Archives for August, 2008

YouTube adds captioningPosted on August 28, 2008

YouTube have recently announced their new captioning features for all videos being uploaded onto their video service. The interface is quite simple and can be accessed through your “My Videos” interface, all you have to do is click the edit button on any videos you have uploaded in the past.
This is pretty cool. I know [...]

Tags: accessibility, innovation

Lloyds is pantsPosted on

In one of the funniest articles I’ve read today, a man in the UK changed his banking password to be “lloyds is pants” and found the bank changed it to “no it’s not”.
Mr Jetley said he first realised his security password had been changed when a call centre staff member told him his code word [...]

Tags: random thoughts

Hotels.com are dead to mePosted on August 27, 2008

I’ve just returned from a short (amazing) trip to Hong Kong. Being a web nerd (or *ahem* internet guru) of course we booked everything online - flights, hotels, research, day spas, etc.
We booked 5 nights through Hotels.com a week before we left, received our confirmation email and printed it out, everything was hunky dory. [...]

Tags: customer experience

Is this the future of music?Posted on August 26, 2008

I’ve mentioned before that I hate buying CDs - they just add clutter and I just convert them to digital anyway.
So I’m pretty excited about a new venture by some forward-thinking music executives (isn’t that an oxymoron?) about a new site that gives you the chance to invest in new acts and help them [...]

Tags: innovation

They don’t let me drive late at night…Posted on August 19, 2008

The NYT has an incredibly patronising article today about advertising to women, by women.
The gist of it - women can now read and write and some of them can blog. But women only read blogs written by other women because we only like talking about motherhood, shopping and celebrities. (I’m paraphrasing here).
There are [...]

Tags: random thoughts

Story-telling teaPosted on

Brian Fling has found a great little site by Joe Davis called I made Tea.

It it the most gorgeously engaging site. You click on any words highlighted in grey, and the sentence changes to add more meaning, or more detail to the story.

It’s so simple but so beautiful. I can’t remember the last [...]

Tags: Cool websites

Great journeys - nice use of FlashPosted on

I know I am pretty harsh on Flash on this blog (and for anyone who has the misfortune to get me started when I’ve had a few drinks), so I thought I’d post an example of Flash done well.
Good Magazine has mapped out history’s greatest journeys, from Marco Polo to Livingstone to Kerouac, the Silk [...]

Tags: Cool websites

My experience with Apple’s Genius BarPosted on August 18, 2008

My laptop’s airport card died the other day - I just couldn’t get a wireless connection, and it said I had no airport card installed.
So I made an appointment to see a genius at the Genius Bar at the new Apple shop in Sydney. It couldn’t be easier to book an appointment, it was [...]

Tags: random thoughts

That’s not very web 2.0Posted on

The Financial Times in the UK has just proved to me once and for all that finance types who read/write the Financial Times will never understand the “open web” or the concept of sharing, communities or being a better person.
Someone has written in to the FT with a concern:

I run a national retail [...]

Tags: random thoughts

Internet Gurus and cutting edgePosted on August 17, 2008

Or at least that’s what the SMH thinks I am. :)
The icon section today has a little article on what 5 “internet gurus” think will be the future of the web.

It’s interesting to see what we all said in common. I had the feeling everyone else would talk about Twitter, but really interesting to [...]

Tags: Molt:n Digital