Posts Tagged Facebook
Life beyond the Labs
So we’re back in the office following our successful week at the labs and are looking forward to our first formal meeting with the BBC.
We’re really excited that we’re getting to work with the BBC, especially as we’ve got a chance to get involved with Mashed which is a really cool innovation day that the BBC are running at Alexandra Palace on 21 June. We think that events like Mashed are a really great way to not only do cool stuff but also to meet other people within the web industry.
Last week was incredibly hard, but was made slightly easier by knowing some of the other companies there and at a time when social networking sites such as Facebook and Linked-In are more popular than ever, let’s make the effort to properly network, not just though our computers!
I know this is easier said than done, having worked in the design industry for eight years I was impressed by the number and range of local events that were held for designers and marketers, there is the Bi-lingual Design Awards, Cardiff Design Festival, regional CIM meet-ups to name a few… but since I moved into the web, local events are few and far between, and recognition for Welsh companies working in the web is virtually non-existent. When was the last time somebody gave an award for the best code, best management of a project or best user journey? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that designers get the recognition that they deserve, but how about a nod in the direction of those who are involved behind the scenes as well?
Now that that section of the rant is over I’m going to end on a positive note. So that we can do our bit for people who are involved in the web in South Wales, we have just organised the next Cardiff Web-Scene Meet-up for the evening of Wednesday June 4. For those that haven’t been before it’s a very casual get together, not just for developers, but for anyone who is involved or has an interest in the web.
For the last meet-up we changed the format slightly and had a couple of 5 minute speakers (these were Mark Boulton who talked about Typography and Dan Zambonini – Box UK’s Technical Director as well as being my fellow lab rat and blog writer who talked about 19 interesting things that he’d discovered recently). This seemed to go down quite well so we’d like to do the same again and we’re looking for volunteers! If you’ve got something interesting that you’d like to talk about, please get in touch.
The venue is to be confirmed, but you can join the Facebook group to stay up to date or look out for the next blog post, but keep the date free and hopefully we’ll see you on Wednesday June 4.
*** Claire
Add comment May 7, 2008
To text or not to text: when just enough becomes too much
I’m quite pleased that I have kicked (or at least cut down on) one of my more annoying and very unsociable habits. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that everyone is entitled to their vices but I was getting fed up of the looks that I was getting from my friends when we were on a night out, so I decided it was time to cut back…
I am of course referring to my addiction to text messaging!
Wikipedia tells me that a study at Queensland University in Australia found that text messaging is the most addictive digital service on mobile or internet (although I’m not sure if that is still the case, thanks to Facebook), and is equivalent in addictiveness to cigarette smoking.
However, there is a difference between receiving text messages from your mates, and receiving them from a company or service that you have subscribed to.
When I was buying a house I subscribed to text alerts from an estate agent, thinking that it would be helpful. But before long I was being bombarded with information on houses that just weren’t suitable, so after a while I started ignoring the texts.
I’m now quite wary of signing up to ‘SMS alerts’ through fear that my inbox will become full of mindless sales rubbish (rather than the mindless general rubbish that my friends send me!). So what would it take for me to sign up to a service again?
As our BBC project relies heavily on users subscribing to the alerts in the first place, and then actually paying attention to them – critical questions that we need to work out the answers to are ‘how do we persuade people that this is a service that they really need?’ and ‘how many text messages is too many’?
***Claire
Add comment March 27, 2008
