Posted by Larisa | Mar 27th, 2009 4:10pm
A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune of attending the interactive portion South By Southwest. I attended almost 20 panels, keynotes and conversations over 5 days. The discussion that gave me the greatest pause as this: Who will check your email when you die?
I never thought about long reaching ramifications of this – let’s face it most of us don’t think a lot about what goes on after we leave! But our digital reputation and assets can be a really important part of our lives. So, it turns out state laws differ greatly on the topic of digital asset distribution and access after death.
Also, those T’s and C’s you quickly blow through when signing up for a yahoo account or facebook – technically when they find out you are dead – they remove your accounts! so giving your family access to your stuff isn’t good enough.
What happens when your favorite picture of you grandma that only lives on flickr get’s blown away by the yahoo terms of service?
Lastly, people have of course found ways to monetize this gaping hole in our culture – places like https://www.legacylocker.com/
and http://vitallock.com/blog/ are beginning to get traction
oh! and… www.Greatgoodbye.com will even allow you send personalized messages to your loved one after you’re gone!
Posted in Conferences, Inspiring
Posted by Tony Johnson | Feb 6th, 2009 11:03am
As Annette said in a previous post, we just spent two days in Denver at WebDirections North with some of the web’s brightest minds. The conference itself was tightly organized and highly professional, which is always a relief.
One of the main themes throughout was to define the “state of the web.” That’s a heavy question, especially given the uncertainty surrounding everything else in the world right now — but let’s take a look at just a few of the exciting things that are happening. Who knows, perhaps today’s innovations will play a role in dragging the world’s economy out of the doldrums.
- Mobile: In the past 18 months the iPhone has revolutionized the way the world views mobile computing and mobile web use. Why does that matter?
- Well, roughly 80% of the world’s population is not yet online — and a great many of them live in developing countries with no broadband access. One mobile expert here predicted that by Q3 2009, mobile devices will reach the threshold of 10% market share. That’s a big deal.
- Internet Explorer 6 Strategy: There’s a consensus that the time has come to change the way we approach Internet Explorer 6. By combining new technologies such as font embedding and CSS3 with old techniques, we can begin to move beyond the great anchor.
- In these times we must consider and communicate the costs of designing for IE6. So, what is the new approach for forward-thinking and cost-conscious organizations? Show IE6 users a site that works, but do not demand an exact replica of the site that is shown in modern browsers. That’s not so bad, really…
- Open Web Platform: This got me excited because more than ever, we need to be efficient — and like all web designers, I spend too much time searching for answers on the web.
- Mozilla announced that they’re working on a centralized “open web platform” for developers. Designers and developers could go there to get help documentation for any technology, look up the current browser usage stats, interact and save lots of time.
- They also previewed a new text editor called Bespin that works like Google Docs. Why does that matter? Well, it’s free — putting development in the hands of more people, it makes it more efficient to collaborate with with others in the code, and it demonstrates the amazing things that can be done using the vector-graphics based Canvas. They expect Bespin to be released in Labs this coming week.
Posted in Conferences, Events, Interface Design & Prototyping, Internet, Mobile
Posted by Annette | Feb 5th, 2009 12:29am
Greetings from Denver, Colorado – this week Tony and I are in Denver attending the Web Direction North conference. This conference covers the full range of interests for web professionals which is supported by some great speakers. Today’s sessions included: Progressive Enhancement & Intentional Degradation 2, Beyond usability: How to build a culture of customer empathy, The Designer’s Toolbox 2009, Tap is the New Click, Mobile User Experience, and The State of the Web 2009.
There were great takeaways from each session including discussions around font embedding on the web, new possibilities with CSS3, the state of HTML5, the importance of listening to what your customers are saying on the web, and the advancements of mobile.
As I come to the end of the first day, I am inspired and excited about my new learning’s and the future of the web. And also looking forward to tomorrow’s session.
For great nuggets of information, follow the conference on Twitter with #WDN09.
Posted in Conferences
