NUblog archives
by subject

See also: Archives by date

And your subject headings are:

Accessibility – Broadband – Case studies
Convergence – Corporatism – E-books
Economics of content – Interfaces – Interviews
Journalism – Laws – Links
Magazines – Miscellaneous – Multilingualism – Niche content
Olympics – Photography – Portals – Re: NUblog
Typography – Usability – Web shops
Weblogs and community-building – Web standards – What is content?

Accessibility

1. Blue and green cannot be seen
   Colourblindness: Tricky to test for
2. Metadata is sexy
3. Metadata: Enriching Web pages by adding layers of subtle, highly compatble, low-bandwidth complexity as opposed to, say, Flash animation
4. Accessible E-commerce: Does it work or doesn't it?
5. Describing technical illustrations
6. Irish access
7. Sydney Olympics nailed
   The Olympics lose. Again. Men, women, children: Don’t let this happen to you
8. Nail ’em, Bruce!
   Sydney Olympics are set to lose, one more time, all for continued inaccessibility
9. Opening up accessibility
   Every effort to bring access features to online multimedia has gone mams-up. Here's how to do it right
10. Unexpected access: The Sound of Mucus
11. Accessibility: Mighty Olympics vanquished
    The Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games has, in effect, been found guilty of discrimination for producing an inaccessible Web site

Broadband

1. Appointment with broadband
   Scheduling rich-media downloads: To what end?
2. Stuffing too much down the pike: Broadband content works, some of the time
3. Broadband celestial jukeboxen at Farmclub!
   Online music distribution doesn’t work for unknown bands. Period

Case studies

1. What sort of man surfs Esquire? An outdated, weirdly gay hetero men's magazine, with a site that's halfway there
2. And speaking of REI
   Still got it! (unless you’re Japanese)
3. Getting snowed by magazine editors
   A bit of fact-checking, please
4. Can we call ’em or what?
   Esquire tries new things. On the cheap

Convergence

1. The Bash AOL Show
   AOLTV: Still uniformly unloved
2. Digital-TV interfaces
   No one wants it, it doesn’t work, and nothing’s compatible
3. Valley of the dolls
   Forced collaboration between writers from different genres is like mixing red 7s and blue 13s
4. Further AOLTV Schadenfreude
   You pick a Web site, it switches to CNN
5. Interactive TV: A royal mess
6. Losing the war of the clueless: Quebecor blows it with online newspapers

Corporatism

1. It’s the Bash AOL Show!
   • 5: CNN: Stop making sense!
   • 5: AOLTV, an eWorld manqué
   • 5: Netscape, a Pathfinder manqué
2. Message boards: They still don’t work
   AOL Sports Warner censors a “message board,” predictably
3. Bring us the head of Miss Boo
   Content for sales, or sales for content?
4. “You can always go on RickiLake.com”
   Are the Offspring mere providers of software?
5. The Offspring is to Sony as...
   Chinks in the armour of the war against alleged online piracy
6. Might takes rights
   Another news item concerning the concentration of rapacious power in the stock-photo industry
7. An unnatural duopoly
   In stock photography, your choices are Getty and Corbis. Make your selection now
8. Let a thousand Volvos bloom!
   More corporate oppression! of the glorious people’s fan sites
9. The gay agenda
   PlanetOut now owns every American gay publishing entity of note. What’s wrong with this picture?
10. Let a thousand Britneys bloom
    The right way to handle fan sites
11. AOLTV: Stillborn!

E-books

1. Seth Godin gives away the store
   Books, like information, do not actually "want to be free"
2. Electronic books
   Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

Economics of content

1. Pipes earn more than water
   Content is not king. Connectivity earns more money. We knew that already
2. Testify!
   Small staffs are the way to go
3. “Viable on all platforms”
   There’s that pesky money problem again
4. Nua sez: Content is invaluable!
   Except Gerry McGovern’s got it slightly wrong
5. Will the NUblog please shut up about APBNews? APB, the thought police
6. Will "the death of content" please shut up? The imminent demise of online content sites is a prediction unsupported by the facts. That doesn't mean we're not worried
7. Scrunching eras together? In "the death of content," we may be failing to heed the lessons of cable television
8. This just in: Content sells!
   E-commerce without content is an efficient way to lose your shirt
9. eBay: “Viable on all platforms”?
   eBay dumps its print mag
10. Internet fire sale
    Big fish should buy small fish. How novel
11. Duelling Fred Flintstones: A dialectic on the seemingly perennial topic of the death of content

Interfaces

1. Does interface boil down to logos?
2. Metadata, again
   Hiding search information in links
3. More krazy interface jazzola
4. We've got pictures to prove it: Cutesy-cum-sexy DHTML navigation elements revealed!
5. Ananova:
   Not the spawn of Satan
6. Et Tu Sais Homme (and they know navigation): A Japanese meatspace and cyberspace store uses Java flyouts as a clever solution to bilingual navigation
7. Interface and content, surface and depth
   A defense of interface, and much more, as content
8. Hello Kitty woodmation: Design trope of the Aughties? A startlingly and winsomely concise design explication (now with UPDATE)
9. Interface trickery: Sexy DHTML interfaces that pop! out at you
10. Skinning the blog, and everything else
    You’ve never had full control over the ultimate form of your “content,” and you have even less control now
11. Krazy DHTML interface jazzola: Xbox
12. Nick Finck has tremendous facility with purple
13. Episode I: History
14. Episode II: Multiformat
15. Episode III: The problem with “repurposing”
16. Fly, menu, fly!
    We used to love that DHTML flyout menu jazz, but this guy makes us wonder

Interviews

1. “All power ultimately arises from content depth”
   An interview with three fabbo site authors: Caroline van Oosten de Boer (U2log), Tom of Mad-Cow.org, and Stephen Maeder (Biketrials.com)
2. Conversation with Steve Gilliard
3. TypoBlog
   An interview with two owners of leading typography sites

Journalism

1. Snatchmailed news
2. Newspapers-cum-portals
   Should newspapers specialize? Or stumble over the corpses of lapsed portals?
3. The Continuous News Desk
   The New York Times and instantaneous reporting
4. Slate: Anagrams to Stale
5. A slow news week
   Slate, Slate, and more Slate. And you're trying to tell us AOL didn't buy Time Warner for its content?
6. Weblogs and newspapers: The simple addition of a Weblog is still a bit too rocket-science for newspapermen
7. Slate: Mix ’n’ match – it’s interactive!
   Tiny, geeky new features masquerading as added value at the milquetoast content “destination”
8. Survey says...! The British do not turn to the net for news. At least not first. There's a wedge to be driven in, we think
9. Political “interactivity”
   A newspaper reviews political Web sites. We watch paint dry instead
10. The blue pencil (Web version)
    Web sites make mistakes. What should they do when it happens?

Laws

1. “ Provisional But Forever”
   Do we need to build in permissions for later adaptations of artworks?
2. Jaron Lanier is so adorable!
   A dystopian future with no Napster and round-the-clock communism!
3. Watson & Chervokas: Hominids at the typewriter
   Defining copyright out of existence. As if
4. National content restrictions:
   Heed the rule of law
   France has a right to tell Yahoo what to do

Links

1. Newswatch: Recent links 2001.02.16
2. Newswatch: Recent links 2001.01.08
3. Newswatch: Recent links 2000.12.12
4. Newswatch: Recent links, 2000.07.15
5. Newswatch: Recent links, 2000.06.18
6. Plugola: A plug for Flash access: Unclear on the concept
7. Newswatch: Recent links, 2000.08.26
8. Newswatch: Recent links. 2000.07.09
9. The Web Is Like Canada

Magazines

1. alt.fan.michael-wolff. die.die.die
   Writer at midsized magazine believes big is best, yet big cannot survive online
2. Slate: Stepping boldly into the year 2000
   Twee milquetoast house organ trumpets its adoption of yesterday’s online storytelling concepts
3. Slate: Anagrams to Stale
4. A slow news week
   Slate, Slate, and more Slate. And you're trying to tell us AOL didn't buy Time Warner for its content?
5. Slate: Mix ’n’ match – it’s interactive!
   Tiny, geeky new features masquerading as added value at the milquetoast content “destination”
6. 27: New Porker
   NewYorker.com is worse than expected...
7. What sort of man surfs Esquire? An outdated, weirdly gay hetero men's magazine, with a site that's halfway there
8. Getting snowed by magazine editors
   A bit of fact-checking, please
9. Can we call ’em or what?
   Esquire tries new things. On the cheap

Miscellaneous

1. Kids know “multi” when they see it
   TV and Internet, all at once! (but not together)
2. Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy
   Did you hear that the music industry held a hack-off?
3. Digital film
   One more chance to blow it?
4. Digital film:
   Digital, yes; film, no
5. Remember Usenet? (Still?)
   If Deja.com gets sold, the entire Usenet archive may go south
6. Interdisciplinarianism
   The music industry teaches us why content sites are so homogeneous and lowball

Multilingualism

1. Stick to English, Jim
   A Web consultant knows nothing about localization – but writes a whole column anyway!
2. This just in: Foreigners are foreign!
   Localization pays
3. Multilingual content and Multilingualism redux: It's the World Wide Web, and not everyone reads English. What do you need to know to produce one site multilingually?
4. Lingua america
   Blowing the details in multilingual sites
5. Murdochilingualism
   James (Not Rupert) Murdoch disses the unilingualists
6. Government bilingualism update
7. Metadata: Enriching Web pages by adding layers of subtle, highly compatble, low-bandwidth complexity as opposed to, say, Flash animation
8. Metadata is sexy
9. How not to search
   Culpably unilingual search engines

Niche content

1. Joint, or asunder?: Should alternasites marry or live apart?
2. When will Jakob Nielsen shut up?
   Cavalierly dissing the biodiversity of online user-created content
3. Focused online storytelling
   Maybe you can create community
4. User-contributed content, Chapter 1
   Usenet: On its deathbed?
5. Charming, that Brewster
   Brewster Kahle understands net-specifics
6. Corrosive, that Joel
   Vicious, corrosive, damning: Words of high praise for Joel Ellis
7. Andy Wang, sharpest tool in the shed
8. The inevitable discussion of comix
9. Attitude queens: A success story
   User-contributed content, chapter 2: Hissyfit et al., snarkiness, and the slush fund
10. Reclaiming Rugby League
    Fans rule. We knew that already
11. If small is beautiful, what about Word?
    If Boo is worth buying, this surely is. Plunder this asset, baby
12. Finding a voice, or at least hiring one
    One more time: Dare to be different. Nobody else is
13. Niche content sighting
14. "You can't be serious!"
    Parody. Yes. Parody

Olympics

1. NBCOlympics.com: Even worse than television (with UPDATE)
2. Olympic convergence: The ongoing boondoggle
3. Olympics à Go-Go! A superspecial report on Olympic Web inanity!
   1. Predictably engaging in the worst course of action
   2. IOC to athletes: Unplug or go home The IOC bans E-journos from Sydney. And that's just the start of its troubles

Photography

1. Photography: Worth a thousand?
2. Might takes rights
   Another news item concerning the concentration of rapacious power in the stock-photo industry
3. An unnatural duopoly
   In stock photography, your choices are Getty and Corbis. Make your selection now

Portals

1. Further death knell for portals
   Hurry up and die already
2. Our hate-on for portals: How condescending these portalistas are
3. City sites are sexy
   MercuryCenter cashes in its good name... for what? A city portal?

Re: NUblog

1. Minor update: Archives now available by subject
2. Skinning the Blog!
   Redesign the NUblog. And if we use your design, you can tell your friends
3. Printable versions (and a slow news week)
4. You can "quote" “us” on “that”
   Sigh. Another Netscape bug fixed, at typography’s cost
5. Catching up
   NUblog hits 120 (and 800)

Typography

1. More than one kind of writing
   Chunks aren’t the only way to go, but we can’t explain why, because that would require too many words, and by widespread consensus and kilianic decree, everyone on the Web is pathologically incapable of reading anything longer than a line of text in an AOL chatroom
2. How long should pages be?
3. You can "quote" “us” on “that”
   Sigh. Another Netscape bug fixed, at typography’s cost
4. Will Jakob Nielsen please shut up? (Web reading)
5. Is reading online all that hard?
   Paul Tough of Open Letters seems to think so. One word: Not!
6. TypoBlog
   An interview with two owners of leading typography sites

Usability

1. Testing Web content
   Not rocket science
2. Peter Morville, smart(arse)
3. Hacking Jakob Nielsen
   Where did the usability potentate come from?
4. Usability critiques we're liking
5. Usability is like love, irreducible, and hard to find if you set yourself a mission to do so

Web shops

1. Nua: Right and wrong all at once
   Let's recap: Small is beautiful on content sites. Nua's own data prove it
2. Nix BMX! A supercool Web shop may be too cool to produce a usable site. We give you another weapon in your armamentarium to ensure you don't hire such a vendor
3. Schadenfreude
   ExtendMedia cans staff. Why? The world just isn’t ready for interactive TV. Right?

Weblogs and community-building

1. The cost of community-building
   It costs more to maintain than develop. But we knew that
2. CommuniBlogger™
   Using present-day tools to build community online
3. Condé Nast:
   Slowly getting it?
4. Weblogs for new users
5. Skinning the Blog!
   Redesign the NUblog. And if we use your design, you can tell your friends
6. ÜberBlogger
   What is better than the champeen Weblogging tool?
7. The first blog
8. Weblogs: Too young to be stale: Paul Ford redefines a still-new discursive form. And we really mean redefine

Web Standards

1. Internet Explorer 5 doesn't fully support HTML 4 as billed

What is content?

1. Links are content, or so say the Quebeckers
2. Cut the crap
   Automated text-only versions, skinning, and trial separation
3. Add the crap
   People think clicking is interactivity. As if
4. Jaron Lanier: The underlying low-bandwidth form
   What does Space Invaders tell us about online content?
5. Link me, Amadeus!: Are links content, or a distraction?
6. Content vs. service
   We have to explain to people that the net is composed mainly of service and content sites
7. Database as a Genre of New Media
8. Aristotle, king of content
   More on the pre-computer origins of "content"
9. Le contenu à l’invers
   Content sites outsource E-commerce. A perversion of nature, shurely?!
10. Rushkoff solves the riddle! Douglas Rushkoff tells us what Web content is really useful for
11. Conversation with Steve Gilliard
12. We tire of Doulas Rushkoff
    What’s he so upset about?