(Comments added for week ending Sun 26 May 2002) | View Other Weeks
| last updated:16 Aug 2002 13: 32 Webword time, or 16 Aug 2002 18:32 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 26 May 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| Stop the Presses | Sun 26 May |
| Now, taken in a certain sense, this is not a criticism but a recognition of the job reporters are pledged to do. They are pledged to report the truth about matters of interest to the public. They are not pledged to be nice to you, or to take your side in a controversy, or to rehearse every little nuance of your argument. |
| Sun 26 May 13:41 | Eric Scheid | Saying 'the press is in business to make money, not to tell the truth' is like saying 'the doctors are in business to make money, not to heal people' ... although not quite to the same extreme. Professions have professional codes of behaviour. Doctors have their 'do no harm' oath, lawyers respect and follow the system of law, journalists have their creed of truth. In decreasing scale of adherance. |
| Sun 26 May 14:55 | (the other) JS | As always, the jargon is telling. News papers call it 'filling the news hole,' because the news fits in between the advertising layouts. And contrary to popular belief, there is no 'truth' creed, that's for public consumption. The practical day-to-day of the work is the story which can be made from available facts. If it bleeds it leads. ...Not a rule-of-thumb fostering putting this week's anomalous events into the context of a gradually declining crime rate. Or even trying to explain why the crime rate might be declining (demographic shifts ...we're getting too old on average). No, most news audiences will get the impression crime has been increasing. The news is founded on a creed of truth uttered at an award banquet, but built of the hundreds of workaday examples of getting that story angle. Not perspective, not context. Follow what people do, not what they say about what they do. (First rule of observation, usability or otherwise). The only saving grace is comparing it to what comes after, again telling: Web site content. ...Could be called information. ...Could be called substance. It isn't. |
| 8th best selling car in 2000 | Thu 23 May |
| . So, I should have modifed my initial comment to perhaps say the Focus didnt sell as well as the Ford Explorer, or something else. And, I should have provided a link or two. Doing this sort of quick fact checking is easy and I assume that more people are doing it every day. This is a slow shift in thinking but I think it is a real shift. The core idea is that we can tap into the collective mind of the internet. The collective mind is a very powerful authority and no single person can be smarter than every other person. Furthermore, even if the material available is just data or information, versus real knowledge or wisdom, I think we all expect other people to tap into that stream. This is happening, in part, because we are all starting to realize that the material is available. It is also courteous because we are all pressured for time. Finally, I think regular people are getting more comfortable using hyperlinks in their day to day lives. Just for fun, Ill call this netchecking, unless someone has a better term for it. Next time you write something, would you please netcheck it? |
| Thu 23 May 06:52 | Etienne PIRON | I'm living in Belgium and when I read your literature, I'm thinking that saying 'the Ford Focus is the 8th best selling car in 2000' is not sufficient: you must also precise that it's only in the US... |
| Thu 23 May 08:06 | Chi Lambda | The only caveat, of course, is that Edmunds has to be a trustworthy source. |
| Thu 23 May 12:38 | E | Along similar lines, it is standard operating practice to have a computer handy during any conversation so that any facts can be quickly verified. On the one hand, it's nice in that we always get our facts straight, but perhaps at the expense of some interesting debate. |
| Thu 23 May 12:53 | Chad Lundgren | About trustworthy sources: For quite some time, the Kennedy Middle School (in Albuquerque) alumni page listed me as having attended there. I didn't move to Albuquerque until my sophomore year in high school. I had younger siblings who did attend Kennedy, which is presumably where the confusion came in. (This page is gone now) The way I look at it, this gets at a fundamental aspect of the way Google works. What it's really doing with its PageRank is saying, When people say X, what do they mean by X, what do they think about X, NOT what is the most factually accurate information. In other words, Google is excellent at the linguistic/psychological definition of reality. This is the reality that trips up grammar wonks: if everybody qualifies unique, it's no longer an either/or like 'dead' or 'pregnant.' I'm old-fashioned enough where qualifying unique bothers me, but I'm new-fashioned enough to where 'The data are suspect.' sounds about as logical to me as 'The sand are wet.' so I'm on both sides of that particular coin. So what I do is always look for multiple sources whenever possible. Google makes these easy by combining similar pages from the same site, and quite often, identical pages from mirror sites. |
| Thu 23 May 13:14 | John S. Rhodes | ...and we definitely have to watch for Google Bombs. |
| Fri 24 May 10:19 | David Tallan | I tend to netcheck whenever I am sent something that reeks of urban legend. I think that out of the last five I checked, four were urban legends and one wasn't (or, at least, I didn't find it on any of the urban legend repositories I reached). I then get back to the person who sent the urban legend to me and say 'check this out' and forward them the link to the info about the legend. |
| Google Voice Search | Wed 22 May |
| (WebWord) Google Voice Search allows you to make a telephone call to Google with a search query and get the results on a web page. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe the user experience and investigate the usability implications of this tool. |
| Wed 22 May 07:11 | John S. Rhodes | I don't really mention any negative things about the Google Voice Search. That was quite deliberate. It is all too easy to get caught up in the negative things about a new idea. I think that is how many usability professionals make their way in the world. And it sells because we we love the negative; we love the dirty laundry. I decided to take the positive road. I'm curious how people will react. Will they ignore the article? Will they love it? I'm sure I will find out as the day moves forward. |
| Wed 22 May 07:32 | Ahmet | Regarding your question how does Google connect your phone call and the web page, I think in the google's web page, it says that, you don't have to keep the line busy so that other people can use it too. This means that, as you guessed correctly, the connection can be done because there can be only one user at a time. |
| Wed 22 May 21:56 | Anonymous | Cute, but who is this useful for? Seems like a wow-factor for investors. Is Google turning a profit yet? Oops, that's a dangerous question. |
| Thu 23 May 05:41 | John S. Rhodes | Google profitable, new chief says We're In The Money, Says Google Google joins ranks of profitable dotcoms |
| Thu 23 May 15:51 | Anonymous | But how does this cutesy service help their profitability? |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 02 May |
| Last night I went to the Ale House to celebrate. A good friend of mine earned his Masters degree in Psychology from Binghamton University. I decided to have a couple of bottles of Lindemans Peach Lambic, which is a fruity Belgian ale. I also had Buffalo Chicken Pizza. It was a good night. |
| Wed 22 May 11:35 | Pech | if you are going to make a comment like this, more details! how tasty was that buffalo chicken pizza! what was on it that made it so snazzy? i don't mind a food journal as long as there's something noteworthy! i also prefer the berry lambic... can't remember if it was strawberry or rasberry? |
| Google Voice Search | Tue 21 May |
| Search on Google by voice with a simple telephone call. |
| Tue 21 May 11:08 | Darin | I guess its cool, but what's the point? You still have to have a browser opened to Google and click on a link to get the results from the voice search. Why not just type in the keywords rather than pick up a phone and dial a number? |
| Tue 21 May 11:23 | John S. Rhodes | ...why do it? Because it is an experiment. This will lead to other things. One thing will lead to another thing. We can also start thinking about the usability implications right now. What is good? What is bad? Your comment is a good one Darin, but I want to be more open right now. Remember, this is not an 'official' Google tool yet. It is something they are testing. Let's take it for a ride! |
| Tue 21 May 11:35 | JB | Been trying for an hour and still no success. I know this is an Alpha, but my first thought is they should have more lines, if it can be found on the web it can be used. Does this no working have any negative impact on the Google brand? |
| Tue 21 May 12:22 | Berna | PRAISE TO GOOGLE! This is great! It's at it's first stages and other than a few usability issues I think this would be a very useful technology. Here goes my imagination... I can see myself buying plane tickets for my next vacation while I'm driving home, through my car. I can see this technology being very useful at the movie theater. 'Two adults to About A Boy!' swipe the card and out come the tickets. So many uses.. but as always I'm getting ahead of myself. I just hope that they provide an 800 number and a results page that doesn't refresh every two seconds... |
| Tue 21 May 12:49 | csaila | Just got through. A perky voice says: 'Say your search query.' Nothing happens unless the query is understood, which is a little strange. There should be some sort of key (#?) press required to indicate the end of the query. As soon as the query is understood, the same voice says, 'Okay, searching' and then something like 'You're, results are ready.' Pretty good results that require you to speak a bit slower than normal. A search for 'wallet' failed (kept getting results for 'olech') until I appended it with 'money.' Homonyms also trip it up (including an ego search with my -- admittedly obscure -- last name [returned 'selah' instead of 'saila']). |
| Tue 21 May 12:54 | Shane | Got through on the first try (lucky me, it seems?). First thought was 'this is cool'. Second thought was 'either the VR on this thing needs some work or I need speech lessons'. Third thought was 'This is really cool. Hey coworker, come look at this!'. And so on and so forth... Imagine this scenario. On your way to a meeting, you want to gather some information on a particular subject pertaining to that meeting. You know you'll have a few minutes prior to that meeting to read up on the topic. You dial the Google VR search and say your request, a link to the results is emailed to you. Many more scenarios bubbling around in my head that could benefit from this CTI/web convergence - research librarians, call center reps, para legal, etc. Usabilty-wise, the VR needs work. With rock solid VR and speech more than twice as fast as keyboard entry, this interface could become more economical than it's web counterpart. My $0.02. |
| Tue 21 May 13:33 | Berna | Got through.. Finally!!! I don't like people who get through the first try, it's NOT FAIR! ;o) Ok, I heard the voice, know what you mean... alright I used the keyword 'documentation' but when the results came back Documentation was highlighted, but so was Advantage? Why? Puzzled me there... I want to learn more about the backend of this thing now... Im curious.. |
| Tue 21 May 14:56 | Darin | John, I agree with your comments; I was taking it at face value. I can see a useful application for it if you can eliminate having to use both interfaces. I like the idea of verbalizing your query then having the link to the results e-mailed to you. I especially see great use for those who can't use a keyboard. We had a group tour of a VR company recently, and one of our group with an Indian accent had some trouble getting the system to recognize her voice. It did a wonderful job for the stage it was in, and its bound to improve. |
| Tue 21 May 16:15 | Berna | Darin, I was just going to ask what about accents? It's good to know that it would recognize accents as well. Otherwise it would be more or less a localized service I guess. I wonder how Google would respond to an accent.. hmmm... |
| Tue 21 May 16:40 | Darin | Berna, the demonstration I witnessed was very impressive. French, German, Spanish, you name it, it could recognize it. They did admit that there were some intracacies with certain accents that they were having a little difficulty getting the system to recognize. |
| Tue 21 May 17:08 | John S. Rhodes | I made it through. Very, very interesting. I have many thoughts on this and I plan on writing something up later today. Stay tuned!! |
| Employees See a Need For Cellphone Manners | Fri 17 May |
| When we leap to answer a cellphone, its with the wan hope the next call will change our lives, even if its usually just mom. When it rings in a meeting, it says we matter. A call in a toilet stall says were indispensable. |
| Mon 20 May 15:40 | MadMan | Crap! Some people think I was being dead serious. It was a parody, folks. Yes, I hate pop-ups. I really do. |
| Mon 20 May 15:42 | MadMan | Crap! Some people think I was being dead serious. It was a parody, folks. Yes, I hate pop-ups. I really do. |
| Mon 20 May 19:23 | JB | I can imagine what happened in NNG offices…..something like this... Person 1: Hey Jakob, you rock in all your interviews and you are now considered a guru... Jakob: Yeah I know... P1: ...so I bet you can say anything and they will print it... J: ...do you think so... P1: ...hell yeah, I bet you can use some dumb ass analogy about humans being peacocks and they will print it and believe it makes sense.. J:... do you thinks so?... hey yeah they will as I am the guru – I read that in the paper, if I can convert my web site into a mindless selling machine, I can do anything... P1:... give it a go...it will be a laugh J:...yeah watch those mindless people succumb to my awesome power.... The rest, my friends, is all peacocks! |
| Hollywood versus Silicon Valley, Ignoring the Customers | Fri 17 May |
| Guess whos missing from the story, and all too often from the debate? Thats right, the customers. You. Me. |
| Mon 20 May 17:21 | mcw | Agree with the comment cited. Customers are being left out of the debate. It's the media execs vs. the hi-tech industry, arguing about who is going to get the customer's money. No conversation about 'fair use' or any customer rights. The entertainment industry is working hard on alienating the end customer. One key group (teenagers) is already far into digital downloading of music, and even movies. There is no attempt to understand and reach out to this group, providing attractive solutions and alternatives. Rather, the focus is on technological limitations and criminalization. |
| Slashdot egotrips over Flash webcam features | Sat 18 May |
| (Flazoom) Yesterday a post about the new Flash 6 plug-in webcam/microphone features showed us two things about the Slashdot community. First, they spread FUD faster than Microsoft when it comes to Flash. Second, these folks think that Macromedia needs their support for Flash to become a success (Not that having the most downloaded piece of software in the history of the Internet is a success story). |
| Mon 20 May 15:06 | CHris | Macromedia's statistics and methodology for their plug-in numbers are available on their site: http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/npd/ After reviewing the penetration statistics on the site, I find no claim that the majority of people have the latest version (only 3 to 8% have the Flash 6 version according to Macromedia). I do however believe that the majority of users are able to view Flash 5 content. The format has been around for over 18 months, and the plug-in has been bundled with all the popular browsers. In addition many web sites are deploying some content in the SWF format, thus users are presented with many opportunities to download the plug-in. When you state that 'Average people shun installing anything when prompted to on a web page,' I think that you are forgetting that average users also want to get more out of their web experience. We are constantly bombarded with messages that the web is full of amazing multimedia technology (the Intel ads are a good example). Flash is currently the only stable, cross platform/browser method for delivering content to meet the expectations that users are fed by TV advertisments. |
| Mon 20 May 16:16 | MadMan | I don't know about the Intel ads in USA, but here in India, they range from wild exaggeration to total lies. Just because ads tout multimedia on the Web doesn't mean people actually want it. To me, there's nothing quite as annoying as sound suddenly playing on a site while you're at work. All at once, you disrupt several working people, who then look around to figure out what the sound was. |