Chris M.'s Comments

UX of Social Media Sites by Will Evans

Jul 23, 2008 | rating: 9.6 | comments: 219

Chris M. Jul 23, 2008, 11:40am EDT

There are things that I really like about this release. But I think Gather has made a mistake doing away with the featured/popular content on the homepage. The homepage served as the "commons" that brought the community together and helped everyone find the "conversation". I always thought it could have been done better, but it served the purpose at least of pointing you to the one article that everyone was talking about that day - which was nice to know.

I remember well our passionate debates early on on devonshire (i'm the "chris" mentioned in the posting) about non-logged-in homepage vs. logged-in homepage. And I will say this: I think this release has vastly improved the logged-in homepage. It's a little-known fact that gather was one of the first social networks to rock the "friend feed" concept - before facebook in fact. It got buried for a few releases but now it is back in on center stage and i think that's the right place for it. For connected, active users, it shows them a lot of what they want to know in a single glance (it's how i found this article). It's highly usable.

On the other hand. The new non-logged-in homepage. How to begin. There are a lot of competing interests that converge on homepage design. The need to explain the site to new users is an important one. I think that's the one that won out over all others here.

But I always argued for a blog-like experience on the homepage. A compact with casual users still tasting gather that said, you can come back here several times a day and easily see the new, good stuff that's been posted - with just one page view. That's where the single-list, reverse-cron visual/info metaphor of blogging is so nice. I think it would have worked well for the homepage, but I don't think it was ever tried. Various techniques could have been used to pick what the articles were - full-on editorial control (the "mullet" approach that youtube and myspace use - "business up front, party in the back"), popularity, digg-like voting, rating, self-chosen (a "publish this to homepage" checkbox on article publish) with editorial flagging - but the essential point is, you have a way to engage onramping users and a way for existing or returning users to see at a glance what's hot that day (and in the case of reverse-cron to "catch up").

Ice/Vanilla Ice is essentially the Facebookization of Gather, at least in terms of homepage/"my homepage" design. Similar to Ice, Facebook's homepage is bare of dynamic content and its logged in homepage is dominated by the friend feed (even more so with Facebook's recent redesign).

Burying and misnaming gather's rich Publishing functionality is an obvious misstep and easy to fix. Facebook's subnav shows how easy it can be ("Add Photos/Add Video/Write Note" - plain language, natch).

So Facebook is a huge influence on this release. Yet I think that many of the problems highlighted in this thread are happening because Gather is a different kind of social network than Facebook. Gather has always been first and foremost about publishing your own writing to a broad audience, whereas Facebook is first and foremost about connecting with friends you already know offline. And with this new redesign, it's no longer clear that Gather offers a compelling way to reach a broad audience with one's writing. Homepage placement was a crucial prize to strive for, an essential reward that drove a lot of the "game" dynamics on Gather. It concentrated all Gather's users' attention in one place, creating huge value for a writer. By taking it away, Gather's really become a less compelling place to "Share" your stuff.

From Wellington to Cambridge: Buying local in a globalized world by Amy Todd

Jan 16, 2007 | rating: 8.3 | comments: 11

Chris M. Jan 30, 2007, 1:51am EST

on food miles. an interesting thing i read (can't remember where) was that a surprisingly large proportion of the carbon emitted by transporting food from foreign places to our homes comes after the ship hits the shore. i.e. local transport to distribution centers, then to supermarkets, then in our cars to our homes, and the carbon costs of refridgeration through all that. if i recall correctly, it was well over 50%. At some point that reduces the importance of carbon costs associated with long-distance shipping. Anyone got hard facts on that?

Another interesting dimension to this is that the enlightened search for local produce generally takes the buyer further from their home - eg to the farmer's market in the suburbs or the local whole foods. since there are fewer of these, ipso facto we travel on average further to get to them. so the net carbon gain from eating local produce is at question, at least in these times. of course this is a factor that would slowly disappear if _all_ produce sold was locally produced.

and i will bring up the "pro-globalisation" argument that "buy locally" is hard to distinguish from the protectionist trade policies that the rich world likes to use to take business away from poor farmers in other countries. spending our upper-middle class dollars in foreign markets where they can go into the pockets of the poor seems like one of the more sustainable forms of foreign aid.

i agree that carbon is a serious issue for the world at large over the next decades and centuries - however no plan to limit its release into the air will succeed that doesn't account for the need of developing countries to increase trade outside their borders.

Your Comments on Commenting, Please by Tom Gerace

Nov 29, 2006 | rating: 9.8 | comments: 192

Chris M. Nov 29, 2006, 10:02pm EST

92 comments! What an awesome community this has shaped into. Very few blogs, even popular ones, get 92 comments on a post.

The time might be right for a comment-rating system (like slashdot´s, which gets large numbers of comments, and which essentialy works on a thumbsup or thumbsdown basis). Filter out low-rated comments by default. This would make it easier to get a gist of the response to an article as opposed to having to wade through 92 comments looking for the gems. It would also let the community vote down offensive comments, removing them from most people´s view while avoiding the risk of the author selectively censoring voices she or he didn´t agree with.

How I Got Milk Can by Carol Edelstein

Mar 15, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 2

Chris M. Mar 16, 2006, 3:10pm EST

lovely story/memoir(?) Carol. Poses some gorgeous questions and goes in bold, unexpected directions!

A Photo by Tom Gerace

Mar 10, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 1

Chris M. Mar 15, 2006, 1:30pm EST

o m g

this puts it all over the top. i need to head to Cambridge Street right quick.

A Photo by Tom Gerace

Mar 10, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 2

Chris M. Mar 15, 2006, 1:27pm EST

these are all lovely ...

Honey, What's on the Mini Tonight? by Tom Gerace

Mar 10, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 11

Chris M. Mar 13, 2006, 11:24am EST

An internet-tv entrepeneur once told me (awhile ago) that the broadcasters were resisiting the switch to online because they believed the main way they had of getting viewers hooked on a new show was to schedule it directly after a popular show.

Seems even in the 800-channel world people still tend to just stay locked more often than not. And one-off downloads without ads didn't offer that kind of tie-in.

iTunes-style downloading basically challenges their entire marketing concept and big companies like that aren't so good at coming up with radical reconsiderations of their fundamental business processes. At least, so said the internet tv entrepreneur, several years ago.

Have things changed? Have the networks begun experimenting with new ways of getting people interested in new shows? Would a preview tacked onto the end of each program be as effective as the blanket new-show ad saturation we all receive, even from "no-commercial" channels like HBO (Big Love, anyone?)

All I can say is, I freakin' hope so. Imagine digg, delicious, youtube and all the other hot new collaborative filtering tech on your tv, with a click off the homepage leading not to a cool page but to a cool 90-minute HD program...

Octacube: Hyper Scultpure by Will Evans

Mar 7, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 4

Chris M. Mar 8, 2006, 12:17am EST

sweet dude. gather misses you. and i don't care whether American Idol's Ace Young is gay.

Mar 6: Online Concert with Belle and Sebastian, The New Pornographers by Tommy C.

Mar 5, 2006 | comments: 2

Chris M. Mar 5, 2006, 11:57pm EST

Wow I hung out at the 9:30 club in 1982! I can't believe it's still around and still rocking. I would love to catch this show ... thanks for letting us know Tommy.

Vanessa's Song by Maria Dawson

Mar 1, 2006 | rating: 8.8 | comments: 23

Chris M. Mar 1, 2006, 11:55am EST

Leon sounds hot

A Photo by Kitson Jazynka

Feb 28, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 6

Chris M. Mar 1, 2006, 10:46am EST

handsome feller

Polls are for idiots by Kai Carver

Mar 1, 2006 | rating: 5.5 | comments: 3

Chris M. Mar 1, 2006, 10:43am EST

whoops fuxxored up my HTML: that big href is a link to The Mystery Pollster!!!

Polls are for idiots by Kai Carver

Mar 1, 2006 | rating: 5.5 | comments: 3

Chris M. Mar 1, 2006, 10:41am EST

kai, you should start a meta-poll blog that holds pollsters to account for their statistical shenanigans ... hm, though is pretty much already that, I should start reading it again. They have a big piece on the Iraq troop poll! It includes the lovely line "Unfortunately, the ground rules for our conversation prevent me from sharing much of what [Zogby] told me."

A Photo by Maria Dawson

Feb 26, 2006 | rating: 6.8 | comments: 5

Chris M. Feb 27, 2006, 3:24pm EST

I like it. I can feel the pathos.

Anyone who rated this picture under a 5: you are officially a hate-rater :)

Peterson Field Guides Note of the Week -- Eastern Gray Squirrel by Peterson Field Guides

Feb 23, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 3

Chris M. Feb 23, 2006, 3:38pm EST

lovely article. I love squirrels too. But one nuisance factor you don't mention here is the great damage they can do to our homes when they decide to play house in our rafters and walls. And I can speak from experience in saying they are extremely hard to evict.

A Photo by Marie B.

Feb 18, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 2

Chris M. Feb 22, 2006, 4:05pm EST

i love this. it makes me think about how we are all forever trapped by our instincts and inherent limitations of our intelligence, no matter how much knowledge we acquire...

A Photo by David Cooperstein

Feb 16, 2006 | rating: 9.5 | comments: 5

Chris M. Feb 22, 2006, 11:28am EST

Who's Esther Williams!? This is a cool picture, I can't tell what era it's from ...

A Photo by Susan M.

Feb 17, 2006 | rating: 9.5 | comments: 7

Chris M. Feb 18, 2006, 12:08pm EST

sweet!

Small World Story by John B.

Feb 16, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 5

Chris M. Feb 17, 2006, 10:34pm EST

I sometimes think the world seems small only because often when we leave the place we live, when we arrive at our destination we seek out people like ourselves. The set of people who travel is already comparatively tiny, confined as it is to the world's wealthy. And if we travel enough, we are bound to run into someone from our hometown ... it almost seems easier to do it foreign countries. How many people from Boston did I meet the year I lived in Paris? Many. Some of them even knew people I knew. I even ran into a close college friend I hadn't seen since graduation. Where? A Sonic Youth concert. We both gravitated there, as we also gravitated to other ex-patriates, because it comforted us.

Gather, Web 2.0 Goodness, Collaborative Memespace (TM). by Will Evans

Feb 15, 2006 | rating: 10 | comments: 2

Chris M. Feb 16, 2006, 5:54pm EST

we miss ya big guy.

and that's web 2.0 awesomeness to you