Viral Marketing Strategy: my editor was sent a hand-written postcard with a URL (http://www.ramitin.co.uk). Lurking on the site is a 70s-style macho-car-porn-parody Quicktime video which you have to see to believe. Assumption: timeout.com editor will send it to influential media people, resulting in full press saturation in two-to-three weeks, and a first full feature for the director within six months. We shall see if it is successful.
I’m completely astonished by Meg‘s ability to take hundreds of unflattering photos of everyone she meets, and yet never put the ones of herself on the web.
Last night was possibly the largest meeting of UK webloggers to date. There were over twenty people present, most of them drunk. Particular “heys” go out to Matt, Darren, Matt and Davo.
I’m really tempted to apply for this job as Information Architect. It looks terrifying and challenging. It is possibly just out of my league though.
Altavista.com has a substantial list of articles about weblogging, which should be read by anyone who is interested in starting one. There’s a whole range of material, from definitions (also: 1), instruction manuals and columns (also: 1, 2, 3) to manifestos, FAQs and interviews / features (also: 1). There’s something here for everyone.
I’m quite interested in finding (or creating) a directory of articles about weblogs and weblogging. If anyone knows of any other interesting links, let me know.
I’m contemplating installing Seti@home on my Mac at work and leaving it on over weekends and evenings, having read computer.org’s piece “SETI@home:
Massively Distributed Computing for SETI”. I used to have it installed on my old PC, but my fascination waned a few months ago. I started wondering when we might start to see some results – even if they were all negative. Then I stumbled upon an article on Wired.com: “Seti: Is Anybody Out There?”, that reignited my hope. And now this new article… Well it’s too good to resist.
A while ago I recounted the story of the day before Christmas Eve, when my mother suddenly presented me with a picture of my father. I hadn’t seen him, or (to my knowledge) a picture of him since I was around four or five. Needless to say this came as a bit of a shock, even though I had mentioned to my mother in passing several months before that I didn’t remember what he looked like.
This feels a bit like cheap melodrama, but it’s probably one of the most important things lingering in my head at the moment, so I should probably share it with the world. Imagine my shock when I realised my father (bottom-right) was a big, baldy, 70s-style beardy-weirdy…
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An old site constructed by me that still has the power to amuse me, particularly as it reflects my interests of the time: Noah Wyle, Sean Lennon, Lard and lots of half naked men. Flashback to: Fragmentary Life.
Consider yourselves warned – the UK weblogging contingent are taking to the streets this coming Tuesday in what is being affectionately referred to at the moment as The Return of Vodka Jelly. All are welcome to attend.
Found unopened in Inbox (sent August 2000):
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So I’ve been reading this book called 72 dpi which contains some of the most startling pieces of web design work that I’ve ever seen plus a considerable amount of commentary which is slamming the conventions of user interface design (most notably the left-navigation or tab-based models that many sites operate with).
I’m not going to comment on the apparent sterility of corporate user interface design because I think there is a substantial case to be made for systems to be usability tested and to follow a few conventions of the medium as is rather than as it will be. But there is always a case for work that inspires you to challenge convention. So here are some of my picks from the book.
bionic systems, grayscale.net, kabeljau.ch, futurefarmers.com, designershock.com/de [via 72dpi: buy the book | 72-dpi.org | portable]