April 24, 2008 | Archived in Links |
April 8, 2008 | Archived in Links |
During the 2008 IA Summit in Las Vegas, I recorded a series of short video interviews with some of my colleagues for Boxes and Arrows. The resulting story — Meet Your Peers — has been published, just in time for this year’s IA Summit.
The article has a very unique structure: in order to give the impression of meeting all these people at the same event (as happens in the Summits), all the interviews are grouped together in the same page. I’m excited about the effect this creates, but somewhat concerned about the impact on the user experience when loading the page. (It takes a bit more time to load than is usual.)
Anyways, I hope you enjoy the interviews, and look forward to seeing you at the Summit!
April 8, 2008 | Archived in Random Notes | Comment
March 28, 2008 | Archived in Links |
March 26, 2008 | Archived in Links |
March 22, 2008 | Archived in Links |
March 13, 2008 | Archived in Links |
Entrepreneur Loic Le Meur thinks global. His recent guest post in Techcrunch provides suggestions for startups that includes “Think global as you create the business”, “Hire people from all nationalities as much as possible”, and “Make a site that is language-ready from day one, even if you launch in English”. Seems like enlightened advice, given that so much new content on the web is still targeted exclusively to US (or at least, English-speaking) audiences. While it is understandable that some sites — like mint.com, that must interact directly with banks — remain US-only at launch, it is disheartening when even services that have been successful for years refuse to open up to the global marketplace (37signals, I’m looking at you).
This phenomenon is perhaps most annoying when dealing with media properties, which could clearly benefit from added exposure, and which seem deeply invested in the old broadcast model of distribution. To whit, this is what I get when I try to watch my favorite TV show (_House_) in the newly launched Hulu service:
There are no technical reasons for this; it seems like an entirely marketing-driven restriction, carried over from a world in which geography and distribution were intimately tied.
Culture (pop and otherwise) has been one of the US’s main exports during the past century, and it is an important part of continued American influence around the world. As more of our media usage moves online, this stubborn insistence on limiting distribution by geography is likely to curtail that influence. Putting up artificial borders around cultural artifacts to satisfy old-school business models seems as smart as setting the speed limit at 30 mph to keep the horse-carriages safe from automobiles.
March 13, 2008 | Archived in Globalization | Comment
I’ve posted before about the 2008 IA Summit which will be held in Miami, Florida from 10-14 April. Miami is a major point of entry to the United States, which makes it a very convenient meeting point for many people traveling from abroad, especially those coming from Latin America.
The IA Institute has obtained a special discount with Copa Airlines of 20% of the airfare to Miami for registered Summit participants. To use the discount, passengers must go to their nearest Copa Airlines ticketing office and present discount code D01818, as well as proof of participation in the Summit (e.g. registration letter). The discount is valid for travel to Miami (and back) between 5-19 April, and cannot be applied on top of other promotions.
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