Link to NYT article: In Dark Days, They Let the Sun Shine In (Oct 18, 2008)

Illustration by Jennifer Daniel

Even though this is not the practice that I am familiar with, the idea of letting users to adopt a new interface in a step by step fashion does seem very piratical, and convincing to me. For websites that have millions of users (including my company), any change, whether it’s good or bad, runs a huge risk of alienating existing users, and the impact is sometimes unpredictable.

Well, think Facebook’s recent profile / app platform changes.

“If you go from light to dark by flipping a switch, your eyes may hurt for a minute or two, you may end up being able to see faster if you use the dimmer.” - Tapan Bhat, Yahoo!

Link: Changing That Home Page? Take Baby Steps (NYT Oct. 17, 2008)

Today’s buzz word is Google Chrome. After trying it out for a few hours, I can say my experience was mostly good. Love the clever UI (finally, combination of the Address and the Search bar), speedy as advertised.

Forget the positive/negative comments on your favorite tech blogs, here is a really nice article from GigaOm on why a Google browser matters:

GigaOm: Google Browser Puts the Cloud To Work

Related Article on Wired: Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

The recording setup was long gone. I accidentally found these clips while cleaning up my hard drive the other day, made some edit and put them up as a reminder of how much fun I had with the now-outdated sound module Roland JV-1010.

Good data visualization should convey a simple message to viewers. Quite often I see examples of information design that are overly complex or focus too much on presentation than communication goals. I think the mistake is that these designs fail to tell a comprehensible story, or to say, lack of a central idea that explains the purpose of the data.

This is probably why Map is such a unique and compelling form of communication. Not only it visualizes the relationships between elements, but also it represents one’s mind. It is the journey behind the lines and numbers that fascinates people who love to explore.

You can spend hours on this site if you like maps as much as I do.

Link: Strange Maps

Cabengo is a New York City-based creative studio whose clients come mostly from the art and the academic fields. I had the opportunity working with them on projects for Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) and Coleccion Cisneros Foundation during my early career as a web developer and a Flash designer.

I really learned a lot. I still remember the time selecting the one homepage image in a pile of hundreds of photos from the client, days tweaking the fonts and a series of 6 hour brainstorm meetings on site interactions. It is probably the most professional and sophisticated team I have even worked with.

Thanks again Hillary and Jenna, if you happen to see this post.

IDEO’s new site is a little tricky to navigate, but the magazine-style layout really shines here with powerful shots of the wonderfully designed products. Hands down one of the most visually intelligent web designs I have seen in a long time.

Link: Ideo.com

Muxtape.com (an online service that allows users to upload mp3s and create digital mix tapes) was shut down yesterday citing problems with the RIAA, and I just found out why Pandora.com (a popular personalized internet radio service) has also decided to pull the plug:

Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies.

Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures.

As for Pandora, its royalty fees this year will amount to 70 percent of its projected revenue of $25 million, Westergren said, a level that could doom it and other Web radio outfits.

Having listened to the lecture podcast Music Artists Go Entrepreneurial (mentioned in my earlier post) , I think I got a good picture of what’s happening between the music industry and the online content distributors, and how the artists, the real content owners, are trying to bypass them both using various social media tools. It seems ironic to me that the fight is more about the ownership of the Internet than the content itself.

Link: Giant of Internet Radio Nears Its ‘Last Stand’

Related Article: Playing Whack-A-Mole With The Free Music Crowd

Related Article (Update): Missing Muxtape? Try 8Tracks. It’s Better

Here are some of his early remixes, still sound refreshing today.

Image from DJ Mitsu the Beats MySapce Page

==Playlist 2008.08.18: DJ Mitsu the Beats Remix Serie==

01 Intro/Get Money (DJ Day/Slum Village) - Summer Of Serato: Special Live Mix
02 Do Right (feat Rich Medina) - New Awakening Remixes Part 4
03 Ain’t Right (Iverse/RJD2 & Lyrics Born) - Explosive
04 So Ma Theme - Sound Manuevers
05 I Don’t Know (Steppah Huntah) - Things About Us EP
06 Marinheiro So (Frankie valentine) - Marinheiro So
07 After Midnight - After Midnight (7″)
08 Take Notice - Take Notice (7″)
09 Make It Better (Lone Catalysts) - Square Binizz
10 Negative Ion (Sa Ra remix) - New Awakening Remixes Part 4