Interactive information graphics

The New York Times has been doing some lovely interactive information graphics recently.
Here’s one I saw today: Hollywood box office receipts over the past ten years.
As always, there is a minimum of chrome, and a maximum of information. The graphs itslef is lovely to look at — a sinuous, organic shape.
Could it be improved? Sure. [...]

Vodafone’s mobile spam

My wife receives weekly MMS messages from Vodafone. She doesn’t recall opting in to the messages. And after scouring and searching the Vodafone website, we can’t figure out how to stop them coming.
Here’s a typical message:
Saturday 23 February===============

Vodafone Rock The Park returns to Auckland for a day of free l

ive music! Catch Atlas, Elemeno P, [...]

Click monkeys finally captured, studied

Some people have expressed surprise at a recent study revealing that just 6% of users account for 50% of banner ad clicks.
Apparently these “natural born clickers” are likely to be relatively low income, and disproportionately interested in auctions, gambling and finding a new job.
Can’t say I can see anything surprising there.
What is a little more [...]

Google Wireless Transcoder

When I first started using Gmail on a mobile handset, I noticed that Google reworked any websites linked to from my emails, adapting them to work better on my phone.
A bit of investigation turned up a name for this feature: Google Wireless Transcoder (or GWT, not to be confused with Google’s other GWT)
You can access [...]

RSS and mobile phones — a perfect match

Until now, I’ve never been a huge user of RSS reader applications. I’ve got a Google Reader account, but it’s never become a part of my everyday habits as an infovore. I’ve always been able to relate to the vast majority of onlien users who don’t understand what RSS is — of don’t care.
But since [...]

RIM-style network for iPhone?

With the announcement of the 1.1.3 iPhone unlock, I’m again considering getting an iPhone — just for research purposes, you understand.
But as I explained in an earlier post today, I love the way email on my Blackberry just works with our company’s Exchange server.
So I’m looking at the iPhone, and wondering: does anyone supply a [...]

Why I like Blackberry

I know the iPhone is the cool kid on the block, and I came kinda late to the whole Blackberry thing, but I think it’s interesting to note why I love my Blackberry Pearl so much.
It’s about the complete user experience. And importantly, I’m actually not talking about the experience of the phone.
Let me explain.
We [...]

IE8 – the death of progressive enhancement?

At Foocamp today there was a lively debate about IE8’s controversial approach to rendering engine switching.
Personally, I think the approach sounds good. Like most people, I don’t love the way it introduces a new meta tag. But I’ve also always thought the use of the DOCTYPE to control quirks-mode switching is a bit of a [...]