate to extreme, and while web analytics paint a convincing picture of web readers, some wonder if long form journalism has EVER worked. Of course there seem to be other factors at play, like methods of presentation and quality of content.
posted by thisisdrew on Aug 25, 2009 - 36 comments

The brain's plasticity has some neuroscientists worried about what the internet will do to reading - and to humanity. [more inside]
posted by smoke on Aug 13, 2009 - 64 comments

I've just finished reading ____________. Type in the name of the book you've just finished, and The Book Seer will provide recommendations for your next read.
posted by plexi on Aug 9, 2009 - 68 comments

Yahoo!'s Christian Crumlish puts forward five principles of good social software design, and five anti-patterns, or ways to get it wrong. [more inside]
posted by acb on Aug 9, 2009 - 59 comments

SubPubHubbub The real-time web, manifested by services like Twitter and Friendfeed are all the rage these days. What happens if everything online could be real-time? It can, thanks to Google PubSubHub and their ongoing effort to add it to their products. [more inside]
posted by griffey on Aug 7, 2009 - 16 comments

Can a firefox extension extend rationality? Wherein intel labs attempt to add rationality to the web. Good freaking luck. [more inside]
posted by lumpenprole on Aug 6, 2009 - 34 comments

Internet Mapping Project l slide-showl more about it here. Please draw a map of the internet, as you see it. Indicate your "home". You can download a blank PDF here and email it to [Kevin Kelly] when done. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Jul 30, 2009 - 7 comments

A new type of newspaper for a new type of world One story from it previously. [more inside]
posted by msalt on Jul 24, 2009 - 43 comments

Maciej Ceglowski of Idlewords has made a new bookmarking service called pinboard. [more inside]
posted by chunking express on Jul 14, 2009 - 41 comments

"Text Utilities" is a useful browser-based tool for geeks. It's a web page that does all sorts of operations on text, e.g. escape/ unescape, hashing, regexp testing.
posted by grumblebee on Jun 24, 2009 - 33 comments

"So, basically I put a pop/historical figure into a funny job for their personality or whatever." "gets a job" is an ongoing webcomic series that explores what would happen if JAWS gets a job at an office, Mario gets a job as a plumber, and more.
posted by spiderskull on Jun 23, 2009 - 28 comments

Opera, the inventor of tabbed browsing who just won't quit, today released a trial version of Unite, a dramatic attempt to reverse the centralization of the web as well as Opera's own decreasing relevance in a market dominated by far larger companies [more inside]
posted by crayz on Jun 16, 2009 - 78 comments

With the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Thursday, China's ever-vigilant censors have stepped up the reach of the "Great Firewall," blocking Western sites like Twitter, Flickr, and (just one day after its launch) Microsoft's Bing. via [more inside]
posted by infini on Jun 3, 2009 - 54 comments

"When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism."The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online, a provocative article in the new Wired magazine, examines the effects of the growing influence of online collectivism. I thought this might make for an interesting read and discussion by members of an online community.
posted by Benny Andajetz on May 27, 2009 - 63 comments

Grabarz & Partner's website looks oddly familiar... A German ad agency, apparently they couldn't be bothered of thinking of something original so they ripped off an existing concept.
posted by GuyZero on May 20, 2009 - 62 comments

Readernaut. Share your reading experience by writing notes, tracking progress, and engaging in meaningful discussions with friends.
posted by chunking express on May 6, 2009 - 23 comments

John Gruber of Daring Fireball:

"My friend Merlin Mann and I had a session at SXSW Interactive about two weeks ago. It certainly wasn’t a panel, and it wasn’t really a presentation. It was more like an hour-long duet rant, the main goal of which was to inspire anyone who wants to publish or write on the web to pursue their obsessions in a serious way. We got the audio recording of the session from SXSW a few days ago, recorded short intro and outro segments, and Merlin spliced it together and has published it on his 43 Folders podcast. I encourage you to go ahead and listen to it."

Readability is a wonderful bookmarklet that strips away all the surrounding cruft on a page so you can focus on the content.
posted by jragon on Mar 3, 2009 - 35 comments

Circuits are flipping on in the nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago, 31 "digerati" -- like Clay Shirky, Chris Anderson, and George Oates -- dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference "Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age". Dan Cohen of the Center for History and New Media provides a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by watching the keynotes, paging through the Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on Twitter, listen to its podcasts, watch its YouTube channel, visit the Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers, Hope diamond, Negro Leagues baseball, or coelocanth.
posted by Miko on Feb 27, 2009 - 13 comments

Prepare to feel old: Quake III Arena came out nearly ten years ago. Prepare to feel young again: Quake Live can be played in your browser for free. The long-anticipated beta opened to the public yesterday. John Carmack says that they hope to be improving and polishing the game for the next decade. [more inside]
posted by Plutor on Feb 25, 2009 - 50 comments

I Hardly Know Her - is an "alternative way to view Flickr photostreams. It is designed to facilitate high quality viewing with minimal distractions." By Justin Ouellette, creator of Muxtape.
posted by nthdegx on Jan 27, 2009 - 52 comments

Global Museum is sort of a daily paper for the museum world. The site, which marked its tenth year in 2008, aggregates museum news, job listings, and links from around the world, helping readers stay up-to-date on issues and events like artifact repatriation, art theft and trade, archaeological discoveries, innovative programs, unusual museums, threats to collections from war and natural disasters, and plenty of stuff just for fun. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Jan 12, 2009 - 4 comments

The CSS Text Wrapper allows you to easily make HTML text wrap in shapes other than just a rectangle. You can make text wrap around curves, zig-zags, or whatever you want. All you have to do is draw the left and right edges, then copy the generated code to your web site. From the folks at The Idea Shower who brought us Read It Later.
posted by netbros on Dec 11, 2008 - 12 comments

The recent passing of Studs Terkel sparked a renewed interest in his interview projects, like Working, Race, and Hard Times. But Studs was not just a broadcaster who liked people; he was a practitioner of oral history, a method of gathering information about the past through preserving individual recollections. It's a subfield of history, with its own ethics, techniques, professional literature, uses, and limitations. Learn how to collect and share oral histories yourself, from interviewing to recording and getting clearances to preserving and disseminating. Oral histories have been preserved as text transcripts for decades; now digital media isreinvigorating the form, bringing new ease to recording and wider opportunities for the public to see and hear the content. Explore oral history projects on the web with stories of veterans, suffragists, Tibetans, jazz cats, Nevada nuclear test site witnesses, Basque Americans, rodeo cowboys and cowgirls, musicians, Katrina survivors, ACT UP activists, Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge, Native Americans, women whose lives were affected by the Pill, survivors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire,women in World War II, Hawai'ians, workers in Paterson, NJ....
posted by Miko on Dec 11, 2008 - 20 comments

EclipseCrossword is a powerful windows tool for automatically creating crossword puzzles. You can create multiple puzzles from the same word list; print the puzzles in assorted formats; or export interactive puzzles for web pages. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral on Dec 8, 2008 - 9 comments

Pattern Tap: an organized collection of web design ideas. [more inside]
posted by signal on Nov 29, 2008 - 8 comments

KVETCH : Am I venting or not?
posted by boo_radley on Nov 19, 2008 - 31 comments

Jerry Yang, founder and CEO of Yahoo, has stepped down. He recently turned down a $31 a share offer from Microsoft, and with Yahoo shares hovering around $10, some say he was forced out.
posted by plexi on Nov 18, 2008 - 27 comments

Happy World Usability Day. Download the poster. Take the global transport challenge. Get involved in a local event. Not sure what usability is? These guys can tell you. Usability principals are being applied not only to websites, but to increase the level of accessibility in all facets of life including voting, product development, and how we talk to one another. You're on your own to improve your own usability, though.
posted by angry jonny on Nov 13, 2008 - 21 comments

GenderAnalyzer will look at a blog and attempt to determine whether it was written by a man or a woman.
posted by jbickers on Nov 4, 2008 - 43 comments

A novel youtube page promoting Nintendo's latest platform game. The page itself adds context as the video progresses.
posted by nthdegx on Oct 8, 2008 - 24 comments

Omeka is a newly available, open-source web platform, bringing good-looking, functional online exhibitry within reach of smaller museums, libraries, and arts groups. From the Center for History and New Media.
posted by Miko on Sep 10, 2008 - 10 comments

Needs. More. Cowbell. Morecowbell takes any MP3 file and adds synchronized cowbell along with random Christopher Walken clips. For example, David Bowie or Coldplay.
posted by GuyZero on Sep 10, 2008 - 95 comments

Despite his carefully cultivated “maverick” image, McCain is playing it traditional and conservative by using HTML 4.01, the W3C spec from 1999.
posted by finite on Sep 9, 2008 - 57 comments

Who needs Photoshop when you can have Pixlr ? [more inside]
posted by sgt.serenity on Aug 23, 2008 - 64 comments

So apostrophree corrects these kinds of errors before people see them, preventing employees from spending time posting corrections and engaging in online flame wars about English usage?
posted by blasdelf on Aug 12, 2008 - 94 comments

Aurora is a concept video exploring one possible future user experience for the Web.
posted by plexi on Aug 8, 2008 - 37 comments

Anthropologists in the digital domain tend to be a day late and a dollar short as far as us early adopters are concerned, but Michael Wesch managed to capture the popular imagination with his YouTube video, The Machine is Us/ing Us. He recently gave a presentation to the Library of Congress titled An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube in which he talks about the best of the web (not to be confused with The Best of The Web.)
posted by PeterMcDermott on Aug 4, 2008 - 29 comments

Mapping Iran's Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere. [more inside]
posted by chunking express on Jun 5, 2008 - 4 comments