A while back a UX blogger Dustin Curtis blogged about how bad the American Airlines website was designed. An employee of AA.com left a response and was immediately fired.

I think the whole incident is an example of social media, the internet and the blurring of lines between one's personal and professional life colliding. It also exemplifies the clash between traditional corporate culture clashing with the new paradigms.

I was also interested in Dustin Curtis mention of the "diversity" sites AA.com hosts.
I think this is probably one of the most egregious misunderstandings organizations take when they consider targeted media. Somehow, someone at AA imagined that African-Americans, women, gays (and probably Latinos too) have such different travel needs they require their own websites.

As a bona fide "minority" (I am Latina), I find this completely offensive. No matter how well intended it was.

I'm glad someone is bringing this discussion to the table.

Posted by aynne at 12:59 PM | Permalink

I am a murderer.

I killed my time-sucking and misery provoking internet stuff this weekend.

In one swift and deliberate "delete" I killed Facebook.

In one graceful curve Twitter was removed from my existence

LastFM went down next

I am still considering death to Flickr but I may just set everything to my eyes only instead because it does offer a nifty service I need.

Why? Because while I have no problem expressing myself on the internet, I don't like the subjectiveness of it all. I have had too many people take photos, information and other scattered internet memorabilia taken out of context and I don't want to leave perception open to interpretation.

I wonder if my personal cooling trend towards social networking is just me getting old and tired of it or if it signals an overall trend amongst those of us in the forefront of Social Networking.

And everyday, I like the idea more and more that if someone wants to know about me and what I am doing - they should ask me. Face to face. I don't bite.

Posted by aynne at 02:28 PM | Permalink

The fruits of my iPhone Dev Camp contribution to the world...

location based
intuitive
ambient
multi directional
subjective
activity wayfinder

Posted by aynne at 03:18 PM | Permalink

Extending our senses

Urban Atmospheres
Elizabeth Goodman (UC Berkeley)
Designing Alternate Location Systems
Alternate ways of making tracking systems visible.

Example:
RFID, FastTrak, LoJack, Runners, Disney Phone

Wireless beacons

Precision and reliability in data gathering.
Privacy

Alternate constraints can create exciting new design territory.
Compact representation of complex data.

Mobile User Experience team
Paul Adams, Google –
Social Map –

SMS used to avoid awkward conversations

Need to think about broad conversation

How, when and where people choose different communications tools.
Context? Or the people communicating with.
How big are people’s social networks and how did they evolve?

Stop Self- referential design

Most of the time –
You are not designing for you, your friends or people like you

Making Social Maps:
Layer One - People and Groups
People tell you all the people in their social life and let the user group them together on a large piece of paper.

Layer Two - Them across (in a different color post-it) show how they communicate with that person or group of people.

Layer 4 Sharing -

Layer 5 - Mapping actual behavior
have them bring the phone and find out who last 5 SMS and 5 Voicemails were from

Layer 6 Sticky dots - (blue dot who is on Facebook, MySpace, etc...) very rare for any one group to have all the same networks.

Close contacts
Loose contacts
Ambient contacts
Indirect contacts

Posted by aynne at 05:21 PM | Permalink

This is pretty cool..
a company called imagini has personality profiles. The quiz process is great.

Posted by aynne at 01:31 PM | Permalink

People search engines have breeched any sense of personal privacy.
I think the worst part of it is the limited ability of the person who's information is being shared to the public at large.

Spock ( www.spock.com)

Wink ( www.wink.com)

Zoominfo ( www.zoominfo.com)

Posted by aynne at 05:52 PM | Permalink

This is an interesting article on how kids from more affluent areas use Facebook while kids from working class schools are using MySpace
Class War: MySpace vs. Facebook

Posted by aynne at 06:37 PM | Permalink

I am on:
Facebook
Flickr
and
My Space
I love me some social networking and not just because it is my job to do so.

Posted by aynne at 07:02 PM | Permalink

The project I worked on this Summer at Domus Academy in Milan has been posted on the Domus Project website.
This is the Domus Academy Project site: http://projects.domusacademy.net/

The course was tangible electronic tools and the course project brief was all around mobility and social networking. The aspect I chose to explore was Media Expression. How one expresses oneself in blogs or to others.

I think our project got slightly tangential however (which is okay) and instead of doing a deep dive on mobility concerning blogging, our project took a slight detour into phatic communications.

The concept we came up with was called Momento. It is a small device that enables one to find others based on their profile information - it will find people who match you and point them out like a compass.

If you like a person you can appoint them your "north" on the compass.

I was pleased with Momento overall - but I think I would like to explore another project around physical community and technology rather than virtual communities.

I plan to start working on a concept that expands around the display unit featured in Momento.
In fact, I think it might be a good project to propose for Octavia Green.

Posted by aynne at 01:33 PM | Permalink

What makes a community thrive and what dooms it to failure?

In my career to help in designing communities and sorting out what things people would like.

I spend a great deal of time on these social networking sites, researching them and considering what makes them successful or "ghost ships".

I think there are two keys to successful community.

1. One is what I call the Beach Ball theory.

In a crowded concert or anywhere there is a mass of people who are likely to get bored and disengage.
The challenge of building thriving online communities and social networks is to find the "beach ball" that will engage potential users.

Giving them something to do, to rally around while they bide time waiting to connect with others. Points of conversation work effectively in the social network sites I audited. For example starting conversational strings for users to provide short, quippy answers. Allowing users to monitor activity on their profile.

more later....

2. The Other is the ultimate goal of true human interaction.
Most online communities at one point or another lcoalize to the point where the users wish to "meet-up" face to face in smaller, more specialized groups.

Posted by aynne at 05:55 AM | Permalink