To Talk of Many Things

Interview: Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville on Information Architecture. We interview the authors of O'Reilly's Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd. Ed., Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. Learn what's new in the second edition, how IA has changed in the last four years, and about controlled (and out of control) vocabularies. By Andy King. [WebReference News]

Interesting factoids from Groove usage analysis aggregated across a very broad statistically significant anonymous sample set.  I did this in order to empirically validate some intuitions related to some UI design enhancements that I'm considering. 

The analysis does indeed validate that the 2-25 design center of the product is precisely the sweet spot of where it's being used in practice:  approximately 35% of shared spaces are between a single pair of individuals, 60% of shared spaces are between 3 and 25 individuals, and 5% of shared spaces have more than 25 individuals.  Amazingly to me - given the design center of the UI - I found that within this 5% there are actually hundreds of spaces with 100-250 members each; I'd surely never have expected this.

One other incredibly fascinating tidbit: 25% apparently use shared spaces with only themselves as a member, using Groove as a “briefcase” to transparently and securely synchronize files across multiple computers that they own - e.g. Office documents being synchronized between home and office PCs. [Ray Ozzie's Weblog]

Macromedia technology showcases - Here are a few links to some high profile sites that use Macromedia Technologies. If you have a site that you think should be profiled, let us know and drop us a line.

• World's leading retailer of athletic footwear and apparel, Foot Locker, operates 3,600 retail stores in 14 countries and one ColdFusion powered web site. 
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• Ikea uses Flash to take their paper catalog and product demonstrations to the web.
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• Santa Clara University uses Dreamweaver MX and Flash MX to raise its visibility with potential students. 
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• The University of California uses Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, and Fireworks MX to build and manage their site.
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• This site for Kendall Speech and Language Center was built from the ground up with Studio MX.
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• Home of the Bell Open 2002, the North Course at Angus Glen Golf Club sports a CF MX, DW MX and Flash MX (check out the video of each hole) web site.asd

[Matt Brown's Dreamweaver Blog]

IBM hooks dorm washers, dryers to Web. “The souped-up washers and dryers also let students check a Web site for empty machines. From the comfort of their desktop or laptop, co-eds can add soap and fabric softener that is dispensed by the washing machine. Finally when the wash is done, kids can get an e-mail telling them to come and get it. ” [Hmmm, I wouldn't mind this myself... (via Wes.)] [Archipelago]

RIAA: Feeling Burn of Ripped CDs. “The recording industry blames the rapid decline of album sales on a new technology that allows people to easily copy and transport music. It's expected to cripple the major record labels. The year was 1979.” [Infinite loop.] * [Archipelago]

Somewhere, George Orwell is chuckling, softly. “Senator Clinton was booed when she walked on stage last October at a rock concert in Madison Square Garden to benefit 9/11 victims. It was shown live by VH1 but, as ABC's John Stossel illustrated in a July 20/20 special on media distortions, when the Viacom-owned cable channel replayed it sound technicians replaced the booing with cheering and applause. And that version is the permanent record VH1 put onto its DVD of the event.” [They have so much nerve! Sheesh! I remember the booing clearly (and was not surprised by it). I wondered at the time that she could be so out of touch as to not realzie this would happen.] [Archipelago]

News.Com: Apple: Burn DVDs–and we'll burn you. At issue in the legal threat is Apple's well-received iDVD application, which permits users to burn DVDs only on internal drives manufactured by Apple. In unmodified form, it does not permit writing to external drives manufactured by third parties. [Tomalak's Realm]

law.com - Electronic Data Discovery Primer.

Surprisingly, many attorneys fail to do any electronic discovery because of concerns that it is costly, time-consuming and complicated. The irony: It is usually wildly cheaper to conduct discovery electronically.

New computer forensic techniques allow the cost effective and safe recovery of evidence normally invisible to the user. What used to cost tens of thousands of dollars can now be done for less than $5,000 using trained computer forensic examiners.

[ ... ]

Knowing where to get help is an important part of your successful electronic discovery plan. Because of the growing demand, many legal vendors are retooling their businesses to include electronic discovery. There are a variety of services now available including electronic discovery consultants, computer forensic investigators, and litigation support services offering electronic document conversion, scanning, indexing and online repositories.  [Privacy Digest]

Polar Bears invade B & A. Boxes and Arrows is running an interview with Lou Rosenfeld and an excerpt from the new edition of the Polar Bear book that focuses on MSWeb (the Microsoft intranet). [ia/ - news for information architects]

Ambient Findability. Peter muses on the future of ambient findabilty in the coming era of nanotechnology and Internet aware wireless devices. [ia/ - news for information architects]