If you like feel free to comment on what you like or don’t like, and please add links to research that could be relevant: What works and what does not.

I’m adding each screenshot as a thumbnail here and linked to a separate page that is open for comments.

Carreerbuilder.com (link to job)

JobsInHubs.com http://www.jobsinhubs.com/jobsinhubs/

and the confirmation from JobsInHubs :

Jobzonen.dk(link to job)

Monster.com http://jobview.monster.com/GetJob.aspx?JobID=67576101

and the confirmation from Monster:

Stepstone.dk (link to job)

manpower.se (link to job)

Technorati Tags: user interface, ui, examples, screenshots, send to friend, email, email friend

The new innovative improvements to Google Maps… View the demo video (it’s just a few minutes):Via Jacob Hage’s blog.

My favorite is the drag-and-drop replanning of routes. Danish competitors are lightyears behind here…

If you have not seen it: Check out Douglas Merril (CIO at Google) talk about innovation at Google. I have embedded video here below.

He is a very entertaining speaker. Seems like he has given this talk many times…
What are your favorite quotes?

Bonus article: Thomas Baekdal discussing the ever present issue security vs usability: The usability of passwords.

Technorati Tags: google, cio, innovation, maps, route planning, baekdal, security, usability, passwords

Cameron Moll: 10 things I learned in 6 months (Nov, 2005):

6. Say ‘no’ as often as you say ‘yes’. [...] Realize that every project you say ‘yes’ to inevitably locks up time that may or may not be better spent elsewhere in terms of project revenue, portfolio depth, and overall work satisfaction.

I’d like to get better at this: Saying ‘no’ is a chance to boost productivity in more important areas. I recently heard about a project we were asked to assist on, where one of the project developers had difficulties saying “no” to new requirements, new ideas. This meant that he never could find time to focus and finish on some parts of the product. We were asked to go in and assist … and I believe that the most important place to assist was to say “no” to new requirements. To give the developers peace and quiet working conditions.

Also worth a mention is number 4. Avoid monday deadlines (to avoid weekend working hours)

Technorati Tags: cameronmoll, productivity, requirements, focus

28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online

Folksonomies are spreading. A survey from December 2006 has found that 28% of internet users in the US have tagged or categorized content online, such as photos, news stories or blog posts. On a typical day, 7% of the users say they tag or categorize online content.

Taggers are classic early adopters. They are likely to be under 40 and have higher levels of education and income.

The survey was carried out by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Report on the tagging survey 

Actually it’s a very interesting report. Some interesting findings:

• Almost the same fraction of men and women are tagging content online — spread between men/women are only 29%/27%.
• The guy that invented the decimal system (used to categorize books) was Melvin Dewey — which might explain why Microsoft’s alternative search engine is named Ms Dewey.
• Dewey related “pets” in the technology category (under 600 technology > 630 agriculture and related technologies > 636 animal husbandry > 636.7 dogs). Not necessarily a logical place to search for it today unless you fully understand the Dewey decimal number system.

Also the report includes an interview with David Weinberger with some brilliant example on how tagging adds value to websites and web users as a whole:

There’s an altruistic appeal to tagging as well. Tagging at public sites can give you a sense that
you’re adding to a shared stream of knowledge. At del.icio.us, or other such sites, tag a page
“robotics” and you know that it’s automatically added to the list of pages tagged that way, so
anyone else interested in that topic can find it.

Q: So, there are benefits beyond the individual.

Weinberger: Absolutely. Maybe the most interesting thing about tagging is that we now have
millions and millions of people who are saying, in public, what they think pages and images are
about. That’s crucial information that we can use to pull together new ideas and information
across the endless sea we’ve created for ourselves.

Technorati Tags: folksonomies, social, tagging, web2.0, content, photos, news, blogging, taggers, guuui, henrik olsen, david weinberger, report,

Mojiti’s ability to add comments to video content has impressed me. I must say that got completely carried away and wanted to know more about one of the articles used in Mike Wesch’s video “The Machine is us/using us” that I noted yesterday. Luckily somebody already put a comment with a reference to the article, which, it turns out is a 2005 article from Wired.

Here are the quotes pulled out for the video “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us” at the point where he’s referring to the 2005 article We are the web. Here is the transcript of the text bits that are pulled from the article to create new sentences:

We are the web

When we post and then tag pictures
we are teaching the Machine

Each time we forge a link
we teach it an idea.

Think of the 100 billion times per day humans click on a web page

teaching the Machine

the Machine

By the way, this is a video version of the “cut-up technique” in poetry (besides from the fact that the words above are probably not chosen randomly):

Cut-up is performed by taking a finished and fully linear text (printed on paper) and cutting it in pieces with a few or single words on each piece. The resulting pieces are then rearranged into a new text. The rearranging of work often results in surprisingly innovative new phrases.

Watch video with comments below:

PS. I wanted to cite another part of We are the Web article. I’ve added a comment below to keep this post shorter.

Technorati Tags: video, mojiti, web2.0, cut-up, poetry

It’s a fantastic intro and eyeopener, and it makes me wonder, if it would be relevant to use at work with clients to give a short intro (because it contains a lot of things I may take for granted that people know).

Originally posted on YouTube. A higher quality version is available from Mojiti (with comments from viewers, actually). Michael Wesch encourages anybody to add comments on the Mojiti site.

In my search for a complete transcript, i stumbled upon a short resume of the final sentences of the movie:

At the end of the video, it points out that we have to rethink about a couple of things, many which i have been thinking about quite a bit as Web 2.0 is embedded into the enterprise-like issues of copyright, authorship, ethics, governance and privacy among others. The full list that professor Wesch lists as things we need to ‘rethink’ about is:

• copyright
• authorship
• identity
• ethics
• aesthetics
• rhetoric
• governance
• privacy
• commerce
• love
• family
• ourselves

Could anybody point me to a full transcript of this video?

Technorati Tags: web2.0, video, youtube, michael wesch, mojiti, transcript, social, copyright, authorship, privacy, ethics, identity, rhetoric, governance, family

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki digs into that phrase and gives excellent examples of how it can be used on the web. I wrote about it earlier after hearing James Surowiecki on MP3 from SxSW.

Two weeks ago, Boxes and Arrows (online magazine for information architecture) got into one of the gory details: Prediction markets. Surowiecki’s point is that prediction markets are more accurate than the prediction of experts. For instance, HP employees can bet on what they think product sales will be, and they’re better than HP’s internal predictions 3 out of four times.
From Alex Kirtland’s article on Boxes and Arrows about prediction markets:

[Prediction markets] need to make themselves relevant, attract the right types of traders, and teach people who are new to trading how to trade.

Several websites have taken on this daunting task with mixed success. These public prediction markets offer markets and contracts that cover a range of issues and events. They each have different functionality, and have designed their markets in different ways, but all are trying to solve the same problem: how to engage users to participate in these markets, and produce meaningful predictions.

What follows are some basic and general rules, gleaned from audits of these sites (with selected examples to help explain), about how to improve the communication and simplification of complex ideas about trading, and how to engage users, particularly when developing a prediction market.

Alex has lots of good examples in his in-depth review of several prediction markets/websites. Apart from Hollywood Stock Exchange (that Surowiecki also covers), there are examples such as Trendio, ProTrade, HSX, Smarkets, Inkling, CrowdIQ, NewsFutures, Yahoo! Tech Buzz Game and more.

The Boxes and Arrows article is also focused on what works in the user interface, which makes it an extremely valuable article.

HSX Trading Widget

The HSX trading widget is even simpler and allows for even greater flexibility. Mouse over the movie you want to buy and the widget pre-populates. Max quantity allows you to purchase the maximum allowed amount. If you already own shares in this movie, to sell all of them just sell max, and you never have to worry about remembering how many shares you already own.

Link to Alex Kirtland’s article on Boxes and Arrows about prediction markets

Link to my previous post “Wisdom of Crowds” with podcast MP3

Technorati Tags: james surowiecki, wisdom of crowds, psychology, prediction markets

First what NOT to do. Jakob Nielsen on weblog usability:

4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go

Many weblog authors seem to think it’s cool to write link anchors like: “some people think” or “there’s more here and here.” Remember one of the basics of the Web: Life is too short to click on an unknown. Tell people where they’re going and what they’ll find at the other end of the link.

Generally, you should provide predictive information in either the anchor text itself or the immediately surrounding words. You can also use link titles for supplementary information that doesn’t fit with your content. (To see a link title in action, mouse over the “link titles” link.)

Now look at this beauty from Joe Clark’s latest Alistapart article “To hell with WCAG2“:

Text version: “…according to many blog reports (Snook, Clagnut, Sitepoint, Kurafire)”

For me, that settles it: No reason ever to make non-descriptive links. Just do as Joe Clark. In my words:

• Always use descriptive links (and titles if necessary)
• If you link to multiple pages in same context, use a common denominator
• Example: “Others have previously written (X, Y, Z, and XX) about usability…”

Note also that Joe Clark has near-guru status on subjects such as accessibility and web standards.

Technorati Tags: blog usability, blogging, links, link, joe clark, jakob nielsen

Carson Workshops Summit happened yesterday in London. I was not in London but have previously attended Ryan Carson’s excellent workshops.

I’m really looking forward to this message that Ryan put on the webpage:

The summit was a smash success. Thank you to everyone who came along. We thought it’d be fun to give away all the podcasts of the talks, for those who couldn’t make it. Enjoy!

Jeremy Keith and Simon Willison has posted excellent notes from the summit. Thanks to everybody for sharing and contributing!

I’m still reading your notes and looking forward to the podcasts.

Simon Willison’s notes from the summit:

• Joshua Schachter, del.icio.us
• Cal Henderson, Flickr [slides]
• Tom Coates, Yahoo
• David Heinemeier Hansson, 37Signals
• Shaun Inman, Mint
• Andrew Shorten
• Ryan Carson , Carson Workshops
• Steffen Meschkat, Google

Jeremy Keith notes from The Future Of Web Apps Summit

• Joshua Schachter, del.icio.us
• Cal Henderson, Flickr [slides]
• Tom Coates, Yahoo
• David Heinemeier Hansson, 37Signals
• Shaun Inman, Mint
• Andrew Shorten
• Ryan Carson , Carson Workshops
• Steffen Meschkat, Google
• Panel discussion

I’ll update this post when the podcasts are available.

Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom
but sharing data is the first step toward community

This is why we decided to use this blog to share data with you. Recently we’ve posted about our November and December 2005 visitor statistics.

Origin of quote

A google search shows approx. 3.000 occurrences of this quote. Mandriva Linux use the quote on their page. Also some Powerpoint documents show up saying it originates from an IBM – On Demand Business Prodigy Advertisement. But before that, somebody must have said it, right?

Technorati Tags: video, ibm, linux, wisdom, community, quote