Loud Dog Links

March 31, 2009

• Hello Google (Graham Jenkin)
  Interesting response to Douglas Bowman's leaving Google post.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: design, usability
• The Elegance of Imperfection (A List Apart)
  There's been a bunch of commentary recently on the purpose and art of visual design, especially in response to Douglas Bowman leaving Google. This timely article explores how imperfection can give a design a more natural, accessible feel.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: design
• Mega Drop-Down Navigation Menus Work Well (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
  Nielsen is usually critical of design widgets, but in this case, he's found that big drop-down menus are easy for visitors to use and navigate. Expect to see a lot more of these.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: patterns, usability, webdesign
• 10 Creative & Rich UI & How to Create Them (Noupe)
  A bunch of cool UI patterns. Nothing ground breaking, but a good resource.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: patterns, webdesign
• Styleneat - CSS Organizer
  Tool to automatically format your stylesheets. I don't like the way it formats - it doesn't follow our coding standards - but it's interesting nonetheless.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: css, development

March 24, 2009

• Microformats for business owners (Clagnut.com)
  Decent overview of Microformats and what they are used for.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: business, webdevelopment
• Ten Things You Should Know About the Nano (TIME Mag)
  Sweet photos of the $2000 car from Tata. Sadly, I doubt we'll ever see something like this in the US - our safety standards prevent anything this inexpensive and efficient from getting on the road. Still, great for developing countries!
  by: Josh Orum | tags: business, interesting

March 20, 2009

• The Magic Behind Amazon's 2.7 Billion Dollar Question (Jared Spool)
  "Was this review helpful to you?" increases Amazon's revenue by $2.7B.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: usability, webdesign

March 19, 2009

• Overly Judgemental IE6 Splash Pages (Hugs For Monsters)
  NSFW, but I had to link to it for its utter hilariousness. Possible pages that are displayed when people visit a site using IE6.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: funny, webdesign

March 17, 2009

• How to Measure Engagement on Twitterâ��and Savor the Tweet Smell of Success : MarketingProfs Articles
  Tools and suggestions for measuring your company's success on twitter.
  by: Jodi Wing | tags: marketing, metrics, twitter
• The Hardest Interview Puzzle Question Ever (Coding Horror)
  The importance of communicating (and some hilarious examples of puzzle questions).
  by: Josh Orum | tags: hiring
• Sites Without Menus: Do You Really Need a Main Nav? (Devlounge)
  Jakob Nielsen posed that question in an Alertbox article from 2000. He came to the conclusion that “users look straight at the content and ignore the navigation areas.” In essence, navigation is not as important as most designers make it out to be.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: patterns, webdesign
• Wanted/Needed: UX Design for Collaboration 2.0 (Boxes and Arrows)
  Exploration of collaboration patterns, and a call to action to refine them.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: patterns, tools
• Gravatars, simple personalisation for web commenting (RDJS Web Development)
  Interesting and fun extension to the OpenID concept
  by: Josh Orum | tags: webdesign

March 16, 2009

• 42 Ways To Distribute Your Content | Junta42 Resources
  A list of 42 specific examples of content marketing in action.
  by: Jodi Wing | tags: content, contentdistribution, marketing
• Twitter Cracking Down on Refollowers (Twittown Blog)
  Refollowing is a way of spamming twitter to gain more followers. Each time you follow someone, you shoot to the top of their "followers" list - theoretically you can get a few eyeballs that way.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: twitter

March 15, 2009

• Future of Twitter (Globalchange.com)
  Interesting article
  by: Josh Orum | tags: twitter
• Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (Clay Shirky)
  Great article on the current newspaper situation. Very applicable to other media-related industries. My understanding of the whole creative/entertainment ecosystem has been evolving rapidly over the last couple months, and this really ties it together.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: business, culture

March 12, 2009

• Startup PR on a Shoestring (Twilio)
  by: Josh Orum | tags: marketing, pr, startups

March 11, 2009

• Bicycle Built for 2,000
  Frivolous and funny use of Amazon's Mechanical Turk - also fascinating and thought provoking.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: interesting