I didn’t want to judge Gawker’s new redesign right out of the gate; I’m all too aware that the annoyance of adjusting to a new design can be irrational and cause you to judge too harshly, especially when you’ve been visiting that site for years. But we’re now well into the era of Gawker Ick.0, and… oh my, this isn’t good.
Bugs first: I have a pretty speedy computer with a big screen, and sometimes articles get hung up and just won’t load. The commenting system appears to have gone berserk, completely upending a system that was driving a lot of traffic to the site. Depending on the source for videos, the dimensions of punched-in media players can be so incredibly tiny that it’s not worth even clicking “play”. And I’m not sure if this is a bug, but it sure isn’t a feature: the newly-prominent adverts pop up, spin, warp, and float inconsistently. That means that the text you’re reading can jump without any warning at all, and it’s absolutely maddening. Read More »
So, it looks like Google’s getting into the museum game. I like a lot of things about this tool: the quick, smooth assembly of collections in a lightbox-type area is especially good. It definitely feels like it’s set up for browsing instead of serious scholarship, which unfortunately means that the Street View feature comes off as clunky, with the same odd angles that make it impossible to get a good look at the 19th Street bistro you’re supposed to meet your friend at tonight. I can only assume that the tours of the museums will get a lot more detailed, with good head-on shots of all of the paintings when you click on them.
It’s a great tool for a curious population, and I’ll be interested to see how many other museums will jump onboard.
Google’s released something called “Buzz”. Unlike Wave, which I heard a lot about and had a Gmail-like exclusivity to it, Buzz only hit my radar 12 hours before it suddenly popped up as a Gmail category. No effort required.
As far as I can tell, Google Buzz is what would happen if the Twitter bird smacked into a Facebook Wall. And then fell into my Gmail inbox, bumping into Wave on the way down. Is this a panicked reaction to Wave not catching on as quickly as Google hoped? Maybe — or maybe it’s been designed as an onramp, hoping to get people used to the format before promoting them to full Wavy privileges (Buzz shares a lot of UI elements with Wave). Read More »
Between the launch of the iPad (…meh) and Amazon’s fight with Macmillan over ebook prices, the publishing world’s seeing a lot of action. Publishers are going to have to drastically change their model in the coming years, clearly, and no one knows yet whether that will take the form of Amazon or Google partnerships, or maybe a wholesale dismantling of the current system, where editors and publicists work with an author on a much more freelance basis. No one path’s really picked up steam, but building a slow-but-steady audience is Scribd. Read More »
Google’s released something called “Buzz”. Unlike Wave, which I heard a lot about and had a Gmail-like exclusivity to it, Buzz only hit my radar 12 hours before it suddenly popped up as a Gmail category. No effort required.