Uba Kontrovasie » Digital Planning

Building Web Reputation Systems

Dhiren — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 10:24:32 +0000

I started watching this video thinking it was something to do with sentiment monitoring, but it’s actually about leveraging the reputations of people within communities and correct use of voting mechanisms, in order to define reputation.

It’s rather long and key points are delivered after some tenuous examples, but it’s worth a watch as gives an insight into how “Like” culture may affect reputation and content.

What’s also interesting is how experience designers and UX specialists need to dutifully consider where and how voting systems are integrated into web applications. The addition of voting mechanisms to content platforms may get rejected if they’re surplus to requirements or change the purpose or culture of a platform.

Random Posts

Disk Space Analysis

Dhiren — Mon, 31 May 2010 23:14:02 +0000

I’ve had my Mac for just over two years and I’ve only got 56GB of disk space left. Today I went on the hunt for a disk space analyser—something to tell me what’s eating away at my disk space.

After some digging I found Daisy Disk.

To my surprise the application is amazing! It visually navigates you through sections of your hard disk, helping you to find any perpetrators that may be devouring precious space.

My collection of Gil Scott-Heron albums take up 1GB. The porker!

Similar ramblings:

Feltron Report 2009

Dhiren — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:38:16 +0000

For those not aware of Nicholas Feltron: he’s the chap that’s responsible for Daytum and a series of other information design projects.

Over 2009 Nicholas gave his friends, family and acquaintances forms to provide feedback on meetings with him. After collecting and processing all returned forms, Nicholas has produced a limited number of booklets to visualise the information:

Recently I’ve been working with lots of raw data, from multiple sources, making information design an integral part of my job. Taking data, turning it into information and making information universally comprehensible is one the most challenging tasks I’ve faced.

I’m learning practical things from the Feltron Report and other information designers such as David McCandless. I hope all of our reporting starts to resemble what Nicholas and David are doing because—in a industry full of crap and jargon—creative and concise communications help to build stronger relationships with clients.

(Guilty of using crap and jargon too )

Similar ramblings:

Beyond Facebook

Dhiren — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:09:56 +0000

Via Infomagination

Random Posts

Silverlightening

Dhiren — Sun, 30 May 2010 15:02:56 +0000

Microsoft came to see us the other day about the potential use of Silverlight and its Deep Zoom capabilities.

Admittedly, I’ve always perceived Silverlight as the underdog—that bites at Flash—but its adoption has substantially increased due to Windows Vista, 7 and the latest versions of IE. According to RIAS, Sliverlight now has 62% adoption in the UK:

This high adoption rate cancels any doubts about the potential reach of Silverlight-based applications.

I really like the rich, asynchronous user experience that Sliverlight-based RIA’s deliver. Vimeo has great examples of applications that utilise Photosynth and Deep Zoom:

Similar ramblings:

Dear Reader

Dhiren — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:48:17 +0000

Things have been quiet here lately and it’s because I’ve been busy. Not just with work, but fun stuff too!

I’ve been thinking a lot about this space recently and what I should do with it. This blog started out as a workey thing: a place to scribe my marketing thoughts and learn the mechanics behind having a voice online.

Since I started to write lots of good things have happened and I’ve also become aware of some very, very, smart people. These guys write ace blogs about planning, marketing and digital stuff. It doesn’t just stop with those four blogs and as some of you know the planning community is huge.

With so many great planning blogs already around I’ve decided to make this blog less of a workey thing. This will mean you won’t always get posts about digital geekery—so if this is why you subscribe I’d unsubscribe now.

I’m going to carry on feeding my links through to here, but the rest of my posts will now be about how I’m “intelligently wasting time”.

You may think my move is an act of laziness, but it’s not. I’m actually redirecting my blogging time to reading and DOING more STUFF

Photo props to pegnsean.

Similar ramblings:

Rose on Gowalla, Foursqaure and Geo-Stuff

Dhiren — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:31:27 +0000

Nothing new in this video, but he summaries things quite well. It’s also great to understand the data that we WILL have to play with soon.

Similar ramblings:

Some music trends (0)

The use of blogs as reflective tools

Dhiren — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:36:23 +0000

A little bit long and monotone, but interesting nonetheless.

Similar ramblings:

My traffic visualised

Dhiren — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:22:50 +0000

Inspired by Hans Rosling, I’ve mapped my 2008-09′ traffic using motion charts in Google Analytics. After purchasing Rosling’s DV software, Google has incorporated it into Google Analytics and Google Spreadsheets.

Bring on the sleepless nights of toying!

Similar ramblings:

If the walls could listen

Dhiren — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:18:47 +0000

Leah Buechley from MIT has been working on a project to create interactive wallpaper that uses low-tech materials to create an amazing display.

What I like about this project is how it utilises technologies such as bluetooth: a technology that I still think is underrated and under used. What if your mobile phone could automatically send a signal to the wallpaper, instructing it to change colour in accordance with your mood?

Throughout the day many people update their Facebook or Twitter statuses with either positive or negative posts discussing how they feel. Automated sentiment analysis already exists, all we would need is a mobile app that calculated your mood by analysing your day’s social network updates.

I’m on the hunt for interactive devices that use Twitter and Facebook in more useful ways. Last year those cats at Poke put together Baker Tweet using Arduino, it would be great to see more work like this next year.