The Hype Machine is an audio blog aggregator that lets users sample the latest from "the finest mp3 music blogs".
The site features audio players for various formats including a Flash player using a new XML format for sharing playlists - XSPF.
Jeff Veen gave a good talk on Web 2.0 at the Digital Futures conference. Here are his slides.
He talked about how boom and bust cycles have been going on for centures. E.g. tulips, steam trains and Tokyo land speculation, akong with dotcom bubbles all fall into a similar pattern.
He spoke of the Web 2.0 hype essentially as a promising sign that we now have more of an Internet platform we can build on.
His user interface approach was all about:
* Usability
* Typography
* Wireframing (making a skeleton)
* Structure (information architecture)
* Scope (what we do)
* Strategy (what organisations do)
He spoke of conversations opposed to broadcasting.
It's all about TRUST. Users as peers. Users in control of data. People owning data.
First impressions are EVERYTHING. First 1/20th of a second impression formed is the important one.
* Visual appeal
* Cognition & Emotion
* The Halo Effect
Persuasive Technology - a tool for deception?
Emotional Design.
The Hype Machine - audio blog aggregator
He gave some signs of trust
* tag clouds
* colour (yellowing of W3C pages)
* vouching clusters (Technorati)
* attribution (academic peer review)
The makers of Fascade, the interactive narrative experiment, are looking for new beta testers.
Ever wondered what a Film Colourist does? Check out the current entries in the
Worth1000.com Monsterville 3 Photoshop contest. Take a still from an old B&W movie and go crazy colourising. Wait till you can re-skin the whole film.
PlayOn is a Xerox Palo Alta Research Center (PARC) project to investigate the social dimensions of MMOGs and virtual worlds. PARC is famous for having invented such notable thingies as Ethernet and the GUI so worth keeping track of this one.
Chris Adamson expands on why every film will have its own ecommerce store before long thanks to the Blu-Ray format which looks set to be the sequel to DVD-ROM.
We Love Blu-Ray Java! It's Perfect! Now Change. - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog
Listening to the engineers from Sun and Phillips talking through the spec at the Java One conference I couldn't help thinking that there are going to be some disappointed interactive movie-makers out there. No matter how far advanced the soon-to-be-mainstream features are going to be, this is still rudimentary corporate technology struggling to stay within sight of our collective imaginations without losing control. Blu-Ray stems from the consumer electronics industry which is worlds away from the lastest crop of social media APIs online. Whatever scope there is for being cheeky and innovating with Blu-Ray, you can rest assured that the official playground will require locks and keys.