Check out Stamen Design
Some of you might be familiar with their work at Digg Labs
Their data visualisation work is great.
The thing I love most about it is that it is both conceptual and practical
v nice.
Tuesday, 24 July 2007
3D mailbox - worst app ever or revolutionary?
Not sure if everyone caught the press around 3D Mailbox over the past week or so.
I guess the general sentiment can be summed up by the Tech Crunch Article - 3D Mailbox: Worst. App. Ever - lol,that's pretty harsh
Anyway, I think alot of people are missing the point on this one.
Sure the graphics kinda suck, the James Bond theming is a bit odd and it's debatable as to whether this app could scale to handle the thousands of emails that exist in many mailboxes - but that's not really what this is about.
In my opinion this could very well be a revolutionary first step in the way that we consume and organise information. I'm very serious about that. Chances are that 3D mailbox, in this form, will disappear and be replaced by either a more useful iteration or a better competitor, but that doesn't discount its value.
Let me explain a little more.
The Internet as we currently know it is a very artificial and rudimentary concept. It's essentially a set of 2D pages that are linked together. We don't go around in every day life relying on 2D sources to gather information, rather, everything in our real life is 3 dimensional. The fact that we are so adept at using email and other applications, as they have been developed, says a lot for our ability, as humans, to adapt as opposed to the appropriateness of the applications as a means to gather, assess and organise information.
Now enter 3D Mailbox. It presents information using the types of stereotypical visual cues that many of us can understand from our experiences in real life (whether you agree with them or not is another story). Because of that it allows the user to more rapidly and more efficiently deal with information, in this case types of emails, than traditional folders, tags, colours etc.
This type of stuff is gold and in my opinion will be the basis of the next generation of web based applications.
I'm looking forward to seeing what else comes out of this, especially considering the publicity the launch has received.
What do you think?
I guess the general sentiment can be summed up by the Tech Crunch Article - 3D Mailbox: Worst. App. Ever - lol,that's pretty harsh
Anyway, I think alot of people are missing the point on this one.
Sure the graphics kinda suck, the James Bond theming is a bit odd and it's debatable as to whether this app could scale to handle the thousands of emails that exist in many mailboxes - but that's not really what this is about.
In my opinion this could very well be a revolutionary first step in the way that we consume and organise information. I'm very serious about that. Chances are that 3D mailbox, in this form, will disappear and be replaced by either a more useful iteration or a better competitor, but that doesn't discount its value.
Let me explain a little more.
The Internet as we currently know it is a very artificial and rudimentary concept. It's essentially a set of 2D pages that are linked together. We don't go around in every day life relying on 2D sources to gather information, rather, everything in our real life is 3 dimensional. The fact that we are so adept at using email and other applications, as they have been developed, says a lot for our ability, as humans, to adapt as opposed to the appropriateness of the applications as a means to gather, assess and organise information.
Now enter 3D Mailbox. It presents information using the types of stereotypical visual cues that many of us can understand from our experiences in real life (whether you agree with them or not is another story). Because of that it allows the user to more rapidly and more efficiently deal with information, in this case types of emails, than traditional folders, tags, colours etc.
This type of stuff is gold and in my opinion will be the basis of the next generation of web based applications.
I'm looking forward to seeing what else comes out of this, especially considering the publicity the launch has received.
What do you think?
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
More Data Visualisation - Part 2
I missed the Digg data visualisation competition in my last post but they've put up the 10 finalists now so it's probably a better time to mention it.
Of particular interest is that a couple of entrants used Adobe's Apollo in their submissions.
K
Of particular interest is that a couple of entrants used Adobe's Apollo in their submissions.
K
Monday, 21 May 2007
More Data Visualisation
Saw this article - 16 Awesome Data Visualization Tools - on mashable the other day and have been meaning to post about it.
Here's another one from google as well.
I still believe that 2007 will be the year that data visualisation makes it big. Hopefully the increased number of interesting tools on popular sites is a sign that that prediction might be coming true.
K
Here's another one from google as well.
I still believe that 2007 will be the year that data visualisation makes it big. Hopefully the increased number of interesting tools on popular sites is a sign that that prediction might be coming true.
K
Friday, 11 May 2007
Friday Afternoon Update
I'll agree - I've been very slack of late with the posting
Between a few separate projects I've been too busy to even think about posting - which isn't much of an excuse as it doesn't take long to put a few words up - but its the excuse I'm going to use :)
Since the last post we had our first Sydney OpenCoffee Meeting. About 20 people showed up. It was great to hear about other people's experiences and struggles in the process of trying to run a start up.
So far we have over 50 people signed up to our Meetup group and the number is growing daily. All this interest makes me glad that I decided to help get the Sydney Startup community together as there was obviously a need for it.
One Eye Deer is also coming along. Admittedly it got stalled for a couple of other projects we're about to launch - but we should be back on point very soon and ready to get something out to our friends to test.
I haven't been doing my usual amount of reading but it's been interesting to see the interest that has come up in SMS in the US. Most of the hype was started by Twitter (I still don't get what the fascination with it is) but now others are jumping on the bandwagon. All this excitement is kind of handy because one of the projects that kept us away from OED just happened to be an SMS application. Hopefully all this SMS buzz will allow us to create a much bigger presence with it in the US than we would have been able to only 6 or 12 months ago.
I've also been trying to keep on top of microformats, openID stuff and, of course, visualisation of data, but the fields are moving quite fast at the moment and I need a little more time to bury myself in the detail.
Off to work on things again.
Hopefully I can be better with the regular posting from now on
K
Between a few separate projects I've been too busy to even think about posting - which isn't much of an excuse as it doesn't take long to put a few words up - but its the excuse I'm going to use :)
Since the last post we had our first Sydney OpenCoffee Meeting. About 20 people showed up. It was great to hear about other people's experiences and struggles in the process of trying to run a start up.
So far we have over 50 people signed up to our Meetup group and the number is growing daily. All this interest makes me glad that I decided to help get the Sydney Startup community together as there was obviously a need for it.
One Eye Deer is also coming along. Admittedly it got stalled for a couple of other projects we're about to launch - but we should be back on point very soon and ready to get something out to our friends to test.
I haven't been doing my usual amount of reading but it's been interesting to see the interest that has come up in SMS in the US. Most of the hype was started by Twitter (I still don't get what the fascination with it is) but now others are jumping on the bandwagon. All this excitement is kind of handy because one of the projects that kept us away from OED just happened to be an SMS application. Hopefully all this SMS buzz will allow us to create a much bigger presence with it in the US than we would have been able to only 6 or 12 months ago.
I've also been trying to keep on top of microformats, openID stuff and, of course, visualisation of data, but the fields are moving quite fast at the moment and I need a little more time to bury myself in the detail.
Off to work on things again.
Hopefully I can be better with the regular posting from now on
K
Friday, 30 March 2007
Sydney Open Coffee Club
I've been reading a bit about Saul Klein's brainchild - Open Coffee Club.
Essentially its about making an informal (no name badges...ever!), regular (i.e. same place, same time) meeting spot where people know that if they want to roll up to meet other entrepreneurs, developers, investors, tech journalists or whatever, they can.
Because I like the idea so much, I'm trying to organise (what I think is) the first Sydney Open Coffee Club (OCC)
Here's my post over at the Open Coffee Club site.
If you're interested in coming to the Sydney OCC please answer the 2 questions I've put there and tell your friends/family whatever so that we can get this thing started.
I really believe we have the necessary ingredients to put Sydney on the tech map, to produce an excellent investment environment for those willing to invest, to create amazing projects for develops to work on and maybe to stop our budding entrepreneurs from having to go overseas for recognition and reward.
Remember - spread the word!
Essentially its about making an informal (no name badges...ever!), regular (i.e. same place, same time) meeting spot where people know that if they want to roll up to meet other entrepreneurs, developers, investors, tech journalists or whatever, they can.
Because I like the idea so much, I'm trying to organise (what I think is) the first Sydney Open Coffee Club (OCC)
Here's my post over at the Open Coffee Club site.
If you're interested in coming to the Sydney OCC please answer the 2 questions I've put there and tell your friends/family whatever so that we can get this thing started.
I really believe we have the necessary ingredients to put Sydney on the tech map, to produce an excellent investment environment for those willing to invest, to create amazing projects for develops to work on and maybe to stop our budding entrepreneurs from having to go overseas for recognition and reward.
Remember - spread the word!
Thursday, 8 March 2007
One Eye Deer Update
Haven't been writing too much lately because I've been busy with so much other stuff.
Anyway, One Eye Deer is getting closer to completion. The coding should be done soon and we can move on from there.
I'm going to try and catch up on some reading to see what's been happening in the 2.0 world that's worth looking more closely at.
In the meantime, its back to working on OED...we've got to release this thing soon.
Anyway, One Eye Deer is getting closer to completion. The coding should be done soon and we can move on from there.
I'm going to try and catch up on some reading to see what's been happening in the 2.0 world that's worth looking more closely at.
In the meantime, its back to working on OED...we've got to release this thing soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)