Watch this great Frontline film that raises many of today’s questions about technology and the internet. How competent are we really as multitasking our daily activities becomes the norm? How do we solve and embrace the growing short attention spans of students? Can virtual worlds and gaming allow us to connect with others or only alienate us further?
(Make sure to start on Chapter One by clicking on the yellow dots on the right)
I found this film very personal and intriguing as it connects to many aspects of my life. As millions of others, I cannot live without being connected at all times. It made me realize how just this morning I wake up and my iPhone is not next to me, I start going crazy looking for it as I have this insatiable need to check my emails and messages. A morning ritual that’s so second nature to me that never existed in my life a few years ago. I hope this documentary is an eye opener for everyone as it was for me. Technology is rapidly evolving and we are too, we just have to embrace it with an open mind and not let it take over.
I few days ago I joined Okcupid out of mere curiosity. I’ve heard about it from people and decided to use it as ‘research’ tool. One of it’s best features, their blog. They have in-depth studies about their user’s trends when it comes to dating and attracting each other. Take a look for yourself:
Hello, old friends. I am back from dark months of data mining, here now to present my ores. To write this piece, we cataloged over 7,000 photographs on OkCupid.com, analyzing three primary things:
Facial Attitude. Is the person smiling? Staring straight ahead? Doing that flirty lip-pursing thing?
Photo Context. Is there alcohol? Is there a pet? Is the photo outdoors? Is it in a bedroom?
Skin. How much skin is the person showing? How much face? How much breasts? How much ripped abs?
In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong. For interested readers, I explain our measurement process, and how we collected our data, at the end of the post. All my bar charts are zeroed on the average picture. Now to the data.
It seems like whenever I go out I spend half the time trying to communicate with friends, cutting down my partying time. This Halloween, I was overburdened trying to give directions to friends, comparing parties and trying to tweet for those far away (ahem, Jordan). It was the first time where I had half the conversations of the night looking down at my phone. It’s a tough situation because you’re always on the lookout for the next big thing, so you’re texting friends about directions. In the meantime your friends that are running late to the first party have to be informed that you’ve moved on and therefore will have to be given directions. It’s all one big chain. I feel this is a complex for people in big cities like New York. In other regions there might be one option for the night and all your friends are expected to be there. Twittering has solved some of these problems but not all my friends are on Twitter, so they still rely on one to one conversations. Google also has tried to solve this problem with a great app called Latitude. It works great if you can get your friends to sign up. Many feel it’s too intrusive, as it shows your location to all friends on a map. Social networking can solve this problem, it’s just a matter of deciding on one medium to communicate with all friends effectively, without having to text every 5 minutes.
One of my favorite sites, Last.fm is getting ready to roll out a new redesigned website. The new beta version of the site is looking very fresh. Imagine if Facebook and Last.fm got married and had kids, that is what the new site looks like. There is more emphasis in the music player and sharing of music with friends. All the information is more neatly organized and easier to find. The shoutbox has also been made bigger and placed at the bottom of all your charts, very similar to Facebook. And how can I forget the news feed ala Facebook style too.
Last.fm’s blog stated:
“Three main concepts driving the UI and feature development for this next-generation Last.fm are: play music, share music, and add music. We’ve focused on making these three things easier for everyone to enjoy, even your mum. You’ve probably noticed the robust new player at the top of every page—hopefully no more digging around for play buttons and radio stations, and music pages are re-positioned for sharing that music with a friend, or saving it to your library.”
The new design is looking very promising. It is still on its early stages and will go through many changes before it is released. Last.fm is also looking for user’s input to make it better, so make sure to check out the beta version once you log in to your account.
