Think 'n' Stink #2 - Thriving online communities

A tad too long ago to justify posting this only now, Ben, Olly, Timi and I sat together for yet another Think ‘n’ Stink on web-based communities. This time we were fortunate to be joined by our Front-end Developer/One-Man-Band/Tortured Writer Bas, our Content Manager/Gamer/Queen-of-the-Google-Search Kimberlee, and our System Administrator/DJ/Man-of-Much-Hidden-Knowledge Dayan.

If we look behind the passionate discussions that jumped around several topics, there seemed to be one prevalent topic: Thriving Web Communities.

In specific, there were two living and lively communities that took our attention. And while both of these were thriving long before the internet (a fact that surely adds to their on-line success), we had some opinions about what we could learn from them:

(Read more...)

Keywords: Think,n,Stink,Social,Design,Web,Communities,Music,Communities,Gaming,Music,Services,Pandora,Last.fm,e-peen,World,of,Warcraft,m-buzz

 

Listen up! Nifty new web/ mobile music app

Here's a rather swish new release by Media Catalyst for Sony Ericsson: it's called m-buzz, and it's a music service which promotes new artists.

In a nutshell, m-buzz lets you read about new bands, hear their music, rate tracks and recommend them to friends. The clever bit is that you can enjoy it on your mobile phone as well as on the website (it's the same address - www.m-buzz.com - for both devices, by the way).

This is what the website looks like:

And here's the mobile site (left to right: homepage, latest news page, and the rss feed). Click to biggify the image.

(Read more...)

 

Flash IE6 problem with loading xml

In a recent project, we ran into a nasty problem with Flash in IE6.

Nasty, not so much because it has any major impact, but more because it took a loooong time to figure out that this was the problem, and no documentation or discussion is to be found anywhere on the internet (well, at least not within a few hours...). No fancy solutions here either, since there is none to my knowledge. Nevertheless, I just wanted to post it here to see if anyone else has run into this issue?

The issue is this: the Flash player in IE6 cannot correctly load (xml) files from web servers that use HTTP compression and no caching. In other words, it does not correctly load any file that returns the following combination of the HTTP response headers:

Cache-Control: no-cache
Content-Encoding: deflate

No other browser’s Flash player has this bug, this only occurs in IE6.The problem could only be 'fixed' by either disabling HTTP compression, or by removing the no-cache header for this file and user-agent IE6.

There are mentionings of similar problems with loading files over HTTPS, but I haven't come across anyone noticing this issue with normal HTTP. Which is strange, because it doesn't seem to be such an uncommon setting...

Keywords: iE6,flash,http,compression,cache,xml,loading

 

Think 'n' Stink #1 - Online Communities and Value

Welcome to Think 'n' Stink, part 1! Once a week, a bunch of us Catalysts meet to rant and rave about stuff, and fill our faces with bagels and smoothies. And look - we already have a logo! (Theme tune coming soon...)

Below is a roughly edited summary of our inaugural discussion - enjoy, and please weigh in with your opinions in the comments.

Online Communities and Value

Businesses are now waking up to the world of blogs, wikis, social networking and all the rest of that Web 2.0 goodness - and they want in. We predict that 2007 will be a big year for high-profile, expensive failures based on excitable "Let's start a community!" ideas (read: clueless attempts to jump on the social networking bandwagon and cash in).

As an interactive agency, we're interested in advising our clients well, producing great work, and - most pertinently here - delivering value. So, what we're wondering is this: what does it mean to "create valuable communities"? And how do you do it? (Read more...)

 

The end is post-nigh?

Perhaps Saint John was right? Think about it for a moment...

He said that when the day of reckoning comes, we will all be judged. Those found worthy get to go up to heaven, and the rest of us end up in Hell on Earth.

Well, perhaps this has already happened? One lucky bloke who lived on top of a mountain ended going up to heaven. However, since he was a hermit, nobody realised he was missing. The rest of us got left behind and now are heading through floods and fires (global warming), torture (life in general) and the overall breakdown of society is in progress (quite possibly).

If that's true, then maybe now wasn't such a good time to give up smoking?

 

Catalysts and bloggers talk Flex

At the end of November last year, Media Catalyst released more fruits of our labour in the shape of a new Product zone on the Sony Ericsson site.

Released (as usual) in multiple language versions for Sony Ericsson sites worldwide, the centrepiece - or at least, the front door to product information - is this browsing/ selection tool, which we built in Flex 1.5.

... and it's getting a bit of attention from bloggers: see discussions over at AboutNico and EMEARIA.EU.

If you're interested in hearing about this and other Flex applications we've developed, you could do worse than to get yourself down to the MMUG Belgium Flex Showcase on Jan 18th in Antwerp, where Catalysts Kees, Stefan and Joris will tell you why they chose Flex, how they convinced our clients, and which difficulties they encountered.

More later on the IA/ creative approach we used when designing the deeper, information-based pages of the Product zone...

Keywords: Flex,Media,Catalyst,Sony,Ericsson

 

Marketing through social networks

All I can say to this is: "Yes! I'll take two please, gift wrapped":

"MySpace has turned into a massive zit full of marketing puss... Every PR organization and marketing arm is leeching onto MySpace like a blood thirsty vampire. Problem is that vampires kill their prey...

...I'm very worried about how, unregulated, spamming and over-advertising will kill even the coolest social hangouts. I keep wondering what the regulation solution will have to be. (Is it law or code cuz it ain't gonna be market or social norms?)"

Quote courtesy of Apophenia

The web enables the creation of infinite new space to play in. As marketing floods these spaces, the population moves on to new places. Rather like animal herds migrating to new grasslands as they deplete the supplies of their current location. And teenagers can move faster than marketeers (fortunately). The 'creatives' will keep looking for new places to advertise...

However regulation isn't going to work imho. At least not law. The law moves far too slowly, in the emerging world of 2 week agile launch cycles, features can appear and morph faster than you can say 'restraining order'. As for code regulation... tougher question but perhaps. After all, if people don't like advertising and they have a choice between an advertising-saturated platform and an advertising-free platform, they should vote with their feet (eyeballs?).

I'd love to see this. As Naomi Klein put it: "unbranded space would be the new luxury item". It's not a big leap of commercial logic for businesses to realise that if what consumers really want is unbranded space, providing that to them will do more for your brand than any amount of intrusive advertising. The hard sell is going to be with the advertisers themselves however: after all, who wants to talk themselves out of a job?

 

Finally, someone says something sensible about "Digital"

(Ahem, I meant to post this a few weeks back...)

Russell Davies in Campaign (Dec 1st issue - for some reason it takes at least a week for post to reach Amsterdam from London. Perhaps they walk it over?).

"The internet will not be the last great thing we'll ever invent. And the pace of invention won't slow down."

Bad news, as Russell goes on to point out, for the dinosaurs who want to "rebuild their village" in the new media environment.

"This is exciting. We're at the front edge of a permanent revolution, not halfway through a blip, and the chaotic world that we're entering will be positively drenched in opportunity."

Quite so!

See also Russell's blog for other such idea-mongering.

See also forthcoming posts on this blog right here for more about what we Catalysts predict 2007 holds for all things interactive and Web 2.0...