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Falling News

News reduced to icons. That is the main idea behind Falling Times which grabs headlines from news sources all over the world and translates them into icons.

It is a rather despondent experience to visit the site. The black background and the many icons associated with pain and death paints the picure of a news media focused on disaster and conflict. I know this to be somewhat true but cannot help thinking that the choice of iconography and colors also help twist things in that direction. But I guess this is okay since the site is an art project and not a journalistic endeavour.

What is interesting about the site is that users can contribute to the choice of icons by attaching their own key words to them. In that sense it should be possible for a collective audience to determine what icons will be shown with what headlines.

Death by Google

What do you trust more? The glossy words of marketeers or word of mouth from the online community. If you ask James Cherkoff the answer is clear.

"I have been in the market for a new kitchen for sometime and as a result, quite randomly, found myself in a Moben salesroom and booked up for a consultation.  The Moben rep duly arrived and was very good, explaining everything we needed.  In short we were sold and even cancelled other consultations.  However, I then mentioned our intended purchase to friends and family and got some concerned looks.  Unusually for me I hadn't checked the company online but then did so.  I found a series of horror stories. Order cancelled."

Funnily enough I had almost the same experience when I was looking for a new kitchen last year. I researhed the company Vordingborg Køkkeners website and found their stuff to be nice looking. But then a Google search returned this horrific tale (site in Danish) about the company. I fled faster than a rabbit with it's tail on fire.

It is so damn crucial to keep your customers happy. There is only one web site out there bad mouthing Vordingborg Køkkener. But that is enough to hurt them plenty - and what is worse for the company profit margin: the site will still be there - cached by Google - even if the company decides to better it's ways.

Goodbye To Traditional Advertising

A new report states that traditional advertising will be dead within five years!

The report takes a look at a business which is indeed in rapid change. Among other things it points to the fact that the creative role of ad agencies is sliding away and that consumers are taking over with a wealth of creative ingenuity.

"Amateurs and semi-professionals are increasingly creating low cost advertising content that threatens to bypass creative agencies, while publishers and broadcasters are broadening their own creative roles."

What is interesting about the report is that it is published by IBM... I guess it goes to show that the establishment (conservative blue chip companies) is finally coming to terms with what was said in The Cluetrain Manifesto 8 years ago ;-) 

Newspaper Readers Are Shifting To The Web

It has been obvious for a very long time (in Denmark too). But now there's actually a statistic to back it up: American newspaper readers are moving from print to web.

Sales of American newspapers fell almost 3 percent over the spring and summer compared with the same period of the year before.

The drop is reported by Audit Bureau of Circulations and it reflects the growing shift of readers to the Internet, where newspaper readership has climbed.

According to The New York Times an analysis of 88 major papers shows that in the last two years, about half had seen no significant change in combined print and online readership, or showed an increase.

The newspaper industry now hopes that the shift in readership will make an impression on advertisers, who have been retreating from newspapers despite an expanding economy. Advertisers generally don't consider an online reader to be as valuable as a print reader. It still remains to be seen whether these latest umbers will change their perception.

The Myth Of The Fold

It is common practice among web designers to cram as much information as possible above the page fold. This is done to be sure that users will see it without having to scroll. But in doing so designers are apparently adhering to a myth. That is the conclusion of Milissa Tarquini, Director of User Interface Design and Information Architecture at AOL.

According to her, screen performance data and new research indicate that users will indeed scroll to find information and items below the fold. But when designers and web editors are gathering requirements for design projects they are still asked to cram as much information above the fold as possible, complicating the information design.

Milissa Tarquini explains:

"I took a look at performance data for some AOL sites and found that items at the bottom of pages are being widely used. Perhaps the best example of this is the popular celebrity gossip website TMZ.com. The most clicked on item on the TMZ homepage is the link at the very bottom of the page that takes users to the next page. Note that the TMZ homepage is often over 15000 pixels long – which supports the ClickTale research that scrolling behavior is independent of screen height. Users are so engaged in the content of this site that they are following it down the page until they get to the “next page” link."

Apparently - but not surprisingly - it is all about quality of content and not about design...