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Overview of mobile web design considerations for the major smartphone platforms, part 2

Overview of mobile web design considerations for the major smartphone platforms, part 1

Yet another reason why journos and news orgs should not ignore comments to their sites:

"The first two errors that we helped get corrected were (1) a listing in the East Bay Express that provided the wrong location for a theater event; and (2) a reference in a TechCrunch story to the wrong police department. In both of these cases, the problem had already been reported to the media outlets in question — in their own comments.

"Neither error was earth-shattering, but neither was as trivial as, say, a simple typographical error. Yet the comments reporting the mistakes had sat on these websites for days (in one of the cases, over a week) without either a response or a correction."

Pitchfork reviews the re-releases of Yes's catalog. Some I agree with, some I don't. (Hey, I actually liked "Tales of Topographic Oceans")

Good roundup of the pros and cons of various web timeline-building tools.

Steve Buttry's apt critique of an earlier PEJ study which found that blogs mainly parasitize news orgs. In it, Buttry, clearly and specifically owns up to flaws in his earlier critiques of this study, and delves further into the matter, and ends up documenting his case even more fully than before.

"PEJ's question: “What role do new media, blogs and specialty news sites now play?” — purports to include blogs. But it includes only a narrowly defined segment of blogs. The answer to “who reported new information” in part is advocacy blogs (or if it’s not, we don’t know, because Pew excluded them from the study).

"This decision reveals researchers studying the ecosystem the way they wish it was or the way they think it is, not the way it is. Rosenstiel and the Pew researchers took their snapshot of the news ecosystem through the lens of old media, deliberately cropping out key participants. Bluntly, they don’t understand new media well enough to study it credibly."

"as Publish 2’s Ryan Sholin explained to me today, “We did not set out to kill the Associated Press. That’s not the goal. I don’t think that’s a logical thing to even want to do.” What the News Exchange and its creators do want, Sholin said, is to broaden the ecosystem of access when it comes to the wire content available to newspapers.

And that content includes…the AP’s. “If the AP wants to sell content through our system and distribute it to their subscribers,” Sholin said, “that seems like a win for everybody. So we’d welcome that.”

This is why network congestion is going to be a problem:

"investment in infrastructure has continued despite the recession, but as a percentage of overall revenue, carriers spent 6% less on upgrades in 2008 since 2005 – we can only assume the trend has continued two years later."

"Joint Venture NTIS-1832 between the National Technical Information Service and Public.Resource.Org. Here we feature the best movies of the United States Government, from training films to history, from our national parks to the U.S. Fire Academy and the Postal Inspectors, all of these fine flix are available for reuse without any restrictions whatsoever."

"One thing Facebook has made clear is that the privacy changes apply to all content retroactively as well as new products going forward. There's now one control (found by going to the Account menu and then Privacy Settings) that allows users to make all of their content—photos, contact info, wall postings, etc.—available to only friends, friends of friends, or everyone. If users want to customize those settings on a more granular basis, they can, but that's no longer required if users want to just make one click and be done with it."

Coming to prepaid US phones? If the carriers can make enough money off of it, I'd say yes, eventually…

"This week Facebook launched 0.facebook.com, where they worked out deals with 50 mobile operators in 45 countries to either zero-rate data costs coming to that URL, or paying that data cost themselves. This means that anyone, even those with no airtime on their mobile phone, can still take part in Facebook.

"…What has happened is that Facebook, even with all of their problems and questionable ethical moves on privacy issues, still have a great strategist with a global perspective in their midst. What they have realized is that the only way to increase penetration in the developing world is to cover the data costs for their users (or, if lucky, snooker a mobile operator into not charging them for it)."

"2 quick-and-dirty ways to make your organization’s blog or website a little more “phone-friendly” in almost no time, without any cost at all."

What happens when a local blogger leaves the area and hands over the reins to a new blogger… and then after the fact tries to remove her content from the site? Who owns the archives? Comment thread is interesting.

On Sunday, 5/23, the Washington Post published an 1167-word, detailed critique of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's gender presentation.

Really, THIS is what matters here? Would the WP ever devote more than a passing mention of a "plain, dowdy" appearance or feel entitled to explore the sexual orientation of a male judicial nominee?

This is the worst of journalism: Sexist, prurient, prejudicial (quite literally, and pun included), and pandering.

The Bay Citizen site is upposed to launch Wed. If the version Kevin Montgomery found is indeed the version being prepped for launch, it's a bit underwhelming. We'll see what actually happens

Museum in paoli, PA i'd like to visit

Available for Kindle soon.

"For people living paycheck to paycheck and sometimes falling behind with rent, car payments, and grocery bills, fringe financing and the ubiquitous Rent-A-Centers, Jackson Hewitt, payday lenders, pawnshops, and check cashers—may seem like their only safety net. These businesses may tout themselves as a necessary service and force for economic development in low-income communities, but Rivlin reveals their dark underbelly: punishing rates of interest and customer service reps explicitly trained to mislead customers who appear gullible. He delves into the effect of financial deregulation on fringe financing, predatory subprime lending, and the major players in this unsavory world, including Allan Jones, a debt collector, worth $200 million, and the activists and advocates like Bill Brennan who've faced them down in the courts. A timely, important, and deeply disturbing look at the cycle of debt of the nation's most vulnerable. (June)"

Stunning podcast on the economics of payday lenders, and how they fit into social niches.

"News briefs via Foursquare may not immediately sell papers, but New York readers are going to read the paper that they feel is most pertinent to them, and this is an easy way to provide utility."

"Here’s how it works: if you’re a friend of Wall Street Journal on Foursquare (they have 2,600 of them) and you’re in New York, you’ll see WSJ’s “check-ins”, which are really news alerts tied to a place. Or if you’re not a friend and check in at a location that WSJ just published from, you’ll see it there, as well. Separately, the Journal has been posting tips at restaurants around the New York area.

“That idea that you want to be informed about what’s around you is the fundamental principle that Foursquare is operating on,” Zach Seward, the WSJ’s outreach editor, told the Nieman Lab, which has a great write-up on the Journal’s efforts here."

"Tech-savvy journalists usually go where the crowds are, and were quick to jump on Facebook (Facebook), LinkedIn (LinkedIn), and Twitter (Twitter). As Foursquare (Foursquare) climbs toward critical mass, with over one million users, 40 million checkins, and counting, it’s also becoming a hot new tool for the digital journalist.

Last week, for example, a single checkin on Foursquare by The Wall Street Journal pushed notifications to approximately 2,600 phones during the Times Square evacuation scare. Clearly, Foursquare can no longer be considered just a game.

"With all the recent hype, journalists and media companies are itching to find their own ways to use location-sharing apps to bolster their trade. You can get started with the following seven tips, then share your own ideas in the comments."

"Lost Remote’s Steve Safran sees three main ways to harness the power of Foursquare:

* Find sources and tips in specific locations during breaking news
* Distribute content or information about specific locations where people are
* Establish new connections between the audience and your news team

Yes, you can use Twitter to find sources during breaking news, but Foursquare provides another option. And it offers a new angle, as well. On Foursquare, the person who has checked in to a location most often is given the title of “mayor” and is likely to be an expert. So, for example, when the Staten Island Ferry crashes into a dock, you might want to interview the “mayor.”

Worth a look occasionally to check out what Google knows about you, and all your settings on all the google services you use.

Social media oops — Mining industry org tweeted something it shouldn't have, and then deleted the tweet. But not before coal reporter Ken Ward saw it.

Awesome slides and other info from Beth Kanter about a very successful social media fundraising campaign. These are from her talk which was podcast on Social Innovation Conversations, which I bookmarked earlier today

Audio podcast. Listen and TAKE NOTES!!!

"Social media has opened up new worlds in philanthropy. In this audio lecture, nonprofit consultant Beth Kanter shares with a class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business specific tips and techniques for using technology such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and Flickr to support fundraising campaigns. She draws specifically on her work to raise money to send children in Cambodian orphanages to school as a case example. Learn about concepts such as “re-tweeting” and “learning loops” to enhance your own philanthropy efforts."

"This document specifies Best Practices for delivering Web content to mobile devices. The principal objective is to improve the user experience of the Web when accessed from such devices. The recommendations refer to delivered content and not to the processes by which it is created, nor to the devices or user agents to which it is delivered.

"It is primarily directed at creators, maintainers and operators of Web sites. Readers of this document are expected to be familiar with the creation of Web sites, and to have a general familiarity with the technologies involved, such as Web servers and HTTP. Readers are not expected to have a background in mobile-specific technologies."

"Are you a locally- or internationally-based NGO looking at the potential to use mobile phone text messages to reach specific groups of individuals within a target community? Or to run an awareness raising campaign? Or to run a competition, or carry out a text-based survey? Or to simply keep in touch with your fieldworkers or staff? FrontlineSMS is the complete text messaging solution for the non-profit sector: > Create and manage all of your SMS-related contact groups > Send and receive messages via special on-screen consoles > Provides incoming and outgoing message history for each contact > Engage with your contact groups – run surveys, competitions etc. via the SurveyManager > Run your own text-based information service via the automated ReplyManager > Export data to Excel and other programs > No need to be on-line – works on any GSM network via your own PC or laptop."

"The biggest drawback to Facebook seems to be that it’s dependent on users clicking the “Like” or “Recommend” button on stories. We’ve been looking at Facebook widgets on a few of the large news sites, such as ABCNews.com, Time.com, CNN.com, and WashingtonPost.com. Even with up to 700 Facebook “friends” spanning all ages among our different accounts, we have few (or none) who are active recommenders of news stories. On a few of the sites, the only friends recommending stories are employees of the site, and even they aren’t that active. The result is a module not unlike a Digg or Most Popular list."

"Google Wonder Wheel is a new great feature from Google which allows you to see relevant search results to your query in a unique semantically relevant and graphically design way. The following is a step by step guide on how to use the GoogleWonderWheel tool"

"Apple's iPad, which has only been on sale for a month, is already accounting for 1.1% of Business Insider's web visits, according to Google Analytics. And this past weekend, it was 2.5% of our visits. (A full 3% on Saturday.) That's pretty impressive, and it was 100% browser-based traffic — we don't have an iPad app.

"To be sure, the tech-focused, early-adopter crowd reading SAI is probably highly overindexing for iPad ownership. And our wealthy finance-type readership on Business Insider's other verticals. Still, it's pretty surprising.

"For comparison, the iPhone is 5% of our visits over the past month, and 6.4% this past weekend. Windows still dominates our visitors, at 70%. Mac is 20%."

As of 4/28, after the iPad had been out 25 days:

"I love the iPad, but even I was surprised when I saw this. The stats are for the last 30 days — and again, the iPad hasn’t even been out that entire time. Here’s a percentage breakdown of which OS visitors to TechCrunch have been using in the past 30 days:

1. Windows – 59.68%
2. Mac – 27.78%
3. iPhone – 5%
4. Linux – 3.72%
5. iPad – 1.18%
6. Android – 0.99%
7. iPod – 0.67%
8. (not set) – 0.54%
9. BlackBerry – 0.28%
10. SymbianOS – 0.07%

"All the iPhone OS devices put together account for 6.85% of all TechCrunch readership in the past 30 days. That’s more than Linux, Android, BlackBerry, and Symbian combined."

"I’m not sure how Android’s relatively low share of web traffic jibes with NPD’s report last week that Android phones outsold the iPhone last quarter. BlackBerrys are still the best-selling smartphones in the U.S., and their web presence rounds down to zero, so it’s certainly possible that Android users are more like BlackBerry users than iPhone users. But I always assumed that the reason BlackBerrys had such a small web presence is that RIM’s web browser was so crummy, and the screen sizes so small. Android phones have iPhone-size displays and a very good WebKit-based browser."

" got permission to post Tumblr’s OS percentages from Google Analytics for the tumblelog network.

This includes most human visits to all Tumblr-hosted blogs, not the tumblr.com site itself, to best represent “average” people online who happen to come across Tumblr-hosted sites, not just Tumblr members. Granted, this still isn’t perfect, but it’s probably the biggest and least biased sample that we’ll be able to find in the indie-Mac-pundit world."

"The most surprising part of this, to me, is how well the Macintosh is faring against Windows. But in the mobile space, Android is actually doing quite well, given its tiny installed base relative to iPhone OS."

"The iPad is putting up an especially impressive performance given that it’s only available in the U.S. so far, has only been on sale for 6 weeks, costs at least $500, isn’t subsidized, isn’t always in your pocket, and isn’t being given away in two-for-$99 sales by the largest cellular provider in the country."

Seth Lewis interviewed me and several of my News Challenge friends for the info in this presentation.

Well-known zombie book author. I'm really loving his book, World War Z.

"Although NPR currently receives more monthly page views from users on the iPhone app than the mobile web, Spier says that for long-term sustainability, it's important for organizations to develop a strong mobile web presence. He advises other media companies to focus their development on the mobile web before focusing on apps saying, “Make sure your mobile web is in good working order before you get too far down the road in terms of apps. Apps are very compelling right now, they’re very sexy, they’re very appealing on any number of levels. But they’re hard, they’re very demanding, they are different from one [device] to another […] Your mobile website will enable you to serve all audiences, so I would argue that you should start by making sure you have a good, solid mobile website and then from there be very selective and mindful about whatever apps you deploy.”

"By 2013 the overall Data consumption requirements are going to skyrocket and continue in a hockey-stick like pattern to 2015. People will be consuming more media then ever from there mobile devices, and it is really fair to say that Mobile will really become the 1st screen in our lives by 2015. However, with this growth, there is surely going to be innovation surrounding our online environment as well. The seamless integration of websites, apps and the cloud is clearly the future in the next couple of years. Therefore I believe it is fair to say that 2012~2013 is clearly the transition timing for real cross-media integration.

"I believe we will potentially see innovation in compression technologies and the efficient delivery of content. Companies like Speedbit and Strangeloop Networks are very well positioned to offer these kinds of tools that publishers need to deliver the right experiences to end-users no matter what device they are carrying."

Intriguing mobile-focused news aggregator. App and wap site.

Howard Rheingold: "I interviewed Adora Svitak after being introduced by her mother and watching her TED presentation. I'm writing a book about 21st century literacies and thought that a 12 year old would give a good perspective. Which she does."

The inventiveness and diversity of life never ceases to amaze me. I love stuff like this!

This is just petty: "today, not only did the speakers not bring up Apple, or not their lack of inclusion in some standards, but practically every Mac laptop that was used saw the familiar glowing Apple covered with a Google sticker of some sort…."

Site that covers independent fashion designers in the Bay Area. A lot of these clothes are surprisingly inexpensive. I'm looking to update my wardrobe, and this will be a good tool. I love local sites.

Basic backgrounder and decision tree on how to figure out costs, logistics of making SMS part of your mobile strategy.

Useful tutorial for many kinds of organizations, not just hospitals. About donation via SMS

Yes, fact-checking is popular — and ANYONE can do it!

"Has anyone else noticed that the Associated Press has been doing some strong fact-checking work lately, aggressively debunking all kinds of nonsense, in an authoritative way, without any of the usual he-said-she-said crap that often mars political reporting?

"I asked AP Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier about this, and he told me something fascinating, if not all together unexpected: Their fact-checking efforts are almost uniformly the most clicked and most linked pieces they produce."

List of places that give out media-related grants.

Resource for getting custom jeans made. Jeans never fit me right. I need to try this.

good set of mobile user interface design resources

Great resource for understanding user interface design for web sites.

Resource for choosing a Casio Exlim video camera.

What really motivates people? What kinds of incentives actually work with real human beings?