NPR has a really well put together survey right now about the use of Facebook and other new media tools to access their news. What I like about it is that it asks your user habit, interaction preference, and just the basic demographics. It gives you the sense that they care about your privacy (although being so careful means that they aren’t the first movers in the latest social media trends).
If you’re an NPR fan, follow them on Facebook, Twitter, the web or radio, it’s definitely worth the three minutes to fill it out and give your feedback.
I suggested adding the Facebook “Like” button to their web posts because it’s a great passive way to share their stories without being invasive on someone’s wall or requiring them to include a comment about it, as Facebook links often require (or so it feels).
I’m curious to see what the results are. If they post it, I’ll be sure to include it here as an update.
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The New York Times has a different kind of interactive infographic (information graphic) these days. And I like it because it’s a departure from what we’ve come to expect of visualized information in the last couple of years.
While modern infographics have become useful tools, many are two dimensional and only capture a singular moment in time.
The interactive above (click the image to see it live on the New York Times site) visualizes the Facebook buzz around the World Cup in South Africa using photos of the players themselves who are widely talked about.
Scrub across the timeline and you can see how the conversation flows between these players and their countries.
Infographics have quickly transformed the way that we communicate raw, boring data. Gone are the yesteryears of piecharts and graphs. But in the short time that the modern infographic has taken storm on sites such as GOOD, the visual format is becoming stale.
This is partly because there are so many people visualizing information now, and also because the speed of information allows us to create and share content so virally that there’s an over-saturation of visualizing any data. In fact, because data is processed so fast thanks to modern technology, the information on an infographic yesterday can be dramatically different than one created today, as can be visualized in the interactive above.
The challenge is in thinking of a unique visual, then having the resources – particularly time and talent – to create them before the data becomes out-dated. Or as the New York times did, create one that takes you across time so your information doesn’t get old, but rather builds a unique story beyond the sheer number of data points that individually, are meaningless snapshots.
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I’m a sucker for anything that transforms traditional ways of thinking into novel, interactive and beautiful design.
Diacarta — a visual calendaring app — is one such tool. To quote @raymondpirouz‘s description on Twitter, Diacarta is:
An iPhone calendaring app that uses iconography to visually segment the day’s events
In short, Diacarta takes the traditional horizontal timetable of the likes of Outlook and Google Calendar and visualizes it on an analog clock. You create activities by selecting one of nearly 60 icons, then dragging the event to a selected hour during the day.
Single-tapping allows you to view the event details, while double tapping on a scheduled icon allows you to edit the details.
I’m impressed with the unique approach to calendaring. What I like most about the idea of this sort of calendaring is that I’m able to visualize my day as I’ve learned to tell time. It’s much more intuitive than a time-stamped entry on a list in Outlook. Just like the planets move in a circular motion, so does time around a clock. Even digital clocks have a 12-hour (or 24-hour) cycle, although you only see the present moment.
Another benefit for such a visualization is that I can observe and get a different perspective of how I use my time as a fraction of a 12-hour day (currently you can only see 12-hour increments, which makes sense given the way a clock is designed). And because of the visual nature and my need to see that I actually fill my day with meaningful tasks, I find that I’ve scheduled my commute, sleep and even meal times.
Given these benefits, there’s definitely room to grow for this app. Here are some ideas, although I’m sure some of these functions are planned for version 2:
Three big ticket items would really push Diacarta — or any calendaring item for that matter — over the top of the innovation curve:
Diacarta is available from iTunes [link opens iTunes] for $1.99.
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A recent post at BusinessInsider reads “One huge bummer about e-books: No one can see how smart you are“, citing that publishers find the transition to e-books the beginning of the end for them, as well as retail bookstores. The reasons cited in the article appear to be two-fold:
The real bummer here is that book publishers are not seizing the opportunity to transition a reader’s behaviour to “show-off” from their intimate living rooms to “sharing” on the vast Social Web. The two reasons above are simply excuses that will likely fail at buying traditional publishers time.
Book publishers and sellers alike could instead be spending their efforts addressing the demise of the printed book (glass half empty)… or rather, the rise of the e-book (glass half full).
Cover art is dead?
Far from it, in fact. Cover art is now more important than ever. With e-book readers like the Kindle and iPad, publishers have the opportunity take a single image, and create a dynamic cover that gives a potential readers more than a singular visual impression.
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UC Irvine hosted a budget write-in this week and I can’t imagine why we’re still putting pen to paper.
While delivering letters in bulk to our state legislators is much more civil and respectful than the protests and disobedience that have been observed around UC campuses this past month, aren’t there more innovative, collaborative and effective ways in which to communicate our dismay with the state of the State and University?
After all, isn’t the University of California the top public institution in the world? Don’t we produce Nobel Prize winners and Fulbright Scholars, life-saving research and game-changing technology?
Advice to UC students. Take what you know best — Facebook, YouTube, Twitter — and turn it into a campaign that legislators can’t ignore, toss aside, or hand to an aide to craft a scripted response.
The write-in would have been a good opportunity for student leaders to flip out their mobile phones and interview each other about the personal impact the fee hike will have on them come the new academic year. It was a chance for students to plead their hardships, share their personal stories, and talk about their needs… and to tell their stories through a new medium to legislators and public citizens alike.
If just a 1,000 students from each campus joined a Facebook fan page or custom website that integrates Facebook Connect (or the like) and allow students to voice their concerns online – that would be a collective power of 10,000 voices telling their story to the public. The public and media can then help pay it forward and tell tens of thousands of other people how devastating the fee hikes are.
A letter only goes to one person, and your voice may or may not ever be heard. But new media content can be shared, redistributed, repackaged, emailed, linked, tweeted… The same effort put into a letter can be put into a message that has the potential to be heard across the world.
And all it takes it the one story that becomes viral. The one story that tugs at the hearts of the voters of California, the philanthropist across the globe, and the legislator who votes on the UC budget.
How about a video profile of how much it costs to be a bio major: How much are your textbooks? What additional lab fees do you pay? And how are you able to afford the expensive rent around Westwood, Irvine, Santa Barbara?
Letter-writing campaigns didn’t even work in my time as a UCSA Legislative Affairs member or ASUCD External Affairs Chair. What worked were the face-to-face meetings with the educational committee members, staffers for the legislators or better yet the legislators themselves.
Today, students have the best tools at their fingertips: new media and social networks. Whether it’s a student, parent, professor or staff member speaking, why aren’t we using these innovative communication mediums, which are either no-cost or low-cost, to effectively lobby the State and its citizens?
A collective voice is a powerful thing when used the right way.
Protesting and rioting may have worked in the 1970s. But times are different. Technology is different.
The UC’s budget is an obvious mess, and I have strong personal opinions about it. What it boils down to though, is there’s plenty of blame to spread. But I don’t think it’s too late to make a new media move — the right move — to influence change from the ground up.
Picket signs, the wood sticks and magic markers to poster board is so last millennium, and so un-ecofriendly. If you want to be heard, to be green, to be innovative with your message, take a lesson from the 2008 Presidential elections. That wasn’t that long ago…
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