Disqus - Friends of steffanantonas

Re: 10 Tips on Building A Beneficial Company Blog

Fraser — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:30:10 -0000

You're welcome. Looking forward to more posts from you. You'd think with all of the writing that you're doing in other areas of your life (how goes that stream?) you'd be in the writing groove for blogging.

Re: 10 Tips on Building A Beneficial Company Blog

Fraser — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:34:01 -0000

hrm... different colour for the quotes huh? maybe it's something I should play around with.

after investing time and energy to build up a site it really is a shame to let it "go". I'm still not sure what's the best approach though - to let it go when the time is right or to struggle through and continue to write (and risk accelerating the erosion of what you've built).

Re: New Widget Interactions

Fraser — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:36:34 -0000

we've tweaked things yet again. anyone able to tell what's up?

Re: 10 Tips on Building A Beneficial Company Blog

Fraser — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:09:59 -0000

Hey John, thanks for dropping by. I definitely recommend asking serious questions in a personal manner. Be sincere and personable, those are traits that can't be faked and are appreciated by all.

When you start to care about the people who read your stuff, they start to care about you.

Re: Thinking About Context

Fraser — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:35:44 -0000

Never dreaming too big. That's what butter is all about, no?

You want hot/not stats across a period of time? So something akin to a simple presentation accompanying the popularity that shows recent trend?

i.e. if it's rising in popularity: hot, hotter, fire, jalepeno and if it's cooling: cold, colder, ice, that woman who always rejects my advances?

(aside: anyone trade baseball cards in the early 90's? remember the little arrow besides the price in the beckett guide? surprising how useful the simple up or down arrow was)

Re: Thinking About Context

Fraser — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:39:54 -0000

you're listening to an mp3 on a blog and you want to see cover art and video associated with it?

there's a slight challenge in "recognizing" mp3s. If everyone used the newer version of the id3 tag then it would be easy. alas, not everyone does.

is the mp3 explicitly linked to an album for you? would images and videos for the artist suffice? or does it have to be focused on THE song?

Re: Thinking About Context

Fraser — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:10:58 -0000

Pat, this question - in one form or another - is one that we play around with in our minds on a regular basis.

We're starting to think of media as being represented by either the basic elemental atom or a representation of the media that's 1-degree away.

What do I mean by this?

Well, an mp3 that can be consumed within the blog post is the basic elemental atom. A link to the album on another site is a representation (or reference?) that's 1-degree away.

I think in each situation the contextual information that the individual wants is different.

Re: Thinking About Context

Fraser — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:13:48 -0000

Now, to answer your question (with my previous comment as background) I think the type of media that can be consumed at the elemental level on the web (an mp3, not a movie) is the one that can most benefit from the type of context we're talking about.

Of course there are plenty of different contextual situations (the original point of this thread!) and depending on the media, there's a most beneficial context.

Re: Thinking About Context

Fraser — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:15:29 -0000

HypeM is awesome for this, but doesn't it require visiting their page to consume the trend information? Sort of out of context, no?

Without having looked into it a great deal I suspect that there's a lot of great trend info out there. How much of it is readily accessible where the content is consumed?

Re: Thinking About Context

Fraser — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:25:54 -0000

For music? I think it depends on whether you're interacting with the object or are 1-degree away.

If you've already consumed the track, you're probably less interested in overall popularity. Rather, you probably want more information about the artist (bio? other songs? tour dates?) you may be interested in seeing what others have said about the song.

If you're 1-degree away you do probably want popularity. A summary or description may be of interest as well. Seeing who has interacted with it may also be valuable because it's an implicit form of recommendation.

When you're 1-degree away the contextual information that's helpful is the info that answers the "should I explore this object further?" question.

When you're interacting with the object the contextual actions that are beneficial are the ones that simplify traditional next-steps.

Re: What We Can Learn From Beckett Baseball Card Monthly

Fraser — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:06:56 -0000

I also suspect that another variable is also more important than absolute number: information around time.

As an example, is there value in this? I think so:

Constant Gardener (37, even, 12 weeks)
Knocked Up (40, +4, 6 days)

Is info conveyed by time more important than the absolute place?

Re: What We Can Learn From Beckett Baseball Card Monthly

Fraser — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:34:50 -0000

"There is only 1 metric that people can focus on, not many" --- rings very true.

In the examples sited above it seems that context is grounded by the absolute value and the interesting piece of information is the simplified presentation of the derivative.

I'm a new Netflix user but the absolutiness (if I may) of the top 100 is of no interest. Look at the top 10. Not interesting. What is interesting are the big jumps near the bottom of the list.

Re: What We Can Learn From Beckett Baseball Card Monthly

Fraser — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:33:47 -0000

In the case of top 10 "fastest risers" (sounds very Casey Casem-ish!) wouldn't they still want to start at the top of the list? You'd assume the fastest risers would be the relatively obscure items that are gaining incredible moment. On an absolute sense MGMT never became "top" but at the start of this year they would have been near the top of the momentum list.

Good question about relating this back to our product. If you could only see one piece of information - absolute or momentum - what would be most valuable?

Re: What We Can Learn From Beckett Baseball Card Monthly

Fraser — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:03:14 -0000

We're in agreement. I just think that for the "fastest risers" chart the obscure artists that are starting to become popular would be at the top.

Moving from obscurity to less-than-obscure results in >> momentum.

Re: Thinking About Context

Fraser — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:09:47 -0000

Get the music bloggers to post mp3's with the newest id3 version. Not only would we then be able to identify the unique song/artist, but it would provide a tonne of structured data for other companies to innovate with.

Solving that problem makes everything you described possible.

Re: Reminder: AdaptiveBlue’s Open House

Fraser — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:45:32 -0000

It's the thought that counts, right? Thank you so much for the thoughtful gesture. Nice hearing from you - how are things out in the midwest?

Re: Reminder: AdaptiveBlue’s Open House

Fraser — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:45:55 -0000

was that drop off for dramatic effect??!?

Re: Contest: Show Us How You Use Us & Win

Fraser — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:53:17 -0000

This would be a lame joke if it wasn't true. Sadly... it is: http://tinyurl.com/6zua5b

Re: TwitterSnooze: One Week of Stats

Fraser — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:59:39 -0000

OH: Don't snooze me bro

Re: Contest: Show Us How You Use Us & Win

Fraser — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:06:58 -0000

Paula, love the blog post! And the double entry is definitely a plus.

We may have an early leader.

Re: Contest: Show Us How You Use Us & Win

Fraser — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:12:36 -0000

I should clarify:

the piece of info that I share in the attached screenshot has everything to do with the website I'm visiting and nothing to do with the advertisement that's shown on it.

Re: A Blast From The Past Quiz

Fraser — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:02:33 -0000

Is that an undercut?!

Re: A Conversation About Context

Fraser — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:50:30 -0000

Bits are to be used, not owned. Increasingly the flow of bits is where the value will be found.

Re: OK HERE WE GO: An Empire of Their Own...and others

Fraser — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:21:45 -0000

Based on your recommendation I read Wizard of Menlo Park. An excellent read, although I found the first 3/4 of the book >> than the final 1/4.

Re: Contextual Browsing: Music

Fraser — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:28:23 -0000

Did it mindlessly. At the end of the browsing it was weird to realize what I had just done. I mean, to think about it in terms of how l would have done that flow 12 months ago. Crazy.

I'd bet you the coffee, but I'd lose (and I've already had way too much today, http://twitter.com/Fraser/s...